May 31, 2007
Blog: Overheard Starbuck
http://overheardstarbuck.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
May 30, 2007
Analysis of Casino Design
>from 10 things 2007 a class with Michael Shanks about design
It has even been reported that casinos have attempted to manipulate the air circulation in order to affect the behavior of gamblers. They may add extra oxygen to the circulation to keep gamblers more alert, or even add pheromones that make people feel more relaxed and at ease. Casinos vehemently deny these allegations; however, companies marketing these technologies do exist and do make sales to casinos. Enhanced Air Technologies, a Vancouver-based company that markets a pheromone air-circulation system, states that the technology was initially developed upon request from a Las Vegas casino. According to Nigel Malkin, EAT’s director of development, “The compound doesn't cause consumers to get into a spending frenzy so much as it causes them feel more at ease in an environment and more receptive to sales messages.”
The interior of the Venetian hotel on the Las Vegas Strip is a stunning example of how far casino designers may go to create an artificial environment for patrons.
http://shl.stanford.edu:3455/TenThings/1278
>related fom 2004 LoveScent Forums' discussion on phermones
http://www.pherolibrary.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-10957.html
>also from 2004: "Enhanced Air Technologies decided to remove our Commecaire pheromone products from the market voluntarily in January of this year (2004), only two weeks after our official product launch.While the Commercaire product is a harmless blend of naturally occurring pheromones, we had not foreseen how controversial the product would be. Nor had we foreseen some of the potential negative ramifications or potential misuses of our product line by various industries. Finally, a few concerned consumers and consumer groups contacted us to raise concerns that we shared about potential misuse of our products.
more: http://www.pherolibrary.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10957
~As mentioned on network tv.
Commercaire simply changed its marketing strategy, or did they really stop producing phermones for casinos and other businesses?
(He had the air about him of a Vegas tourist: bankrupt but upbeat, ya'know?)
May 29, 2007
UK: Police spy in the sky fuels 'Big Brother' fears
A Merseyside police constable tests the surveillance drone in Liverpool. Other forces could follow suit.
The micro-drone is only 3ft wide, weighs less than a bag of sugar and can record images from a height of 1,600ft.
It was originally used for military reconnaissance...
This country has more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together...
The drones have the advantage over piloted police helicopters because they can circle a target for many hours without refuelling.
It can be flown by remote control or using GPS navigation systems.
press release | Telegraph
Robot gunships join US Army
Fire Scout MQ-8B UAV makes its first flight in St Inigoes, Maryland.
The Fire Scout is a heavily modified small commercial 3/4-seat chopper, the Schweizer 333. The cockpit for outmoded flesh pilots has been removed and replaced by robo control and sensor systems, and an extra rotor blade added in order to achieve more lift. As it now stands, the Fire Scout can stay up for eight hours with just sensors and a targeting laser, or five hours with a load of weaponry in addition.
...including 70mm Hydra rocket pods or Hellfire laser-guided missiles. It truly is a flying robot, not a remote-controlled aircraft; Fire Scouts have made autonomous trial landings aboard US warships underway at sea, without any pilot guidance.
...reports suggest that the US Navy may deploy up to 200 of the drone whirlybirds beginning as early as 2008.
press release | The Register
~I wonder if Americans can adopt robots? Adoption laws vary from state to state? I can picture myself adopting a robot gunship (or a fembot) but not a Cambodian or an African refugee. Go figure.
Book: Getting Off: Pornography And The End Of Masculinity
>blurb
Pornography is big business, a thriving multi-billion dollar industry so powerful it drives the direction of much media technology. It also makes for complicated politics. Anti-pornography arguments are frequently dismissed as patently "anti-sex"—and ultimately "anti-feminist"—silencing at the gate a critical discussion of pornography's relationship to violence against women and even what it means to be a "real man."
In his most personal and difficult book to date, Robert Jensen launches a powerful critique of mainstream pornography...
buy: http://www.akpress.org/2007/items/gettingoff
thanks Diederik
~You don't have to be a Christian or a woman to not like porn.
>somewhat related:
A Call for an Open Discussion of Mass-Marketed Pornography
By Robert Jensen
"The fear of anything resembling censorship prevents us from confronting what pornography tells us about the cruelty of our culture, and the white supremacy and misogyny that abounds in America."
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/47677/?comments=view&cID=530286&pID=528942
(Posted Feb 10,'07)
~Unionize! Make the buggers pay!
[illus. not from above]
Fun in the Great Outdoors
X2
~Sometimes it's so freakin' simple it breaks your heart.
(Thinking about what you've done--all that happened--to get to this place, this moment.)
State Trooper Fired After Traffic Stop of Porn Star
A Tennessee state trooper has been fired after a porn actress posted a video on her blog of what she claims is her performing oral sex on him in exchange for not charging her with drug possession during a traffic stop.
Trooper James Randy Moss, 40, had stopped porn star Justis Ellen Richert, 21, known by her stage name of Barbie Cummings, for speeding on May 7. She allegedly had a bottle of “happy pills” in her pink Honda Accord when her stopped her.
Moss, a 10-year veteran, made a cell phone video of the actress as she performed the act on him, according to her blog, and he later sent her a copy of the video at her request which she posted on her web site. He did issue her a citation for speeding.
She claims he asked her “what does it cost for someone like me to get anything like you”.
story | Noth Country Gazette
~Does he still have the video? Duuude!
Colo. jury acquits woman who sent feces to lawmaker
GREELEY, Colo. — A jury on May 23 acquitted a woman of a criminal charge filed after she left dog feces in a political mailing at the office of Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave.
Kathleen Ensz, 64, faced a charge of using a noxious substance for the May 31, 2006, incident that ignited charges of political dirty tricks during a heated campaign...
...the district attorney’s office, headed by Ken Buck, a Republican, offered Ensz a plea bargain, but she refused, not wanting to plead guilty to a crime she didn’t believe she had committed. Her defense attorneys argued the act was protected by the First Amendment.
Shannon Lyons, one of her defense attorneys said no one would be on trial if the feces had been deposited at someone else’s doorstep, and that a member of Congress shouldn’t be worried about such matters anyway.
“If you can’t take a little crap, you shouldn’t be in Congress,” he said.
Buck said Musgrave in the past had received death threats and that he would have prosecuted the case even if it had been someone else. He took issue with Ensz’s argument that using dog feces in a political flier amounted to free speech.
story | ist Amendment Center
by way of Daily Weird
~Don't emergency workers, police and prison guards consider feces a bio-toxin? I'm not poo-pooing every Americans right to free expression guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. I'm pointing out how necessary it is that everyone have lawyers ready to explain in what context feces is being used.
May 27, 2007
May 25, 2007
Terrorist Precursor Crimes
So-called "terrorist precursor crimes" may include various types of fraud, counterfeiting, narcotics trade, and illegal weapons procurement.
...it is not immediately clear that "terrorist precursor crime" is a useful analytical construct since only "a very small percentage of individuals engaged in such activity" are likely to have any "nexus to terrorism."
~A whole new class of crimes!
DoD Issues Policy on Conduct at Raven Rock Mountain
...also known as Site R, which is one of the U.S. government's emergency command centers and relocation sites.
Among other things, the policy dictates that "it shall be unlawful to make any photograph, sketch, picture, drawing, map or graphical representation of the ... Raven Rock Mountain Complex without first obtaining the necessary permission."
blog entry | Secrecy News
Not Only in the USA
Hundreds of students take refuge in Toronto high school after boy, 15, shot dead
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/070523/n0523150A.html
After reading the newswire above about Toronto's school shooting I made a search for other school shootings that have taken place outside the USA and I found that almost every incident (except one in the UK, one in Germany and another in Australia) took place in countries where weapon control is somewhat light.
Here's the list (observe that I deleted the dozens of shootings in the USA):
* Avivim school bus massacre - Avivim, Israel; May 8, 1970
* Ma'alot massacre - Ma'alot, Israel; May 15, 1974
* École Polytechnique Massacre - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; December 6, 1989
* Concordia University massacre -Montreal, Quebec, Canada; August 24, 1992
* Dunblane massacre - Dunblane, Scotland, United Kingdom; March 13, 1996
* Sanaa massacre - Sanaa, Yemen; March 30, 1997
* W. R. Myers High School shooting - Taber, Alberta, Canada; April 28, 1999
* Erfurt massacre - Erfurt, Germany; April 26, 2002
* Monash University shooting - Melbourne, Australia; October 21, 2002
* Dawson College shooting - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; September 13, 2006
* C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute shooting - Toronto, Ontario, Canada; May 23, 2007
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_massacres
Regards.
~ Priapo
priapoATgmail.com AT http://pgp.mit.edu
Above photo features the Trenchcoat Mafia, Manson's fan club at Columbine High School in 1999. The assassins, Klebold in black ball cap with white lettering on left and next to him Eric Harris wearing dark glasses mock "shooting" people!
[photo via google not from above links]
Mexico to tap phones and e-mail with U.S. aid
The expansion comes as President Felipe Calderon is pushing to amend the Mexican Constitution to allow officials to tap phones without a judge's approval... Calderon argues that the government needs the authority to combat drug gangs...
...the new $3-million Communications Intercept System being installed by Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency will expand their reach.
The system will allow authorities to track cellphone users as they travel, according to contract specifications. It includes extensive storage capacity and will allow authorities to identify callers by voice. The system, scheduled to begin operation this month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems Inc...
Washington could have access to information derived from the surveillance. Officials of both governments declined to comment on that possibility.
Legal experts say that prosecutors with access to Mexican wiretaps could use the information in U.S. courts. U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held that 4th Amendment protections against illegal wiretaps do not apply outside the United States, particularly if the surveillance is conducted by another country.
Ted Gunderson Investigations: Bohemian Grove
pictures: http://www.tedgunderson.com/Investigations/Bohemian%20Grove%20Pictures.htm
These wooden effigies (used in the "Cremation of Care" ceremony) lay casually up against a tree - one rightside-up and the other upside-down.
A Look at Internet Country Shifting
...a way to circumvent walls that block people in Europe from downloading television from U.S. sites or bar Americans from viewing programs on sites in Europe….
Global terrorism Database
It includes information on more than 27,000 bombings, 13,000 assassinations, and 2,800 kidnappings
http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/
Blog: We the people Will Not Be Chipped
http://www.wethepeoplewillnotbechipped.com/
~Dreamer.
LOCKHEED MARTIN OPENS ADVANCED BIOMETRICS CENTER IN WEST VIRGINIA
When public listed companies that only answer to a higher stock price are appointed as the sentinels of our future...it would be naive to think they will not maximize their profits through deceit.
Which company benefited from 9/11? Lockheed Martin. Which company will benefit when the next terror attack occurs? Lockheed Martin. Which company has been awarded surveillance system contracts to prevent the next 9/11? Lockheed Martin. The question the reader must ask is 'Who exactly is Lockheed Martin working for?"
complete message w/links http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheNeuschwabenlandTimes/message/15220
Webcam Collection
http://www.resourceshelf.com/category/web-20/real-time-information/webcam-collection/
May 23, 2007
Photography: Yann Mingard
http://www.yannmingard.ch/pages/personal.html
>for example from the Twilight series:
by way of http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/
Film Studies: P.O.V.
a danish journal of film studies
>for example Discovering the Shock of Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies
Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies (1967) is a landmark of cinéma vérité. It documents the day to day routines within Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Bridgewater, a mental hospital for the criminally insane. The film is notorious for the controversy that surrounded its release, for the trial in which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts brought Wiseman to court in order to prevent any further exhibition of the film.[1] The verdict imprinted itself on this film like a brand: it declared the documentary obscene and exploitive and banned any further public viewing of the film.
When Wiseman was summoned to appear in court, his film was described by the judge as a "nightmare of ghoulish obscenities."[2] This description leads us to expect the worst...
...one (of) the complaints the guards make at the time of the film's trial. (is) (t)heir claim is that the documentary "holds them up to ridicule, contempt and scorn in all respectable segments of our society" because inmates are presented as "indistinguishable from the guards."
article by Lance Duerfahrd
[film still from google\ noy POV]
The Scent of terror
In a reminder of methods used by the East German Stasi secret police, German authorities are collecting human scents to trace activists they believe may try to violently disrupt the G8 summit in June. It's proving highly controversial, and there's no scientific evidence that the method is infallible.
...the 68-year-old left-wing radical had seen it all before. As an anti-nuclear activist he had been investigated a number of times... But the visitors who came knocking Wednesday before last wanted something quite different this time -- his smell.
The elderly gentleman had to hold little metal tubes in his hand for several minutes. They were then labelled and sealed. The aim was to determine whether the ageing revolutionary is planning to disrupt the G8 summit in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm next month...
Taking someone's DNA is subject to strict conditions but the law permits finger printing and scent recording whenever police deem it necessary as part of a criminal investigation -- which means virtually always...
in East Germany... (t)he Communist authorites started researching scent analysis in the 1970s. A criminology student at Berlin's Humboldt University earned his doctorate in 1985 with a study on crimefighting "through traces of human scent."
...The Ministry for State Security had collected hundreds of thousands of scent samples of critics of the regime. The GDR police preferred cotton cloths, which were used to collect the suspects' smells. The samples were then stored in air-tight containers.
The Stasi stole items of clothing from the regime's opponents at their place of work or where they played sport, or they would take the odor sample from chairs they had sat on in the pub or during an interrogation.
But the Socialist dog lovers refrained from using the scent samples as evidence in court. "It couldn't be scientifically proven which components of human smell allow the dogs to differentiate between them."explains Günter Petraneck, a chemist who helped the East German police track smells for years.
...investigators in West Germany felt themselves to be cleverer than their East German counterparts. Olfactory evidence provided by investigators was repeatedly accepted by courts in the Federal Republic.
Gary Beauchamp, the director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, who is working on the Darpa project. ...is convinced that it should be possible to "recognize how old someone is, what their gender is, and what illnesses they have."
"We need a big leap in technology to create sensors that can do the same thing. But there is a lot of work being done on this now. The time has come for this technology."
Smells that can be digitally traced, can also be digitally saved. Even the conventional register of all Germans could be digitalized and, if needs be, matched to every perspiration in the country.
complete article http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,484561,00.html by Thomas Darnstädt, Markus Deggerich, Günther Latsch, Cordula Meyer, Andreas Ulrich
thanks Conscientious
[photo not from above]
May 22, 2007
The Cost of the Iraq War
A British diplomat estimated that Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the 9/11 attacks, while the United States lost more than $500 billion—a point that Osama Bin Laden underscored in a highly publicized 2004 videotape. Bin Laden boasted that “the Muhahadeen bled Russia for ten years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat… So we are continuing this policy of bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
article By Robert Hormats
from Conscientious
[photo not from above]
~Yes I know Camp Delta was created before the invasion of Iraq, (during the invasion of Afghanistan? 9/12/01?) and imprisons men (and women?) from many countries with few "enemy combatants" from Iraq.
This photo is here to underscore the unique role the US Military plays in the how America defends itself against terrorism. Instead of relying on Interpol-like agencies to work in close conjunction with other nations, we've chosen to promote as our supposedly primary means of security--armies, bombers, missile shields and the kidnapping and "detention" of individuals who we've declared are beyond the laws of all nations.
Instead of arrests and highly publicized criminal proceedings against alleged terrorists, we've chosen military tribunals as more or less afterthoughts to budget-busting military invasions and attempted occupations of sovereign nations which our leaders have identified as terrorist threats and sources of evil.
Most every nation on earth is required to respond to threats of terrorism: America is unique in that it has permitted its military along with various secret agencies to operate a number of 'camps' to hold and 'question' who knows how many people these same organizations have identified as enemy nonentities.
May 20, 2007
Recycling Poetry Professor Becomes Terror Suspect
Because of my recycling, the bomb squad came, then the state police. Because of my recycling, buildings were evacuated, classes were canceled, the campus was closed. No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark body. No. Not even that. Because of his fear. Because of the way he saw me. Because of the culture of fear, mistrust, hatred and suspicion...
One of my colleagues was in the gathering crowd, trying to figure out what had happened. She heard my description -- a Middle Eastern man driving a white Beetle with out of state plates -- and knew immediately they were talking about me and realized that the box must have been manuscripts I was discarding. She approached them and told them I was a professor on the faculty there. Immediately the campus police officer said, "What country is he from?"
"What country is he from?!" she yelled, indignant.
"Ma'am, you are associated with the suspect. You need to step away and lower your voice," he told her.
story: http://www.alternet.org/rights/50939/
UK: Brown prepares to go nuclear on energy
As North Sea oil runs out, and with concern growing about the increasing dependence on imported gas from countries such as Russia, Mr Brown will make clear he fully supports plans to replace ageing nuclear plants.
He is expected to counter criticism from the green lobby by arguing that nuclear power is vital to ensure Britain meets its obligations to cut carbon emissions.
press release | Telegraph
~In the States the next President will be required to present to Congress the American "blueprint" (if it hasn't already been done) with more references to "energy security" rather than carbon emissions.
Note: UK's anti-nuke 'lobbiests' are far more organized than America's. Stay tuned.
The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery
Paintings 864; Drawings 1,037; Watercolours 150; Graphic Works 10; Letter Sketches 133; Total Works 2,194; Letters 874
http://www.vggallery.com/index.html
~I didn't know Van Gogh was so prolific.
Viewing copies of his lesser known (to me anyway) works helps me see Van Gogh as less of a icon and more as a man with something to share (without any pricetags). Thanks Vince.
Public Garden With Couple & Blue Fir Tree: The Poet's Garden III @
lifestyles: Liz Taylor can keep a Van Gogh looted by the Nazis
'Vue de l'Asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy'
[photo's url http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0803.htm\ not with story]
"This affirms my great belief in the American judicial process; I am very grateful," Taylor said in a statement. "It's wonderful to have Monsieur Vincent Van Gogh in my living room."
"Any claim to the painting, (Judge Sidney Thomas) said, "expired in or before 1993, three years after the last public announcement of Taylor's ownership."
story by way of History Network News
~Chances are when she dies the painting will go to an AIDS charity?
Claims for Nazi booty have an expiration date?
Japan to Make Teaching Patriotism Compulsory
link to press release
~I don't think American schools could teach 'love of country'. The Iraq War is no longer popular. And the radical Christians on school boards scare away mainstream textbook writers and publishers. However love or admiration of US military technology and "strength" crosses all political lines, requires no intellectual or ideological compromises.
Article: Forced Labor in the 19th Century South
The Story of Parchman Farm
"Parchman, I believe, is the closest thing to slavery to survive the Civil War. Its story covers the bleak panorama of race and punishment, brutality and paternalism, in the darkest corner of the American South.
... my main body of research came from the Penitentiary Books that described the prisoners as they arrived to be processed, the plantation ledgers of the men who leased them, the reports of the state inspectors and doctors who occasionally visited their quarters and, above all, the pardon files of every convict who applied for early release from state custody for a period of almost a hundred years.
The pardon files were the mother lode. In Mississippi, a convict wanting early release had to put a petition in his local newspaper, alerting the community of his intentions. Since most convicts were illiterate, their families would hire a white attorney to compose the petition and get it published. Thus alerted, the community would respond by writing letters of support or opposition to the governor, who would make the final decision. The letters poured in from plantation owners, merchants, ministers, police chiefs, district attorneys, friends, family members, and, of course, the victim (or victims) of the crime. Each pardon file amounted to a social history of the convict, telling of his background, his work habits, his ties to the locality, his standing among the whites in town with influence and the blacks who knew him best.
The Mississippi plantation leasing records from this era tell a story of relentless brutality and neglect. The convicts ate and slept on bare ground. They were punished for “slow hoeing” (ten lashes), “sorry planting” (five lashes), and “being light with cotton (five lashes). Many dropped from exhaustion, malaria, pneumonia, sunstroke, dysentery, gunshot wounds, and “shackle poisoning” (the constant rubbing of chains and leg irons against bare flesh). A doctor sent by the state on a rare visit to a Delta plantation wrote that the word “unsanitary” did not begin “to express the filthy conditions of the convict cage”: bloodstained dirt floors, overflowing waste buckets, and vermin-covered walls. In the 1880s, the annual mortality rate for Mississippi’s leased convicts ranged from 9 to 16 percent. Not a single one lived long enough to serve out a sentence of ten or more years."
by David M. Oshinsky
http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/cbss/Oshinsky.pdf
~I haven't written a letter in years. Perhaps emails will be a primary source future historians rely on?
Is it disingenuous to believe that in these days of instant world-wide communications human bodies are free from this sort of systematic abuse?
The problems of our bodies. (The problem is their bodies./The solution is their bodies.)
TV: This Week At War
"This Week at War," anchored by John Roberts, provides an in-depth weekly report on war, terrorism, homeland security and nuclear threats. This news program assembles top CNN correspondents and analysts to shed light on how the government, military and your personal security are affected by conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Mideast, and foreign and homegrown terrorism,"
~"Doesn't "This Week at War" sound so 1984 Homelanders?
>somewhat related Google News Search for "this week at"
Vidstone
"THE VIDSTONE Serenity Panel is a revolutionary product that preserves the treasured memories of loved ones. Utilizing ground-breaking solar-powered technology, this weather-proof LCD panel provides families and friends with a timeless way to commemorate a life that’s passed at one’s final resting place. The VIDSTONE Serenity Panel is a screen fixed to a headstone that plays a 5 to 10 minute multimedia personal tribute, recapturing the most precious moments of a loved one’s life. A visit to a cemetery will never be the same. Now, as never before, paying tribute to one who has passed on is an interactive experience embedded with meaning and memories that will last forever."
~As seen on tv.
"Serenity Panel" photo via google]
May 18, 2007
Biometric sensor makes the Web safer for children
The U.S. government estimates that at any given moment there 50,000 pedophiles prowling Internet chat rooms looking for children to befriend and meet. And if that's not worrying enough, more than 20,000 new images of child pornography are posted on the Internet every week. (~!!!)
I-Mature... has developed the Age-Group Recognition (AGR) security system that can accurately recognize the age of children and adults on the Internet, allowing parents to control their child's access to restricted Web sites, and at the same time prevent pedophiles from accessing children's and teen's chat rooms.
The device, the size of a mouse, can be connected to any computer, laptop, cell phone, PDA or public computer through a USB. It uses a tiny low-frequency ultrasound technology to scan one of the user's fingers and determine his age group.
The AGR then assigns the user to a specific age group and relays this encrypted information through a suite of software to a remote Web site.
The simple and harmless bone-scanning test takes just two seconds and can be carried out repeatedly. Once the user's age is defined, he will only be able to communicate with children of a similar age using i-Mature's device on their computers. Certain nonauthenticated users, such as an adult relative or a teacher, or peers without the i-Mature device, can be added to the list.
"While other technologies on the market might protect children from bad content, this is the only technology that can prevent a 30-year-old pedophile from communicating with a 13-year-old boy on a community Web site." [said Matan Arazi, co-founder and CTO of the company]
press release | Jewish Journal
~If not enough of these are sold the I-Mature will make the web impossible for children.
Curbs on satellite photos may be needed
...the increasing availability of commercial satellite photos may require the government to restrict distribution.
Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, said..."I could certainly foresee circumstances in which we would not want imagery to be openly disseminated of a sensitive site of any type, whether it is here or overseas," he said.
Murrett oversees a growing intelligence discipline known as geospatial intelligence — the study of imagery, such as satellite pictures or video taken from aircraft, to discern features or activities happening anywhere on the planet.
Two U.S. companies — Digital Globe and Geoeye — (w)ith the help of about $1 billion from Murrett's agency... plan to launch new satellites with higher resolutions later this year.
While the public will begin to see crisper images online and elsewhere, government regulations will require the companies to degrade the quality of the imagery to a half-meter resolution. That means items that size are the smallest thing the satellites can detect from their positions...
...the companies' images are the backbone for Web sites such as Google Earth. Disaster relief agencies, media organizations and other private entities...
During the 2001 invasion to overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban regime, the geospatial intelligence agency bought up all the imagery over that country for several months, creating a blackout for private groups at the height of the fighting. The agency was criticized for embarking on "checkbook shutter control" and hampering relief work and public understanding of the fight.
Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists, said the growth of commercial satellite companies domestically and internationally may make it impossible for officials like Murrett to restrict the dissemination of imagery.
story via Secrecy News
Army Threatens Critic Over Blog Policy
"You have Army Publications hosted on your (Secrecy News) website illegally," stated the e-mail, which appeared to be from an Army publications employee Cheryl Clark. "There are only 5 Official Army Publications Sites, and you are not one of them."
The e-mail stated that Aftergood could link to Army publications but could not host the documents on his own computer. What's more, she noted that the document, while unclassified, was stamped "For Official Use Only," meaning it was "not intended for public release."
"Please remove this publication immediately or further action will be taken," the e-mail concluded.
Unclassified government documents generally are not restricted in their use under law and are considered publicly owned. While it may be a violation of Army rules to disclose the internal document, Aftergood -- a civilian -- is not bound by those rules.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/05/army_threatens_.html
>related Secrecy News
Book Excerpt: The Truth About Lying & Laughing
...when it comes to lie detection, the public might as well simply toss a coin. It doesn't matter if you are male or female, young or old; very few people are able reliably to detect deception. The results suggest that we can't even tell when our partners are being economical with the truth.
We're in good company. Psychologist Paul Ekman from the University of California, San Francisco, showed video tapes of liars and truth-tellers to various groups of experts, including polygraph operators, robbery investigators, judges and psychiatrists, and asked them to try to identify the lies. All tried their best. None of the groups performed better than chance.
So why are people so bad at detecting deceit?
more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2060839,00.html
[an edited extract from Quirkology, by Richard Wiseman, to be published next month by Macmillan]
thanks http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/
~With jokes.
[photo not from above]
May 17, 2007
FDA Center for Devices & Radiological Health
Search Radiation-Emitting Product Codes
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfPCD_rh/classification.cfm
~No photos but you can see lists of the many FDA approved radiation-emitting devices by using the pull-down menues under 'radiation type' and 'product description'. Who knew there were so many different kinds of cancer producing machines?
[photo not with above]
Fun with Photoshop Filters
3X
~There's less pretense involving design, meaning or intention in this image then the previous Fun With Photoshop illustrations I've pasted here.
I like the colors. I like the impossible light.
My first name for these things that on second glance look more like nothing then something was 'Corporate Art'.
Enjoy!
Darwin's Letters
Darwin exchanged letters with nearly 2000 people during his lifetime. These range from well known naturalists, thinkers, and public figures, to men and women who would be unknown today were it not for the letters they exchanged with Darwin.
Darwin's correspondence provides us with an invaluable source of information, not only about his own intellectual development and social network, but about Victorian science and society in general...
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/
>for example search results for opium
~If I didn't watch tv, go to the movies, listen to the radio and surf online I'ld have more time to write.
(Would I have anything to write about? Would I have (more) people to write to?)
[photo. not from above]
May 15, 2007
Fashion: Martin Perrault
Fetish
more http://www.martinperreault.com/index2.html
~"Do not use if seal has been broken."
There's nothing like brain cells starved for oxygen to put a new perspective on things.
(Make up your own captions then.)
I guess the writhing under the latex makes-up for the lack of touch experienced by the partner.
Am I being gauche in thinking there's to be a partner who wants to do more than watch?
Besides the "Alien", I'm getting a barnyard or afterbirth vibe from this photo.
(No one ever took the time to treat me like packaged meat.)
Blog: Burning Silo
a place where nature, photography and writing meet*
*
Aradidae (May 15, 2007)
~Not a dinosaur.
Blog: Brain Windows
New tools for peering into the brain
http://brainwindows.wordpress.com/
~Yowza.
US Gov't Hopes to Sniff Out Terrorists
...the Technical Support Working Group, a “U.S. national forum that identifies, prioritizes, and coordinates interagency and international research and development (R&D) requirements for combating terrorism [and] rapidly develops technologies and equipment to meet the high priority needs of the combating terrorism community,” invited research proposals from prospective contractors for various technologies. Among the devices that the TSWG hopes to develop are a handheld biological detector, a portable suicide bomber detection system, a fast capture simultaneous flat fingerprint scanner, and “a rugged, reliable and compact system for canine handlers to collect human scent for future use to track a specified target.
blog entry: http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/05/12/us-government-hopes-to-sniff-out-terrorists/
The immense risks and appalling costs to humanity of excessive military,
Intelligence, and Security Expenditures-- and How to Reduce Both
article http://www.jmooneyham.com/bmil.html
by J.R. Mooneyham
~Mr. Mooneyham's a dreamer...(but he's not the only one.)
[photo not with above]
May 14, 2007
Welcome to America ... from Mickey the immigration officer
Immigration officers will be taught the secrets of Disney theme parks by learning how to welcome visitors, manage large queues and respond to 'negative reaction' from the public without letting their smiles slip.
The move is being run by the Discover America Partnership, set up by the US Government to tackle what it calls the nation's 'image crisis' abroad.
from Unknown News
[illus. not with above\ link to large png version Xahlee.org]
No More Room on Congress' "Wall of the Fallen"
Congress already has run out of space on a memorial created last year to honor all of the U.S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
... the "Wall of the Fallen," set up by House Republican leaders in June, is almost full. The mounting death toll from Iraq has forced U.S. House staffers to study how to reconfigure the display in the lobby of the Rayburn Building - the largest office building for members of Congress - to squeeze in more names.
blog entry http://reason.com/blog/show/120047.html
by way of Unknown News
[photo via google: wall of the fallen congress\ not from above]
Post-9/11 security overtime by police is deemed questionable
The feds are still seeking more than $2 million from Jersey City in connection with hundreds of hours in questionable overtime and the use of emergency personnel in the three months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks...
Police officers, for example, billed FEMA to attend funerals, charity events and city parades, according to a FEMA memo and several interviews with city officials...
Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio declined to file charges against anyone - while he did say it appears that "people took advantage of the situation," there was no evidence of any criminal intent.
story | Jersey Journal
~Can't possibly be true.
[photo google: police heroes\ not from above]
Woman Found Hanging in Video Monitored Cell
A 20-year-old Plainfield (NJ) woman who was arrested for attempting to steal a car hung herself yesterday in an Edison police headquarters holding cell in an apparent suicide, police said.
Edison police monitor the cell with a video camera, but the woman apparently hung herself while standing in the cell with her back to the camera, (Chief George) Mieczkowski said.
When officers went to fingerprint the woman as part of the normal process, they discovered her body...
complete story | StarLedger
May 13, 2007
Art: Paris Hilton Autopsy
"There's something about disemboweling a homunculus of Hilton that screams "fine art,"* - - Wired Magazine
http://www.metafilter.com/60686/Paris-Hilton-Autopsy
*official site http://www.parishiltonautopsy.com/
by way of Daily Weird
US College Newspapers
links
http://www.literarycircle.com/college-news-MN.html
[photo not from above]
Do I Look Fat in This Picture?
Framington - Two female college students who bared their bellies at a lacrosse game could not stomach a front-page newspaper photo of their stunt and are now in trouble for stealing copies, campus officials said.
They apparently felt the photo made them look fat, the paper's faculty adviser said.
The photo in the April 27 edition of The Gatepost at Framingham State College shows seven fans at a women's lacrosse game with "I (heart) N-O-O-N-A-N," the name of a friend on the team, spelled out on their stomachs.
from Daily Weird
~I couldn't find the photo
Costumes.org
@>"Paws" Faux Fur photo by way of
Transgender, Kink, & Fetish Clothing and Body Modification Links
http://www.costumes.org/store/100pages/KINKY.HTM#Fursuits
>much more http://costumes.org/
~A mega site.
Earth to G.O.P.: The Gipper Is Dead
OF course you didn’t watch the first Republican presidential debate on MSNBC.
The row of 10 middle-aged white candidates, David Letterman said, looked like “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club.”
Since then, panicked Republicans have been either blaming the “Let’s Make a Deal” debate format or praying for salvation-by-celebrity in the form of another middle-aged white guy who might enter the race, Fred Thompson. They don’t seem to get that there is not another major brand in the country — not Wal-Mart, not G.E., not even Denny’s nowadays — that would try to sell a mass product with such a demographically homogeneous sales force.
article by Frank Rich via Welcome to Pottersville
thanks Conscientious
Food: Organic vs. Pesticide Free
In 1997 Consumer Reports did a study on 100 pounds of produce, some with organic labels and some not, and selected randomly from supermarkets across the country. Twenty-five percent of the organic samples had traces of pesticides compared with 77 percent of the unlabeled samples. While the tests showed that "organic" didn't necessarily mean "pesticide-free,"organic foods consistently had lower amounts of toxic pesticide residues."*
from FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PESTICIDES IN FOOD
~I've been noticing the word 'organic' on various products from our nearby supermarket. I wanted to see how my body might benefit from eating foods labeled organic.
>for more confusion this: "The term "organic foods" refers to the methods used to produce the foods rather than to characteristics of the food themselves."
from: "Organic" Foods: Certification Does Not Protect Consumers
~It looks like the feeling of "buying green" is the only sure benefit from products labeled organic. (*Is it possible that the FDA's standards for which chemicals certified organic food producers might use have gotten tougher since 1997?)
[photo not with above]
May 12, 2007
Yahoo Pipes
Pipes is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.
~This looks useful but I'm lazy.
[photo not with above]
May 10, 2007
Thesis: Wikipedia By the Text
“The Transformation of the Encyclopedia: A Textual Analysis and Comparison of The Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia” This is a long title that really means, I did a textual analysis Encyclopædia Britannica (EB) and Wikipedia (WP). This essentially compares the expert-driven system of EB with the collectively-written WP.
Methods
For my thesis, I took four articles and compared them; two from EB and two from Wikipedia. With the help of my committee, I choose “Communism” and “Dwight D. Eisenhower”. Since I wanted to compare similar things, I used the online version of the EB articles. After downloading the articles, I removed any auxiliary text that was not part of the article and compared the EB article to the WP article. I wanted to see what differences there were between EB and WP at the basic building block levels...
more info/ link to thesis http://www.storygeek.com/?p=88 | StoryGeek
thanks Diederik
~Can't possibly be true?
Arms Control and Nonproliferation Technologies
The purpose of Arms Control and Nonproliferation Technologies -- formerly published by the Department of Energy -- was to enhance communication between the technologists in the DOE community who develop means to verify compliance with agreements and the policy makers who negotiate agreements.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/acnt/index.html
US first: Bottled water outsold milk in 2006
For the first time in US history, bottled water outsold milk according to Beverage Digest...
Average per capita consumption of bottled water went from 11 gallons per year in 1996 to 21 gallons in 2006;
Soft drink consumption dropped by about 1.1 gallons on average per capita...but still outsold bottled water.
item | WaterTech
Mickey Mouse the Jihadist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4
I don't know what scares me most:
- The awful and cheap Mickey Mouse.
- The creepy schoolgirl asking/teaching about martyrdom.
- The "Man in Black" that appears in the middle of the show.
But then the plans for World domination of the mouse remind me of Brain (from "Pinky and the Brain" TV show) and I begin to laugh.
Ps: I bet some Israel TV channels also have or have had hate spreader shows like this one.
Regards. ~ Priapo priapoATgmail.com AT http://pgp.mit.edu
This reminds me (Stubbornson) that evil mascots are rare. Maybe this is the beginning of a trend.
Premature Births May be Linked to Seasonal Levels of Pesticides and Nitrates in Surface Water
More than 27 million U.S. live births were studied from 1996-2002. Preterm births varied from a high of 12.03% in June to a low of 10.44% in September. The highest rate of prematurity occurred in May-June (11.91%) and the lowest for Aug-Sept (10.79%) regardless of maternal age, race, education, marital status, alcohol or cigarette use, or whether the mother was an urban, suburban or rural resident. Pesticide and nitrate levels in surface water were also highest in May-June and lowest in August –September, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
"I believe this work may lay the foundation for some of the most important basic and clinical research and public health initiatives of our time. To recognize that what we put into our environment has potential pandemic effects on pregnancy outcome and possibly on child development is a momentous observation, which hopefully will help transform the way humanity cares for its world," said James Lemons, M.D., Hugh McK. Landon Professor of Pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine.
~Can't possibly be true?
May 09, 2007
Art: Teresa Margolles
Teresa MARGOLLES
Carousel Lavatio Corporis 1994
Sculpture bois, métal et chevaux embaumés
2 x 2 x 25 cm
78 3/4 x 78 3/4 x 98 7/16 in
more photos of the carousel http://www.bartschi.ch/ggb.php?opt=work&id=389&op=showone&size=large&imgind=0
ArtFacts' page on Teresa Margolles
What is so interesting in interactive environments?
We cannot expect a critical engagement with technology and its implications from the industries that create it. Shareholders are not interested in that.
I think it is the responsibility of the arts to create (thought) provoking projects that make us aware of the influence of technology. That includes genetics, nanotechnology among others.
Only this critical engagment can give us new and radically different ideas about technology, about society, relationships of power, notions about science and genetics.
home http://www.hohlwelt.com/en/index.html
May 08, 2007
Publisher Imprints Women's Voices on Book World
The publisher's use of a personal marketing list is one of several strategies to nestle Voice (a new imprint - or brand name - at Hyperion) inside a hand-picked women's community, including an outreach to a network of book clubs and a Web site that reinforces readers' connection to one another. An estimated 95 percent of most book club membership is female, says Carol Fitzgerald, president of the New York-based Book Report Network.
(Ellen Archer, publisher and editor Pamela Dorman) ...plan to develop EveryWomansVoice.com, the imprint's homepage, into a magazine-style Web site to present their books amid a variety of topics of interest to middle-aged women...
(Archer and and Dorman) .. assembled the list of 600 women through their advisory council of 10 professional women from the media, academic and business worlds.
"We wanted women in their 60s, married, divorced, mothers, not mothers," Dorman said, referring to the group that she and Archer are relying on for trend analysis.
The women handed over their Rolodexes, Archer said. Most publishers send freebies to members of the media list...
...the imprint will take the financially risky step of ignoring the powerful category of romance books, which make up 26 percent of consumer book market revenue, the biggest money maker out of all genres, including self-help, classic literary fiction and mystery, according to a 2005 Market Research Study by Corona Research..
Michael Coffey, executive managing editor of Publishers Weekly, wonders if Voice can succeed with such a tightly focused target audience. "Everyone is interested in that demographic," he said
[photo not with above]
May 07, 2007
How a Photo Can Ruin Your Life
Your family photos could get you arrested. Just ask one New Jersey grandmother
http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/4130/how-a-photo-can-ruin-your-life.html
via Conscientious
~I'm afraid to show the photo on this site.
(I remember reading that what made America unique was how individuals from meager circumstances could transform themselves, become successful and/or wealthy through hard work, determination and luck. What happened to us? Nowadays we have more stories about people like this grandmother. Cautionary tales, not celebrations of lives hard won.)
[film still not with above]
Thai king to sue YouTube
Thailand plans to sue YouTube, owned by Google, over charges of lese majeste - insulting the monarchy, a serious crime here that carries up to 15 years in prison, the spokesman said.
The government, which came to power after a September coup, has continued to block YouTube since the first clip showing the king (Bhumibol Adulyadej) next to a photograph of feet, considered deeply offensive...
YouTube Search: King Bhumibol Adulyadej
~As far as I can tell no "lese majeste" still images of the king via Google Image Search. Go figure.
Mexico City plaza...Strip
New York photographer Spencer Tunick, famous for rounding up people to pose naked in cities around the world, brought his artistic gimmick to Mexico.
...a record 18,000 people took off their clothes to pose in Mexico City's Zocalo square, the heart of the ancient Aztec empire. Tunick, who has staged mass nude photo shoots in cities from Melbourne to Dusseldorf, smashed his record of 7000 volunteers set in 2003 in Barcelona, Spain.
~Why do people living between 30 degress north latitude and 30 degress south latitude wear clothes as much as they do?
Shoes, hats and umbrellas I can understand. It must be a habit.
Pakistan building nuke plant that can yield weapons-grade plutonium
~Historic.
V-Site: Humble shack earns special recognition
The million-dollar restoration of a dilapidated building deep in the woods of Los Alamos National Laboratory was recognized by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division this week for having rescued an important piece of the state's architectural heritage.
V-Site, behind the lab's security perimeter known as "the fence" can't be seen by the typical tourist, but the lore surrounding the origins of the first nuclear bombs, is filled with deep significance.
And V-Site, like the names of the founding fathers on the Declaration of Independence, stands for one of the authentic signatures on the pages of American history.
Fat Man, the first plutonium weapon tested at Trinity Site in southern New Mexico, was not exactly born in a barn, but it was born in a hastily constructed shop that resembled a garage. A secret area within a top-secret project, V-Site was set apart from much of the other frantic work going on during the first two years of the Manhattan Project.
"It was where the implosion device, the lenses, the detonators, the high explosives and tampers - all came together for the test," he said.
The plutonium core went in later on the eve of the big moment, July 16, 1945.
"The test was the beginning. That was the big watershed event, a high-yield explosion that changed the world," said (John Isaacson, who was the cultural resource manager at LANL)
article: http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2007/05/06/headline_news/news02.txt
[V-Site photo not with above/ more LANL V-Site photos http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&q=+site:www.lanl.gov+V-site]
Words Lists from Phrontistery
color terms http://phrontistery.info/colours.html
contour Lines (Isolines) http://phrontistery.info/contour.html
shapes & resemblance http://phrontistery.info/shapes.html
more lists from A Compendium of Lost Words:
http://phrontistery.info/clw.html
(on the left margin)
Artificial 'Snot' improves sensor smell say researchers
Artificial snot costing just a few extra euros greatly improves the performance of electronic odour sensors...
The food sector uses such electronic noses as a means of quality control... researchers at the University of Warwick and Leicester University aims to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of the devices.
A natural nose uses over 100 million specialised receptors or sensors which act together in complex ways to identify and tell apart the molecules they encounter.
Electronic noses use the same method but often have less than 50 sensors.
In the natural nose the thin layer of mucus dissolves scents and separates out different odour molecules in a way they arrive at the noses receptors at different speeds and times.
The final device, including the sensors and the artificial mucus, is contained in a relatively thin piece of plastic just a few centimeters square and costing about 7 euros to produce...
press release | Food Technology.ru
>maybe related Spitting Image post: Standardized House Dust Aids Health Researchers
~Can artificial cum be far behind?
Will your body be safe from hackers?
Engineers consider the next big information security issue
Sandeep Gupta, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Informatics in the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering...and graduate research assistant Krishna Venkatasubramanian question the security of a “body sensor network.” In December 2006, their research paper, “Security for Pervasive Health Monitoring Sensor Applications,” won the Best Paper Award at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Fourth International Conference on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing...In the paper, Gupta and Venkatasubramanian propose a solution to the vulnerability of information exchange between wireless biomedical sensors.
http://www.exduco.net/news.php?id=1421
~A very informative article.
(It got me thinking about the phrase "the usual suspects" for some crazy reason.)
May 06, 2007
Call for Papers: Video Vision
Email videovisionconferenceATyahoo.com with any questions.
A Conference for the changing culture of social science research
Date : September 10th, 2007
Materials/proposals due: July 16th, 2007
Location: Martin Segal Theater, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City
In recent years, the use of video to capture data has soared, spurring debate about the body-camera-environment connection and other concepts such as lived experience, technology, equipment, evaluation, role of the participant, role of the researcher, reflexivity, editing, interdisciplinary approaches, IRB, showing, footage, viewing, consciousness of the camera, participatory action, content analysis, body/camera/environment connection, and modes of analysis. The time has come to collectively identify our experiences, methods, uses, and knowledge of video as a research methodology.
Submit 250-300 word abstracts for panels and presentations by email to videovisionconferenceATyahoo.com, or video clips on DVD to Video Vision Conference, Environmental Psychology, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10016 by Monday, July 16th, 2007.
[photo not with above]
~I once thought that a video camera pointed at a person who was able to watch him or herself on the monitor was magic.
We Don't Do That Here
Sumo baby : University student sumo wrestlers attempt to make babies cry during the "Baby-cry Sumo," an annual contest which is supposed to bring good health, at Tokyo's Sensoji temple in Tokyo..(AFP/Toshifumi Kitamura)
A toddler, right, falling sleep as he is held by college sumo wrestlers, compete against one another at left in the baby screaming contest, known as Naki Sumo (Crying Sumo), a traditional ritual performed as a prayer for the good health of children, at Senso-ji temple in Tokyo, Saturday, April 28, 2007. (AP Photo / Koji Sasahara)
[photos/caption via Yahoo News Photo Search]
>by way of News of the Weird
~I like how "Baby-Cry Sumo" & "Crying Sumo" don't really describe what's going on. (What the hell is going on?) Do you think as with America's Kentucky Derby there's a lot of wagering? I wonder if the kid on the left has been doped?
We have a tradition in my family where the women-folk rush to surround whichever drunk uncle decides he feels like carrying one or more of his nieces or nephews around, but it's not a competition.
>Spitting Image search results "we don't do that here"
Oooh, ah-ooooh, internet killed the video store . .
Watching a video used to be a social ceremony. This is faintly paradoxical - film being by some people's lights an old-media standby where, essentially, the film is on "send" and the viewer on "receive". But it's the case and, until the majority of the population gets round to connecting its broadband-enabled computers to the family television, it will remain the case. Sharing the sofa and a DVD is a far more sociable activity than downloading a film on to your laptop.
story by Sam Leith | Telegraph
thanks Diederik
~This article ignores the internet enabled sociable activity of video sharing with one's online 'families'.
Fun in the Great Outdoors
2X
~I once knew the name of this plant. Its flowers appear before the leaves are fully formed on the trees around it. It prefers shade. I can't remember what it looks like--how large it grows-- later in the year.
May 03, 2007
Next-generation toys read brain waves
...a sensor...touches the user's forehead and reads the brain's electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating. The player maintains focus by channeling thoughts on any fixed mental image, or thinking specifically about keeping the light sword on. When the mind wanders, the wand goes dark.
Technology from NeuroSky and other startups could make video games more mentally stimulating and realistic. It could even enable players to control video game characters or avatars in virtual worlds with nothing but their thoughts.
NeuroSky's prototype measures a person's baseline brain-wave activity, including signals that relate to concentration, relaxation and anxiety....The technology is similar to more sensitive, expensive equipment that athletes use to achieve peak performance.
The basis of many brain wave-reading games is electroencephalography, or EEG, the measurement of the brain's electrical activity through electrodes placed on the scalp.
An EEG headset in a research hospital may have 100 or more electrodes that attach to the scalp with a conductive gel. It could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
But the price and size of EEG hardware is shrinking. NeuroSky's "dry-active" sensors don't require gel, are the size of a thumbnail, and could be put into a headset that retails for as little as $20.
Researchers at NeuroSky and other startups are also building prototypes of toys that use electromyography (EMG), which records twitches and other muscular movements, and electrooculography (EOG), which measures changes in the retina.
"It fulfills the fantasy of telekinesis," said Tan Le, co-founder and president of San Francisco-based Emotiv.
CyberLearning Technology LLC...targets doctors, therapists and parents of adolescents with autism, impulse control problems and other pervasive developmental disorders.
CyberLearning is already selling the SmartBrain Technologies system for the original PlayStation, PS2 and original Xbox, and it will soon work with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The EEG- and EMG-based biofeedback system costs about $600, not including the game console or video games.
CyberLearning has sold more than 1,500 systems since early 2005. The company hopes to reach adolescents already being treated for behavior disorders. But co-founder Lindsay Greco said the budding niche is unpredictable.
press release w/links | Daily Herald
University of Hawaii Art Exhibit Spooks Police
With campus nerves still jittery in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, a University of Hawaii student art exhibit has proved too graphic for comfort, drawing an armed response from police.
At least one suspect was detained...before officers realized the video exhibit, meant to illustrate today's climate of violence, showed a looped tape rather than a real gunman.
This video image from artist Carl Lindstrom's "Securrorism" exhibit in the University of Hawaii art gallery caused alarm...
"Securrorism" is a mock security station with five dusty surveillance TV monitors, a ratty chair and desk that is positioned at the front of the gallery. Four of the screens had live footage of the entrance of the art gallery at the Manoa campus.
One screen, though, features a looped video that fooled police officers and campus security guards.
A 37-year-old Ewa Beach man walked passed the closed gallery at 8:10 p.m. Thursday and spotted that part of the video. He notified campus security guards...
They went straight to work, first securing the gallery and then evacuating the entire building. Students in nearby classrooms locked the doors and even pushed their bodies against them just in case. Others crouched behind desks, warning others to get down as well.
During that time officers also detained a person near the Art Building who looked like the wavy-haired model in the video.
UH campus security officers confiscated the DVD of the looped footage and the DVD player, which was returned Friday. The art exhibit was closed for the weekend but reopened yesterday morning. It will be on display until Friday with a new warning sign:
"Do not be afraid. Do not call police."
story | Star Bulletin
by way of News of the Weird (Daily Weird)
~If the "ultmate surrealist act was to walk into the street with a loaded revolver and fire at random" then is the "ultimate art critique" an armed response from the authorities?
Unfortunately the above has more to do with legislators being bought off by the gun industry and the citizenry's nervous response to that "market-driven" state of siege then any sort of aesthetic paroxysm...or does it?
Don't you wish you could be a surrealist (and freak like me)?
I imagine Breton's spinning in his grave.
May 02, 2007
The End to Military Blogging
Army Clamps Down with New OPSEC Policy
A new U.S. Army regulation on Operations Security (OPSEC) would sharply restrict the ability of soldiers to participate in public life without supervision and authorization from superior officers.
The regulation also encourages Army personnel to view attempts by unauthorized persons to gather restricted information as an act of subversion against the United States.
more: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/05/army_clamps_down_with_new_opse.html
~Special-special forces.
[illus. not with above]
May 01, 2007
Arse Elektronika
Pornography and Technological Innovation Conference
Call for Everything
"Porno sites were the first to use technologies like audio and video streaming. They were also a driving force behind the spread of high-speed internet connections and made necessary the development of better data systems. Additionally, porno sites have promoted the development of new cultural technologies like (in)formal partnering, outsourcing, upselling and site tracking. Today a new technology's success with porno consumers is a dependable indicator of the product's overall market potential. Currently, all factors show that high-tech developments like virtual reality owe a great deal of their success to the need for further sexual stimulation. One could cite the example provided by the science-fiction concept of a full-body interface designed to produce sexual stimulation. But it isn't science fiction anymore.
Is it going too far to assume that research in nanotechnology and genetic engineering will be influenced by our sexual needs. The surgical modification of sexual organs is no longer something very unusual.
The question is not whether these technologies alter humanity, but how they do so.
Planned: an international conference with experts from the fields of science, economics, art and technology.
We are looking for: speakers, designers, artists, funding.
Scheduled date: October 5-7, 2007 at the Porn Palace of kink.com in San Francisco, CA.
Please email us if you are interested.
http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/
by way of http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/netporn-l_listcultures.org
thanks D.
Disappearing Disease
BEE CULTURE'S BEEYARD
Beekeepers with full honey supers on hives with no bees humorously have said that at least the colonies were gentle to rob. But to commercial beekeepers who are trying to make a living at bee keeping, this occasional condition is anything but amusing. Thankfully, it is not a common condition and appears to be self-limiting.
article http://www.orsba.org/htdocs/download/Dtew.htm
Overcoming Masturbation Addiction
Masturbation Addiction Counseling
The Most Personal Addiction
http://www.sexualcontrol.com/masturbation-addiction.html
~Diederik notes: ""The guilt is like a thunderstorm that drenches your mind and feels like it will never end." So is good sex. I really dont get the therapeutic metaphor. It must tell me I'm fucked, however it tells me I'm in heaven." -D. http://www.growingupsexually.tk/
[photo not with above links]