A nicely done video mash-up of talks, clips & images that feature various speakers & experts on the brain: The material sampled for this video comes from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED Talk, Vilayanur Ramachandran’s TED Talk, Bill Nye’s Brain episode, BBC’s “The Human Body”, Oliver Sachs’ TED Talk, Discovery Channel’s “Human Body: Pushing the Limits”, and more.
Guantánamo Bay hunger strike worsens [Article]
Vladimir Bukovsky in the Washington Post in 2005 wrote this article called Torture’s Long Shadow, in which he explains what force feeding is:
The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out at first; I wheezed like a drowning man — my lungs felt ready to burst. The doctor also seemed ready to burst into tears, but she kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down. Only when it reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully.
This is what they’re doing to the prisoners on hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay, held under suspicion of being terrorists, without being charged or tried, for the last 10 years:
There are 103 prisoners on hunger strike, with 31 being force-fed by military authorities and one in hospital. Since then, not a single prisoner has stopped their strike, and now 36 of the detainees are being force-fed to keep them alive, with five of them being hospitalised.
Language Requirements [Article]
Robert Fulghum explains what languages one must learn.
How one Irish woman made $22bn for Apple in a year [Article]
It is rather unlikely that the world speaks about Cathy Kearney in the same breath as Steve Jobs or Tim Cook. As Tim Cook appeared at the Senate committee hearing last week to explain Apple’s corporate tax avoidance affairs, Guardian profiles the Irish accountant who shuns publicity, and is thought to be brains behind the Cork office that helped Apple save billions in taxes.
Letter from Prison – John Kiriakou [Letters of note]
John Kiriakou was jailed for 30 months for whistle-blowing against the CIA’s torture methods. He wrote this letter from jail. Please take the time to read.
The letter details his life in prison, including an incident in which prison officials attempted setup a confrontation between Kiriakou and a Muslim prisoner, telling Kiriakou he was the uncle of the Times Square bomber, when in reality the imam was in prison for refusing to testify in the Lackawanna Six case. Prison officials also lied to the Muslim prisoner, telling him that Kiriakou had called Washington after they met and had been ordered to kill him.
Wozniak on Tax Reforms [News]
Where does Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak stand on corporate taxes? Filtered through the BBC News, here’s where:
People are not taxed on profit, they are taxed on income, corporations should be taxed the same as people in my mind, that is how it should be, that would make things fair and right
The New Digital Age: Assange & Morozov on Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen’s book
A metronomic symphony – video, article
From the NPR’s science blog, here’s two videos of metronomes starting out of sync & eventually aligning with no intervention. The science behind this is also explained in this article. Fascinating if you’re a music buff or just have a curious mind. Ah, and the analogies that this triggered for me! The little metronome that wouldn’t
Running from addiction – Walter Barrera [Article]
Want to give up your drug-addiction? Take to untra-long distance running, like Walter Barrera did The Washington Post’s Ken Babb writes about the challenges that Barrera had to face, fight and overcome – cocaine, prison, paranoia. He’s kicked the habit, but is only that much away from a relapse. He runs, on an average, 125 miles, getting ready for the Leadville Trail 100, a 100-mile marathon through the Rocky Mountains at altitudes of upto 12000 feet to be run within 30 hours.
What can a man do when his body and mind are at odds — one sending painful signals to cut back, the other pushing him to go longer and farther?
Spelling Bees and Indian Kids [Article]
You may have watched or followed the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee contest in the US last week. 13 year old Arvind Mahankali won the championships. He is the sixth consecutive Indian-American winner of the Spelling Bee and the 11th in the past 15 years.Slate magazine wonders, & discovers, why Indian kids are so good at spelling. There was some intense scrutiny on Twitter as well.