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Iran: You Suck At Photoshop.

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:11:57 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Here's the caption on the NYT illustration above:
In the four-missile version of the image released Wednesday by Sepah News, the media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, two major sections (encircled in red) appear to closely replicate other sections (encircled in orange).

Clip Source: www.boingboing.net

Or perhaps the headline of this post should read, "American media: you suck at fact-checking."

Iran's state-run media agency has been accused before of having digitally manipulated images released to foreign media. This week, as word spread of purported missile tests in Iran, the validity of an image of four missiles shooting into the sky turned out to be photoshopped -- but not before a bunch of big news organizations printed it as legit.

Agence France-Presse said that it obtained the image from the Web site of Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, on Wednesday. But there was no sign of it there later in the day. Today, The Associated Press distributed what appeared to be a nearly identical photo from the same source, but without the fourth missile.

This morning, Agence France-Presse retracted the image as “apparently digitally altered.”

Tags: photoshop, photography, photo manipulation

50 Facts that Should Change the World

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:00:27 GMT

clipped by: hitchhiker08
clipper's remarks: Interesting

Clip Source: www.christiantoday.com

50 Facts that Should Change the World

1 THE average Japanese woman can expect to live to 84; her counterpart in Botswana will die at 39.

2 BLACK men born in the US stand a one-in-three chance of going to jail. For white men the odds are one in 17.

3 ONE in five of the world's population - 1.25 billion people - is undernourished.

4 NEARLY half of British 15-year-olds have tried illegal drugs and nearly a quarter are regular cigarette smokers.

7 SUPERMARKETS in the UK know more about their customers than the government does. They use loyalty cards to determine your income and what your interests are.

11 THERE are 27 million slaves in the world.

14 ONE in five people live on less than 50p a day.

15 THERE are 44 million child labourers in India, some working 16-hour days.

21 CARS kill two people every minute.

Clip Source: www.christiantoday.com

24 IN Kenya, bribery payments make up a third of the average household budget.

27 MORE than 150 countries are known to use torture.

33 THE world's oil reserves could be exhausted by 2040.

Tags: economy, stability, war, violence, crime, population, global, oil, money, dollar

Aldous Huxley - Select Quotes

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:28:27 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: I usually dislike to clip quotes, but this web site was simply irresistible

And a last one...
"Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful."

Clip Source: www.kevinstilley.com

That we do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Death … It’s the only thing we haven’t succeeded in completely vulgarizing.

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.

A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt.

Cynical realism is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

Tags: quotes

living on the edge: 2 stunningly scary clifftop communities

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:49:03 GMT

clipped by: constantskeptic
clipper's remarks: wow

Clip Source: deputy-dog.com

living on the edge: 2 stunningly scary clifftop communities

[above] welcome to ronda (google maps here), a beautiful city in southern spain which is split in two by el tajo gorge. as a result, certain buildings have been perched on the edge of the gorge’s verticall walls, enormous cliffs bridged by the 200 year old peunte neuvo. now, although living on the edge of that gigantic 130m crack would give me the shakes, i’d much rather live there than bonifacio…

[above] this is bonifacio in corsica (google maps here). this fragile looking citadel sits precariously above limestone cliffs which over the years have been battered by the mediterranean sea, a process which is apparent by both the piles of eroded stone at the base and the overhang of the cliff walls. how long before the next building gets swallowed? no idea, but from the look of the first photo it can’t be long.

anyone know of any more frightening clifftop towns?

Man Retires Rather Than Honor Senator Helms

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:28:37 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Jesse Helms was the last unreconstructed segregationist in the United States Senate. He was a menace to the poor, to women, and to gays and lesbians. May his bigotry be buried with him.

Clip Source: www.charlotte.com

Man retires rather than honor Helms

RALEIGH --

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag this week to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or N.C. flags at half staff Monday as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms.

“Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week,” Eason wrote

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his “doctrine of negativity, hate and prejudice” and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Tags: i won't speak ill of the dead but i'm damn tempted

Born 1920-1979? Congratulations...

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:20:44 GMT

clipped by: carrerinyes
clipper's remarks: No one was able to reach us all day.And we were OK.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computer! s, no Internet or chat rooms.......

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just wal

Clip Source: sandiego.craigslist.org

Born 1920-1979? Congrats...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants &children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we we re back when the streetlights came on.

Why We're All Moral Hypocrites

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:59:09 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The researchers then "constrained cognition" by asking subjects to memorize long strings of numbers. In this greatly distracted state, subjects became impartial. They thought their own transgressions were just as terrible as those of others.

This suggests that we are intuitively moral beings, but "when we are given time to think about it, we construct arguments about why what we did wasn’t that bad,"

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Most of us, whether we admit it or not, are moral hypocrites. We judge others more severely than we judge ourselves.

Mounting evidence suggests moral decisions result from the jousting between our knee-jerk responses (think "survival instinct") and our slower, but more collected evaluations. Which is more responsible for our self-leniency?

a recent study presented people with two tasks.

One was described as tedious and time-consuming

the other, easy and brief.

The subjects were asked to assign each task to either themselves or the next participant.

They could do this independently or defer to a computer, which would assign the tasks randomly.

Eighty-five percent of 42 subjects passed up the computer’s objectivity and assigned themselves the short task – leaving the laborious one to someone else.

Furthermore, they thought their decision was fair

However, when 43 other subjects watched strangers make the same decision, they thought it unjust.

Tags: behavior, morality, psychology

Ending Moderate Drinking Tied To Depression

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:44:17 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: The mice were tested for depression-like behavior using a widely recognized method called the Porsolt Swim Test. The mice are placed inside a beaker filled with water and allowed to swim for six minutes. Mice are good swimmers and have no problem completing this task. The amount of time they spend immobile (floating and not swimming) is measured as an index of despair or depression-like behavior. The more time a mouse spends immobile, the more "depressed" it is thought to be.

"This research provides the first evidence that long-term abstinence from moderate alcohol drinking -- rather than drinking per se -- leads to a negative mood state, depression," Hodge said.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Scientific evidence has long suggested that moderate drinking offers some protection against heart disease, certain types of stroke and some forms of cancer

But new research shows that stopping drinking -- including at moderate levels -- may lead to health problems including depression and a reduced capacity of the brain to produce new neurons, a process called neurogenesis.

"Our research in an animal model establishes a causal link between abstinence from alcohol drinking and depression,"

"In mice that voluntarily drank alcohol for 28 days, depression-like behavior was evident 14 days after termination of alcohol drinking. This suggests that people who stop drinking may experience negative mood states days or weeks after the alcohol has cleared their systems,"

Tags: alcohol, depression

What Makes Earth Special Compared to Other Planets

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:10:09 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "The most impressive attribute of the Earth is the existence and amount of liquid water on its surface,"

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Earth is one special planet.

It has liquid water, plate tectonics, and an atmosphere that shelters it from the worst of the sun's rays. But many scientists agree our planet's most special feature might just be us.

"It's the only planet we know of that has life," said Alan Boss, a planet formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Washington, D.C.

Though other bodies in our solar system, such as Saturn's moon Titan, seem like they could have once been hospitable to some form of life, and scientists still have hope of eventually digging up microbes beneath the surface of Mars, Earth is still the only world known to support life.

"So far, we haven't found it anywhere else," said Alex Wolszczan of Pennsylvania State University, who co-discovered the first planets beyond our solar system. He agreed that life was Earth's single most impressive characteristic.

Tags: earth, us, water

Paper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:13:10 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: So, while it's good to have the alternative (and to recognize the innovation it represents), bioplastics aren't quite ready to save us from the paper or plastic debate.

Paper bags or plastic bags:
the conclusion
Both paper and plastic bags require lots and lots of resources and energy, and proper recycling requires due diligence from both consumer and municipal waste collector or private recycling company, so there are a lot of variables that can lead to low recycling rates.

Ultimately, neither paper nor plastic bags are the best choice; we think choosing reusable canvas bags instead is the way to go. From an energy standpoint, according to this Australian study, canvas bags are 14 times better than plastic bags and 39 times better than paper bags, assuming that canvas bags get a good workout and are used 500 times during their life cycle. Happy shopping!

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

Paper or plastic bags: which is better?

It seems like it should be an easy choice, but there's an incredible number of details and inputs hidden in each bag. From durability and reusability to life cycle costs, there's a lot more to each bag than meet the eye. Let's take a look behind the bags.

Where do brown paper bags come from?

Paper comes from trees -- lots and lots of trees.

And that's just to make the paper; don't forget about the energy inputs -- chemical, electrical, and fossil fuel-based -- used to transport the raw material, turn the paper into a bag and then transport the finished paper bag all over the world.

Where do paper shopping bags go when you're done with them?

How are plastic bags produced?

Unlike paper bags, plastic bags are typically made from oil, a non-renewable resource.

Plastics are a by-product of the oil-refining process, accounting for about four percent of oil production around the globe

How does plastic bag recycling work?

What about biodegradable plastic bags?

Tags: recycling