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Tuesday, 10 January 2006
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I'm not sure where this comes from, but Peter Thurmer sent it to me.
11:42:33 AM 
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David Pescovitz:
 My friend Mason Inman posted this photoshopped image on his blog in honor of his new spectacles. It literally makes my eyes tear.
Link
[Boing Boing]
11:13:53 AM
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USATODAY.com - Forget the mall. Forget the movies. Forget school. Forget even AOL. If you're a teen in America today, the place to be is the social networking site MySpace, which has virtually exploded in the past few months. In only two years, MySpace has shot from zero to 47.3 million members.
And don't think the bands of my ex-students aren't hip to this!
poetikooljustice
Free placement with the target audience. Gotta be good!
[Yahoo! News: Technology News] [Strive for the Minimum! Do It Now!!]
10:45:46 AM
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Although you might think that this blog was deep in the throes of an
existential crisis since July, you are only partly right. I have been
buried in my new project - launching a new physics magazine that people
are receiving the first print issue of today. The magazine is called symmetry and looks at the various dimensions of particle physics and how they relate to science, policy and culture.
You can read the entire contents of the magazine online or subscribe for print copies at www.symmetrymagazine.org
David Harris was once frequently quoted in this blog, but I lost track of him; I'm happy to say I've found him again. His new magazine is bound to be brilliant.
[David Harris' Science & Literature]
3:14:04 AM
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Can "pop"-ness be quantified? Is there a quality, inherent in the shiniest, rubberiest, squeakiest, squeeziest expressions of disposable culture, that can be distilled into pure essence of pop? If so, what is it? A product's giddy embrace of its instant obsolescence? An earnest attempt at mass appeal that stumbles unwittingly into kitsch or camp or brain-scalding weirdness? An unselfconscious delight in its wiles, counterweighted by a slyly self-mocking awareness of just how unconvincing its seductions are? All of the above? Where's Andy Warhol when we need him to Explain It All For Us with one of his brilliantly vapid aphorisms? [Shovelware]
3:01:52 AM
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Xeni Jardin:
In today's NYT, a fascinating interview with "father of acid" Albert Hofman, who turned 100 this week.
His work on ergot produced several important drugs, including a compound still in use to prevent hemorrhaging after childbirth. But it was the 25th compound that he synthesized, lysergic acid diethylamide, that was to have the greatest impact. When he first created it in 1938, the drug yielded no significant pharmacological results. But when his work on ergot was completed, he decided to go back to LSD-25, hoping that improved tests could detect the stimulating effect on the body's circulatory system that he had expected from it. It was as he was synthesizing the drug on a Friday afternoon in April 1943 that he first experienced the altered state of consciousness for which it became famous. "Immediately, I recognized it as the same experience I had had as a child," he said. "I didn't know what caused it, but I knew that it was important."
When he returned to his lab the next Monday, he tried to identify the source of his experience, believing first that it had come from the fumes of a chloroform-like solvent he had been using. Inhaling the fumes produced no effect, though, and he realized he must have somehow ingested a trace of LSD. "LSD spoke to me," Mr. Hofmann said with an amused, animated smile. "He came to me and said, 'You must find me.' He told me, 'Don't give me to the pharmacologist, he won't find anything.' "
Link. Image: Marc Latzel. (Thanks, John)
[Boing Boing]
2:33:34 AM
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Researchers at the Menzies Institute in Hobart, Tasmania, are exploring links between physical activity and emotional wellbeing.
I'll save them the time and money; people who exercise are mad.
There.
Bloody obvious isn't it?
[ABC News: Health]
12:21:41 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Peter Nixon.
Last update: 6/2/06; 7:37:23 AM.
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