ideometric

Recent research also supports the hypothesis that health can be passed down through generations […]

A long-term study that included more than 100 years of birth, death, health and genealogical records for 300 Swedish families in an isolated village showed that an individual’s risk for diabetes and early death increased if his or her paternal grandparents grew up in times of food abundance rather than food shortage.

“Evidence indicates that what you eat can affect your grandchildren’s brain molecules and synapses,” Gómez-Pinilla said. “We are trying to find the molecular basis to explain this.”

Source

So, what does that bode for our obese, diabetes ridden, genetically modified food-eating, hormone and antibiotic fed meat-consuming, cheap corn-obsessed food culture? We’re already dooming ourselves with unsustainable energy, environmental, and industrial food/farming policies (etc). Are we in the process of creating deeper problems embedded in the genetic make-up of future generations as well?

“Glenda Kinzer, 41, from rural Ohio, believes the end of the world is about to occur. “A lot of people are talking about how Obama fits the description” of the Antichrist.”

Sigh.

Source

I thought about making a ‘cyberculture’ category for my postings, but is there really any point to distinguishing online from offline culture now that ‘cyberculture’ is mainstream? Is the line between the two, to the extent that it exists, largely irrelevant?

Vanity Fair maps the blogosphere. Part of it, anyway.

This blog (Kotaji) has good coverage of the Korean beef protests, among other things.

IT staff routinely snoop on users, riffling through their e-mails and personal files, a newly released survey has found.

Few ordinary users realize that one in three of their IT work colleagues are snooping through company systems, peeking at confidential information such as your private files, wage data, personal e-mails, and HR background, using admin privileges.

Source

The Associated Press has decided that fair use no longer applies to them, and is attempting to charge $12.50 (and up) to quote as little as 5 words from an article.

This is an example of the tension embedded in new media, between cultural autonomy, democratization, and the enhancement of capability on the one hand, versus the creation of potentially more invasive methods of control, censorship, cooptation, and extraction of profit on the other. It’s a political issue (at the very least). We need smart policies regulating technology and communications, and smart laws protecting our rights.

This post from Making Light sketches the alternative…

“Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish.

Welcome to a world in which you won’t own any of your technology or your music or your books, because ensuring that someone makes their profit margins will justify depriving you of the even the most basic, commonsensical rights in your personal, hand-level household goods.”

In the same vein, Bruce Schneier echoes this concern in light of wider designs for embedded limitations, such as kill-switches in OnStar that can remotely shut-off your car, or overrides in your cell-phones and other gear that might forcibly set them to silent in a movie theater, or turn them off in an airplane, (etc.).

“This is really about media companies wanting to exert their control further over your electronics. They not only want to prevent you from surreptitiously recording movies and concerts, they want your new television to enforce good “manners” on your computer, and not allow it to record any programs. They want your iPod to politely refuse to copy music to a computer other than your own. They want to enforce their legislated definition of manners: to control what you do and when you do it, and to charge you repeatedly for the privilege whenever possible.”

THE magazine is yet another trend-spotting zine, but it’s pretty accessible, had a few things that I found genuinely interesting, and the hype is kept at a bearable level.

Found via 

Some random girl in China uploaded a 4 minute video clip of herself ranting at the victims of the earthquake. I guess her name and address have already been publicized. It sounds like the makings of another e-vigilante story (see Korean dog poop lady for another example). Video with English subs below.

BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) — When a video clip surfaced on YouTube showing Zhang Ya cursing Wenchuan earthquake victims with lots of profane words, a small earthquake was triggered in China’s Internet community.

Millions of Chinese Internet users posted furious condemnation messages, accusing the 21-year-old girl of “no humanity,” “insulting the victims” and calling her “scum”.

In the near-5-minute video, Zhang, a native of Shenyang, capital of the northeastern Liaoning Province, showed that she was annoyed with the three day period of national mourning during which she could neither watch her favorite television programs nor play any games online. Shockingly, the girl chose to vent her anger through throwing nasty words upon the victims of the Sichuan quake, whose number has now topped 55,000.

Source: Xinhua
(The article is interesting too, it talks about the role of the net and grass-roots self-organizing in response to the earthquake).

But here’s the video…

Apparently one of my videos from Korea on Youtube is being used for some Japanese/Korean bashing over on this bulletin board. Something about height / legs? I’d love a translation.

Analysts expect Take-Two to rake in more than $1 billion in GTA IV [Grand Theft Auto] revenue by selling roughly 18 million copies through 2009

Source

You can talk to the people in the news, if you want to. In a story about the Spitzer prostitution scandal, the NY Times links to the Myspace profile of the woman he was with. Edit: One of my friends just added her on Facebook, haha.

CNN also posts AIM transcripts or screen names. What’re the ethics on that?

It’s like invasion of privacy, but not really. The net blurs the lines between public and private…

CNN has a story about this here.

After she was identified by The New York Times, throngs of journalists staked out her home.

At the same time, she appeared to have jumped on her MySpace page, which was identified by the Times, and a Facebook profile with the same name and photos.

It seemed she was trying to stay one step ahead of journalists, attempting to limit what information they could access.

She was seemingly aware that the press would have access to her friends and every word, photo and comment on her profiles, so she began by deleting connections between her friends on Facebook.

And this bit:

The page had received more than 1,100 friend requests on Facebook. Initially, she ignored them.

Apparently the net is a boon to Arab metalheads…

• CNN has a video report about blackmetal/deathmetal bands in the middle east using Youtube and Myspace to get their music out in countries where public performances are illegal.

• Another article mentions mp3s, online stores, and album trading coordinated through web communities as factors sustaining the metal subcultures in these countries.

“In the previous article I had discussed that since there are no record labels in Iran, the people here have to ask their friends and relatives who live in the other countries to bring them the albums they want. However as Internet has become wide-spread in the recent years in Iran, Iranian metallers have found a better way to get the metal albums. There are some sites that sell these albums in very cheap price and one can download the albums that he wants from them in MP3 format. […] Trading is one of the other ways that metaller can get the albums they have been searching for.“

All of the links above are from an unlikely post @ samefacts.com

The Arabic logo above (awesome) belongs to the first band that came up on myspace, called Narjahanam. From Bahrain, not bad either.

In a world of simulacra, copies without originals, when is a work “finished”? Is it a perpetual work-in-progress?

I think I like that idea.

I know I’m predictable but Daft Punk’s tron suits, their pyramid, control panels, the glowing orchestra behind them, and Kanye’s cyberpunkesque gear made me happy. style over substance aside.