Friday, November 09, 2007

Speedlinking 11/9/07

Quote of the day:

"Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from."
~ Al Franken

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Chronic pain: where does it come from and why? -- "Often, injuries carry an aggravating side effect: pain. More and more frequently, pain is not just a temporary result that will go away, but becomes a permanent factor that affects people’s lives. Jane E. Brody of the New York Times reports that chronic pain often changes a person for the worst and can lead to anxiety, fear, anger, and depression."
~ Dieters Who Eat In Response To Emotions Versus Social Situations, Lose Less And Regain More -- "Just in time for the start of the holiday eating season -- a new study finds that dieters who have the tendency to eat in response to external factors, such as at festive celebrations, have fewer problems with their weight loss than those who eat in response to emotions (internal factors)."
~ Boosting Vitamin D May Have Long-Term Benefits For Inflammation, Aging, New Study Suggests -- "There is a new reason for the 76 million baby boomers to grab a glass of milk. Vitamin D, a key nutrient in milk, could have aging benefits linked to reduced inflammation, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition."
~ Taking Care Of Your Skin Starts From Within -- "The old adage "you are what you eat" not only applies to our overall health and nutrition, but how our skin looks and feels as well. As the largest organ in the body, our skin can benefit from the same nutrition we get from foods that have a positive effect on our heart and other major organs. In fact, new research suggests that eating foods rich in protein and certain vitamins and minerals might provide valuable anti-aging effects."
~ Strategies to curb your hunger while you lose -- "Everything from stress to hormones to people, places, and situations can kick your appetite into overdrive. The good news: Whatever the cause, you can beat your hunger pangs. Health.com offers up the latest stay-full strategies from the experts."
~ Do you know how many calories your workout burns? -- "Find out if you're working as hard as you think you are with the Calories Burned Calculator."
~ Sunshine 'helps to keep you young' -- "A healthy dose of sunshine may be the secret to staying young, British scientists have revealed. Vitamin D is produced naturally by the skin in response to sunlight and may help to slow the ageing process and protect against disease, according to the study."
~ The nature and nurture of muscles -- "Some of the truly fascinating insights into talent and greatness emerge from the realm of human musculature -- how our skeletal muscles are initially formed, the attributes of different muscle fibers, and the different ways muscles can be transformed by activity and training."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Is IQ actually AQ? (Mistaking Achievement for "Intelligence") -- "I've just gotten my hands on a copy of Andrew Elliott and Carol Dweck's mammoth Handbook of Competence and Motivation. Following the lead chapter from the editors is an utterly fascinating contribution from Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg, who, in just a few pages, seems to completely shatter the popular myth of I.Q. and intelligence testing."
~ The Art of Visualization: How to Mentally Learn New Skills, Develop Awesome Habits, and Improve Your Health -- "Although primarily used in athletics, visualization is a tool that has powerful applications in personal development. In this post, I’ll be describing what visualization is, how it works, and how you can essentially re-architect your life using it."
~ I Can't Believe My Eyes: Conforming to the Norm -- "Solomon Asch's classic top 10 social psychology experiment shows that many of us will deny our own senses just to conform with others."
~ Marriage Is Not the Key to Happiness -- "Husbands and wives are no more happier than singles."
~ 10 Reasons You Aren’t Achieving Success -- "A couple of months ago, I asked you not to fear failure, saying that embracing failure — or at least the possibility of failure — was essential to success. But, of course, in the end the goal is to succeed, and fear of failing isn’t the only thing that keeps us from succeeding."
~ Dr Mindfulness: Science and the meditation boom -- "This weekend's edition of All in the Mind looks at the explosion of mindfulness-based research and interventions in health. How do we establish a solid scientific evidence base for what is such an introspective endeavour?"
~ Feeling Stressed? -- "Pending job cuts at the office. Back-to-back final exams. A messy divorce. An unexpected surgery. What do they all have in common? In a word -- stress. While everyone knows that stress can take a toll on a person physically and psychologically, it also can lead to dermatologic problems, such as acne, brittle nails or even hair loss."
~ 8 Ways to Spark Your Creativity -- "Creativity is a strange, elusive creature. Sometimes is flowing like a river. Sometimes it’s all dried up and nowhere to be found. Here are some thoughts and ideas that I like and have found useful to spark or improve my own creativity."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Review - Changing Conceptions of the Child from the Renaissance to Post-Modernity -- "At a glance, childhood seems to fall into the background of philosophical inquiry, but Kennedy proceeds in this fascinating study to demonstrate the centrality of definitions of childhood in determining the self-understandings, daily behaviors, institutional practices, and punishment rituals practiced across the West."
~ Bush's Lap Dogs -- "The CIA's new target? John Helgerson, the man appointed by President Bush to expose wrongdoing at the CIA. As inspector general of the agency, Helgerson came under attack from his superiors simply for trying to do his job: He was aggressively investigating torture at the CIA's secret prisons."
~ In the Middle -- "The working class and intellectuals speak different languages, and working class activists are caught between the two. It's time for theory to reconnect with practice, says Brian Ashton."
~ The Obligations of Academic Freedom -- "Many academics, including myself, rise to defend "academic freedom" in response to claims that professoriate is too "liberal". The concept of "academic freedom," however, seems to mean many things to many people, and there is often a lack of appreciation about why it is necessary and what it ought to entail."
~ Judge: Druggists may withhold "morning-after" pill -- "A federal judge has suspended controversial state rules requiring pharmacies to dispense so-called "Plan B" emergency contraceptives, saying the rules appear to unconstitutionally violate pharmacists' freedom of religion." That's a load of crap.
~ Are We All Lockeans Now? -- "Intentionally or not, the president's words evoke the thinking of John Locke (1632-1704), the quintessential philosopher of the Enlightenment era and a key influence on the American founding fathers. It is a mistake, then, for secularists to dismiss the president's position as necessarily an unsophisticated throwback to pre-modern times."
~ Suu Kyi 'Optimistic' on Burma Talks -- "Detained Burma opposition head Aung San Suu Kyi is "very optimistic" about prospects of the UN-promoted process for reconciliation between the military government and pro-democracy forces."
~ Mukasey Sworn In as Attorney General -- "Michael B. Mukasey took the oath at the Justice Department less than a day after winning confirmation."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ How to Plan a Green Thanksgiving -- "These 10 green Thanksgiving ideas will save money and time while protecting the environment. Green holidays can be creative, fun, and easy - and easy on your conscience."
~ Bay Area Spill Fouls Coastline -- "An oil spill fouled miles of coastline Thursday, sending environmentalists scrambling to save tarred marine life."
~ Oil Find Could Transform Brazil -- "Brazil's state oil company said Thursday that it has discovered as much as 8 billion barrels of light crude in an ultra-deep field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro."
~ Some humpback whale calls deciphered -- "Australian scientists studying the sounds of humpback whales say they have begun to decode their mysterious communication system, identifying male pickup lines and motherly warnings."
~ Atomic-level Microscopy At Least 100 Times Faster With New Technique -- "Using an existing technique in a novel way, physicists have made the scanning tunneling microscope -- which can image individual atoms on a surface -- at least 100 times faster. The simple adaptation, based on a method of measurement currently used in nano-electronics, could also give STMs significant new capabilities -- including the ability to sense temperatures in spots as small as a single atom."
~ Green is the new blah -- "Last night I watched the TNSFKAMST (Thursday Night Shows Formerly Known as Must-See TV). To be honest I'd forgotten it was Green Is Universal week; I was just indulging in a little sitcom sitdown. But there was no escaping the green message, and it was ... what's the word? ... artificial and painful and forced."
~ Waterways downstream from oil sands are full o' toxins, says study -- "Fish, water, and sediment downstream from the gigantic oil sands projects in Alberta are chock-full of carcinogens and other toxins, says a new study."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ The Beginning and the End -- "'Right View' is said to be both the beginning and the end of the path of liberation in Buddhism. From Right View, the first step of the Eightfold Path, we can realize the Four Noble Truths, which is the beginning of wisdom."
~ T-Shirt of the Week: Got AQAL? -- "This weeks T-Shirt is all about "Change Your Mind, Change Your World," and asks if you're applying AQAL in your life....and if you've got this T-Shirt?"
~ A CAT-Scan of the Global Brain (Part 4) -- "If it's true that every individual brain is like a single neuron in the global brain, we are all connected at an invisible level. In itself this isn't a radical statement: scholars of art and myth have discovered countless similarities between cultures that were historically isolated from one another."
~ Participatory Spirituality, an update on John Heron’s book -- "One year ago, John Heron wrote an important, but self-published book, on Participatory Spirituality, which was subtitled, a Farewell to Authoritarian Religion. This important book is now also available through Amazon and I would therefore like to bring it once more under your attention. Below is the short review that I added to it."
~ Andrew Cohen on Women, Men, and the Evolution of Culture -- "So what is it that I notice arises from my being when Cohen speaks or writes? I think it's that ego. I think it's the Guru syndrome that he steps so willingly and so easily into. I think it's that he takes so much credit for things that are already emerging , with him, without him, around him, away from him, and in spite of him."
~ Will Solving the 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness Unweave the Rainbow? -- "Some say in fifty years or so we'll have enough neuro-scientific evidence to completely describe the functioning of the brain. The question is, will this mountain of evidence be enough to explain the emergence of human consciousness?" I doubt it.
~ Postformal dialectics 3 -- "I’m starting another thread continuing the re-posting of the Integral Review discussion because we’ve been having technical problems. It seems comments, including my own, have been ending up in the spam bin. We’re working on correcting this so please bear with us, thanks."
~ Revision3 - They’re Hip, Young, & Geeky. But Are They Conscious? -- "urchinTracker ('/outbound/article/www.fallingfruit.tv');">Falling Fruit is one among several of the first netcasting media companies. urchinTracker ('/outbound/article/www.revision3.com');">Revision3, based out of San Francisco, is another such company who are paving the way and doing it quite well. They focus primarily on technology and offer all of their content in a video format. What’s so interesting about Revision3, and why I wanted to dedicate a post to them is that their project is similar to ours in many ways, but also diverges in some unique ways."


No comments: