If you’re going to lead people, you have to have somewhere to go
{ Thanks Douglas }
You gotta go for what you know. Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be.
There was a peculiar atmosphere at a recent technology conference in Silicon Valley. The glow of laptops was mostly absent and few gazed distractedly at their smartphones. Instead the audience was rapt, entirely focused on the speakers on stage.
“This is the best audience ever,” said Chris Sacca, an early investor at Twitter and a regular at tech conferences. “You’re actually listening to me.”
This was the first Wisdom 2.0 summit, which convened a few hundred spiritually minded technologists – everyone from Buddhist nuns to yogic computer scientists – for two days of panels and presentations on consciousness and computers. The goal: to share tips on how to stay sane amid the tweets, blips, drops and pings of modern life. (…)
“The problem with the kind of jobs we have is that there is no knob to dial down,” said Gopi Kallayil, an Indian-born marketing manager for Google who studied yoga at an ashram when he was younger. He spoke for many of the participants who professed a deep frustration with their inability to find serenity in an increasingly wired modern world. (…)
It seemed that almost everyone believed that our constant web surfing, no matter how noble its intent, is not conducive to the spiritual life. “As much as we’re connected, it seems like we’re very disconnected,” said Soren Gordhamer, the conference organiser. “These technologies are awesome, but what does it mean to use them consciously?”
One obvious way to bridge the techno-spiritual chasm is to make the cubicle a bit more like a temple. This, however, involves more than burning a stick of incense in the office. Google’s “Search Inside Yourself” programme encourages its employees to embark on a spiritual path. Twitter’s conservatively dressed chief technology officer, Greg Pass, said he teaches a form of Tai Chi in the company’s office.
photo { Henri Cartier-Bresson | image #16 in the slideshow }
Slack hour: won’t be many there.
In the realm of public policy, we live in an age of numbers. To hold teachers accountable, we examine their students’ test scores. To improve medical care, we quantify the effectiveness of different treatments. There is much to be said for such efforts, which are often backed by cutting-edge reformers. But do wehold an outsize belief in our ability to gauge complex phenomena, measure outcomes and come up with compelling numerical evidence? A well-known quotation usually attributed to Einstein is “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” I’d amend it to a less eloquent, more prosaic statement: Unless we know how things are counted, we don’t know if it’s wise to count on the numbers.
The problem isn’t with statistical tests themselves but with what we do before and after we run them.
F*** me like an animal
{ Bad&Design print ad | Oplev før du køber = Experience before you buy | via DANSK | Thanks Colleen }
Where are you off to? Nowhere in particular.
In town to promote his new film, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” Banksy, the pseudonymous British street artist, has been leaving reminders of his visit around the city. But almost as soon as the paint was dry, the pieces were scribbled on overnight by taggers claiming to be the Smart Crew and Emjay, well-known local graffiti artists.
Some of Banksy’s pieces were also tagged with a picture of a man’s face and a stenciled message reading “Free Henry—Poster Boy,” a reference to the street artist Poster Boy (real name: Henry Matyjewicz), who was sentenced to 11 months in prison last week on charges of criminal mischief.
Street artists in the city seem to be under siege at the moment. The Banksy markings come on the heels of a massive tagging attack on Shepard Fairey’s mural on East Houston Street. (And that mural itself had already been targeted with a stop-work order by the city’s Department of Buildings.) Police say they’re investigating the tagging, and note that Banksy lacked a permit for at least one of his drawings.
In the dark. What a lark. Police tout.
{ A Jefferson County teacher picked the wrong example when he used assassinating President Barack Obama as a way to teach angles to his geometry students. Someone alerted authorities and the Corner High School math teacher was questioned by the Secret Service, but was not taken into custody or charged with any crime. | Alabama Live | full story }
‘Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.’ –Roger Miller
Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.
After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.
“All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating,” he recalled. “Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone.”
Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.
To be totally honest, I stopped listening about a minute ago
A major international study into the link between cell phone use and two types of brain cancer has proved inconclusive.
A 10-year survey of almost 13,000 participants found most cell phone use didn’t increase the risk of developing meningioma — a common and frequently benign tumor — or glioma — a rarer but deadlier form of cancer.
There were suggestions that using cell phones for more than 30 minutes each day could increase the risk of glioma, the study by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said. But the authors added that “biases and error prevent a causal interpretation” that would directly blame radiation for the tumor.
{ AP/Star Tribune | Continue reading }
The latest volley in this fray was released yesterday in the form of a new report of the results of an ongoing study examining whether there is a correlation between cell phone use and cancer. For once, news reports seem to be getting it right in that the results are “inconclusive.” Of course, I would have been shocked if the results had been conclusive. Based on this study, there are two things I can say with confidence. First, it will settle nothing, and, second, it will be attacked by those who, despite all the evidence against it and the incredible implausibility of a link between cell phones and cancer, deeply believe that there is just such a link. No doubt such attacks will include a mention that part of the funding for the study came from the Mobile Manufacturers’ Forum (MMF) and the GSM Association, both industry groups. True, the funding from these organizations went first through a “firewall mechanism,” but that won’t stop the criticisms.
related { Cellphones now used more for data than for calls. }
Might be happy all the same that way
Many creatures demonstrate various kinds of collective behavior: birds flock, fish shoal, cattle herd and even humans collaborate from time to time.
Determining the dynamics of this kind of behavior is a hot problem that has lead to a number of fundamental discoveries in recent years. Who would have imagined that bacterial colonies cooperate when they grow, that shoals of fish can make collective decisions and that an insect swarm can act seemingly as one? And yet the mathematics that describe these systems demonstrate how easily this kind of behavior can emerge.
Today, the mathematics of animal synchrony takes a cloven-footed step forward with the unveiling of a model that describes the collective behavior of cows.
Cows are well know for their collective behavior: they tend to either all lie down or all stand up for example. Jie Sun at Clarkson University in New York state and colleagues say that this behavior can be modelled by thinking of cows as simple oscillators: they either stand or lie and do this in cycles. These oscillators are also coupled: one form of coupling may be that a cow is more likely to lie down if those around it are lying down and vice versa.
The result is a mathematical model in which the collective behavior of cows can be studied in abstract.
‘Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.’ –Nietzsche
Above the Restoration Hardware in this Jersey Shore town, not far from the Navesink River, lurks a Wall Street giant.
Here, inside the humdrum offices of a tiny trading firm called Tradeworx, workers in their 20s and 30s in jeans and T-shirts quietly tend high-speed computers that typically buy and sell 80 million shares a day.
But on the afternoon of May 6, as the stock market began to plunge in the “flash crash,” someone here walked up to one of those computers and typed the command HF STOP: sell everything, and shutdown.
Across the country, several of Tradeworx’s counterparts did the same. In a blink, some of the most powerful players in the stock market today — high-frequency traders — went dark. The result sent chills through the financial world.
After the brief 1,000-point plunge in the stock market that day, the growing role of high-frequency traders in the nation’s financial markets is drawing new scrutiny.
Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel.
As Mr. Tahiri spoke, an Afghan soldier appeared carrying a large red trash bag. It was, he said, filled with human brains. “What do you want me to do with this,” he asked. “Do you want me to bury it, or do you want to take it?”
‘Everything is how you look at it.’ –Warhol
What does it mean to be white?
A controversial new book, The History of White People, claims that Barack Obama is, to all intents and purposes, white. Not because he had a white mother but because of his educational background, his income, his power, his status. The book’s author, the eminent black American historian Nell Irvin Painter, has written a fascinating, sprawling history of the concept of race, looking specifically at the idea of a white race and at why and how whites have dominated other, darker-skinned races throughout recent centuries. The conclusion of Painter’s book – which has taken more than a decade to research and write – is explosive. Race, she argues, is a fluid social construct, entirely unsupported by scientific fact. Like beauty, it is merely skin-deep.
Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to know.
{ Prehistoric siltstone phallus, the world’s oldest sex toy, was also used as tool to ignite fires. | NY Daily News | full story }
By the way did I tear up that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.
Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate. [PDF]
Poverty, greed, anger, jealousy, pride, revenge. These are the usual suspects when it comes to discussing the causes of crime. In recent years, however, economists have started to investigate a different explanation for criminal activity: physical attributes.
German police force replaces sniffer dog with vulture named Sherlock to scent out dead bodies.
In an effort to encourage Dutch citizens to help combat increasing violence against public employees in the Netherlands, authorities have constructed a psychological experiment that uses augmented reality and interactive billboards.
Every day, the same, again
Guitarist can’t see straight after taking too many Viagra tablets.
Vet says NY dog needs Viagra for heart condition.
The doglers: New York’s dog-less people who can’t help ogling cute pups.
Abu Dhabi’s top hotel has come up with a gold ATM. the ATM monitors the daily price of gold and offers small gold bars that weigh up to 10 grams with customized designs.
Man spent seven years complete a 5,000-part jigsaw, only to find the final piece was missing.
Hair and animal fur donated to fight oil spill.
al Qaeda bomb-factory video for sale in the local bazaar of Wana, South Waziristan, northwest Pakistan. [story + video]
Jean-Claude Trichet, the 67-year-old president of the European Central Bank, discusses the largest financial rescue package in the history of Europe, the role and importance of speculators in the euro crisis and the weakness shown by politicians in the euro zone member states.
How Did GM Pay Back Its Bailout So Fast? Well, It Didn’t…
Time’s covers from February 15, 1999 and May 24, 2010.
Economic recovery needs psychological recovery. Most people aren’t touched by the recession, but they spend as though they are – they need convincing that things will get better.
Why do Harvard kids head to Wall Street?
Marrying a younger man increases a woman’s mortality rate.
Real-time data mining reveals the power of imitation, kith and charisma.
Scientists devise wound dressings that trick bacteria into suicide.
Allergy relief really is possible.
Physicist Ranjit Pati of Michigan Tech: “We have mimicked how neurons behave in the brain.”
How your brains make memories.
How tools become part of the body.
Discontinuity in undergraduate emerging adults’ definitions of “having sex.”
Few astronomers question the existence of black holes. The Universe appears to be brimming with them. And yet the evidence is decidedly circumstantial, inferred from the behaviour of other objects, such as nearby stars and clouds. That’s hardly surprising, given the nature of black holes: regions of space from which nothing can escape. So astronomers would like to find a way to get a direct measurement of a black hole.
Five creatures that prove life could exist on other planets (or in space).
First large-scale formal quantitative test confirms Darwin’s theory of universal common ancestry.
Most Tibetans are genetically adapted to life on the “roof of the world,” according to a new study.
Neanderthal genes found in some modern humans. Related: A new paper in the Journal of Human Evolution discusses the effect of both brain size and facial size on the basicranium. Neandertals are (obviously) just as bipedal as we are, and have bigger brains. Yet, their basicranium is a little flatter than ours.
An 82-year-old man in India is claiming to have not had anything to eat or drink since 1940 — and doctors from the Indian military are allegedly studying him to learn his secret. [Previously: BBC, 2003]
How we wrecked the ocean. [TED video]
Satellite images of air pollution from both natural and man-made causes.
Which is longer, the United States Constitution or Facebook’s Privacy Policy? [Chart]
The Fundamental Limits of Privacy For Social Networks. Using social networks to make recommendations will always compromise privacy, according to a mathematical proof of the limits of privacy.
Facebook: How to Protect Your Privacy.
What does the Internet look like? Last summer, Popular Science broke important ground in Internet visualization theory—an ongoing effort to describe what happens behind our computer screens, or, more accurately, beyond them, inside Ethernet cables and satellites flying around in the upper atmosphere.
The Next Generation of Sports Games: iPads, Web-Connected TVs, Laptops, and Cell Phones.
Today you can buy a $50 program for your laptop computer that likely can beat Kasparov, at least according to published ratings. Computers play great chess—can they play perfect chess?
Cloud Computing: Exploring the scope.
There is a very important metric that I just made up. I call it the “documentation quotient” or DQ.
Imagine yourself as a major sponsor of the biggest and most successful Formula One racing team. You are in negotiations to financially sponsor this race team for the next five years and are willing to pay about $1 billion to do so. Unfortunately for you, the European Union is set to pass a ban on cigarette advertising.
With sales up, Starbucks rolls out two ad campaigns.
Wanna be an art dealer? Start your own gallery?
Gold iPad by British designer Stuart Hughes on sale for £129,995.
What can the Stoics do for us?
Webster’s Third: The Most Controversial Dictionary in the English Language.
Five Dials, a magazine published by Hamish Hamilton, edited by Craig Taylor.
Hugh Hefner had a delirious idea of how he wanted to live, of how he thought everyone really wanted to live. Playboy was the natural extension of that guiding idea. He funded its publication with doggedness and ingenuity born of desperation, and it debuted in December 1953, featuring nude photos of Marilyn Monroe. The first issue sold 70,000 copies, the next 185,000.
Joaquin Phoenix documentary: Even buyers aren’t sure if it’s a prank.
How did David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty vanish? [More from Wikipedia.]
6 weirdest things men do to their penises.
Climate capsules: means of surviving disaster.
3D Medical Animation: Birth of Baby (Vaginal Childbirth).
Stephen Baldwin was the first recipient selected and this honor was entirely unsolicited by him. Donate to our first recipient, Stephen Baldwin. [Thanks GG!]
The challenge: produce a one minute video within 48 hours promoting the WaterAid charity.
‘A man may see how this world goes with no eyes.’ –Shakespeare
The procedure which consists of endlessly finding some novelty in order to escape the preceding results is offered up to agitation, but nothing is more stupid. (…)
These judgments should lead to silence and yet I am writing. This is in no way paradoxical. Silence is itself a pinnacle and better yet, the saint of all saints. The contempt implied in all silence means that one no longer takes care to verify (as one does by ascending an ordinary pinnacle). I know this now: I don’t have the means to silence myself.
{ Georges Bataille, Inner Experience, 1943 | Google Books | Notes on Georges Bataille’s Inner Experience }
photo { Reka Nyari }
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