The will of Zeus was accomplished
A gentle touch on the arm can be surprisingly persuasive. Consider these research findings. Library users who are touched while registering, rate the library and its personnel more favourably than the non-touched; diners are more satisfied and give larger tips when waiting staff touch them casually; people touched by a stranger are more willing to perform a mundane favour; and women touched by a man on the arm are more willing to share their phone number or agree to a dance.
Why should this be? Up until now research in this area has been exclusively behavioural: these effects have been observed, but we don’t really know why. Now a study has made a start at understanding the neuroscience of how touch exerts its psychological effects. (…)
The most important finding is that a touch on the arm enhanced the brain’s response to emotional pictures.
La notte che le cose ci nasconde
Anyway. There are two essential truths about girl-on-girl friendship: 1) underneath the harsh hate-tokes, girls really, really, really love each other and understand that we’re part of an all-powerful pussy tribe bound by wisdom and empathy and being on the same period cycle and 2) we still want to kill and eat each other (not in a sexy way). Here’s why:
• GIRLS WANT TO (BE THE ONLY GIRL WHO GETS TO) FUCK
• GIRLS WANT EACH OTHER’S BODIES, FACES, CLOTHES, LIVES
• GIRLS CAN’T JUST HANG OUT
photo { Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin }
‘Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?’ –John Cage
Whines, cries, and motherese have important features in common: they are all well-suited for getting the attention of listeners, and they share salient acoustic characteristics – those of increased pitch, varied pitch contours, and slowed production, though the production speed of cries varies. Motherese is the child-directed speech parents use towards infants and young children to sooth, attract attention, encourage particular behaviors, and prohibit the child from dangerous acts. Infant cries are the sole means of communication for infants for the first few months, and a primary means in the later months. Cries signal that the infant needs care, be it feeding, changing, protection, or physical contact. Whines enter into a child’s vocal repertoire with the onset of language, typically peaking between 2.5 and 4 years of age. This sound is perceived as more annoying even than infant cries.
These three attachment vocalizations – whines, cries, and motherese – each have a particular effect on the listener; to bring the attachment partner nearer. (…)
Participants, regardless of gender or parental status, were more distracted by whines than machine noise or motherese as measured by proportion scores. In absolute numbers, participants were most distracted by whines, followed by infant cries and motherese.
photo { Tod Seelie }
‘A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.’ –Heraclitus
Sybil accounts are fake identities created to unfairly increase the power or resources of a single malicious user. Researchers have long known about the existence of Sybil accounts in online communities such as file-sharing systems, but have not been able to perform large scale measurements to detect them or measure their activities. In this paper, we describe our efforts to detect, characterize and understand Sybil account activity in the Renren online social network (OSN). We use ground truth provided by Renren Inc. to build measurement based Sybil account detectors, and deploy them on Renren to detect over 100,000 Sybil accounts. We study these Sybil accounts, as well as an additional 560,000 Sybil accounts caught by Renren, and analyze their link creation behavior. Most interestingly, we find that contrary to prior conjecture, Sybil accounts in OSNs do not form tight-knit communities. Instead, they integrate into the social graph just like normal users. Using link creation timestamps, we verify that the large majority of links between Sybil accounts are created accidentally, unbeknownst to the attacker. Overall, only a very small portion of Sybil accounts are connected to other Sybils with social links. Our study shows that existing Sybil defenses are unlikely to succeed in today’s OSNs, and we must design new techniques to effectively detect and defend against Sybil attacks.
images { 1. Vitaly Virt | 2. Melvin Sokolsky }
‘When the mind is in a state of uncertainty the smallest impulse directs it to either side.’ –Publius Terentius Afer
In my own experience, both as a subject of hypnosis and as a hypnotist, I’ve never seen a hint that hypnosis might be harmful. Contrary to popular understanding, the hypnotized subject is always aware of his situation in exactly the same way you are right now. The difference is that the subconscious shows up at the dance at the same time. Your conscious mind has the option of being somewhat of an observer, like a driver’s ed teacher, while your subconscious causes your arm to feel cold, or whatever the hypnotist suggests. But like a driver’s ed teacher, your conscious mind always has the option of intervening. A subject can snap out of it anytime he wants. Indeed, he is never asleep in any common sense of the word. It’s more of a relaxed state in which the subconscious is less dominated than usual by the conscious mind.
That’s the quick and dirty explanation of what’s happening. I think you could have a debate about whether there is really such a thing as a subconscious mind. It might be more accurate to say that a deeply relaxed mind functions differently than a non-relaxed mind, and in predictable ways, and leave it at that.
photo { Jeremy and Claire Weiss }
‘Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe; Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.’ –Shakespeare, Richard III, circa 1591
Among ethical concepts, conscience is a remarkable survivor. During the 2000 years of its existence it has had ups and downs, but has never gone away. Originating as Roman conscientia, it was adopted by the Catholic Church, redefined and competitively claimed by Luther and the Protestants during the Reformation, adapted to secular philosophy during the Enlightenment, and is still actively abroad in the world today. Yet the last few decades have been cloudy ones for conscience, a unique time of trial.
The problem for conscience has always been its precarious authorization. It is both a uniquely personal impulse and a matter of institutional consensus, a strongly felt personal view and a shared norm upon which all reasonable or ethical people are expected to agree. As a result of its mixed mandate, conscience performs in differing and even contradictory ways.
related { Can data determine moral values? }
photo { Uri Korn }
Dude I’ll smoke you every motherfucker under you
While the tech world is buzzing about the launch and implications of Google’s new social network, Google+, it’s worth noting that Google isn’t just in a war with Facebook, it’s at war with multiple companies across multiple industries. In fact, Google is fighting a multi-front war with a host of tech giants for control over some of the most valuable pieces of real estate in technology. Whether it’s social, mobile, browsing, local, enterprise, or even search, Google is being attacked from all angles. (…)
Before I investigate each battle front in the war, it’s important to highlight the fact that perhaps no other tech company right now could withstand such a multifaceted attack, let alone be able to retaliate efficiently. Sure, Apple might get pushed around by Facebook, so it integrated Twitter into iOS5, and sure, Amazon and Apple have their own tussles over digital media and payments, but at the end of the day, Google is in this unique and potentially highly vulnerable position that will test the company’s mettle and ability to not only reinvent itself, but also to perhaps strengthen its core. (…) Google must battle on at least six fronts simultaneously.
What’s the use in regrets, they’re just things we haven’t done yet
Back in 1999, a computer scientist at Cornell University began monitoring the way that the Windows NT 4.0 operating system used files. What he found was astonishing.
About 80 per cent of all files that NT creates are either over-written or deleted within 5 seconds of being born.
Today, Ragib Hasan and Randal Burns at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore say this ought to give programmers pause for thought. Deleting data requires energy, which means that a substantial fraction of a computer system’s energy budget is currently devoted to creating and then almost immediately scrubbing data.
And if the wasted energy weren’t bad enough, computer memory has a limited life span. Flash memory, for example, has a lifespan of 100,000 cycles. So cycling it needlessly brings the inevitable breakdown closer.
photo { Jesse Pollock }
She weaves secrets in her hair
Cuddling and caressing are important ingredients for long-term relationship satisfaction, according to an international study by the Kinsey Institute, which queried committed, middle-aged couples from five countries. But contrary to stereotypes, tenderness was more important to the men than to the women. Also contrary to expectations, men were more likely to report being happy in their relationship, while women were more likely to report being satisfied with their sexual relationship.
photo { Jeremy and Claire Weiss }
‘Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth.’ –Archimedes
Female sexuality is particularly enigmatic, simply because the sex function in women is so much more complex than that of their male counterparts. A study conducted by Dutch scientist Gert Holstege showed that while the areas in male brains activated during orgasm were not surprising, the activated areas in the female brains were slightly different. For one, the female brain becomes noticeably silent in certain areas, like in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, two areas in the brain that process feelings and thoughts associated with self-control and social judgement. Holstege noted that “at the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings.” (…)
Even women in good health have a difficult time achieving climax. Reportedly, 10% of women have never had an orgasm, and as many as 50% of women have trouble being aroused.
You know why, mister? Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an eighty thousand dollar BMW. *That’s* my name.
{ Left: Motorola logo, 1955 | Right: Wyldewood Golf & Country Club logo, 1963 }
Papa one-eyed Jack
On 7 July 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux (1656–1698) sent a letter to John Locke in which he put forward a problem which was to awaken great interest among philosophers and other scientists throughout the Enlightenment and up until the present day. In brief, the question Molyneux asked was whether a man who has been born blind and who has learnt to distinguish and name a globe and a cube by touch, would be able to distinguish and name these objects simply by sight, once he had been enabled to see. (…)
For reasons unknown Locke never replied to the letter.
artwork { Alan Bur Johnson }
You see a locomotive probably thinking it’s a train
Imagine you are a single, heterosexual woman. You meet a nice man at the driving range, or on a blind date. You like him and he likes you. You date, you get engaged, you get married. You decide to have a child together, so you go off the pill. One morning you wake up and look at your husband, and it’s like seeing him through new eyes. Who is this stranger you married, and what did you ever see in him?
After some articles made the news when they suggested mate preferences change on hormonal contraception, this seemed to be the scenario in the heads of many women. Is my pill deceiving me? What if my birth control is making me date the wrong man?
Several articles over the years have demonstrated that women prefer men with more masculine features at midcycle, or ovulation, and more feminine features in less fertile periods. Based on body odor, women and men also often prefer individuals with MHC (major histocompatibility complex) that are different from theirs, which may be a way for them to select mates that will give their offspring an immunological advantage. These findings have been replicated a few times, looking at a few different gendered traits. And as I suggested above, other work has suggested that the birth control pill, which in some ways mimics pregnancy, may mask our natural tendency to make these distinctions and preferences, regarding both masculinity and MHC.
image { Thanks Glenn! }
Drunk: My man, what is happenin’? Sun Ra: Everything is happenin’.
Geographical metaphors such as centre-periphery or First-Second-Third World are widely used to describe the world economic system. This paper discusses the role of metaphors in geographical representations and proposes some guidelines for the analysis and classification. This methodology is then applied to a sample of well known textual metaphors used to describe the world economic scenario, including ideas of a First-Second-Third World, North-South, core-periphery, Global Triad, global network, flat and fluid world. The classification is linked to the debates originating such metaphors, and it will be used in order to propose some concluding remarks on the possibility of development of new geographical metaphors.
‘To restore silence is the role of objects.’ –Samuel Beckett
{ Ever wonder about the left-behind houses you pass while driving, or the houses buried back off country roads? This writer excavates a lost house’s history. | Ever wondered if your home was haunted ? | More: Lost magazine | latest issue | Lost Magazine | previous issues }
Until my seas are dried up
It is hard to think of another writer as great as Mark Twain who did so many things that even merely good writers are not supposed to do. Great writers are not meant to write bad books, much less publish them. Twain not only published a lot of bad books, he doesn’t appear to have noticed the difference between his good ones and his bad ones. Great writers are not meant to care more about money than art. Twain cared so much about money that what little he writes about his art in his autobiography is almost entirely, and obsessively, about the business end of things: his paychecks, his promotional tours, his financial disputes with publishers, his venture capital investments in publishing and printing technology. He stops and starts Huckleberry Finn over and again to devote vast amounts of his time and energy to losing $190,000 (roughly $4 million today) in a doomed typesetting machine, and nearly bankrupts himself. Great writers are expected to be interested in ideas; they should associate themselves with at least a few convictions. Apart from a frontier notion of freedom, Twain never met an idea he could not reduce to a joke. He doesn’t even appear to have been wedded to his own skepticism. (…)
Everywhere he went, including the White House, he was always the biggest star in the room. (…)
Twain mentions that in the good old days the post office delivered him a letter from Europe at his home in Hartford, Connecticut, addressed to:
Mark Twain
God Knows Where
