most serial killers love their dogs

This is a nice presentation on an apparent obsolete way to teach and learn. Makes me wonder if the tools now available to students really have any positive impact. In my time, I would have loved to be able to bring a laptop and use collaborative tools in classes, but just like the students in this videos mentioned, I'm afraild that my attention would certainly be diverted by various online distractions. But nowadays in most workplaces we also have internet access, and most people know what effects that has. Reminds me of this study on Cognitive Daily about whether internet at the workplace is counterproductive or not. The problem is not really being less productive at work, it is the fact that we stay there longer...

Photograph taken of the Earth (the tiny pale speck, top center)
by Voyager 1 in 1990 from 4 billion miles away (about 6 light-hours)

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Carl Sagan

Perspective?

On the night of Saturday, December 6th, two Special Guards of the Greek police clashed with a small group of young men. The exact details of what took place are still unclear, but it is known that one of the Guards fired three shots, and one of those bullets caused the death of 15-year-old Alexander Grigoropoulos - whether the injury was made by an accidental ricochet or deliberate shot remains to be determined. The two Guards are now in jail awaiting trial, the shooter charged with homicide. This incident sparked an immediate and widespread response in the form of angry demonstrations and riots in many Greek cities that have continued at varying levels to this day - though dimming in intensity recently. Alexander's death appears to have been a catalyst, unleashing widespread Greek anger towards many issues - police mistreatment of protesters, unwelcome education reforms, economic stagnation, government corruption and more.

More at The Big Picture.

Well, the year is coming to an end once more, and already I start seeing 'best of 2008' lists all around. And this time, I've decided to look at what I have been listening these past 12 months, and gather a list of what were for me some of the best albums of 2008. It is not an homogeneous list whatsoever (nor should it be), so expect to see a couple of unfamiliar names here. If you get curious, just click the album cover to go to each band's myspace page to listen to some songs.

	Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles Really like these guys. They make electro-punk music, but with 8bit music elements. Of course, it didn't help the fact that they 'stole' some samples from some 8bit projects that had release their music in a Creative Commons license. They lost the respect from many people because of this, including mine... But that doesn't change that they made some pretty good music.
	Rome - Masse Mensch Material This neo-folk band from the Cold-Meat wagon has became a personal favorite as soon as they released their first album a couple of years ago. Some call it military pop, others neo-folk, and there is also some industrial influences in there, but it doesn't really matter, they make great music, with a definite pop twist. Joy Division, Nick Cave and Jacques Brel influences, great usage of samples, great lyrics, and a great voice (I've read "martial Tom Waits" somewhere). Extremely recommended!
	Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend This was one a favorite album everywher, so I guess there is no much need to talk about it. Indie rock with a positive summer-like attitude, some punk influences, and great music. Hated them at the beginning, but it grew on me...
	Werkraum - Early Love Music Great traditional folk albu, by a non-traditional folk artist. This is a collection of songs from all around Europe with some originals in the middle. There are even a couple of psychedelic folk moments in there. A very solid and pleasant album!
	Ida Maria - Fortress Round My Heart I'm just a sucker for a strong female voice. And Norwegian singer Ida Maria sure has one, together with lots of attitude. I got hooked in on a couple of songs of this punkish rock band, so this album has been keeping me company for a few months now.
	Hellsongs - Hymns In the key of 666 No, it's not a black metal band. Maybe death metal? Nope, it's not even metal at all, although the band do call their style 'lounge-metal'. These guys from Sweden decided to make acoustic versions of old metal hymns, sung by a warm female voice. We've got Iron Maiden, Megadeath, Black Sabbath and even Slayer! Where many failed, Hellsongs succeeded in making cover versions that stand on their own, and in some cases even improving on the original versions. Recommended for old metal-heads for nostalgic sake, or simply to people who are curious about what was that metal thing all about - without actually having to listen to metal music!
	Informatik - Beyond This year has been relatively poor in the EBM/Futurepop scene (at least from my point of view), but a couple of albums did stand out. Informatik's new album was one of them. What began as a quite standard project (looking at their previous releases), turned into somethng more interesting with this new album. They appear more mature, and brought a new sound, including even rock-like electric guitars, sometimes even reminding me of the electronic phase of Paradise Lost. Quite good!
	Dvar - Highlights of LightWave (Vol 1 and 2) Well, I've cheated on this one. It is not really a new album, it is more a best of compilation. I've just discovered this band recently, so there is no album that really has caught my attention in particular, so I guess it is fair to select a best of. Dvar is a Russian band doing what they call lightwave music (in opposition to darkwave). The music can be caractherized as strange, something appropriate for children with mental conditions. They sing in a made-up language, which they claim is what some goblins spoke to them in dreams. Some rumor about a curse concerning Dvar fans was enough to give them an edge, but the music stands on its own... For those with a (very) open mind!
	Okkervil River - The Stand Ins The Indie album of the year. I don't know much about these guys, I know they are from the US, they make this indie-folk-rock, and is just great. Reminds me of Beirut, but with less ethnic influences... Sad melodies, bright songs, smart lyrics. Nothing more.
	Sangre Cavallum - Veleno do Teixo Again, I cheat. This is not a 2008 album, but being the only Portuguese album I've really enjoyed this year, I've decided to include this here. Sangre Cavallum are a neo/traditional folk band from the north of Portugal, where they bring all the pagan culture of that region into music. They use traditional instruments, like bagpipes and accordion, together with electrical guitar and bass, which, together wih a very deep voice and the themes, myths and traditions from lost times, make this album one of my favorites of all time in this genre. Epic!

Lots of great stuff were not included, but you know how elitist these lists can be. This is one of many possible lists...

But when I see these other lists around the net, I cannot help but feeling that there must be lots of stuff that I should have listened... That's the problem with liking all sorts of music, and having a somewhat compulsive personality (know all, listen to all...). Well, there is always next year!

PS: if you have any suggestion regarding a band/album that I might have missed, I'd love to hear about it!

Cyanide and Happiness just keeps getting better and better...

@rss
@homepage

“Look at the bible as a pastiche, a collection of mutually and often internally inconsistent fragments slapped together for crude reasons of politics and art and priestly self-promotion and sometimes beauty and a lot of chest-thumping tribalism, and through that lens, it makes a lot of sense. It does tell us something important... about us, not some fantastic mythological being. It tells us that we are fractious, arrogant, scrappy people who sometimes accomplish great things and more often cause grief and pain to one another. We want to be special in a universe that is uncaring and cold, and in which the nature of our existence is a transient flicker, so we invent these strange stories of grand beginnings, like every orphan dreaming that they are the children of kings who will one day ride up on a white horse and take them away to a beautiful palace and a rich and healthy family that will love them forever. We are not princes of the earth, we are the descendants of worms, and any nobility must be earned.”

PZ Myers, Theology is a deceitful strategy@Pharyngula

PZ keeps a science blog, like any biology teacher should do, where he frequently bashes irrationality, religion and other anti-scientific subjects. Pharyngula is one of the most famous science blogs around, and PZ himself is one of the celebrities of the atheist online community. I always found it remarkable the rate at which publishes updates, almost faster than a normal person can read them. Most of his entries are mostly informative, always with a hint of his black humor and sharp tongue (the sub-title of his blog is "Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal", which I guess is enough to keep more conservative minds away), more proper for those interested in science in general. Some people think he is a little too violent in his words, and I would tend to agree, but I wouldn't consider it as a bad thing; on the contrary, people like him are necessary to stir things up, and to make people think about all the stuf they take for granted.
I found this paragraph of this dissertation about theology (and the so called moderate religion) quite brilliant and eloquent, even for him. I particularly liked the last phrase. Very insightful...

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.

"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch."

The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.

As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.

"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lilly," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.

"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."

So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.

Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.

Suddenly, Klaus and Werther started to feel the drugs kicking in.

1834, Robert Cornelius

Philadelphia, November 1839. "Robert Cornelius, self-portrait facing front, arms crossed. Inscription on backing: The first light-picture ever taken. 1839." One of the first photographs made in the United States, this quarter-plate daguerreotype, taken in the yard of the Cornelius family's lamp-making business in Philadelphia, is said to be the earliest photographic portrait of a person.

[ via shorpy via musecrack ]

Interesting out-of-the-box thinking at another TED talk. From the website:

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central belief of western societies: that freedom of choice leads to personal happiness. In Schwartz's estimation, all that choice is making us miserable. We set unreasonably high expectations, question our choices before we even make them, and blame our failures entirely on ourselves. His relatable examples, from consumer products (jeans, TVs, salad dressings) to lifestyle choices (where to live, what job to take, whom and when to marry), underscore this central point: Too many choices undermine happiness.

Couldn't resist to post this one!



More at http://seemikedraw.wordpress.com/
LJ feed at seemikedrawfeed
RSS Feed at http://seemikedraw.wordpress.com/feed/

One of the best Yahtzee's reviews...

via Why, That's Delightful!

(...)there is the notorious eighteenth-century debate on the existence of God, staged by Catherine the Great between Euler, the Swiss mathematician, and Diderot, the great encyclopedist of the Enlightenment. The pious Euler advanced upon the atheistic Diderot and, in tones of the utmost conviction, delivered his challenge: 'Monsieur, (a + bⁿ)/n = x, therefore God exists. Reply!' Diderot was cowed into withdrawal, and one version of the story has him withdrawing all the way back to France.

I find this passage from Dawkins' 'The God Delusion' extremely amusing... Amusing, but most likely false. Neither Euler would use such a fawlty argument, nor would Diderot avoid a mathematic discussion as important as this one.

It's been a while since I've seen people leaving the theater at the middle of a film. This can only be one of three reasons: the film is shocking in some way that disturbs people, the film is extremely bad and people are sorry to have spend any money on it, or the most dramatic reason (to some indistinguishable from the second one), it's intellectual/slow/apparently boring stuff, and people won't have any of it... I think this last one was the case. 'There will be blood' tells the story of Daniel Plainview, a oil man that started the business in the early 1900s, and his struggle to annihilate all competition. Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing in this role, portraying an almost sociopath character.
The first thing that stroke me as impressive was the movie poster (that typeface!). Not the kind of thing I was expecting from Paul T. Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights), but certainly a welcome surprise.

Oh, and for the record, there was blood!

Here's a trailer of an upcoming documentary on chip music. Watch it!
That works as a bried introduction to this pixel-music world. 8bit music is love. Full of energy and melody, but also innocence... Gameboy, Spectrum, Commodore 64. If it's old-school, they'll use it! This is music for those who think hi-fi is overrated!

8bitpeople is the main stop in the internet for 8bit lovers... It's a netlabel with over 80 releases, all free.

Here are a few recommended releases from those guys:

Nullsleep
Depeche Mode Megamix
For fans of Depeche Mode.




Random
Bad Joke EP
GameBoy goodness...




Xinon VS Sabrepulse
Realization
Japan Vs Scotland in the chiptunes war...




Anamanaguchi
Power Supply
Power-pop with both chiptek and guitars. Reminds me of the more upbeat stuff from m83.

Check their discography for some more hidden pearls!

Oh, and in case you're interested, the last music from the trailer above can be downloaded from here (the fun part is around 2:00).

via guil.


Napoleon Crossing the St. Bernard Pass
Jacques-Louis David, 1800-01
Oil on canvas, 60 x 221 cm.



The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci, 1495–1498
Tempera on gesso, pitch and mastic, 460 × 880 cm.



David with the Head of Goliath
Caravaggio, 1609-10
Oil on canvas, 125 × 101 cm.

many more like this at flickr.

Delicious short movie by Wes Anderson, director of 'The Royal Tennenbaums' and 'The Life Aquatic'. Jack hides from his ex-girlfriend in a hotel in Paris for who knows how long, but she is able to find him. 13 minutes that work as an apetiser for Anderson's new film, 'The Darjeeling Limited'. Jack is one of three brothers who will be lost somewhere in India with all their baggadge. Hope to see it in theather tomorrow night, and if his past films are any reference, it's going to be a new favourite of mine.

A goatherd, having lead his goats to pasture, noticed that they were mixing with some wild goats. And, when evening fell, he herded all of them into his cave together. The next day, a great storm raged. Not being able to lead them out to pasture as usual, he left them inside. To his own goats he gave only a handful of fodder, just enough to keep them from starving. But for the strangers, on the other hand, he increased the ration, with the intention of keeping them as well.
    When the bad weather was almost over he let them all out to pasture. But, upon reaching the mountain, the wild goats ran away. As the goatherd shouted after them, accusing them of ingratitude for thus abandoning him after all the care he had taken of them, they turned round to reply:
    'All the more reason for us to be suspicious. For if you treated us, mere newcomers, better than your old flock, it's quite clear that if some other goats came along you would then neglect us for them.'

This fable shows that one should not to welcome the over-friendly advances of new acquaintances in preference to old friendship. We must remember that when we have became old friends they will strike new friendships with others, and those new friends will become their favourites.

I really love reading these old fables, it's amazing how some things have not change that much in the last 25 centuries...

[ via Why, that's delightful! ]

Three ways to kill a chocolate bunny...


[ via ectoplasmosis ]

First impressions... How do we get to guess the personality of someone we're looking at, and how often do we get it wrong?

[ via Mind Hacks ]

[ via DanielGoleman.info ]

::.. more
::.. Rankin's homepage

[ via Boing Boing ]

(...)While this study is a small slice of all the interesting neuroscience that is happening, I reviewed it to demonstrate some important concepts. The first is that the materialist paradigm of neuroscience - that everything people think, do, and feel can be studied and understood as a physical process of the brain with a specific anatomical correlate - is very successful and is producing tangible results.

It is also to demonstrate the fine degree of detail to which we have already plumbed the depths of the complexity of the brain. Too often I hear or read reporters, critics of science, and even scientists casually refer to the extent of our ignorance of how the brain works. I do not mean to downplay all that remains to be learned about the brain, and how truly complex and subtle a machine it is. But often the public is left with the sense that the brain is little more than a black box about which we know next to nothing. This is a far cry from the current reality - we have a detailed model of the different parts of the brain and what they do.

It is easy to be mystified by the brain and neuroscience, but (however complex it is) it is just a machine that must follow logical and ultimately understandable rules. More important than how much we know at any one time is how successful are we at learning more about the brain based upon our current approach. The fact that neuroscience is progressing rapidly tells us that our models are useful - and this is all science is really about when you strip it down: making models of the physical world that make predictions and then seeing how those predictions work out.

By this criterion the neuroscience model of the brain and mind is remarkably successful.

[ via Neurologica Blog ]

[ via Friendly Atheist ]

These x-rays make me shiver... But what is strange is that the man made a complete recovery!

Penetrating head injury in planned and repetitive deliberate self-harm.

Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2007 May;82(5):536.

Demetriades AK, Papadopoulos MC.

44-year-old man presented to his local emergency department wearing a baseball cap and complaining of headaches that had progressively worsened over the preceding 11 weeks. After we provided generous analgesia and performed simple investigations that failed to identify a diagnosis, the patient removed his cap to reveal an assortment of metallic objects embedded in his scalp. Plain radiographs showed 11 nails penetrating into his brain. A detailed history revealed a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and the patient confirmed that he had hammered a nail into his head each week for the past 11 weeks to rid him of evil. The nails were removed with the patient under general anesthesia, and he made an uncomplicated recovery with no neurological deficits.

[ via mindhacks ]

Here's one of the many reasons why Tom Waits is one of my favourite artists ever... Bringing back sad christmas songs... I'm quite sick of the normal ones...



Charlie, I'm pregnant
And living on 9th Street
Right above a dirty bookstore
Off Euclid Avenue
Stopped taking dope
Quit drinking whiskey
My old man plays the trombone
Works out at the track

Says that he loves me
Even though it's not his baby
Says that he'll raise him up
Like he would his own son
Gave me a ring that was worn by his mother
Takes me out dancing every Saturday night

Charlie, I think about you
Every time I pass the filling station
On a count of all the grease
You used to wear in your hair
Still have that record
Little Anthony and The Imperials
Someone stole my record player
How do you like that?

Charlie, I almost went crazy
After Mario got busted
Went back to Omaha to live with my folks
But everyone I used to know is either dead or in prison
Came back to Minneapolis
This time I think I'm gonna stay

Charlie, I think I'm happy
For the first time since my accident
Wish I had all the money
We used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
And I wouldn't sell any of them
Just drive a different car everyday
Depending on how I feel

Charlie, for Christ sakes
If you wanna know the truth of it
I don't have a husband
He don't play the trombone
I need to borrow money
To pay this lawyer
And Charlie, hey
I'll be eligible for parole
Come Valentines day