Live from Austin!

There’s an article in the New Yorker that talks about the death of reading, and the effects of reading on the human mind. It covers a lot of interesting ground. For example:

In a study published this year, experimenters varied the way that people took in a PowerPoint presentation about the country of Mali. Those who were allowed to read silently were more likely to agree with the statement “The presentation was interesting,” and those who read along with an audiovisual commentary were more likely to agree with the statement “I did not learn anything from this presentation.” The silent readers remembered more, too, a finding in line with a series of British studies in which people who read transcripts of television newscasts, political programs, advertisements, and science shows recalled more information than those who had watched the shows themselves.

So Edward Tufte is right; even a well-delivered presentation is worse than a written report. Who’s to blame?

Researchers recently gave Michigan children and teen-agers home computers in exchange for permission to monitor their Internet use. The study found that grades and reading scores rose with the amount of time spent online. Even visits to pornography Web sites improved academic performance.

Awesome. But as the article points out, the act of reading is unnatural; humans only recently adapted to be able to do it. It may be that we will go back to a world similar to the pre-literate world, where reading is something done by a privileged few.

[And ironically, I initially managed to forget the link to the article. Maybe I've been watching too much TV.]

Texan straight talk:

“Let’s face it, we’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more crap—and watch porn.”

—Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate

But I still say they’re the best hard drives.

Quote of the week:

“People are pretty freaked out,” said porn webmaster Jim McAnally, who estimates that more than half of hard-core websites, including some of his, will have to dump significant numbers of photos and videos.

—WIRED News

Porn webmaster Jim McAnally. Please tell me that’s not a pseudonym…

Now you can learn to talk dirty in English, with the aid of Adult English, Porno Smallbook Speaking, Let’s Go!

Scientists at Duke University came up with an interesting experiment. They set up a system to let monkeys pay in fruit juice to see pictures of other monkeys. They discovered that male monkeys would pay good juice to see crotch-shots of female monkeys. They were also willing to pay to see photos of high-status monkey celebrities, but had to be paid to look at pictures of low-status monkeys.

I guess we’re not all that distant from our genetic cousins after all.

Update: Hot or not?

A porn spammer actually unsubscribed me and sent a genuine-looking unsub notification based on my automatic bounce message.

I still don’t think I’ll be signing up for pictures of women with donkeys, however.

Someone called L MACKAY has signed up to receive a mail order catalog of porn DVDs from a company in Gary, Indiana.

I know this because he signed up using our address.

Actual porn movie titles from the catalog

Octo-cock.

Loving Thick Women. (Because it’s not brains men go for?)

The Biggest Pussy In The World. (Tubcat?)

Unusual Objects. (Not, in fact, a documentary about the Roswell incident.)

Girls Who Cum Like Men. (Yes, but do they grunt, roll over and fall asleep?)

Internal Ooze.

Porn star Asia Carrera has posted some pictures of herself in Doc Martens and shorts, disassembling and reassembling PCs in her (rather untidy) computer room, and snuggling her cats. For the record, she also played Carnegie Hall at 13, is a member of MENSA with an IQ of 156, knows UNIX, and does her own Photoshop work. Oh, plus she’s made over 250 hardcore porn movies…

(The link probably isn’t safe for work, of course. The pictures on that page are all innocent stuff, but the URL will set off alarm bells.)

I guess I’m just amused by the idea of UNIX hackers as porn stars. Also, sara can attest to the fact that I find ability to master a command line to be a definite turn-on.

Linda Lovelace dead
The famous star of Deep Throat
finally bites it

[Mouse over abbreviations.]

Review: “Long Hot Summer”
Genre: CF video

Scene 1: Julia with Mike. Julia at home, Mike is workman come to install appliance. Long scene of Mike giving Julia SD. Next Julia gets reverse SD, cowgirl SD. They kiss.

Scene 2: Julia and Helen. Julia meets Helen at restaurant to eat out. Long H2H scene. Food arrives, brought in by Steve. Ends with Julia in massive close-up C2M.

Scene 3: Mike returns to Julia’s house. Julia excited. Mike RH in M, gives her huge BOF, BOC. Helen arrives, they both do HD with Mike. Finally, all three in big HEA scene.