Thursday, March 07, 2013

Today's Internets - "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space, everything else is opinion." - Democritus

Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic

Well played, Kim Kardashian.
Kim Kardashian At Oscars: Glowing In White | WebProNews: "Though lately I’ve been watching shows like I’m Pregnant and Addicted to Meth. It definitely makes me feel better if I’m wanting one sip of Diet Coke or, you know, too much sugar. I’m like, This woman is on meth.”"


Hawaiian libertarian: Heart Check: "I finally paid a visit to an establishment I saw featured on the Tell-A-Vision a couple of years ago - The Heart Attack Grill. Love that place. It is the only burger joint for which I've eaten at in the past 4 years or so. It was quite the entertaining dining experience, and one for which I enjoyed completely...

"Wait, isn't this the guy telling all of us we should quit eating at McDonalds, Burger King and Jack in the Box?" Yup, that would be me. But this place? I love the entire theme. It essentially sticks the middle finger at the conventional wisdom of the modern health and medial fields entire set of dietary guidelines THEY would have us all follow...


...fries, deep fried in lard, like they typically used to be before the federally subsidized, Big Ag's round up ready vegetable and grain oils became ubiquitous? YESSSS! A quadruple bypass burger stacked with 4 1/4 lbs. patties of beef, tomatoes, onions, bacon, and cheddar cheese? Oh yeeeeaaaah baby!! Heart Attack? Not from the food... I broke the whole mound apart and ate everything except for the bun, Atkins-diet style (not because I wanted to eat low carb, but rather because I know that most commercially baked hamburger bun products are made with white flour and hydrogenated vegetable oils -- aka margarine). Unless the lard used to make the french fries was hydrogenated, I am almost certain that the hamburger bun was probably the only truly unhealthy component of the whole meal.

The entire raison d'etre of the H.A.G. is to flaunt the dietary health and nutrition recommendations of the establishment. It's the literal manifestation of some of the more intense Western allopathic medicine detractors: Go to the Doctor's, listen to their recommendations, than go home and do the exact opposite. That's not too far off from the truth."


Ha.  Ha.
Don't Expect That Orson Scott Card Superman Story Any Time Soon - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors: "Yesterday Chris Sprouse announced that he was no longer willing to draw the Superman story by Orson Scott Card appearing in the upcoming Superman Adventures. DC stated that they were pulling the strip until they could find a replacement artist. I understand that this may never happen. That, basically, there is no “hurry” to find a replacement artist… and that the people involved with putting the comic together simply weren’t aware of Orson Scott Card’s activist membership. I mean, I was. I’m sure you were. But, it seems not everyone was. They are now, obviously."

Our brains, and how they're not as simple as we think | Science | The Observer: "Neuroscience has entered the public consciousness, and changed the way we talk about ourselves. But much of what passes as knowledge is inaccurate...

... a great deal of psychology research has shown that we tend not to have a good insight into why we make certain choices. In one of the many studies in the area, Lars Hall and colleagues gave people a survey about their moral beliefs but used sleight of hand to change the choices they had originally made. When asked to justify the beliefs they hadn't endorsed, more than two-thirds of people didn't notice the switch and happily gave reasons for why they supported the opposite of their original position. Folk psychology tells us that we can accurately explain our actions and, consequently, many people think that these well-validated psychological effects never apply to them or simply don't exist. Suggesting that someone may not fully know their own actions and that their post-event justifications might be improvised simply won't wash in everyday conversation.

...Brightly coloured brain scans are a media favourite as they are both attractive to the eye and apparently easy to understand but in reality they represent some of the most complex scientific information we have. They are not maps of activity but maps of the outcome of complex statistical comparisons of blood flow that unevenly relate to actual brain function. This is a problem that scientists are painfully aware of but it is often glossed over when the results get into the press...

FOLK NEUROSCIENCE 
Popular misconceptions 
■ The "left-brain" is rational, the "right-brain" is creative The hemispheres have different specialisations (the left usually has key language areas, for example) but there is no clear rational-creative split and you need both hemispheres to be successful at either. You can no more do right-brain thinking than you can do rear-brain thinking. 
■ Dopamine is a pleasure chemical Dopamine has many functions in the brain, from supporting concentration to regulating the production of breast milk. Even in its most closely associated functioning it is usually considered to be involved in motivation (wanting) rather than the feeling of pleasure itself.
■ Low serotonin causes depression A concept almost entirely promoted by pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s and 90s to sell serotonin-enhancing drugs like Prozac. No consistent evidence for it. 
■ Video games, TV violence, porn or any other social spectre of the moment "rewires the brain" Everything "rewires the brain" as the brain works by making and remaking connections. This is often used in a contradictory fashion to suggest that the brain is both particularly susceptible to change but once changed, can't change back. 
■ We have no control over our brain but we can control our mind The mind and the brain are the same thing described in different ways and they make us who we are. Trying to suggest one causes the other is like saying wetness causes water.


A First Draft of the Third War - By Micah Zenko | Foreign Policy: "...in general, there is relative indifference to the history of America's Third War -- the 10-year campaign of over 400 targeted killings in non-battlefield settings that have killed an estimated 3,500 to 4,700 people. And that is puzzling, particularly since they have become a defining feature of post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy."

SO.  MUCH.  THIS.

Fuck the NYPD, basically.
Carrying Condoms is Evidence of a Crime, Says NYPD - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "The NYPD will arrest you for carrying condoms, but that depends entirely on who you are. If you're a middle-class white girl like me, you're probably safe. But say you're a sex worker or a queer kid kicked out of your home. Say you're a  trans woman out for dinner with your boyfriend. Maybe you've been arrested as a sex worker before. Maybe some quota-filling cop thinks you look like a whore...

And yes, arrest is always a big deal, even if you don't end up convicted: Arrest is always violent. The NYPD may or may not break your ribs, but the process of arrest in America is still a man tying your hands behind your back at gunpoint and locking you in a cage. Holding cells are shit-encrusted boxes, often too crowded to sit down. Police can leave you there for three days; long enough to lose your job. If this seems obvious, I say it because the polite middle classes trivialize arrest. They talk about "keeping people off the streets." They don't realize that the constant threat of arrest is traumatic, unless it happens to them or their kids."


"I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room." -  Ray Bradbury


Details at the links...
9 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight | Mark's Daily Apple:
1. You’re engaging in too much mindless eating.
2. You’re eating too many “pleasure foods.”
3. You’re eating too little.
4. You’re under “hidden stress.”
5. You’re too focused on diet to the exclusion of all else.
6. You’re getting too much exercise.
7. Your macronutrients and training are mismatched.

8. Your eating schedule is too disordered.
9. You’re actually at a healthy weight and your body is “keeping” you from dropping any more.

1. You think you’re eating healthy, but aren’t.
2. You’re under too much stress.
3. You need to watch your carb intake.
4. You’re adding muscle.
5. You’re not active enough.
6. You’re lapsing into Chronic Cardio.
7. You still haven’t tried IF.
8. You’re eating too much.
9. You haven’t overcome bad habits or developed good ones.
10. You haven’t purged and Primalized your pantry.
11. You’ve reached a healthy homeostasis.
12. You’re low on willpower.
13. You’re full of excuses.
14. You haven’t actually gone Primal!
15. You’re not getting enough sleep.
16. You haven’t given it enough time.
17. You’re eating too much dairy.
Bonus Reason: Sprinting is not part of your fitness routine.


On The Job Training: "Rooney Rule:  Success in life can be measured as the amount of time you spend doing what makes you happy with people that make you happy."


Taylor Swift Said Tina Fey & Amy Poehler Are Going To Hell For Making Fun Of Her. They Responded. - The Superficial - Because You're Ugly: "Tina and Amy each responded with two to three sentences that are way more entertaining than anything Taylor Swift will ever write about getting dumped again. So here’s Amy who was reached for comment first by The Hollywood Reporter: “Aw, I feel bad if she was upset. I am a feminist, and she is a young and talented girl. That being said, I do agree I am going to hell. But for other reasons. Mostly boring tax stuff.” And Tina who Entertainment Tonight got a hold of: “If anyone was going to get mad at us, I thought it would be James Cameron. I did not see that one coming. It was a joke. It was a lighthearted joke.”

And while both of those responses were awesome (Who doesn’t enjoy a quote that suggests James Cameron is more likely to burst into tear than Taylor Swift?), I like how neither one pointed out Taylor Swift thinks making a joke about her serial dating should damn a person to burning in eternal hellfire."


I am not smart, because even after researching all these, I still don't quite understand them.
"1. Neuroparasitology 
2. Quantum Biology 
3. Exo-meteorology 
4. Nutrigenomics 
5. Cliodynamics 
6. Synthetic Biology 
7. Recombinant Memetics 
8. Computational Social Science 
9. Cognitive Economics 
10. Organic Electronics 
11. Quantitative Biology"



WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR, Only Obama can enact the shit GOP ideas that the public just rejected. Austerity now. Insanity later: "But this guy, who refuses to hold the torturers and Wall Street criminals accountable (but punishes whistleblowers) claims the right to assassinate any American, anywhere, without due process (but won’t tell Americans why), and cares more about making a deal with  a party that refuses to accept anything other than what a Romney presidency would have given us (something resoundingly rejected by voters)? This guy sucks. At this point, Occam’s Razor says that Barack Obama isn’t getting rolled or negotiating against himself. Occam’s Razor says that he is this guy, and that’s a profound disappointment."

IN.



All religions are like this, basically.  Looks like a fascinating documentary.

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