silveradept | Midday update

A quick midday update, as it’s likely the Land of Dial-Up won’t be kind to me in my usual long-listedness.

The El Camino Hearse. for when you want to go out in style... or you couldn’t just let go of the past.

Pravda has an article about whipping is an effective therapy for depression. Especially if you’re getting whipped by someone of the opposite sex, they tell us. This is something that I’m sure several BDSM enthusiasts could tell you - pain can become pleasurable, applied in the right manner by the right person. I wonder if there’s more studies into this sort of pain-pleasure confusion.

Speaking of causing pain to people - there's a second WarGames movie in the works. So, would you like to play another game? Beyond that, a second potentially pain-causing item - Archie Comics is changing its look. From what the new-look cover says to me, well, it could be just as painful. I wonder if the writing’s gotten any better. And whether Jughead will lose his hat.

A Small Slew of Science! (SCIENCE!) - Robot surgeons are getting a rudimentary sense of touch, so they can relay to the surgeon conducting the operation an idea of how much force is being applied. Nanowelding with copper makes it possible to fuse nanotubes to a surface. I’m not sure this is going to result in another Moore’s Law fulfillment, but it’s probably helping. And finally, expanding on the idea that suburbia is bad for your health, obesity is the number one kids' health issue, according to a survey conducted by Reserach!America and the Endocrine Society. Obviously, there’s more than suburbia at work here, but it still proves that we need to find ways of getting the kids out and healthy.

A new startup is trying to improve image recall by studying the pictures, rather than the text tags. What I want to know, and the article doesn’t say, is how it intends on figuring out whether a certain sequence of facial characteristics is a match for the person or image requested. I’d like to know how it knows what matches Paris Hilton, say.

And here’s one of those hidden segues, as the next set of articles is all about sex. Starting with something we already knew - more than 90% of the American populace has had premarital sex, men and women alike. So, why are we spending significant money on “abstinence-only” education programs? Internationally, in one of the Indian states, Andhra Pradesh, premarital HIV testing will soon become mandatory. UNAIDS says it’s not the way to go, because people will forge their negative status, and that will make for a bigger problem. Lastly, as we all should know by now, sex does the body good. (The tail end of this article is familiar, like I’ve linked to it before...)

In terms of pleasures for the mind aside from fantasising, reading Shakespeare may excite your brain in a positive manner, because Shakespeare likes to use nouns as verbs. This then requires the brain to work backwards through the sentence to figure out just what’s going on. This is apparently a positive thing for the brain. Now, all we need to do is to get the kids to be able to get interested in the material...

Want a peek inside the mind of someone affected with schizophrenia? The Times Online gives us that with A Mind Taut With Pain. It’s different, trying to follow along with the thoughts of the writer. Hopefully, one day we’ll find a way of making a mind like that less fractured.

If Schoolhouse Rock were more politically leaning, and had no qualms about expressing an opinion about how the recent administrations had handled international affairs, one might get something like Pirates and Emperors (or, Size Does Matter). Worth a watch, even if just for the rather catchy tune.

As a parting shot, I remind you of the real reason for the season, so celebrate the birth of Mithras on his appointed day, okay?