Dr. Tian Dayton: Creating a False Self: Learning to Live a Lie (26 August 2009)
The idea of a false self is to ward off mounting anxiety, to help a family to maintain its denial of problems or to keep the true self safe and often hidden. That's why a child might create one in the first place, to please and placate the family system. The sad outcome however, is that the false self becomes so well constructed and adapted, or garners so much acceptance and sense of place and even power within the family that spawned it and relies on it to maintain their status quo, that eventually the true self becomes lost to us.
[Microsoft's Photoshop Blunder: Racist or Shortsighted?](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsofts_photoshop_blunder_racist_or_shortsighte.php http://snipurl.com/rd189) (26 August 2009)
Microsoft doctored a stock image to appeal to its Polish customers by literally whitewashing the color from one of the photo's subjects. While US web visitors were greeted by 3 racially diverse business people, Polish visitors saw one man replaced by a Caucasian doppelganger.
ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES - THE FILM (28 August 2009)
ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES - THE FILM
FEATURING: Belle And Sebastian / Grizzly Bear / Sonic Youth / Battles / Portishead / Daniel Johnston / Grinderman / David Cross / Animal Collective / The Boredoms / Les Savy Fav / Mogwai / Octopus Project / Slint / The Dirty Three / The Yeah Yeah Yeahs / The Gossip / GZA / Seasick Steve / Iggy And The Stooges / A Hawk And A Hacksaw / Fuck Buttons / Micah P Hinson / Two Gallants / Akron/Family / Jah Shaka / Saul Williams / Shellac / Patti Smith / John Cooper Clark / Lightning Bolt / Roscoe Mitchell / The Mars Volta
Coming October 2009 from Warp Films, produced by Luke Morris / Warp X (exact release date TBC)
The Mudflats » Nazis. (26 August 2009)
My father spent his 21st birthday in a prisoner of war camp. Deaf in one ear, and completely flat-footed, he could have easily been a "4-F" and escaped service for medical reasons. He was a peaceful man but he, like so many of his generation, felt the need to serve his country, and to fight againgst the fascism that was threatening to engulf the democratic nations of Western Europe, and had even attacked the United States.
When he was 20 years old, he'd been taken prisoner by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, was marched for miles, imprisoned, and starved. Like many men of his generation, veterans of World War II, he didn't talk about it much. He held his memories close to his chest. If he talked to anyone about them, I didn't know. It was only many years after his service and just before his death that he shared some of those memories with me.
10 Photography Pet Peeves We'd Throw Down a Black Hole | Wired.com (26 August 2009)
Trite flickr comments, shutter lag, watermarks, The Megapixel Discussion [...]
Jani's at the mercy of her mind -- latimes.com (27 August 2009)
It's been a rough week. A few days ago, at UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 6-year-old Jani toppled a food cart and was confined to her room. She slammed her head against the floor, opening a bloody cut that sent her into hysterics. Later, she kicked the hospital therapy dog.
Jani normally likes animals. But most of her animal friends -- cats, rats, dogs and birds -- are phantoms that only she can see. January Schofield has schizophrenia. Potent psychiatric drugs -- in doses that would stagger most adults -- seem to skip off her. She is among the rarest of the rare: a child seemingly born mentally ill.
Music downloading penalties are harsher than arson, theft, or starting a dogfighting ring - Boing Boing (27 August 2009)
Jesus Diaz looks at the $1.92m fine Jammie Thomas faces for downloading 1700 songs and compares it to the penalties for other crimes in America (valuing jail time at $50,233, the median US household income in 2007):
“¢ Child abduction: Fine of $25,000 and up to three years in prison, which can be accounted as $50,233 per year (that was the median household income in 2007, probably down because of the economic crisis). Total: $175,699.
And ending it all, Russell Brand and Britney Spears do a commercial for the upcoming MTV VMAs: