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moominmolly: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7548
I'm all for research into the physiology of sex, but this article is awful (I can't tell whether the study it's about is awful too).
As the women were stimulated, activity rose in one sensory part of the brain, called the primary somatosensory cortex, but fell in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas involved in alertness and anxiety. During orgasm, activity fell in many more areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, compared with the resting state, Holstege told a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Development in Copenhagen on Monday.
In one sense the findings appear to confirm what is already known, that women cannot enjoy sex unless they are relaxed and free from worries and distractions.
Uh...
Well, the--
Okay, so if the data in that first paragraph mean that "women cannot enjoy sex unless they are relaxed and free from worries", does that mean that, since pain tolerance goes up with sexual stimulation, that woman also cannot enjoy sex unless they are injected with Novocaine? Because to me that seems like it means THE OPPOSITE.
Anyway.
Okay, next, fromnjslutmuffin: http://www.venganza.org
An open letter to the Kansas school board on the subject of Intelligent Design Theory. I find the statistics mentioned about halfway down particularly compelling.
Also, I picked up Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for Playstation yesterday, based onzsquirrelboy's recommendation. It's beautiful. There are several cute details-- for example, the whole thing seems to be told in flashback; whenever you die, the voiceover of your character cuts in and says, "Wait, wait, wait, that's not how it happened," as it presents you with the retry/load/quit screen. You also, I believe, can only save your game while your character is having a vision, which resembles the way saves are handled in the Silent Hill series: there are these lurid red books and sigils that are clearly related to the reality-warping power that live in Silent Hill, but it's never explained beyond that. There's just a whooshing noise and a rush of red every time you touch one, as though your character is having minor seizures.
Another nice touch is that you heal yourself just by drinking water, when you can find it. I mean, there's magic in the game's world, so it COULD heal you with glowing orbs like other video games, but instead you get the prince leaning over gracefully to take a drink.
(P.S. I hate spoilers, so please don't post, "Oh, that's only for the first part of the game," even if it's true. One of the game's other charming features is how well it introduces you to its own mechanics-- I read a few pages of the manual before playing and all it accomplished was to diminish the impact of the first time my character did something really cool.)
(That said-- I guess you could have guessed this from my enthusiasm for diegetic save-game mechanics-- I absolutely hated the way that Metal Gear Solid handled its self-documenting. You could be in the middle of a long plot-related conversation with an army officer and he would suddenly gruffy add, "When you're underwater, use the X button to swim and the triangle button to surface. Got it?")
moominmolly: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7548I'm all for research into the physiology of sex, but this article is awful (I can't tell whether the study it's about is awful too).
As the women were stimulated, activity rose in one sensory part of the brain, called the primary somatosensory cortex, but fell in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas involved in alertness and anxiety. During orgasm, activity fell in many more areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, compared with the resting state, Holstege told a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Development in Copenhagen on Monday.
In one sense the findings appear to confirm what is already known, that women cannot enjoy sex unless they are relaxed and free from worries and distractions.
Uh...
Well, the--
Okay, so if the data in that first paragraph mean that "women cannot enjoy sex unless they are relaxed and free from worries", does that mean that, since pain tolerance goes up with sexual stimulation, that woman also cannot enjoy sex unless they are injected with Novocaine? Because to me that seems like it means THE OPPOSITE.
Anyway.
Okay, next, from
njslutmuffin: http://www.venganza.orgAn open letter to the Kansas school board on the subject of Intelligent Design Theory. I find the statistics mentioned about halfway down particularly compelling.
Also, I picked up Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for Playstation yesterday, based on
zsquirrelboy's recommendation. It's beautiful. There are several cute details-- for example, the whole thing seems to be told in flashback; whenever you die, the voiceover of your character cuts in and says, "Wait, wait, wait, that's not how it happened," as it presents you with the retry/load/quit screen. You also, I believe, can only save your game while your character is having a vision, which resembles the way saves are handled in the Silent Hill series: there are these lurid red books and sigils that are clearly related to the reality-warping power that live in Silent Hill, but it's never explained beyond that. There's just a whooshing noise and a rush of red every time you touch one, as though your character is having minor seizures.Another nice touch is that you heal yourself just by drinking water, when you can find it. I mean, there's magic in the game's world, so it COULD heal you with glowing orbs like other video games, but instead you get the prince leaning over gracefully to take a drink.
(P.S. I hate spoilers, so please don't post, "Oh, that's only for the first part of the game," even if it's true. One of the game's other charming features is how well it introduces you to its own mechanics-- I read a few pages of the manual before playing and all it accomplished was to diminish the impact of the first time my character did something really cool.)
(That said-- I guess you could have guessed this from my enthusiasm for diegetic save-game mechanics-- I absolutely hated the way that Metal Gear Solid handled its self-documenting. You could be in the middle of a long plot-related conversation with an army officer and he would suddenly gruffy add, "When you're underwater, use the X button to swim and the triangle button to surface. Got it?")
