September 9, 2007

Article On Cognition At Insane Price

September 9, 2007 – 9:23 pm
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Hmm… What is this? Might be interesting… Let me just click the link and… oh wait:

Article title Cognition, emotion and the cerebellum
Author Schmahmann, J. D. Caplan, D.
Journal title BRAIN
Bibliographic details 2006, VOL 129; NUMBER 2, pages 290-292
Publisher Oxford University Press
Country of publication Great Britain
ISSN 0006-8950
Language English
Pricing To buy the full text of this article you pay:
£16.00 copyright fee + service charge (from £7.65) + VAT, if applicable

…so with a VAT of 17.5 per cent… and current exchange rates… that is just shy of $60 CDN for a 2 page article!

To view research that was (probably) funded by the public, hosted on a service (British Library) funded by the public, and which the public is expected to pony up yet again to take a look…

PLoS and pro-am biohacking are poised for world domination… Putting these info-vampires out of business will just be a pleasant side-effect…

Link (thanks honeyjr!)

By Daniel | Posted in Journal | Comments (0)

[Listen/Download MP3] Schobbejak - Prison Work Songs

September 9, 2007 – 8:25 pm
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[Listen/Download MP3] Schobbejak - Prison Work Songs

work-songs.jpg

All the singing - none of the sweat - of a Deep South chain gang…

Tracklist:

    - Heaving The Lead Line
    - Murder’s Home
    - No More, My Lawd
    - Early In The Mornin’
    - Old Alabama
    - Whoa, Buck
    - Arwhoolie
    - Black Woman
    - Old Dollar Mamie
    - What Makes A Work Song Leader
    - Rosie
    - Unloading Rails
    - Prettiest Train
    - Go Down Old Hannah
    - How I Got In The Penitentiary
    - It Makes A Long Time Man Feel Bad
    - Old Rattler
    - Roll ‘m On Down
    - Track Lining Song
    - Unloading Rails
    - Tamping Ties
    - My Baby Got To Go
    - Prison Blues
    - Duckin’ and Dodgin’
    - Quittin’ Time Song 1
    - Quittin’ Time Song 2
By Daniel | Posted in URL | Comments (0)

Sigmund Freud On Religion

September 9, 2007 – 8:07 pm
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freud.jpg

Sunday New York Times Magazine has a story on Sigmund Freud - a committed atheist - and his re-examination of monotheism as a potential incubator of abstract reasoning and a rich inner life:

If people can worship what is not there, they can also reflect on what is not there, or on what is presented to them in symbolic and not immediate terms. So the mental labor of monotheism prepared the Jews — as it would eventually prepare others in the West — to achieve distinction in law, in mathematics, in science and in literary art. It gave them an advantage in all activities that involved making an abstract model of experience, in words or numbers or lines, and working with the abstraction to achieve control over nature or to bring humane order to life. Freud calls this internalizing process an “advance in intellectuality,” and he credits it directly to religion.

It is useful to remember that while dogma often marches in step with religion.. it is not exclusive to religion. It is not so much faith as it is obnoxious certainty that really pushes my buttons [beep!]…

Link

By Daniel | Posted in Journal | Comments (0)

Howto: Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring…

September 9, 2007 – 4:46 pm
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…otherwise known as RSEIUB… a magic key combination for restoring a frozen Linux box.

Instead of hitting the [RESET] button and executing a hard reboot (ouch!) of your knackered system… try this (yesss…) alternative:

While holding down the Alt and SysRq (Print Screen) keys… press in sequence…

    - the r key (switches the keyboard from raw mode… the mode used by programs such as X11 and svgalib, to XLATE mode)
    - the s key (attempts to sync all mounted filesystems)
    - the e key (sends the SIGTERM signal to all processes except init)
    - the i key (sends the SIGKILL signal to all processes except init)
    - the u key (attempts to remount all mounted filesystems in read-only mode)
    - the b key (immediately reboots the system… without unmounting partitions or syncing)

I stuck this on a post-it next to my monitor… Now I just have to wait (…and wait.. and wait… it is Linux, after all) for the system to lockup solid…

Link to further info on Wikipedia

(snagged this tip via FOSSwire)

By Daniel | Posted in Research | Comments (0)

Wandering Is Dangerous… Brace For Impact

September 9, 2007 – 3:13 pm
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Modern science has imposed upon humanity the necessity for
wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive
technology make the transition through time, from generation
to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of
adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is
dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect,
therefore, that the future will disclose dangers. It is
the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is
among the merits of science that it equips the future for
its duties. The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the
nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon the
placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities
for social reform imposed by the new industrial system,
and they are now refusing to face the necessities for
intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge. The
middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes
from a confusion between civilization and security. In the
immediate future there will be less security than in the
immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that
there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with
civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have
been unstable ages.

Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (1925)

By Daniel | Posted in Quote | Comments (0)