Things are naturally contrary, that is, cannot exist in the same object
{ 1. Chris on Senior Day, 1977 | 2. Pricilla, Jones Beach, 1969 | 3. Reflector: Jones Beach, 1972 | Joseph Szabo }
‘A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength–life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.’ –Nietzsche
Humans and other animals express power through open, expansive postures, and they express powerlessness through closed, contractive postures. But can these postures actually cause power?
The results of this study confirmed our prediction that posing in high-power nonverbal displays (as opposed to low-power nonverbal displays) would cause neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants: High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; low-power posers exhibited the opposite pattern.
In short, posing in displays of power caused advantaged and adaptive psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes, and these findings suggest that embodiment extends beyond mere thinking and feeling, to physiology and subsequent behavioral choices.
That a person can, by assuming two simple 1-min poses, embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world, actionable implications.
{ SAGE | Continue reading | More: 10 Simple Postures That Boost Performance }
With the poison of a junkie’s broken promise on his lip
It was 1985. I was 12 and standing next to my mother in a police station in Greenwich Village. She was a pretty red-haired gal in her late 30s, but the three police officers she was talking to weren’t looking at her. They were looking at the bag of crack vials she had in her hands, confused about what they were. I wasn’t confused. We had a lot of crack vials in our apartment at that point. Hundreds of them. My brothers and I played with them in Washington Square Park. We carried them around in our pockets the way other kids carried marbles.
I didn’t know then that this encounter would inspire a movement; that a group of local mothers would decide to do what the befuddled police would not: reclaim Washington Square Park from the drug dealers. (…)
My parents moved into our apartment at 32 Washington Square West in 1975. Over the next decade we watched as an army of dealers and their customers took over the heart of Greenwich Village. As a kid, I knew you didn’t ride your bicycle into the park, because a junkie would take it from you. The park’s arch, built as an imitation of the Arc de Triomphe, was covered in graffiti. When the city painted over it in 1981, Mayor Ed Koch applied the last stroke of white paint, then remarked, “That’ll last about an hour.”
artwork { Kathe Kollwitz, Death and a Woman Struggling for a Child, 1911 }
‘Great architecture has only two natural enemies: water and stupid men.’ –Richard Nickel
…looking at all the ways the conscious is just the littlest bit of what’s happening in the brain. Your brain does these massive computations under the hood all the time. And a hunch essentially is the result of all those computations. So it’s exactly like riding a bicycle, the way you don’t have to be consciously aware, in fact you cannot be consciously aware. Your consciousness has no access to the operations running under the hood that allow you to ride the bicycle, or for that matter that allow you to recognize somebody’s face. you don’t know how you recognize somebody’s face, you just do it effortlessly.
In both of these cases, it’s very hard to write computer programs to do this stuff, to ride a bicycle or recognize somebody’s face, because there’s massive computation going on there that’s required. Your brain does this all effortlessly and the hunch is when it serves up the end result of those computations.
Essentially the conscious mind is like a newspaper headline in the sense that all it ever wants is the summary, it doesn’t need to know all the details of how something happened, it just wants to know.
Put a bird on it
Cramer’s company, HyperStealth Biotechnology Corporation… (…)
Over the past 10 years, Cramer, 43, has created more than 8,000 unique camouflage patterns. Ultimately none may have more influence than his most recent design. In April, the United States Army issued a request for proposals for a new family of camouflage patterns to replace the Universal Camouflage Pattern design that’s been the Army’s general-issue print since 2004. Cramer is expected to be among the top contenders for the contract to create a family of patterns and palettes that can function nearly anywhere in the world. (…)
The next half-step breakthrough in concealment might well be something called “adaptive camouflage.” “We’re working on materials that can change their color, shape, and brightness, depending on the surrounding environment.”
photo { Todd Fisher }
There’s a place on my arm where I’ve written his name, next to mine
Not many authors can boast of having written a best-selling pornographic novel, much less one regarded as an erotica classic—but Pauline Réage could. Make that Dominique Aury. No: Anne Desclos.
All three were the same woman, but for years the real name behind the incendiary work was among the best-kept secrets in the literary world. Forty years after the publication of the French novel Histoire d’O, the full truth was finally made public. Even then, some still considered it the most shocking book ever written. When the book came out, its purported author was “Pauline Réage,” widely believed to be a pseudonym. Although shocking for its graphic depictions of sadomasochism, the novel was admired for its reticent, even austere literary style. It went on to achieve worldwide success, selling millions of copies, and has never been out of print. (…)
Desclos (or, rather, Aury, as she became known in her early thirties) was obsessed with her married lover, Jean Paulhan. She wrote the book to entice him, claim him, and keep him—and she wrote it exclusively for him. It was the ultimate love letter. (…)
Story of O, the title of the English edition, is an account of a French fashion photographer, known only as O, who descends into debasement, torment, humiliation, violence, and bondage, all in the name of devotion to her lover, René. Over the course of the novel she is blindfolded, chained, flogged, pierced, branded, and more.
photo { J. Kursel }
I get high, high, high. Everyday. I get high, high, high. Every night.
Synthetic drugs that use legal compounds but mimic the highs of everything from marijuana to cocaine are proliferating among do-it-yourself pharma labs across the country. Bad trips—and fatal side effects—are increasing, too.
bonus:
I used to have a pony, on Coney Island. It got hit by a truck.
{ photos by Jeremy Hu | Art Basel, June 2011 | Artist? }
Every day, the same, again
Flaming dessert injures four at Florida restaurant; waiter poured too much booze on bananas foster.
Man used shotgun to blast off painful wart, ‘didn’t expect’ to lose finger.
Woman tries to hire hit man on Facebook.
Japanese watermelon fetched nearly $4,000 at an auction.
Teens look to parents more than friends for sexual role models.
How the human brain performs echolocation.
What Bats, Bombs and Sharks Taught Us about Hearing.
Wrinkles could predict women’s bone fracture risk.
5 Leading Theories for Why We Laugh—and the Jokes That Prove Them Wrong.
How is one to know which aspect of a person counts as that person’s true self?
The Circle of Life (and how Jellyfish screw it up).
Human and jellyfish combined to make the first living laser. [Thanks Tim]
Human evolution is slower than thought.
Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?
Study explores how dogs think and learn about human behavior.
When we talk about time and lives saved by using chimpanzees, can we provide actual time span data or numbers? As pressure from activists builds, the United States is considering whether it should end invasive experiments in chimpanzees.
Inside the Weird World of Medical Studies.
Why researchers spend so much time proving the obvious.
Scientists show the evolution of the Amphitheatre.
Does driving a Porsche make a man more desirable to women? Study shows that flashy spending may work for the short term but not for marriage.
Apple and Google will compete like crazy for our data because once they have it we’ll be their customers forever. iCloud’s real purpose: kill Windows.
Why Apple Isn’t in the Dow. Only ExxonMobil is bigger in the U.S. than Apple. While it might add 1,000 points to the Dow if it were on board, its high stock price would distort the index.
Netflix can be the core of Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s iCloud. Why Microsoft needs to buy Netflix. Related: Sony movies pulled from Netflix streaming service as Netflix subscriber growth triggers clause.
Wave of Superfluous New Startups Is Surest Sign We’re in a Bubble.
Google is dropping an automatic-translation tool, because overuse by spam-bloggers is flooding the internet with sloppily translated text, which in turn is making computerized translation even sloppier. The standalone Google Translate site, which allows you to enter text or URLs for translation, will remain.
Google pays 23% more than industry average, and then there’s the perks.
Why Did Facebook Partner With a Social Browser Maker?
Will drones soon take civilian passengers on pilotless flights?
Unbreakable: Eight codes we can’t crack. Previously: The Voynich Manuscript.
A new approach to tesselations allows any artist to create Escher-like images.
Meet modern Mongolia—a mishmash of PlayStations, yurts, heavy metal, teenage shamans, Genghis Khan toilet paper, fried meat, and ancient glory.
Part philosopher, part activist, part mystic, Simone Weil is almost impossible to classify.
How much of what we read, even the good stuff, drops from memory soon after we close the book?
When James Brown died on Christmas Day 2006, he left behind a fortune worth tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of dollars. The problem is, he also left behind fourteen children, sixteen grandchildren, eight mothers of his children, several mistresses, thirty lawyers, a former manager, an aging dancer, a longtime valet, and a sister who’s really not a sister but calls herself the Godsister of Soul anyway. All of whom want a piece of his legacy.
I’m going to be straight with you: I used to not wash my hands after peeing.
Tasteless, indestructible and picked by literal slaves, tomato has become a national shame.
A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100.
The Origins of the First Arcade Video Game: Atari’s Pong.
Collection of hotel door hangers.
A small maze and a computer-generated maze with two solutions.
Memory Tapes, “Yes I Know” [video]
Chocolate, 2010. [Thanks SG]
Romance comics from the 1940s and ’50s.
Finger Mounted Stealth Fly Swatter Patent.
Cardboard Bike Helmet Better than Plastic.
We over here E, shots of, sippin’ on Courvoisier. Yeah rockin’ exclusive.
Happiness can kill, claim scientists, after discovering that people who are too full of joy die younger than their more downbeat peers.
The study by a variety of universities analysed the details of children from the 1920s to old age.
They found people whose school reports rated them “highly cheerful” died younger than their more reserved classmates. This is because they are likely to lead more carefree lives full of danger and unhealthy lifestyle choices, it is believed. (…)
Researchers also discovered that trying too hard to be happy often ended up leaving people feeling more depressed than before. (…)
Results of the study revealed that the key to true happiness was simple: meaningful relationships with friends and family members.
“The strongest predictor of happiness is not money, or external recognition through success or fame. It’s having meaningful social relationships.”
photo { William Klein }
Look here in my wallet, that’s her. She grew up on a farm there.
The normal human ratio is around 105 boys for every 100 girls, a natural evolutionary ratio that takes into account the fact that more boys tend to die before reaching adulthood. But in China today, the ratio is 121 boys for every 100 girls; in India the ratio is 112 boys for every 100 girls. (…)
In her thorough and compelling new book, Unnatural Selection, Hvistendahl explains why these trends will have far-reaching effects. She argues that the sex imbalance could prove devastating to social stability across the developing world, sparking crime, human trafficking, and - if history is any guide - even war.
photo { Sally Mann }
Every four days in PA I move another brick
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.
Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.
This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash.
You can’t touch me, but I can touch you
Is Pole Dancing Art? Court Rules No.
Nite Moves, a Latham, New York-based adult dancing club that features pole- and couch-dancing, had been seeking to argue that erotic dances counted as “dramatic or musical arts performances,” thereby qualifying for a tax exemption. A Tribunal had rejected that claim.
This means that Nite Moves must pay up on a $125,000 tax bill dating back to 2005 — though the club is appealing the ruling. (…)
To distinguish erotic dancing from, say, ballet, the court finds that real art requires you to go to school. In other words, stripping — or at least, the stripping that goes down at Nite Moves — doesn’t count as art because anyone can do it.
photo { Shomei Tomatsu }
Sun and flesh (Credo in unam)
Some unusual solar readings, including fading sunspots and weakening magnetic activity near the poles, could be indications that our sun is preparing to be less active in the coming years.
The results of three separate studies seem to show that even as the current sunspot cycle swells toward the solar maximum, the sun could be heading into a more-dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle greatly reduced or even eliminated.
{ Space | Continue reading | + video | Read more: Major Drop in Solar Activity Predicted }
artwork { Richard Serra, out-of-round X, 1999 | On view through Aug. 28, 2011, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC }
‘There is no individual thing in nature, than which there is not another more powerful and strong. Whatsoever thing be given, there is something stronger whereby it can be destroyed.’ –Spinoza
Is Aging a Disease?
One argument against treating aging is that it is not a disease. To an extent, this view stems from the fact that the word aging refers to different things. One is the experience of the passage of time. Another is the acquisition of experience and wisdom that can come from living long. To avoid confusion with these benign aspects, biologists use the term “senescence” for the increasing frailty and risk of disease and death that come with aging. Put more precisely, then, the question at hand is this: Is human senescence a disease?
One approach to defining illness has been to compare a given condition to good health. Is someone’s condition typical of a person of a given gender or age? For instance, the possession of ovaries is healthy for a woman, but not a man. Likewise, one might consider muscle wasting to indicate serious disease in a 20-year-old, but not a 90-year-old. Given that everyone who lives long enough will eventually experience senescence, I can appreciate the view that it is a normal condition and therefore not pathological. Still, from my perspective as someone working on the biological basis of aging, it is hard not to see it as a disease.
Senescence is a process involving dysfunction and deterioration at the molecular, cellular and physiological levels. This endemic malfunction causes diseases of aging. Even if one ages well, escaping the ravages of cancer or type II diabetes, one still dies in the end, and one dies of something. Moreover, in evolutionary terms, aging appears to serve no real purpose, meaning it does not contribute to evolutionary fitness. Why, then, has aging evolved?
The main theory dates back to the 1930s and was developed by J. B. S. Haldane and, later, Peter Medawar—both of University College London—and by the American biologist George C. Williams of the State University of New York, Stony Brook. It argues that aging reflects the decline in the force of natural selection against mutations that exert harmful effects late in life. An inherited mutation causing severe pathology in childhood will reduce the chances of reproduction and so disappear from the population. By contrast, another mutation with similar effects—but which surfaces after a person’s reproductive years—is more likely to persist. Natural selection can even favor mutations that enhance fitness early in life but reduce late-life health. This is because the early-life effects of genes have much stronger effects on fitness. Consequently, populations accumulate mutations that exert harmful effects in late life, and the sum of these effects is aging. Here evolutionary biology delivers a grim message about the human condition: Aging is essentially a multifactor genetic disease. It differs from other genetic diseases only in that we all inherit it. This universality does not mean that aging is not a disease. Instead, it is a special sort of disease.
photo { Noritoshi Hirakawa }
Pacing in front of Rainbow, Earl Scheib, thirty-nine ninety-five merchandise
We are prejudiced against all kinds of other people, based on superficial physical features: We react negatively to facial disfigurement; we avoid sitting next to people who are obese, or old, or in a wheelchair; we favor familiar folks over folks that are foreign. (…)
It makes immediate sense that people would develop aversions against people who actually have infectious diseases. But why does it also lead to these aversions to perfectly healthy people? Because it’s impossible to directly detect the presence of bacteria and viruses and other microscopic parasites; and so we’re forced to use crude superficial cues. Consequently, we make mistakes. Some of those mistakes lead to the irrational avoidance of things (including people) that pose no infection risk at all.
Here’s an example: Animal feces is loaded with parasites that can make you ill. So if something looks like a pile of dog poop, you probably won’t eat it. That’s smart. But what if I took some delicious chocolate fudge and molded it into the shape of poop? Research by Paul Rozin and his colleagues shows that a lot of people still won’t eat it – even though they know it’s fudge! These people aren’t responding to any rational appraisal of infection risk; they are responding – automatically and aversively – to appearances.
The same principle applies in our interactions with other people.
photo { Nicolas Silberfaden }
Cold caffeine in a nicotine cloud
{ Vladimir Putin (at the time a KGB agent) undercover in Moscow as a tourist during a visit by then-president Ronald Reagan }
{ Teenage President Bill Clinton meeting John F. Kennedy }
more { Photographs which show historical figures in unexpected places or company | Quora }
It’s whatever you want, the fact is I got more than I flaunt
Why is it that men so often self-destruct? (…) We men just make bad decisions. We can’t help it. We’re men.
Women, on the other hand, do almost everything better. We’ve known this intuitively for a long time. If you didn’t, just ask your wife or your mother. But now there’s a raft of evidence that suggests women are better at everything — including investing.
A new study by Barclays Capital and Ledbury Research found that women were more likely to make money in the market, mostly because they didn’t take as many risks. They bought and held. Women trade this way because they aren’t as confident — or perhaps as overconfident — as men, the study found.
photo { Katy Grannan }
I’m not that genie in a bottle, I’m in a bag
Sometimes when I’m lying on my back looking at the sky or the ceiling or some other light-colored background, I swear I can see specks and what looks like little threads floating by. They seem to move when I move my eyes, leading me to believe they’re actually on my eyes. Is there some optical phenomenon that allows us to focus that close? Is there a name for this effect?
{ The Straight Dope | Continue reading }
Floaters are deposits of various size, shape, consistency, refractive index, and motility within the eye’s vitreous humour, which is normally transparent.
Since these objects exist within the eye itself, they are not optical illusions but are entoptic phenomena.
One specific type of floater is either called Muscae volitantes (from the Latin, meaning ‘flying flies’), or mouches volantes (from the French), and consist of small spots. These are present in most people’s eyes and are attributed to minute remnants of embryonic structures in the vitreous humor.
It’s apple pies that make the menfolks’ mouths water. Pies made from apples like these.
The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.
The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”
Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.
image { via Create Build Destroy | Thanks Cole! }
