Clipmarks | Behavior Clips

The Teen Brain

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:55:21 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Human and animal studies, Jensen and Urion note, have shown that the brain grows and changes continually in young people—and that it is only about 80 percent developed in adolescents. The largest part, the cortex, is divided into lobes that mature from back to front. The last section to connect is the frontal lobe, responsible for cognitive processes such as reasoning, planning, and judgment. Normally this mental merger is not completed until somewhere between ages 25 and 30—much later than these two neurologists were taught in medical school.

There are also gender differences in brain development. As Urion and Jensen explain, the part of our brain that processes information expands during childhood and then begins to thin, peaking in girls at roughly 12 to 14 years old and in boys about two years later. This suggests that girls and boys may be ready to absorb challenging material at different stages, and that schools may be missing opportunities to reach them.

Clip Source: harvardmagazine.com

Your teenage daughter gets top marks in school, captains the debate team, and volunteers at a shelter for homeless people. But while driving the family car, she text-messages her best friend and rear-ends another vehicle.

How can teens be so clever, accomplished, and responsible—and reckless at the same time? Easily, according to two physicians at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School (HMS) who have been exploring the unique structure and chemistry of the adolescent brain.

“It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them.”

Research during the past 10 years, powered by technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, has revealed that young brains have both fast-growing synapses and sections that remain unconnected.

This leaves teens easily influenced by their environment and more prone to impulsive behavior, even without the impact of souped-up hormones and any genetic or family

Tags: neuroscience, brain, development

Violent Language, violent mind

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:36:23 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.howstuffworks.com

Hostile language is dangerous to your health and well-being; it's toxic stuff. People who are frequently exposed to hostile language get sick more often, are injured more often, take longer to recover from illness and injury, and suffer more complications during recovery. As an obvious result, they tend to die sooner than those not so exposed. What's more, hostile language is just as dangerous to the person dishing it out (and to innocent bystanders who can't leave the scene) as it is to the person on the receiving end.

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Verbal abuse is a pattern of behavior that can seriously interfere with one’s positive emotional development and over time, can lead to significant detriment to one’s self-esteem, emotional well-being and physical state. It has been further described as an ongoing emotional environment organized by the abuser for the purposes of control.

Whilst oral communication is the most common form of verbal abuse, it includes abusive words in written form.

Tags: verbal violence

Christian, Remember This Is What It Is All About

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:40:32 GMT

clipped by: Maxwell_Smart
clipper's remarks: Where are the Christians on free speech? Journalists are being raided at the Republican National Convention and they continue to support the party that encourages such behavior. Don't they see the connection? Are they going to wait until they are personally affronted? It will be far to late if it isn't too late already. What they need to do is start speaking out, buy a video camera to record incidents like this, and let others know. The Republican Neocons are monitoring your response and when they see you pull the covers over your head, they will attack us all.

Newsweek Mar 2007 reported that 80% of Americans claim to be Christian. If this is so, where is the light, where is truth, where is hope in any degree compared to what your Lord brought? If you said you follow the god of darkness I would believe you.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

During the spring of 2006, graduating senior Brittany McComb was chosen to give the valedictory speech at Foothill High School in Henderson, Nev., by virtue of achieving the highest GPA in the school. After composing her remarks, she submitted them to school administrators according to standard district policy. School administrators, with the advice of their district legal counsel, censored her speech, deleting all three Bible references, several references to "the Lord" and the only mention of the word "Christ."

Tags: media, fascism, police state, church

Avoid "Page Has Expired" Warnings

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:40:30 GMT

clipped by: rbacam

Clip Source: shiflett.org

Guru Speak: How to Avoid "Page Has Expired" Warnings

One problem with organizing questions and answers, and in fact a big reason why searching the archives can be difficult for a beginner, is that the same question can be posed in so many different ways. This is especially true when the same problem arises under different circumstances, or when differences in browser behavior can cause the same error to be reported in numerous ways.

Tags: php, programming, web development, expìred pages, sessions, ini_set

An Update on RNC (Nazi style) Raids

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:23:49 GMT

clipped by: Maxwell_Smart

Clip Source: www.salon.com

As the DN producer explains, she was present at a meeting of a group called "I-Witness" -- which videotaped police behavior at the 2004 GOP Convention in New York and helped get charges dismissed against hundreds of protesters who were arrested. The police surrounded the St. Paul house where they were meeting even though they had no warrant, told them that anyone who exited the house would be arrested

basically broke into the house, pointed weapons at everyone inside, handcuffed them, searched the house, and then left. Here is a blog post from one of the members of I-Witness asking for help during the time when they were forced to stay inside the house (see the second post -- it reads like a note from a hostage crying out for help). This is truly repugnant, extreme police behavior designed to intimidate protesters, police critics and others, and it ought to infuriate anyone and everyone who cares about basic liberties.

UPDATE IV: More here, including on the Federal Government's role

The Selfless Philanderer

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:49:42 GMT

clipped by: cptenaud
clipper's remarks: And then she spoils it all by wearing that hideous green dress!
I’m sure you’ve seen the hilariously disturbing You Tube video of McCain checking out Palin’s ass, all the while fiddling with his wedding ring. In light of the recent allegations of Palin’s own infidelity, Cindy just better watch her scary self. When you marry a philanderer you get, well a philanderer. Good luck with that, honey!

Clip Source: bettybowers.com

“I was never the same again; I wasn’t my own man anymore; I was my country’s.”

I don’t know if it’s because of all the Botox that spoiled Cindy got her kept man to try, but it is a bit hard to tell when John McCain is joking (especially with that creepy, too-late, too-long “I just made a funny and a poopy in my Depends!” laugh of his).

After all, the central theme of his acceptance speech tonight was that after he collaborated with the concierge at the Hanoi Hilton, he was no longer about his ego and selfish needs, but only about serving America.

As a patriotic American, I find it disturbing that America apparently encouraged him to abandon his sick, devoted wife and throw himself into a flurry of protracted sexual, extramarital affairs, become a gigolo, and stalk someone nubile and rich enough to pay for his ambitions! Honestly, it makes you question America (“USA! USA! USA! USA!”) when she inspires such base, unseemly and selfish behavior!

Gait may be associated with orgasmic ability

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:22:21 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: There are several plausible explanations for the results shown by this study. One possibility is that a woman's anatomical features may predispose her to greater or lesser tendency to experience vaginal orgasm. According to Brody, "Blocked pelvic muscles, which might be associated with psychosexual impairments, could both impair vaginal orgasmic response and gait." In addition, vaginally orgasmic women may feel more confident about their sexuality, which might be reflected in their gait. "Such confidence might also be related to the relationship(s) that a woman has had, given the finding that specifically penile-vaginal orgasm is associated with indices of better relationship quality," the authors state. Research has linked vaginal orgasm to better mental health.

The study provides some support for assumptions of a link between muscle blocks and sexual function, according to the authors. They conclude that it may lend credibility to the idea of incorporating training in movement, br

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

A new study found that trained sexologists could infer a woman's history of vaginal orgasm by observing the way she walks. The study is published in the September 2008 issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine

Subjects completed a questionnaire on their sexual behavior and were then videotaped from a distance while walking in a public place. The videotapes were rated by two professors of sexology and two research assistants trained in the functional-sexological approach to sexology, who were not aware of the women's orgasmic history

The results showed that the appropriately trained sexologists were able to correctly infer vaginal orgasm through watching the way the women walked over 80 percent of the time

Further analysis revealed that the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation was greater for the vaginally orgasmic women. "This could reflect the free, unblocked energetic flow from the legs through the pelvis to the spine," the authors note.

Tags: sexology, human behavior

nodey

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:04:14 GMT

clipped by: gravitrulz

Clip Source: api.drupal.org

Nodes are polymorphic in the classical sense. If a module needs to display a node, for example, it can call node_view() on that node to get an HTML representation. The actual rendering, though, will depend on which type of node is passed to the function; this is directly analogous to having the class of an object determine its behavior when a message is sent to it. Drupal itself handles the same introspection tasks required of an OOP language's runtime library.

Furthermore, the rendering of the node in this example can be affected by the active theme. Themes are polymorphic in the same way; the theme is passed a "render this node" message, and responds to it in a different way depending on the implementation of the active theme, though the interface is constant.

Polymorphism

Search Dominant Users? Nope UIE

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:09:17 GMT

clipped by: CSBmulitmedia
clipper's remarks: UIE looks at search behavior and suggests focusing on one method of navigation.

Clip Source: www.uie.com

The lack of evidence to support the user search-dominance theory implies that teams may need to think about concentrating their efforts on a single location tool. Depending on the specific content on their site, teams might want to focus specifically on either the search engine or the links, but not necessarily both. Everything we've seen in our testing says that focusing the resources on a single approach can dramatically improve the user's experience. •

We also noticed that users often gravitated to the search engine when the links on the page didn't satisfy them in some way. For a long time, we've observed that users seem to use the search engine as a fallback after failing to pick up "scent" on the home page. Our recent study gave us more evidence to support this behavior. We observed many home-page link failures that forced users into the search engine.

quote: relevant veg & famine

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:03:50 GMT

clipped by: afrjc

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Tolstoy syndrome

The behavior of confirmation bias has sometimes been called "Tolstoy syndrome", in reference to Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), who in 1897 wrote:^[8]

“

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life".

”

A related Tolstoy quote is:

“	"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."^[9]

Tags: famine affluence and morality, vegetarianism, confirmation bias, quotes, myside bias, socialization, moral development, character, integrity

dis1

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:35:13 GMT

clipped by: jimbobandme

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as the "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals."^[1] Psychogeography includes just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape."^[2] The most important of these strategies is the dérive.

'Some concern' still tied to chemical found in plastics

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:53:50 GMT

clipped by: A53GG4

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

'Some concern' still tied to chemical found in plastics

A government agency Wednesday said there's "some concern" that a controversial ingredient in plastic alters behavior and development of the brain and prostate gland in children and babies, both before and after birth.

The National Toxicology Program's final ruling on bisphenol A, or BPA, contradicts a Food and Drug Administration report issued two weeks ago.

The toxicology program rates its concerns on a five-point scale, from "negligible" to "serious," based on the strength of scientific evidence. It expressed "some concern" — a middle level — that BPA affects development at levels to which people are exposed everyday. The program has "minimal" concern — its second-lowest level — that BPA affects the breast or causes early puberty in girls and "negligible" concern that it causes birth defects, fetal or newborn death or reproductive problems in adults.

Tags: health

Comcast to sue FCC

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:06:28 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: arstechnica.com

Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin said today that he was "disappointed" by Comcast's decision to sue the FCC over its move to sanction the company for P2P throttling.

Anticipating Comcast's arguments that the FCC has no jurisdiction to sanction its behavior, Martin reminded the company that when the FCC approved it and Time-Warners' acquisition of Adelphia Communications in July of 2006, the FCC "put Comcast on notice" that it would act on complaints of degraded Internet content. "Comcast nonetheless chose to close on that deal," Martin noted.

The FCC still wants answers, Martin's statement concludes. "Perhaps more importantly, Comcast's subscribers deserve to know the answers."

"The future of the Internet is too important to let Comcast tie it up in legal limbo," Scott said. "Congress should act now to pass net neutrality laws that clear up any uncertainty once and for all."

Tags: fcc, comcast, internet, bandwidth, lawsuit

Corporate Events Etiquette

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:39:30 GMT

clipped by: samrochester
clipper's remarks: Ethics and Etiquette for social events

Clip Source: offtherecorditems.com

Corporate Event Planning: A Guide to Ethics and Etiquette

Corporate event planning can be a stressful task. During the corporate event planning process, it is easy to overlook proper ethics and etiquette. This guide provides a list of the basics or ethics and etiquette at any corporate event.

Behavior Guidelines

Serving alcohol is a touchy subject for many corporate event planners. Many companies opt for a non-alcoholic event. If your corporate event does include alcohol, it is best to

Alcoholic Drinks

When planning a corporate event, the goal is often to provide a relaxed and entertaining experience for your employees. However, guests at the corporate event still represent your company in public and should be expected to behave in a respectful manner. Behavior guidelines should be made clear to all attendees.

Tags: corporate events

Olympics

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:22:21 GMT

clipped by: defran

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

"It's interesting to me how effective sports fans are at being in denial," said Daniel Mahony, a dean at Kent State who has done sports management research into fan behavior.

Slide show

PhotoBlog: A unique Olympics view
Check out the latest Beijing Olympics photos that caught our eyes.

MSNBC

But, he added, "Now it's become harder and harder for people to do that."

Torres even volunteered to take part in a stringent pilot drug-testing program administered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

"That's crucial public relations on her part," said Bob Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse.