Microsoft: You’re not cool; you’re the opposite of cool; stop making your employees dance (w/ vid)

Microsoft: You’re not cool; you’re the opposite of cool; stop making your employees dance (w/ vid)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 – 12:29 PM EST
Here’s a video of some Microsoft retail employees in their fake Apple Store in Mission Viejo, California, faking “spontaneity” via, of all things, some rendition of “The Electric Slide” gone horribly wrong and performed, of course, to the wrong song:

[From MacDailyNews – Microsoft: You’re not cool; you’re the opposite of cool; stop making your employees dance (w/ vid)]

Opposing Views: OPINION:AMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits

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HOUSTON — The American Medical Association (AMA) voted today to reverse its long-held position that marijuana be retained as a Schedule I substance with no medical value. The AMA adopted a report drafted by the AMA Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) entitled, “Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes,” which affirmed the therapeutic benefits of marijuana and called for further research. The CSAPH report concluded that, “short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.” Furthermore, the report urges that “the Schedule I status of marijuana be reviewed with the goal of facilitating clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.

[From Opposing Views: OPINION:AMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits]

A new accessory for your iPhone: a NASA-developed chemical sensor

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What’s better than a handful of sensors for determining if some hostile enemy has set off chemical weapons in a city? How about hundreds of thousands or millions of sensors? If research being done by NASA Ames Research Center under the Cell-All program in the US Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate is taken into production, your next smartphone might contain chemical-sensing circuitry.

[From A new accessory for your iPhone: a NASA-developed chemical sensor]

Dallas Music – Shits And Giggles – page 1

This limited-edition 180-gram vinyl pressing is the first release on avant-garde label Free Dope and Fucking in the Streets and the first release from Shits and Giggles, an experimental collaborative between Los Angeles weirdo Ariel Pink and the Vas Deferens Organization, and featuring prominent guest appearances by Dallas free-jazz trumpeter Dennis González and his son, bassist Aaron González, on four of the seven tracks. It’s a very impressive—and appropriately bizarre—debut for the label and band.

As the ’60s font, fruity cover art and WTF clown and nudity photo on the back would suggest, this album has a very retro feel to it. Were it not for prominent Speak ‘n’ Spell on “Spellcaster,” the closest thing to a cohesive song, the album’s jazz-based improvisation, left-field compositional turns and sly sense of humor make it sound like something Frank Zappa would have come up with if he’d relented on his drug-free stance and hit the studio with a sheet of blotter and a tankful of nitrous. Stoned UNT jazz students will have a blast with this album. Backward vocals sound at once threatening and hilarious. Drums run through a phaser effect swoop across the speakers like a lead instrument. Electronic noises, bowed and popped double-bass, and party chatter intertwine like some ’70s experimental film gone awry.

Throughout the first half of the album, the elder González’s trumpet floats among the noise, sometimes rising to the surface, sometimes adding background texture. Trick or Treat? It’s both: a psychedelic trickster of an album, and a treat for those who like their music weird.

[From Dallas Music – Shits And Giggles – page 1]

Braised Tofu in Spicy Sesame, Peanut Sauce | eCurry – The Recipe Blog

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Tofu and vegetables are cooked in the aromatic Asian sesame oil and creamy peanut butter. This is a spicy, crunchy, healthy stir fry done in a few minutes time.

This is something which I had made quite sometime back for a quick lunch. All my half written posts from the draft need to be posted, there are too many of them. I had some half a block of Tofu left after we had Tandoori Tofu the night before for dinner. For this recipe, I just threw in whatever I had at home; the blend of tofu, vegetables, sesame and the creamy peanut butter worked together really well.

Use the vegetables you want for your recipe.

[From Braised Tofu in Spicy Sesame, Peanut Sauce | eCurry – The Recipe Blog]

!!

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Hurricane Ida, a Category 2 storm, had strengthened by 9 p.m. Sunday to have maximum sustained winds of nearly 105 mph. A hurricane watch and tropical storm warning are in effect for the northern Gulf Coast from Grand Isle to west of Pascagoula, Miss., including the City of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain
The hurricane will be just east of the mouth of the Mississippi River by midnight Monday, before a more eastward path moves it into Pensacola Bay, Fla., near noon on Tuesday, still as a hurricane. A hurricane warning has been issued for the northern gulf coast from Pascagoula east to Indian Pass, Fla. Ida will become an extra-tropical low pressure system after landfall.

[From Hurricane Ida keeping Louisiana coast under hurricane watch | Hurricane News and Storm Tracking – – NOLA.com ]

Most Unique Places to Visit

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To create our list of some of the world’s most unique places to visit, we spoke with several travel experts, and asked them to recommend destinations based on their own past journeys. Those weighing in included Giampiero Ambrosi, general manager of Virtual Tourist; Pamela Bryan, co-founder of Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based travel firm Off the Beaten Path; Bruce Poon Tip, chief executive of Toronto-based travel company G.A.P. Adventures; and William Altaffer, owner and founder of Expedition Photo Travel in San Diego.

[From Most Unique Places to Visit]

Mahmoud Vahidnia, Student, Stuns Iran By Criticizing Supreme Leader

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BEIRUT — An unassuming college math student has become an unlikely hero to many in Iran for daring to criticize the country’s most powerful man to his face.

Mahmoud Vahidnia has received an outpouring of support from government opponents for the challenge – unprecedented in a country where insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a crime punishable by prison.

[From Mahmoud Vahidnia, Student, Stuns Iran By Criticizing Supreme Leader]

berna

Introducing Berna vintage electronic studio from Tobor Experiment on Vimeo.

Between the 1950s and the mid 1960s, long before
Robert Moog and Wendy Carlos injected electronics into pop-music (with a few exceptions like the Barrons and Raymond Scott), electroacoustic music was pioneered by european radio laboratories and US universities. Composing with tapes and electronics was a serious painstaking and expensive affair, prerogative of a restricted elite of contemporary music composers and adventurous sound engineers. At that time there wasn’t any electronic musical instruments market, as a matter of fact, most of the equipment was adapted from scientific tools belonging to radio engineering departments. Sometimes the equipment was built from scratch cannibalizing anything that had wires, tubes and pots, more rarely, the studios used the few commercial instruments available in those days, such as the Melchord, the Trautonium and the Theremin. Contrarily to what happens today, electronic music then was everything but fast and easy to create. A few minutes of electronic composition could take more than one year of work. Everything was handmade, from complex timbres with multiple sine oscillators bounces to tape editing with scissors and scotch-tape. Even sound envelopes were manually built by cutting tapes’ edgdes at different degrees of inclination. Ussachevsky’s ADSR was yet to be invented!

Berna is a software simulation of a late 1950s electroacoustic music studio. Oscillators, filters, modulators, tape recorders, mixers, are all packed in a easy-to-use interface with historical accuracy.

Explore serial, concrete and tape music or create strange new sonic worlds with instruments inspired by the greatest studios of the early days of electronic music.

Are you ready to meet the grandfather of the synthesizer?

[From berna]

Breckenridge Votes Overwhelmingly To Legalize Marijuana

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DENVER — The Colorado ski town of Breckenridge has voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana.

Early returns Tuesday night showed the proposal winning with 72 percent of the vote. The measure would allow adults over 21 to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana.

The measure is largely symbolic because pot possession remains a state crime for people without medical clearance. But supporters said they wanted to send a message to local law enforcement to stop busting small-time pot smokers.

The vote comes as communities nationwide are struggling with how to enforce pot laws at a time when medical marijuana has surged in popularity.

[From Breckenridge Votes Overwhelmingly To Legalize Marijuana]

New iPhone app tracks disease outbreaks | MNN – Mother Nature Network

Apple iPhone owners wondering if there is a case of swine flu nearby can now find out instantly with a new program that tracks outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Outbreaks Near Me is an application for the popular smartphone developed by researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston in collaboration with the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[From New iPhone app tracks disease outbreaks | MNN – Mother Nature Network]

22 of the Coolest Sculptures You’ll Ever See – My Modern Metropolis

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Today, we’ve compiled an extensive list of 22 modern day sculptures that are as cool as they are freaky. These three-dimensional pieces of art are mind-blowing not just because of the materials that have been used but because they leave an indelible mark on our memory. From the hyper-realistic sculptures from Ron Mueck and Duane Hanson to the magically moving sculptures of Peter Jansen and Saúl Hernández, each piece tells an interesting story. It is only through our shared experiences that we come to appreciate how sculptures have evolved as an art form as we reflect on the meaning of each visual piece.

[From 22 of the Coolest Sculptures You’ll Ever See – My Modern Metropolis]

Insurers Spending $700K a Day to Kill Healthcare Reform

Insurers Spending $700K a Day to Kill Healthcare Reform
by mcjoan
Digg this! Share this on Twitter – Insurers Spending $700K a Day to Kill Healthcare ReformTweet this submit to reddit Share This
Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 03:10:04 PM PDT

Wow, that could be providing a helluva lot of healthcare.

Washington, D.C. – A campaign finance watchdog’s analysis of insurance and HMO political contributions and lobbying expenses found the industries spent $126,430,438 over the first half of 2009 and $585,725,712 over the past two and a half years to influence public policy and elected officials. The group, Public Campaign Action Fund, found that in the first part of 2009, the industries were spending money at nearly a $700,000 a day clip to influence the political process and that the monthly pace of political spending this year has increased by nearly $400,000 over the average spent per month in the previous two years.

In addition to PAC contributions to our “public servants,” that’s funding 875 registered lobbyists for the insurance industry, and 920 for the HMOs. Which really is hardly a drop in the bucket for the industry, when you take into consideration their CEO compensation, which ranges from $3 million to $24 million.

Nice to know what our premiums are paying for, huh? We could cut out the middleman here. We could start giving all the money we’re spending on premiums directly to our representative and Senators. Maybe then they’d listen to us, the people who hired them, when it comes to vote.

Yeah, right.

[From Daily Kos: State of the Nation]

Got Acid? Tripping Out: The Return of Hofmann’s Problem Child, LSD | Disinformation

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Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, lambasted the countercultural movement for marginalizing a chemical that he asserted had potential benefits as an invaluable supplement to psychotherapy and spiritual practices such as meditation. “This joy at having fathered LSD was tarnished after more than ten years of uninterrupted scientific research and medicinal use when LSD was swept up in the huge wave of an inebriant mania that began to spread over the Western world, above all the United States, at the end of the 1950s,” Hofmann groused in his 1979 memoir LSD: My Problem Child.

For just that reason, Hofmann was jubilant in the months before his death last year, at the age of 102, when he learned that the first scientific research on LSD in decades was just beginning in his native Switzerland. “He was very happy that, as he said, ‘a long wish finally became true,’ ” remarks Peter Gasser, the physician leading the clinical trial. “He said that the substance must be in the hands of medical doctors again.”

The preliminary study picks up where investigators left off. It explores the possible therapeutic effects of the drug on the intense anxiety experienced by patients with life-threatening disease, such as cancer…

[From Got Acid? Tripping Out: The Return of Hofmann’s Problem Child, LSD | Disinformation]