While we are still far from a full understanding of the nature of memory, perception, and meaning, it is nonetheless because of the work of scientists such as Changeux, Edelman, and Rizzolatti that we have a better grasp of the complexity of subjective experiences. Perhaps in the future, questions about higher brain functions will be better understood because of new genetic and neurophysiological discoveries and brain imaging. An unexpected scientific discovery can give us a new insight into something we thought we had always known: mirror neurons, Rizzolatti tells us, "show how strong and deeply rooted is the bond that ties us to others, or in other words, how bizarre it would be to conceive of an I without an us."

How the Mind Works: Revelations

Paranoid Linux is an operating system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government (it was intended for use by Chinese and Syrian dissidents), and it does everything it can to keep your communications and documents a secret. It even throws up a bunch of "chaff" communications that are supposed to disguise the fact that you're doing anything covert. So while you're receiving a political message one character at a time, ParanoidLinux is pretending to surf the Web and fill in questionnaires and flirt in chat-rooms. Meanwhile, one in every five hundred characters you receive is your real message, a needle buried in a huge haystack.
~Cory Doctorow (Little Brother, 2008)

When those words were written, ParanoidLinux was just a fiction. It is our goal to make this a reality. The project officially started on May 14th, and has been growing ever since. We welcome your ideas, contributions, designs, or code. You can find us on freenode's irc server in the #paranoidlinux channel. Hope to see you there!

--
ParanoidLinux Team

ParanoidLinux.org

Papa John’s Pizza has finally realized that mailing millions of pizza coupon leaflets to the American public is not the most effective marketing strategy. With the creative expertise of Quorum/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Papa John’s has taken an innovative approach to directing marketing with its deceiving faux delivery boy & pizza appearing at your doorstep. The optical illusion actually works by affixing a sticker right below the door’s peephole with the image. Already the winner of the Gold Lion for the best use of alternative media in direct marketing at the Cannes Advertising Festival, this marketing strategy is sure to stick with consumers.

Cruel Pizza Advertisement « THE FIRE WIRE

The bus stop, in front of the Benrath Senior Centre in the western city of Düsseldorf, is an exact replica of a standard stop, with one small difference: buses never stop there.

The idea emerged after the centre was forced to rely on police to retrieve patients who wanted to return to their homes and families but had forgotten that in many cases neither existed any longer.

"If we can’t find them then we have to alert the police,” said Benrath's director Richard Neureither. “It can be particularly dangerous if this happens in winter and they spend the night out in the cold.”

Wayward Alzheimer's patients foiled by fake bus stop - Telegraph

"What we've got to do right here is show you how robots get down."

Robot Love

This is great

Social Network Wars

Brain implants are here, and they're making people happy. It'll probably still be a while before you can neurointerface directly with the internet or your friends and lovers, but psychologists are testing implantable brain 'pacemakers' that regulate brain activity and so far appear really useful for treating the most stubborn forms of depression. We reported earlier on the Soletra implant, but there are many more.

Mad Neuroscience: Brain Implants Instead of Prozac

10 reasons why He-Man was for girls and/or explicitly gay

Prince Adam wore a pink vest (which was velvety on the toy) and a lavender leotard.

He had a kitty.

He-Man wore a bra marketed toward young men..

It was way too fashionable for the men to wear some sort of bondage gear get-up.

Skeletor and He-man were always after each others sword.

The Hair!

The action figures were one of the only so called "boy toys" that had female action figures at the time.

A series of attacks on dyed-hair, eye-makeup-wearing emo kids began in early March when several hundred people went on an emo-beating rampage in Querétaro, a town of 1.5 million about 160 miles north of Mexico City.

The next week, shaggy-haired emo teenagers were harassed again by punks and rockabillys in the capital, prompting police protection and a segment on the TV news. Most recently, a Mexican newspaper reported that metal heads and gangsters have warned Tijuana's emo kids to stay away from the town's fair next month.

"It's a great clusterfuck for the American mind's idea of Mexico," Arellano said. "This teaches the rest of the world that Mexico is not just a bunch of cactuses and sombreros."

emo mexicans look so thunderdome

Anti-Emo Riots Break Out Across Mexico | The Underwire from Wired.com

Scientists are to be permitted to use tissue from dead people to create cloned human stem cells for research, under a legal change put forward by the government.

Health ministers have proposed that laboratories should be allowed to use stored human tissue to create cloned embryonic stem cells without the explicit consent of the tissue donor. This would allow research to be done on tissue donated for medical research as long as 30 years ago. Scientists would also be able to use cells from people who have died since they donated their tissue or who cannot be contacted.

Cool

Tissue of dead humans to be cloned - Times Online