Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative
{ A small number of randomly selected legislators should make parliaments more effective, say a group of IgNobel prize-winning scientists. | The Physics arXiv Blog | full story | Photo: Tim Davis }
Plain and simp the system’s a pimp
Since morals didn’t come from a God, where did they come from?
Nietzsche answered that question in 1887 with his Genealogy of Morals, which is the best, and by far the clearest, introduction to Nietzsche’s overall project. In short, the first essay in the three-part Genealogy argues that morality itself, the whole idea of good versus evil, came about when weak people figured out a way to make strong people feel bad about being strong. The reason we feel that we should take pity on the weak, or feel bad for imposing our wills on others, is that long ago, in some dark, underground workshop of the spirit, the weak had invented “morals” to compensate for their weakness.
Instead of just straightforwardly hating their enemies, they declared that their superiors stood under the judgement of a higher authority, God, whose law condemned them. And then, amazingly, they had convinced the strong to accept these twisted ideals as The Way Things Ought To Be.
You checked with the bank, no? They never laid eyes on her, no? You still trustin’? Hot creepers!
Dazzle camouflage, also known as Razzle Dazzle or Dazzle painting, was a camouflage paint scheme used on ships, extensively during World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II. Credited to artist Norman Wilkinson, it consisted of a complex pattern of geometric shapes in contrasting colours, interrupting and intersecting each other.
{ Wikipedia | Continue reading | more photos }
Face-detection software is everywhere. Defeat it with some artfully-applied, avant-garde face makeup called CV Dazzle.
CV Dazzle is named after the ingenious warship-camouflage designs deployed during World War I. Rather than actually hiding military vessels, the bold, jagged paint jobs made it difficult for naval rangefinders to discern details about the ship’s size, heading, armament, and so forth. Or at least, that was the idea — unlike Harvey’s digital version, the original Dazzle’s effectiveness was never proven. Of course, CV Dazzle benefits from the fact that face-detection software is much stupider than WWI seamen: you only have to apply a few strokes of face-paint to confuse it, rather than coat your whole kisser.
The reality of duration
The brain does not stop developing until we are in our 30s or 40s – meaning that many people will still have something of the teenager about them long after they have taken on the responsibilities of adulthood.
The finding, from University College London, could perhaps help explain why seemingly respectable adults sometimes just can’t resist throwing a tantrum or sulking until they get their own way.
The discovery that the part of the brain key to getting on with others takes decades to fully form could perhaps also explain why some people are socially awkward well past their teenage years.
Neuroscientist Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore said: ‘Until about 10 years ago, it was pretty much assumed that the human brain stops developing in early childhood.
‘But we now know that is far from the truth, in fact most regions of the human brain continue to develop for many decades.
photo { Fette Sans }
‘Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.’ –Oscar Wilde
In a book to be published in April, “The Origins of Political Order,” Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University presents a sweeping new overview of human social structures throughout history. (…)
Dr. Fukuyama, a political scientist, is concerned mostly with the cultural, not biological, aspects of human society. But he explicitly assumes that human social nature is universal and is built around certain evolved behaviors like favoring relatives, reciprocal altruism, creating and following rules, and a propensity for warfare.
Because of this shared human nature, with its biological foundation, “human politics is subject to certain recurring patterns of behavior across time and across cultures,” he writes. It is these worldwide patterns he seeks to describe in an analysis that stretches from prehistoric times to the French Revolution.
Previous attempts to write grand analyses of human development have tended to focus on a single causal explanation, like economics or warfare, or, as with Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel,” on geography. Dr. Fukuyama’s is unusual in that he considers several factors, including warfare, religion, and in particular human social behaviors like favoring kin.
Few people have yet read the book, but it has created a considerable stir in universities where he has talked about it.
photo { Nathan Osterhaus }
The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself. And my turn? When?
An investigation conducted at the Edinburugh Science Festival by psychologists James Houran, Caroline Watt and Richard Wiseman looked into what topics of conversation are the most sucessful in a dating situation. One hundred randomly selected participants (50 men and 50 women) engaged in the scientific speed dating. (…)
Talking about films was the least successful topic with only 9% saying that they would like to see the other person again, whilst 18% who discussed travel (the most popular topic) wanted to meet again. The poor showing for film was attributed to the differences in film tastes between men and women, also Wiseman observed that whenever he walked past the film table the participants were just arguing!
Also discovered was that 45% of womens descisions were made during the first 30 seconds, whilst only 22% of men made their descision in that time.
Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A. E., Arval, the Name Ineffable, in heaven hight
…everyone will agree that there are no restraints against the formation of organic compounds from non-organic reactants. This has been demonstrated since 1952 when Stanley Miller and Harold Urey did their famous experiment. (…) In fact, organic compounds have been found in the oddest places; Titan, nebula, and meteorites.
Now, the question, of course, is how did these disparate pieces come together and form the living system we see today?
{ Cassandra’s Tears | Continue reading }
The Miller and Urey experiment was an experiment that simulated hypothetical conditions thought at the time to be present on the early Earth, and tested for the occurrence of chemical origins of life.
Specifically, the experiment tested Oparin’s and Haldane’s hypothesis that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors. Considered to be the classic experiment on the origin of life, it was conducted in 1952 and published in 1953.
Norman Bates: It’s not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes.
Supposing truth is a woman - what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper methods for winning a woman’s heart?
{ Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1885-86 | Continue reading }
related { circa 1730: Female orgasm officially demoted. }
‘It is a scientific fact that if you stay in California, you lose one point off your IQ every year.’ –Truman Capote
from Australia { Shaun Gladwell, Interceptor Surf Sequence, 2009 }
‘A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.’ –William James
Two leading neuroscientists, Christof Koch and Susan Greenfield, disagree about the activity that takes place in the brain during subjective experience.
How brain processes translate to consciousness is one of the greatest un-solved questions in science. Although the scientific method can delineate events immediately after the big bang and uncover the biochemical nuts and bolts of the brain, it has utterly failed to satisfactorily explain how subjective experience is created.
As neuroscientists, both of us have made it our life’s goal to try to solve this puzzle. We share many common views, including the important acknowledgment that there is not a single problem of consciousness. Rather, numerous phenomena must be explained—in particular, self-consciousness (the ability to examine one’s own desires and thoughts), the content of consciousness (what you are actually conscious of at any moment), and how brain processes relate to consciousness and to nonconsciousness.
{ Scientific American | Continue reading | PDF | More: Our intuitions about consciousness in other beings and objects reveal a lot about how we think }
mixed media { Douglas Gordon, Straight to Hell, 2011 }
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles
While the United Nations and NATO come to their own policy positions, here is what I would do were I the Commander-in-Chief. In the middle of the night (tonight!) I’d send stealth aircraft and drop electromagnetic pulse weapons on all 13 Libyan Air Force bases as well as on selected Libyan Army bases and current battlefield targets. It’s hard to imagine needing more than 24 devices. These devices would destroy all command-and-control capability on both sides, fuse all military electronics, take out the mobile and wired phone networks, and probably shut down large parts of the Libyan electrical grid, ideally with little loss of life.
There are two ways to inflict such electromagnetic damage: 1) detonate a nuclear device in the atmosphere high over Libya, or; 2) use quite simple explosive devices pioneered in Russia and Los Alamos in the 1950s, each capable of doing the damage of dozens of simultaneous lightning strikes.
I’d choose door number 2.
By dawn, with the exception of the odd surviving tank, the Libyan war would be down to boots and AK-47s with the victor being he who commands more of both.
One more thing, though. If I were the President and ordered such a strike, I’d also order that it remain a state secret, which is the only reason that stealth aircraft would be needed — to avoid a radar record of the attack.
more { Qaddafi Forces Renew Assault Against Rebels on 2 Fronts | And it will continue until the government falls or all the protest leaders are dead. Not until the protests end—until the leaders are dead. | America’s secret plan to arm Libya’s rebels }
Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough.
At the height of his fame and success, whilst his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), was still on stage in London, Oscar Wilde sued his lover’s father for libel. After a series of trials, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and imprisoned for two years, held to hard labour.
In prison he wrote De Profundis, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure.
Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.
{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }
Wilde was released from prison 19 May 1897, and wandered between a small band of friends in England, France and Italy for the next few years. Since the death of his wife in 1898 he had been denied access to his two sons and given £150 a year from her estate to live on.
In August 1899, he moved from the Hotel Marsollier to the Hotel d’Alsace on the Rue des Beaux-Arts (today this is just called L’Hotel), the owner, Jean Dupoirier, having paid off Wilde’s debts at the former hotel.
He spent the days wandering the streets of Paris, drinking with old friends and supporters who would bump into to him and, shocked by his appearance, feed him, or being blanked by former friends.
His former lover Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) inherited £20,000 on the death of his father, the Marquess of Queensbury, the cause of Wilde’s downfall.
During a meal at the Café de la Paix, Wilde asked Bosie if he could have an income from his money. Bosie said, “I can’t afford to spend anything except on myself,” and accused Wilde of “wheedling like an old whore.”
Wilde replied, “If you do not recognise my claim, there is nothing more to be said.”
photo { Oscar Wilde (at left) and Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas in Oxford, 1893 | The Private Life of Oscar Wilde | W | full story }
Who stole the soul?
A 44-year-old woman with a rare form of brain damage can literally feel no fear, according to a case study published yesterday in the journal Current Biology. Referred to as SM, she suffers from a genetic condition called Urbach-Wiethe Disease. The condition is extremely rare, with fewer than 300 reported cases since it was first described in 1929, and is caused by a mutation in a gene on chromosome 1, which encodes an extracellular matrix protein.
A highly commendable exercise, or, number two of our acta legitima plebeia
A psych study asked people to think of someone they felt guilty toward, or made them imagine feeling guilty toward someone (e.g., slacking off on a joint project, or being careless with something borrowed). Researchers then had these guilty folks divide up money between themselves, the victim, and a third party (e.g., a deserving charity or random person). Compared to controlled conditions, such people give more money to the victim, but at the expense of the third party, not themselves.
collage { Mark Wagner }
no hair down there = gross
Does monocular viewing affect judgement of art? According to a 2008 paper by Finney and Heilman it does. The two researchers from the University of Florida inspired by previous studies investigating the effect of monocular viewing on performance on visual-spatial and verbal memory tasks, attempted to see what the results would be in the case of Art.
In particular, they recruited 8 right-eye dominant subjects (6 men and 2 women) with college education and asked them to view monocularly on a colour computer screen 10 painting with the right eye and another 10 with the left. None of the subjects was familiar with the presented paintings. Overall, each subject viewed 5 abstract expressionist and 5 impressionist paintings with each eye. (…)
Monocular viewing had significant effects only in paintings in the abstract expressionist style. Impressionist paintings yielded no differences.
painting { Willem de Kooning, Figure with Red Hair 1967 }
By idea, I mean the mental conception which is formed by the mind as a thinking thing
Humans experience pleasure from a variety of stimuli, including food, money, and psychoactive drugs. Such pleasures are largely made possible by a brain chemical called dopamine, which activates what is known as the mesolimbic system — a network of interconnected brain regions that mediate reward. Most often, rewarding stimuli are biologically necessary for survival (such as food), can directly stimulate activity of the mesolimbic system (such as some psychoactive drugs), or are tangible items (such as money).
However, humans can experience pleasure from more abstract stimuli, such as art or music, which do not fit into any of these categories. Such stimuli have persisted across countless generations and remain important in daily life today. Interestingly, the experience of pleasure from these abstract stimuli is highly specific to cultural and personal preferences.
collage { Eric Foss }
Poison gas? That’s the weapon of a coward, and you know it.
On January 14th, a 39-year-old computer engineer was admitted to Princeton University Hospital in New Jersey with nagging, flu-like symptoms. The man was nauseated, suffering from severe joint pains, wracked by a strange, convulsive trembling in his legs. Doctors at the hospital tried one treatment after another but Xiaoye Wang only became weaker.
Finally, a nurse at the hospital stepped hesitantly forward. She remembered a 1995 case in China in which a student at Beijing University became mysteriously ill. The cause was eventually found to be poisoning by the toxic element thallium. The young woman received a life-saving antidote although she suffered lingering disabilities from the attack.
And – as the nurse recalled from the highly publicized case – the student’s symptoms were eerily similar to Wang’s. (…) The Princeton doctors were dubious about a fairly exotic poison use, but they were running out of ideas. So they agreed to send Wang’s blood and urine samples out of state. And to their shock, the tests proved the nurse right. The lab had discovered a shockingly high level of thallium in Wang’s body. (…)
Thallium is a dangerous and carefully regulated poison, once widely available but mostly found in laboratories these days. “It’s either attempted suicide or homicide,” said Steven Marcus, head of the poison control center. He added that he knew of only one good antidote for thallium poisoning, a medication called Prussian Blue.
Rather ironically, the antidote’s name derives from another famously lethal substance. Prussian Blue refers to cyanide (a component of the medication) which can be used to produce a royal blue pigment. Some cyanide formulas are very deadly, notably hydrogen cyanide or potassium cyanide. But mixed into the tidy antidote formula (brand name Radiogardase) cyanide merely becomes part of a chemical chain that wraps itself around thallium, binding it up, and allowing the body to remove the poison.
By the time, the New Jersey doctors were able to secure the antidote though, it was too late. Wang was deep into a coma; he died on January 26 leaving doctors – and now criminal investigators – to answer the question raised by Steven Marcus. Was it suicide or was it murder?
Ya rockin to the beat without a care
In January, the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords produced a half dozen bona fide heroes, including Patricia Maisch, a 61-year-old woman who snatched ammunition out of alleged gunman Jared Loughner’s hands as he tried to reload. For good reason, people like these earn our respect and adulation; their grace under pressure strikes us as almost superhuman. Yet as we marvel at their deeds, we’re always left wondering about where, exactly, this composure comes from. Do these people emerge from the womb with sanguine looks on their faces, ready to perform life-saving surgery in the next room if necessary? Or is their coolness something they picked up through life experience? (…)
Let’s start with the “nature” side of the equation. For every one of us, the starting point for cool-headedness comes bundled within our DNA: our innate disposition toward anxiety. It’s never been a secret that anxiousness is partially inherited, but no one knew how much influence our genes threw around until psychiatrist Kenneth Kendler came along. In a 2001 study, Kendler and his colleagues examined 1,200 pairs of male twins, some identical and some fraternal, probing into each brother’s individual phobias. Because all of the twins shared the same upbringing, yet only the identical twins shared the same DNA, Kendler could filter out environmental factors altogether and calculate a pure figure for our genetic susceptibility to anxiety. The answer? Genes account for around 30 percent of our anxiousness.
For all the things we thought we’d love forever
We are now looking at a situation where electronic communication is with us at all times and the boundaries between internet and real life communication are becoming increasingly blurred. (…)
Facebook users have a mixture of what would be termed as weak ties (friends a user has a marginal link to), and close ties (friends with whom they maintain a close relationship) in one place. Developing weak ties is one of the primary sources for people using Facebook. Romantic relationships may only represent a small part of a person’s Facebook usage it is nevertheless the most public place a couple will represent themselves. Muize found there was a correlation between the time a user spends on Facebook and relationship jealousy, while Boyd and Lewis showed Facebook to be an environment that can impact upon an intimate relationship.
Much of the literature, however, has focused on the value of maintaining weak ties and enhancing social capital. This paper will take a different stance and compare how certain rituals on Facebook can impact a person’s intimate relationships on the offline environment.
{ Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, | PDF }
image { Nam June Paik, Homage to Stanley Brown, 1984 | Stedelijk Museum }
