ɔıЯ|Blessing

Your Brain on Computers - Attached to Technology and Paying a Price | NYTimes.com

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 23:00:30 -0700

Your Brain on Computers - Attached to Technology and Paying a Price | NYTimes.com:

Mr. Campbell continues to struggle with the effects of the deluge of data. Even after he unplugs, he craves the stimulation he gets from his electronic gadgets. He forgets things like dinner plans, and he has trouble focusing on his family. His wife, Brenda, complains, “It seems like he can no longer be fully in the moment.”

Futuristic mega-projects by Shimizu | Pink Tentacle

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:09:36 -0700

Futuristic mega-projects by Shimizu | Pink Tentacle:

Japanese construction firm Shimizu Corporation has developed a series of bold architectural plans for the world of tomorrow. Here is a preview of seven mega-projects that have the potential to reshape life on (and off) Earth in the coming decades.

How Much The Average American Spends on Entertainment via...

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:12:28 -0700

How Much The Average American Spends on Entertainment via www.visualeconomics.com

Infographic: Top 20 countries with most endangered species via...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 04:32:18 -0800

Infographic: Top 20 countries with most endangered species via www.mnn.com

For the Soul of France | Book Review: WSJ.com

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:27:00 -0800

For the Soul of France | Book Review: WSJ.com:

Two monuments in Paris are so prominent that they’re hard to miss. One is the Eiffel Tower, of course, the all-iron tour de force of engineering, standing by the Seine amid the city’s spacious and supremely elegant West End. Then to the north, atop Montmartre, there is the Sacré-Cœur: a tall, immaculately white Catholic basilica that looks like a digitized pre-Raphaelite set from “Lord of the Rings.” What most visitors—and in fact most Parisians— don’t realize…

Cut This Story! | The Atlantic

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:09:05 -0800

Cut This Story! | The Atlantic :

One reason seekers of news are abandoning print newspapers for the Internet has nothing directly to do with technology. It’s that newspaper articles are too long. On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news.

The Americanization of Mental Illness | NYTimes.com

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:30:09 -0800

The Americanization of Mental Illness | NYTimes.com:

Americans, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures… For all our self-recrimination, however, we may have yet to face one of the most remarkable effects of American-led globalization. We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad.

Twilight of the American newspaper by Richard Rodriguez | Harper's Magazine

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:08:00 -0800

Twilight of the American newspaper by Richard Rodriguez | Harper's Magazine:

A scholar I know, a woman who is ninety-six years old, grew up in a tin shack on the American prairie, near the Canadian border. She learned to read from the pages of the Chicago Tribune in a one-room schoolhouse. Her teacher, who had no more than an eighth-grade education, had once been to Chicago—had been to the opera! Women in Chicago went to the opera with bare shoulders and long gloves, the teacher imparted to her pupils.

It Seems Biology (Not Religion) Equals Morality by Marc D. Hauser | Edge

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:43:00 -0800

It Seems Biology (Not Religion) Equals Morality by Marc D. Hauser | Edge:

For many, living a moral life is synonymous with living a religious life. Just as educated students of mathematics, chemistry and politics know that 1=1, water=H2O, and Barack Obama=US president, so, too, do religiously educated people know that religion=morality. As simple and pleasing as this relationship may seem, it has at least three possible interpretations.

How your brain sees virtual you | New Scientist

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:16:28 -0800

How your brain sees virtual you | New Scientist:

As players who stay up all night fighting imaginary warriors demonstrate, slipping into the skin of an avatar, and inhabiting a virtual world can be riveting stuff. But to what extent does your brain regard your virtual self as you? Brain scans of avid players of the hugely popular online fantasy world World of Warcraft reveal that areas of the brain involved in self-reflection and judgement seem to behave similarly when someone is thinking about their virtual self as when they think about their real one.

On Language - Explaining the Origins of Ms. | NYTimes.com

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:52:27 -0700

On Language - Explaining the Origins of Ms. | NYTimes.com:

In the Nov. 10, 1901, edition of The Sunday Republican of Springfield, Mass., tucked away in an item at the bottom of Page 4, an unnamed writer put forth a modest proposal. “There is a void in the English language which, with some diffidence, we undertake to fill,” the writer began. “Every one has been put in an embarrassing position by ignorance of the status of some woman. To call a maiden Mrs. is only a shade worse than to insult a matron with the inferior title Miss. Yet it is not always easy to know the facts.”

Old Dictionaries | NYTimes.com

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:18:35 -0700

Old Dictionaries | NYTimes.com:

In the opening paragraphs of Rex Stout’s novel “Gambit,” published in 1962, we are introduced to his detective hero, Nero Wolfe, as he sits in front of a fireplace, methodically ripping pages from Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, published in 1961, and feeding them into the fire.

Space Travel

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:07:45 -0700

Space Travel

Lit Map of Frisco via Strange Maps

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:16:52 -0700

Lit Map of Frisco via Strange Maps

Presidential Physiques of the Modern Age via nytimes.com

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:53:46 -0700

Presidential Physiques of the Modern Age via nytimes.com

Framingham Heart Study & Is Happiness Catching? | NYTimes.com

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:15:00 -0700

Framingham Heart Study & Is Happiness Catching? | NYTimes.com:

In the reunion photos, there is only one person who visibly degrades in health as the years pass: a boyish-faced man sporting mutton-chop sideburns. When he was younger, he looked as healthy as the rest of the crowd. But each time he showed up for the reunion, he had grown steadily heavier, until the 2003 photograph, when he looked straightforwardly obese, the only one of his size in the entire picture. Almost uniquely among the crowd, he did not remain friends with his old classmates.

The age of enhancement | Prospect Magazine

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:47:29 -0700

The age of enhancement | Prospect Magazine :

A cornucopia of drugs will soon be on sale to improve everything from our memories to our trust in others.

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine | Wired

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:24:46 -0700

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine | Wired:

… It’s just the latest triumph of what might be called Good Enough tech. Cheap, fast, simple tools are suddenly everywhere. We get our breaking news from blogs, we make spotty long-distance calls on Skype, we watch video on small computer screens rather than TVs, and more and more of us are carrying around dinky, low-power netbook computers that are just good enough to meet our surfing and emailing needs. The low end has never been riding higher.

The Wagnerian Method | SEEDMAGAZINE.COM

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:07:42 -0700

The Wagnerian Method | SEEDMAGAZINE.COM:

When physicist John Smith spent the night in his garden with the score to Götterdämmerung, the final opera in Richard Wagner’s four-part, 15-hour epic, Der Ring des Nibelungen, he wasn’t interested in its account of the apocalyptic struggle of Norse gods for control of the world. Smith was concerned with a struggle of a different sort—one between the opera’s words and music that might elucidate the controversial German composer’s peculiar vision for the future of art.

Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple | Times Online

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:39:31 -0700

Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple | Times Online :

Chief executive of Apple Inc and owner of Jackling House changed the world and cheated death. So why the paranoia?