http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/u9Vf4-lYtSU/snow-it-doesnt-dispr.html

It is easy to forget on a -13 morning such as this, but 2009 was one of the hottest years on record.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/jgMTXlgDu90/wikibumps.html

It turns out that wikibumps usually peak in the first 24 hours, then taper off in about a week, giving further evidence for the hypothesis that the public's memory generally extends back to the last issue of People magazine. In some cases, the article achieves stasis at a higher level than it had before the wikibump. For instance, Kanye "Imma Let You Finish" West's bump was 300,000. Taylor Swift's was 250,000, but Taylor probably came out ahead, as she achieved stasis at more than twice Kanye's views in December, the last full month of reporting.

More observations below. What wikibumps can you find?

The best way to get a Wikibump is to:

1. Die unexpectedly while famous.

Michael Jackson's wikibump was about 6 million in the first 24 hours. There's certainly a formula for the variables, which are age at time of death, level of fame, cause of death.

Ted Kennedy got a big wikibump, but it was limited by his being fairly old, terminally ill, and not especially interesting to young pop-culture fans.

Brittany Murphy had an unusual 2-day Wikibump, which may have been related to when in the news cycle her death was reported.

2. Be involved in a controversial incident

Alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had a delayed Wikibump due to low-traffic pantsbombing during the holidays.

Travis the rampaging chimpanzee got the same wikibump as Mr. Sizzlepants, about 10,000, up from 0.

Beauty pageant bigot Carrie Prejean had a highly unusual trifecta of wikibumps in April, May, and June following her comments on gay marriage and the ensuing fallout.

What I like most is to compare paired Wikibumps. For instance, cartoonist Sean Delonas and Travis the chimp had connected Wikibumps after Delonas did a controversial political cartoon about the Travis incident. Delonas' was more of a wikibump echo.

Wikibumps are also closely tied with article improvement. Articles tend to have a flurry of editing during a wikibump, demonstrating that the fastest ways to get an article expanded are death or controversy. Or nominating it for deletion.

Please share wikibumps you discover in the comments!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/X5yAz7dxhHY/notice-how-bored-the.html

First, walrus auto-fellatio. Now, turtle orgasms. Today is just going GREAT, isn't it? (Possibly NSFW. But much, MUCH less NSFW than that walrus.) (Thanks, gnat!)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/reot1zN8Kl8/the-big-lebowski-rew.html

WOO: Rise, and speak wisely, man--but hark; I see thy rug, as woven i'the Orient, A treasure from abroad. I like it not. I'll stain it thus; ever thus to deadbeats.

[He stains the rug]

THE KNAVE: Sir, prithee nay!

BLANCHE: Now thou seest what happens, Lebowski, when the agreements of honourable business stand compromised. If thou wouldst treat money as water, flowing as the gentle rain from heaven, why, then thou knowest water begets water; it will be a watery grave your rug, drowned in the weeping brook. Pray remember, Lebowski.

THE KNAVE: Thou err'st; no man calls me Lebowski. Yet thou art man; neither spirit damned nor wandering shadow, thou art solid flesh, man of woman born. Hear rightly, man!--for thou hast got the wrong man. I am the Knave, man; Knave in nature as in name.

BLANCHE: Thy name is Lebowski.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/BqWXTs5Yx4Q/war-brewing-between.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/4txxQwaMDVs/dude-buys-cd-on-amaz.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8L0KTKK-6DM/avatar-is-srs-biznes.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/P1Lpl2LeKs4/portraits-of-an-agin.html

BLDGblog has published a series of photographs by Noah Sheldon that capture what remains of Biosphere 2, "a semi-derelict bio-architectural experiment in the Arizona desert." Looking at these images, it's hard to believe some 200 million dollars went into this thing. The site was sold to private developers in 2007. It is still open to visitors. More images on Sheldon's website. Official Biosphere 2 website is here.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/5aTfrj5p4lU/twitter-as-a-us-fore.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/hUrbo7gsndI/britain-minus-the-gu.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/yvanthefacehunter/~3/VPrgq8QUrho/london-oxford-circus-010710.html

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2010/01/the_evolution_of_pro.html

American Scientist has a fascinating podcast on the evolution of the human capacity for killing at a distance - in other words, the cultural evolution of projectile weapons.

The talk is by anthropologist Steven Churchill who looks at what motivated the development of projectile weapons - initially rocks, slings and spears and - and what effect these developments had on the culture of ancient peoples.

He starts as far back as the time when neanderthals and modern humans were both in existence and discusses how the development of these weapons may have influence the competition between the two species.

He also discusses how these weapons may have affected human evolution and notes that these weapons make group attacks easier, meaning that it was probably easier for societies to police themselves and so leading to selection against aggressive individuals.

A thoroughly fascinating discussion, where Churchill talks about historical evidence as well as his own studies where he's asked people to test the limits of using ancient weapons.

Link to 'The Evolution of the Human Capacity for Killing at a Distance'.

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2010/01/the_chopstick_reloa.html

The New York Daily News reports on a 14-month old Chinese boy who survived brain surgery to remove a chopstick that accidentally ended up in his brain after entering through the nose.

If your jaw has dropped, amazed at such a freaky and unusual accident, you may comfortably close your mouth - there is a surprisingly large medical literature on stray chopsticks that have become lodged in the brain.

In fact, there are no less than 13 published articles on this serious neurological condition. Here are some of the more notable ones:

A case of unusual difficult airway because of an intracranial foreign body of bamboo chopstick. [link]

Transoral penetration of a half-split chopstick between the basion and the dens. [link]

Transorbital penetrating injury by a chopstick--case report [link]

Intracerebellar penetrating injury and abscess due to a wooden foreign body--case report. [link]

Chopsticks and suicide [link]

Unusual craniocerebral penetrating injury by a chopstick. [link]

Link to New York Daily News on boy with chopstick in brain.

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2010/01/a_clarion_call_for_a.html

This week's Nature has an excellent editorial calling for a greater focus on the science of mental illness and summarising the challenges facing psychology and neuroscience in tackling these complex conditions.

It's generally a very well-informed piece, but it does make one widely repeated blunder in the last sentence of this paragraph:

Frustratingly, the effectiveness of medications has stalled. Nobody understands the links between the symptoms of schizophrenia and the crude physiological pathologies that have so far been documented: a decrease in white brain matter, for example, and altered function of the neurotransmitter dopamine. The medications, which are often aimed at the dopamine systems associated with delusions, have advanced over the decades not in their efficacy but in a reduction of their debilitating side effects.

The idea that newer antipsychotic drugs have less side-effects is a myth, albeit one that was widely promoted by drug companies in the early days of the newer 'atypical antipsychotics'.

The early antipsychotics were notorious for causing a syndrome of Parkinson's disease-like abnormal movements owing to their long-term effect on the dopamine system.

The popular newer generation drugs do indeed produce fewer of these problems, although the difference is much smaller than was originally thought. But in addition, they tend to cause metabolic syndrome - weight gain, diabetes, heart problems - something which wasn't such an issue with the older drugs.

In other words, the side-effects aren't less, they're just different. While the old drugs were more likely to produce movement problems, the newer are more likely to make you fat and give you diabetes.

Although antipsychotics were one of the most important medical advances of the 20th century, as the Nature editorial notes, there has been no improvement in the ability of these drugs to actually treat psychosis in the last few decades.

One of the main problems is that the most effective antipsychotics seems to have the highest levels of side-effects and a huge advance would simply be the production of a drug that was of equal effectiveness but less damaging to patients' health.

Apart from this minor error, the Nature piece is an excellent brief summary of where psychiatric research is at, and where it needs to go to better tackle these episodes of mental turmoil, and comes highly recommended.

Link to Nature piece 'A decade for psychiatric disorders'.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Xk6-RLCqsLo/nuvigil-descendant-o.html

Cephalon plans to aim Nuvigil at business travelers who might go to Europe for a couple of days, not those staying longer term. For a short trip, “you don’t want to shift your circadian clock very much,” said Dr. Lesley Russell, Cephalon’s chief medical officer.

The company’s executives are not predicting how much an approval for jet lag would add to Nuvigil sales. The drug would be taken for only a day or two to treat jet lag, whereas other uses involve taking it for long periods...

To get (existing) patients to shift (from Provigil to Nuvigil), Cephalon has raised the wholesale price of Provigil to $13.60, from about $5.50 a pill five years ago, including a 29 percent increase in November. So Provigil is now 50 percent more expensive than Nuvigil.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/PwzhRgtf05Y/look-at-this-photo-o.html

Just look at it. I reached out to Burberry for comment on the image above, which has been described by some as a Photoshop Disaster, but have not received a reply. What do you think? (Thanks, Souris)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/-6H3crdT_CE/toronto-global-epice.html

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) decided that gay people were no longer mentally ill, but that changed nothing for trans and gender-variant people. In fact, "experts" led the push to create a new disease called "gender identity disorder," which they successfully got added to the APA's big book of mental illnesses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Though trans activists have been protesting to get this mental illness removed in the 2012 revision, these Toronto "experts" hold key positions among the people doing the revising.

Even worse is a sub-disease they created called "gender identity disorder in children." They have made a lot of money claiming to "cure" hundreds of children who are "too feminine." While they also treat kids who are "too masculine," in most clinics which have adopted their methods, 5 to 30 times more children assigned as males are treated. The methods? No playing with dolls, no drawing with the "wrong" colors like pink or purple, and no playing with or drawing pictures of girls. The anxious parents who bring their children in to be "cured" are expected to enforce all rules. They are sent home with instructions to make the child go through all their possessions and remove anything "inappropriate," as well as ways to use reinforcement to "correct" their child's thinking and behavior. How did nonconformity become a disease? And how did Toronto become infamous for this? It's a textbook case of pathological science with roots in the 20th-century eugenics movement, and it shows how a few misguided people can have impact all over the world.

(Screenshot: gender reparative therapist Kenneth Zucker appearing on TVO Parents)

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Provincial Lunatic Asylum) is a sprawling complex that includes what used to be called the Clarke Institute, named after eugenicist Charles Kirk Clarke. During Clarke's tenure as head of Canadian "mental hygiene," foreign-born patients comprised more than 50% of the incarcerated population in Canada's asylums: Bolsheviks, suffragists, degenerates, developmentally disabled, and other "defectives."

Thanks to generous provincial funding, CAMH has become a power base for eugenic ideology, though they started calling it "sociobiology" after that whole Holocaust thing. One of the most notable devices developed at CAMH is the penile plethysmograph, a device hooked up to male genitalia to see what arouses the subject (usually administered involuntarily). Though most courts treat this plethysmograph like a polygraph (lie detector) and deem it scientifically unreliable and inadmissible as evidence in criminal trials, that hasn't stopped the CAMH people from using it to create evidence about all kinds of sex and gender minorities.

One reason these guys have been able to stay in business so long is the politics around "paraphilia," especially attraction to people under the age of consent. Politicians tend to throw money at this issue because no politician wants to deal with an opponent's ad that says they voted against funding for stopping pedophilia. CAMH has capitalized on the moral panic around pedophilia and other sex offenses to generate revenue for all of their programs.

With this job security, they have been able to gather a group of like-minded psychologists under their roof. Ken Zucker and his colleague Susan Bradley have led the movement along with US and UK counterparts like Susan Coates and Richard Green. Remarkably, some of the "experts" advocating this reparative therapy of gender-variant children are gay men who would have been incarcerated at those Toronto facilities in the past, or subjected to "cures" used in the past like castration, shock therapy, etc. Luckily, most of these "experts" are middle aged or near retirement, and there don't seem to be too many younger "experts" lining up to replace them. Most mental health professionals under 40 have a more compassionate and progressive view on gender variance, and they don't want to be on the wrong side of history. To use a movie quote, you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

What can you do?

1. Let your friends and loved ones in Canada know that their taxes are supporting this kind of child abuse. Ask them to contact their legislators. Share this article with them.

2. Tell your friends and loved ones who are psychologists and psychiatrists about this controversy. Ask them to think about the parallels with pathologization of gays and lesbians. Share this article with them.

3. Support non-profits like TransYouth Family Allies, a group of parents and professionals who honor and support gender-variant children. I joined their Board to help stop this child abuse emanating from Toronto. These young people tend to be very bright and creative and outgoing until they start getting psychology-approved aversion therapy at home and on the playground. TYFA seeks to end the shame and fear inflicted on these young people in their formative years.

More info:

Drop the Barbie! (Brain, Child Magazine)

Two Families Grapple with Sons' Gender Preferences (NPR)

Child Gender Identity (TVO Parents)

TransYouth Family Allies

'I'm a Girl' -- Understanding Transgender Children (ABC News)

Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays From the Struggle for Dignity (recommended book)

Gender Shock (recommended book)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/qi3eX7A28Xo/new-palm-pre-and-pix.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/WyZFtJ115UU/potato-salad.html

By the Ross Sisters. Straight out of 1944. Shit gets real about a minute in, and it keeps getting real-er, so stay with it. Jonas Brothers, you better step it up. YouTube Video (thanks, Antinous)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/0FRde6JLH0U/review-serenity-gami.html

But silence doesn't come cheap. Starting at $1,682, it's about $400-$500 more expensive than a standard, similarly-specced desktop from Dell or HP. And while buying boutique means you get better customer care (including a logbook of system construction, burn-in tests, gaming becnhmnarks, and even Robocop-vision thermographs of the completed system under load) it's also true that configuring the same stuff into Puget's own standard gaming PC configurator results in a similar discount, albeit on an AMD platform instead of Intel Quad Core.

Tested at the base Serenity Gaming configuration, it has an i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and an XFX Radeon HD 5770 video card with 1GB RAM. A fanless video card option is available, but those defaults are already as modest as most gamers will likely want to settle for. Heading in the other direction, a faster CPU or more RAM shouldn't result in more system noise, but moving to a top-shelf video card will.

It performs well enough, and has a nice clean Windows 7 installation, but the real plus to buying from a boutique retailer is getting a reliable custom machine without having to put the damned thing together yourself. Noise reduction is as much a time sink as squeezing an extra FPS or two from marginal hardware ever was, but with the added irritation of it always being hands-on process involving pads, washers, glues, icky thermal pastes, heatsinks, incantations... Envisage the woe-pregnant nightmare of building your own computer, but where labor's diminishing returns lie not in easily-diagnosable config issues but in inexplicable vibrations and weird noises emanating from nowhere in particular. Finding that last whining component is like when you have a dying battery in a smoke alarm, but there are eight smoke alarms inside a box and each one must be individually unscrewed before you can figure out which is making the infernal squeak, and ... you get the idea. So you get the point of the Serenity PC, for those who care about these things.

The pros being clear, the cons for Serenity are its price, its heavy case, and (for those of you who still buy games on disc and don't NOCD) the whirry default optical drive. Get it if you want quiet, custom, upgradeable gaming without the hassle, but not if budget performance--or preserving desktop space--is your real priority.

Here's an account of buying from Puget from a paying customer.

Serenity Gaming PC [Puget]