The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity. ...
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Brain quick to adapt
The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity. ...
Facebook grows as MySpace becomes a ghetto
Last week, a study showing that older folks have flocked to Facebook was all over the news. But word of an even more provocative trend waits in the wings: white flight from MySpace to Facebook.
That's according to self-styled social media pundit Danah Boyd, who earned a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's School of Information in 2008. After four years of quizzing teenagers across the country, she contends that white kids are more likely than their nonwhite counterparts to abandon MySpace for its rival, or to choose Facebook in the first place. MySpace has become the "'ghetto' of the digital landscape," she said in a talk at the recent annual conference of the Personal Democracy Forum, an organization that explores how technology influences politics.
She compared the exodus of whites from MySpace to Facebook to the exodus of white city-dwellers to the suburbs over the past 50 years. As Boyd (who is white, by the way) put it, "Many of us have habitually crossed the street to avoid what is seen as the riff-raff."
...Modern-day Robinson Crusoe, self-exiled, survives on an island for 300 days with 2 knives, and a baby pig for company
...
His island of choice was Tofua, a 64-square-kilometre volcanic isle home to nothing except "some pigs, lots of coconuts, a lake and tropical forest".
His luggage consisted of just a Swiss army knife, machete and a video camera to record his adventure for a documentary to be aired later this year.
...Barefoot is better
Some studies have shown that walking barefoot can ease your body's aches and pains, and we've already told you that expensive running shoes aren't a necessity; now Wired's throwing in their two cents with an explanation of how barefoot is better. ...
I've always said that barefoot is better.
New military robot to feed on biomass, including corpses
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A Maryland company under contract with the Pentagon is developing a robot that can burn organic material and use collected debris as fuel -- including, but not limited to, things like sticks, grass, debris -- and dead bodies.
...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Natalie Portman to play Jane Foster in the upcoming Thor movie
Monday, July 13, 2009
Israel solidifies its control over web 2.0
A while back here at Paulitics, I
discussed the campaign by the Israel lobby to pay university students
to agree with Israel in classroom discussions, university clubs and in
rallies.
This
programme and the overwhelmingly pro-Israel North American (and, to a
lesser extent, European) media coverage were however not enough for the
powerful and extremely well organized lobby. The Israeli lobby then
created a desktop application called “Megaphone” about which many political commentators still remain blissfully unaware. Megaphone
serves as a syphoning tool which has the power to instantly send
pro-Israel activists flooding into any online discussion, web poll or
other forum where Israel is being discussed in order to grossly
unbalance the discussion thus creating the impression among Internet
users that Israel’s support is both much wider and deeper than it
actually is. However, as frightening and undemocratic as these two
operations were, they pale in comparison to what the government of
Israel is doing now in terms of making “crimestop” a reality.
The Israeli press is now reporting
that, in addition to the considerable influence of the Israeli lobby,
the government of Israel has decided to marshal its state treasury to
the cause further unbalancing the already obscenely unbalanced debate
over Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. The
government of Israel will now directly pay pro-Israeli agents and
bloggers to infiltrate online discussions, message boards, online
newspaper comments et cetera with a ubiquitously pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian message.
On Michael Moore
An interesting read about the attacks on Michael Moore and his work.
The last paragraph:
I
am not making a case to support this disgruntled, angry filmmaker and
his search for the truth. You'll never hear me say the following:
"Either you are with Michael Moore or you are against us!" The fact is
I admire him more for taking a stand, for choosing to explore an issue,
even if it isn't 100% factually accurate. Michael Moore is no different
than any other journalist on any news program. He is being attacked,
left and right, for making accusations and pointing fingers, perhaps
stretching the truth to bring forth more debate and speculation. Or
possibly the real reason he is being attacked is because the guy is so
darn successful - he is about as well-known as Spider-Man and that can
raise holy hell for the Republican Party. If the U.S. is making this
man a success, what does it mean for President Bush in regards to the
average voter come Election Day? Who knows what the President was
really thinking when he sat in the classroom for 7 minutes after being
told that America was under attack. Michael Moore doesn't know either,
he only suggests (as he did in his book Dude, Where's My Country?)
And like many of his films, his suggestions spring with humor and
emotion - as he said in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, he
interprets the facts. Michael Moore wants the country to be the America
he remembers. He'll take on anyone, right or wrong, and isn't that what
people used to take pride in - the concept of freedom of speech?
Footnote:
The newest misinterpreted fact has arisen from Michael Moore's true
birthplace - he is actually from Davison, Michigan. This is a little
affluent suburb in Flint, so I suppose he is still from Flint, isn't
he?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Undead Celebrities
They got it wrong. Elvis is in Hawaii working at a Burger King.
MJ will come back as a zombie of course to star in a remake of Thriller.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Most Badass Female Space Pilots of All
Posted because they included Aeryn Sun from Farscape.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sarah Palin vs. The Internet
How did you spend the Fourth of July? Maybe having a BBQ with friends and family, watching a fireworks show, and generally enjoying a happy patriotic holiday? Batshit-insane American Quitter Sarah Palin ended her own special “Independence Day” by posting a series of desperate grammar-challenged nonsenseFacebook and Twitter pages. Really.
...
Monday, June 29, 2009
Ghotit - Dyslexic Checker for writing
...
For damage control Chermesh started thinking of a program that could help him find the right words he needed, even when the original spelling of how he perceived the word to look was unrecognizable by a spellchecker. He partnered with a technology graduate from the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and they created Ghotit.
...
