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Ben Walters

Were video games to blame for massacre? - Technology & science - Games - msnbc.com - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/18220228

Entertainment Brain Games Society Psychology Violence Aggression Jack Thompson

shared by Ben Walters on 14 Nov 10 - Cached
  • The shooting on the Virginia Tech campus was only hours old, police hadn't even identified the gunman, and yet already the perpetrator had been fingered and was in the midst of being skewered in the media.
  • Video games. They were to blame for the dozens dead and wounded. They were behind the bloodiest massacre in U.S. history. Or so Jack Thompson told Fox News and, in the days that followed, would continue to tell anyone who'd listen.
  • But whether Seung-Hui Cho, the student who opened fire Monday, was an avid player of video games and whether he was a fan of "Counter-Strike" in particular remains, even now, uncertain at best.
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the school shootings and the finger-pointing that followed, game players and industry advocates say they're outraged that the brutal acts of a deeply disturbed and depressed loner with a history of mental illness would be blamed so quickly on video and computer games. They say this is perhaps the most flagrant case of anti-game crusaders using a tragedy to promote their own personal causes.
  • "It's so sad. These massacre chasers — they're worse than ambulance chasers — they're waiting for these things to happen so they can jump on their soapbox," said Jason Della Rocca,
    • Ben Walters
      Ben Walters on 14 Nov 10
       
      'common sense tells me'
  • When Jack Thompson gets worked up, he refers to gamers as "knuckleheads." He calls video games "mental masturbation." When he's talking about himself and his crusade against violent games, he calls himself an "educator." He likes to use the word "pioneer."
  • On those rare occasiOns when a student opens fire On a school campus, ThompsOn is frequently the first and the loudest to declare games respOnsible. In recent years he's blamed games such as "Counter-Strike," "Doom" and "Grand Theft Auto III" for school shootings in LittletOn, Colo., Red Lake, Minn. and Paducah, Ky.
  • He's blamed them for shootings beyond school grounds as well. In an attempt to hold game developers and publishers responsible for these spasms of violence, Thompson has launched several unsuccessful lawsuits.
  • "It disgusts me," said Isaiah Triforce Johnson, a longtime gamer and founder of a New York-based gaming advocacy group that, in response to the accusations, is now planning what is the first ever gamer-driven peace rally. 
  • Microsoft did not create "Counter Strike" but did publish a version of it for the Xbox.
  • authorities released a search warrant listing the items found in Cho's dorm room. Not a single video game, console or gaming gadget was on the list, though a computer was confiscated. And in an interview with Chris Matthews of "Hardball," Cho's university suite-mate said he had never seen Cho play video games.
  • "This is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the Terminator, he's a video gamer,"
  • And in a letter sent to Bill Gates Wednesday, he wrote: "Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable (for) the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill."
    • Ben Walters
      Ben Walters on 14 Nov 10
       
      See how bad his research is, the only possibility of him ever playing a game was on his computer, yet he blames Microsoft, who created a game for the Xbox (which would be incompatible for a PC) for directly and massively influencing these events.
    • Ben Walters
      Ben Walters on 14 Nov 10
       
      Counter Strike, the game he blamed for these killings, has two objectives. Protect an objective from a bomb that the team of terrorists are going to try to plant, or to plant this bomb. Neither of these objectives have to include murder, or solo missions.
  • Fed up with the scapegoating and lack of understanding, gamer groups have begun to get increasingly organized in their attempts to change public perception of their favorite hobby.
  • While Thompson concedes that there are many elements that must have driven Cho to commit such a brutal act, he insists that without video games Cho wouldn't have had the skills to do what he did. "He might have killed somebody but he wouldn't have killed 32 if he hadn't rehearsed it and trained himself like a warrior on virtual reality. It can't be done. It just doesn't happen."
  • Dr. Karen Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern Calfornia and author of the book " Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth," disagrees. She believes that it didn't require much skill for Cho to shoot as many people as he did. After all, eye witness accounts indicate many of the victims were shot at point-blank range.
  • And for all of Thompson's claims that violent video games are the cause of school shootings, Sternheimer points out that before this week's Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin… in 1966. Not even "Pong" had been invented at that time.
  • Sternheimer says the rush to blame video games in these situations is disingenuous for yet another reason. Although it remains unclear whether Cho played games, it seems nobody will be surprised if it turns out he did. After all, what 23-year-old man living in America hasn't played video games?
  • "Especially if you're talking about young males, the odds are pretty good that any young male in any context will have played video games at some point,"
  • "I think in our search to find some kind of answer as to why this happened, the video game explanation seems easy," she says. "It seems like there's an easy answer to preventing this from happening again and that feels good on some level."
  • The blame game
  • Jason Della Rocca agrees. "Everyone wants a simple solution for a massively complex problem. We want to get on with our lives."
  • As the leader of an organization that represents video game creators from all over the world, Della Rocca knows the routine all too well.
  • Someone opens fire on a school campus. Someone blames video games. His phone starts ringing. People start asking him questions like, "So how bad are these games anyway?"
  • Of course, he also knows that this is far from the first time in history that a young form of pop culture has been blamed for any number of society's ills. Rock and roll was the bad guy in the 1950s. Jazz was the bad guy in the 1930s. Movies, paintings, comic books, works of literature…they've all been there.
  • Still, Della Rocca believes that people like Thompson are "essentially feeding off the fears of those who don't understand games."
  • For those who didn't grow up playing video games, the appeal of a game like "Counter-Strike" can be hard to comprehend. It can be difficult to understand that the game promotes communication and team work. It can be hard fathom how players who love to run around gunning down their virtual enemies do not have even the slightest desire to shoot a person in real life.
  • "It's the thing they don't understand," Della Rocca says. "It's a thing that's scary."
  • "You cannot tell me — common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it's glamorized on the big screen, it's become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we're going to have to start dealing with that."
  • the members of Empire Arcadia — a grassroots group dedicated to supporting the gaming community and culture — have been so incensed by the recent attempts to blame video games for the Virginia Tech shootings that they've begun planning a rally in New York City with the assistance of the ECA.
  • "There we will protest, mourn and show how real gamers play video games peacefully and responsibly," organizer Johnson wrote on the group's Web site. "This demonstration is to show that gamers will not take the blame of this tragic matter but we will do what we can to help put an end to terrible events like this." Johnson says that, ultimately, he hopes the rally — scheduled for May 5 — will help people better understand video game enthusiasts like him. "We are normal people," he says. "We just play games."
golan elzur

Animal Testing on Cosmetics - About Animal Testing (UK) - 1 views

www.aboutanimaltesting.co.uk/animal-testing-cosmetics.html

cosmetics animals testing

shared by golan elzur on 15 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Animal testing on cosmetics is arguably one of the most - if not the most - controversial areas of animal testing. Although it was banned in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1998, it does still occur in other areas of the world. The European Union (EU), however, is poised for an almost full ban by 2009 on the sales of cosmetics tested by animals. Currently, the Netherlands and Belgium have banned the sales of such cosmetics, similar to the UK.
  • Cosmetics testing on animals relates to many aspects of the manufacturing process. Animal testing may occur on the full, finished product or it may occur on individual ingredients within a formulation. Another country may even be contracted to conduct the testing within the cosmetic company's homeland or it may be contracted out to a country where animal testing is not currently banned.
  • Cosmetics testing is usually focused on ensuring that a product does not harm a person's eyes and skin
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • While many companies are now citing 'no testing on animals' in terms of their ethical stance on cosmetics, it is clear that this is an excellent marketing strategy given the widespread public disapproval of the practice. Ironically, those companies who do not test cosmetics on animals are still benefiting from previous data that was conducted on animals.
Dominick Wong

Concorde Aircraft Facts, Dates and History - 0 views

www.flightlevel350.com/Concorde_aircraft_facts.html

shared by Dominick Wong on 14 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • delta wing configuration and an evolution of the afterburner equipped engines originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. It is the first civil airliner to be equipped with an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system.
    • Dominick Wong
      Dominick Wong on 14 Nov 10
       
      Pros &Cons
  • For speed optimization: double-delta (ogive) shaped wings afterburning Roll-Royce/Snecma Olympus turbojets with supercruise capability thrust-by-wire engines, ancestor of today's FADEC controlled engines droop-nose section for good landing visibility
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Mach 2.04 'sweet spot' for optimum fuel consumption (supersonic drag minimum, while jet engines are more efficient at high speed) mostly aluminium construction for low weight and relatively conventional build full-regime autopilot and autothrottle allowing "hands off" control of the aircraft from climb out to landing fully electrically-controlled, analog fly-by-wire flight controls systems multifunction flight control surfaces high-pressure hydraulic system of 28 MPa (4,000 lbf/in) for lighter hydraulic systems components fully electrically controlled analog brake-by-wire system pitch trim by shifting fuel around the fuselage for center-of-gravity control parts milled from single alloy billet reducing the part number count.
  • unique experience of passing through the sound barrier was less dramatic than would be expected. The moment would be announced by one of the pilots, and could be seen on the cabin display, otherwise the slight surge in acceleration could easily be missed. At twice the normal cruising altitude, turbulence was rare and the view from t he windows clearly showed the curvature of the Earth. During the supersonic cruise, although the outside air temperature was typically -60 C, air friction would heat the external skin at the front of the plane to around +120 C making the windows warm to the touch and producing a noticeable temperature gradient along the length of the cabin. Most remarkably Concorde was the only passenger airliner able to overtake the terminator. on certain early evening transatlantic flights departing from Heathrow or Paris, it was possible to take off at night and catch up with the sun from the cockpit you could see the sun rise in the west.
  • aris crash The Concorde was the safest airliner in the world according to passenger deaths per distance travelled until the 25 July 2000 crash of Air France Flight 4590 in Gonesse, France, although it should be noted that the Boeing 737 fleet acquires more passenger miles and service hours in one week than the Concorde fleet acquired in the course of its entire service career. In any case, all of the people on board the flight perished, as well as four people on the ground. As the plane was on its take-off run, a metal piece punctured the tires which then burst, puncturing the fuel tanks and leading to the loss of the aircraft. The report of the investigation was published on 14 December 2004, attributing the crash to foreign object damage from a titanium strip that fell from another aircraft, a Continental Airlines DC-10 which had taken off four minutes before; the piece had not been approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
  • Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST)
  • commercial servic
  • cruise speed of mach 2.04 and a cruise altitude of 60,000 feet
  • In the late 1950s the
  • British, Fr
  • ench, American
  • Soviets
  • developing a supersonic transport
  • ere lar
  • espective governments as a way of gaining some foothold in the aircraft market that was
  • designs called the Type 233 and Super-Caravelle
  • dominated by the United States.
  • prototype construction in the early 1960s, but the cost was so great that the companies (and governments) decided to join forces
  • egotiated as an international treaty between Britain and France
  • draft treaty was signed on November 28, 1962.
  • both companies had been merged into new ones and the Concorde project was thus a part of the British Aircraft Corporation and Aerospatiale.
  • Only 20 COncordes were built, six for development and 14 for commercial service. These were: two prototypes two pre-productiOn aircraft 16 productiOn aircraft
  • Critically, many of the victims of the 9/11 attacks were business executives based within the World Trade Center buildings who were either regular Concorde customers themselves, or authorised others to travel on the aircraft.
Shawn Shin

Nuclear Weapons Program - North Korea - 0 views

www.fas.org/...index.html

shared by Shawn Shin on 15 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Report on North Korean Nuclear Program by Siegfried S. Hecker, November 15, 2006 Richard L. Garwin and Frank N. von Hippel, "A Technical Analysis of North Korea’s Oct. 9 Nuclear Test," Arms Control Today, November 2006. North Korea’s Bomb: A technical assessment, FAS Strategic Security blog, October 16, 2006 Statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the North Korea Nuclear Test, ODNI news release, October 16, 2006 Korea and US Nuclear Weapons, FAS Nuclear Information Project, September 28, 2005 North Korea's Nuclear Program, 2005, Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2005. Visit to the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center in North Korea, Testimony of Siegfried S. Hecker, Los Alamos National Laboratory, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 21, 2004
  • The Nuclear Threat Initative's North Korea nuclear profile Report of U.S. Congressional Delegation Visit to North and South Korea, May 30 - June 2, 2003 led by Rep. Curt Weldon North Korea's Nuclear Program, 2003, Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2003 North Korean Nuclear Weapons, CIA Estimate for Congress, November 19, 2002 North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program, Congressional Research Service North Korean Nuclear Program, U.S. State Department release, October 16, 2002 Text of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Text of the Agreed Framework
  • North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program Larry A. Niksch, Foreign Affairs and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service, October 9, 2002 STRATEGIC IMPLICATIonS OF THE U.S.-DPRK FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT Thomas L. Wilborn, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College -- April 3, 1995 [40 pages, 125 kb PDF] Assessing the U.S.-North Korea Agreement Masao Okonogi Joint Forces Quarterly Spring 1995 [215 kb PDF] The North Korean leadership is attempting to sell its outmoded baggage of the Cold War. Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) The Nuclear Potential of Individual Countries Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons Problems of Extension Appendix 2 Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service 6 April 1995 Nuclear Nonproliferation: Implications of the U.S./North Korean Agreement on Nuclear Issues (Letter Report, 10/01/96, GAO/RCED/NSIAD-97-8). N Korean Nuclear Arsenal By Lee Wha Rang, April 27, 1996 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., "Exposing North Korea's Nuclear Infrastructure--Part one," Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 February 1999, p. 38 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., "Exposing North Korea's Secret Nuclear Infrastructure, Part II," Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 August 1999 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., "North Korea's Nuclear Infrastructure" Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 February 1994, 74-79
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Agreed Framework signed by the United States and North Korea on October 21, 1994 in Geneva agreed that: North Korea would freeze its existing nuclear program and agree to enhanced International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards Both sides would cooperate to replace the D.P.R.K.'s graphite-moderated reactors for related facilities with light-water (LWR) power plants. Both countries would move toward full normalization of political and economic relations. Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. And that both sides would work to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.
  • Shawn Shin on 15 Nov 10
     
    This site have a long well defined history of North Korea's Nuclear Weapon, and this has a lot of Resources that you can use for this Project.
Ben Walters

'FarmVille' power user: 'I'm not obsessed' - Technology & science - Games - msnbc.com - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/35825112

Gaming Games Facebook Farmville Applications Obsession Addiction

shared by Ben Walters on 14 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Cathy Hinz is really into “FarmVille.” But she swears she’s not obsessed.  “I can, you know, walk away and say, ‘I’m not going to worry about it.’ I don’t worry about it, but I will plan my farm around my life,” she says.
  • she has time to be online, fiddling with the farm simulation game as much as she wants. And she’s far from the only one.
  • Since its launch in June 2009, “FarmVille” has grown like an invasive weed, with 80 million players
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • It’s absurdly easy to get started:
  • It’s no “World of Warcraft,” but for non-gamers like Hinz, that’s exactly the point.
  • They were either too violent or too complicated or too ‘childish,’” she says.
  • She’s online a lot — spending two to three hours a day on “FarmVille,“ but usually not all at one time. Most of her family plays the game, including her eldest daughter (hooked), her three grandkids (hooked) and her husband, a hard-core gamer who reluctantly allowed his wife to rope him into virtual horticulture. Now, she says, he’s really concerned about his crops.
  • Hinz loves “FarmVille” because it’s something she can control.
  • Hinz loves tweaking her virtual plot of land, and her schedule affords her plenty of time to do that.
  • Some of the “FarmVille” updates are free, and some you have to pay for, but Hinz says the cost is negligible. “I would spend more than $10 to see a movie, and I’d get to sit there for two hours and that would be it. Whereas 10 bucks on this, I can get enjoyment out of it every day.”
  • She likes leveling up, and the competitive nature of the game. But Hinz also really likes the interaction on “FarmVille.”
  • “When I started my Facebook account, I had two friends — my daughters. At one point, while playing “FarmVille,” I had over 200 friends on Facebook,” she says.
  • Zynga dangled a Hot Rod Tractor for “FarmVille” players
  • play “Mafia Wars,” another Zynga game, to level 10.
  • At first, Hinz was indignant. “I’m 50 years old, and I’m not going to do something where you ‘ice’ people, or you rob banks or stuff like that, where that’s the objective.” But then she got to thinking. The Hot Rod Tractor can plow nine plots simultaneously. It’s got flames on it. “I figured, what the hell, I’ll just get to level 10 and do it. And now I’m a level 40 in ‘Mafia Wars’ as well,” she laughs. “It’s a lot funner than I thought it would be. It’s something I can do while I’m waiting for things to harvest.”
  • Still, Hinz says she’s got the games under control, and that they’re not controlling her. “If I started putting things off in order to do ‘FarmVille,’ if it becomes a priority over work, or spending time with my family, that would be an addiction.” Is she there yet? “No. I do it because I can.”
Anjan Narain

Essay on Euthanasia in America - 0 views

www.echeat.com/essay.php

Essay on Euthanasia in the US

shared by Anjan Narain on 14 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Euthanasia is a choice everyone should have, but like all rights, it should not be taken advantage of. By legalizing euthanasia the practice of assisted suicide would be an available choice as well as regulated to see that it does not get abused and used for the wrong reasons.
  • My four primary arguments for legalizing euthanasia are as follows: The mercy argument, which states that the immense pain and indignity of prolonged suffering, cannot be ignored. We are being inhumane to force people to continue suffering this way. The patients right to self-determination.
  • The reality argument. "Let's face it people are already doing it".
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Some terminally ill patients who have been denied assistance in dying, have attempted to terminate they're suffering by ending their lives themselves or with the help of loved ones, who are not trained in medicine. Some patients have botched their suicides and brought further suffering to themselves and those around them. Patients should not have to resort to suicide to end their suffering. It is their life, their pain. They should be able to get the treatment they want.
  • " if we so choose, the end of life need not be preceded by intolerable pain, or by senility and loss of bodily functions.” Death with dignity is the right of every person who faces an incurable, painful or degrading future.
  • Caring for terminally ill patients requires a vast amount of money. In 1997, shortly after the senate voted to overturn the Northern Territory's euthanasia law, doctors from both sides of the euthanasia lobby united in calling for more funds for palliative care. There is a requirement for several hundred million dollars extra to really adequately provide for the needs of the dying, particularly in country areas.
  • Why does the government choose to outlaw euthanasia when it is done anyway? Legalizing it would mean that patients would be able to consult doctors, and not resort to taking it into their own hands, making it safer and better. There would be no need for suicide attempts; consequently there would be less tragedies
  • Passive euthanasia is defined as allowing a patient to die by withholding treatment, while active euthanasia is defined as taking measures that directly cause a patient's death
  • Those who argue against active euthanasia understand that there is a demand for active euthanasia as a response "to the fear of entrapment in a technologically sophisticated, seemingly uncaring world of medicine
  • offers several arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of active euthanasia, one of which is an argument from mercy. He begins by describing a classic case where a person named Jack is terminally ill and in unbearable pain and states that Jack's condition alone is a compelling reason for the permissibility of active mercy killing.
  • active euthanasia is morally permissible since it produces the greatest happiness
  • . The categorical imperative supports active euthanasia since no one would willfully universalize a rule, which condemns people to unbearable pain before death. It is also reasoned that it is considered bad to be the cause of someone's death and that death is regarded as a great evil. However, if it has been decided that active or passive euthanasia is desirable in a given case, it has also been decided that in this instance death is no greater an evil than the patient's continued existence
  • A good point is raised here, because death is supposedly inevitable in either case, so according to Rachel, if a doctor allows a patient to die or gives him a lethal injection, then the motives and ends are essentially the same.
  • In conclusion, denying patients the right to die with dignity and lucidity is unfair and cruel. If physician assisted suicide means giving a patient the right to choose between a life without dignity and hope, or ending their pain and suffering with an honorable closure on life, than it should be permitted.
  • When a patient has no desire to go on living and wants to die before their condition gets worse, they should be allowed to decide how their life ends and why. Assisted suicide is known to have been going on without fanfare and without legal support for many years. It is time to give physician-assisted suicide the legal justification that it deserves.
Simran Fabiani

Eating Disorders and the Media | Media Influence on Eating Disorders | Anorexia | Bulimia | Eating Disorders | Compulsive Overeating | The Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders - 0 views

www.something-fishy.org/...themedia.php

media tv magazines

shared by Simran Fabiani on 11 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Okay, so we all want to hear how Calvin Klein is the culprit and that the emaciated waif look has caused women to tale-spin into the world of Eating Disorders. While the images of child-like women has obviously contributed to an increased obsession to be thin, and we can't deny the media influence on eating disorders, there's a lot more to it than that.
  • Images on T.V. spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful, buy more stuff because people will like us and we'll be better people for it. Programming on the tube rarely depicts men and women with "average" body-types or crappy clothes, ingraining in the back of all our minds that this is the type of life we want. O
  • characters are typically portrayed as lazy
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • while thin women and pumped-up men are the successful, popular, sexy and powerful ones. How can we tell our children that it's what's inside that counts, when the media continuously contradicts this message?
  • Super models in all the popular magazines have continued to get thinner and thinner.
  • Modeling agencies have been reported to actively pursue Anorexic models.
  • he average woman model weighs up to 25% less
  • han the typical woman and maintains a weight at about 15 to 20 percent below what is considered healthy for her age and height.
  • By far, these body types and images are not the norm and unobtainable
  • Diet advertisements are another problem.
  • hese images are fake.
  • the ideal body" combined with the diet industry's drive to make more money, creates a never-ending cycle of ad upon ad that try to convince us
  • Pop-culture's imposed definition of
  • Barbie-type dolls have often been blamed on playing a role in the development of body-image problems and Eating Disorders.
  • Not only do these dolls have fictionally proportioned, small body sizes, but they lean towards escalating the belief that materialistic possessions, beauty and thinness equate happiness.
  • Barbie has more accessories available to purchase than can be believed, including Ken, her attractive boyfriend.
  • personally do NOT believe every girl that has a Barbie-type doll is at risk of disordered eating,
  • We need to remind ourselves and each other constantly (especially children) that
  • With an increased population of children who spend a lot of time in front of television, there are more of them coming up with a superficial sense of who they are.
  • we are continually exposed to the notion that losing weight will make us happier and it will be through "THIS diet plan".
  • if you lose weight, your life will be good."
  • These images may not help, and for those already open to the possibility of negative coping mechanisms and/or mental illness, the media may play a small contributing role -- but ultimately, if a young man or woman's life situation, environment, and/or genetics leave them open to an Eating Disorder (or alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, OCD, etc.), they will still end up in the same place regardless of television or magazines.
  • it helps to perpetuate an ideal of materialism, beauty, and being thin as important elements to happiness in one's life.
Puja DeGamia

media influence on anorexia - 0 views

www.anorexia-say-no.com/mediainfluenceonanorexia.html

anorexia and media attention

shared by Puja DeGamia on 11 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • connection between the increasing thinness of so many celebrities and the alarmingly rapid rise in eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa?
  • much debate still centers around the extent of media influence on anorexia.
  • despite the evidence
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • accept that extreme thinness is anorexia.
  • norexia is the desire to maintain a lower body weight than is normal and healthy.
  • If a little girl sees a variety of thin/anorexic celebrities on TV, in magazines, decides with her friends that they are beautiful, that she'd like to look like them and, in an attempt to do so, she proceeds to lose 20 kilos, she's anorexic!
  • The danger is that the numbers of women who have uncomfortable thoughts about their bodies are far, far higher than those suffering from full blown anorexia
  • once these thoughts have first sprung into existence, all they need is a little nourishment to make them sprout roots...and grow.
  • First into a diet, often into an eating disorder such as anorexia.
  • she just feels inadequate and guilty because she can't bring herself to starve her body to the same extent as the models and celebrities do.
  • it's impossible to find a magazine without at least one spread on some amazing diet and exercise regime, always with the implicit message that we are 'wrong/lazy' if we don't follow it.
  • not only does media influence on anorexia exist, anorexia is deliberately being perpetuated by the media and the mixed messages it portrays
  • he media, especially ads and commercials for appearance-related items, suggest that we can avoid the hard character work by making our bodies into copies of the icons of success.
  • ads reveals a not-so-subtle message ? ‘You are not acceptable the way you are. The only way you can become acceptable is to buy our product and try to look like our model, who is six feet tall and wears size four jeans - and is probably anorexic’
  • In 1995, before television came to their island, the people of Fiji thought the ideal body was round, plump, and soft. After 38 months of Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210 and similar Western shows being beamed into their homes, Fijian teenage girls showed serious signs of eating disorders.
  • To underestimate media influence on anorexia is to underestimate the power it has to influence the self esteem of us all.
Ben Walters

Part 2 - How video games are good for the brain - The Boston Globe - 0 views

www.boston.com/...o_games_are_good_for_the_brain

Entertainment Brain Learning Education Video Games Society Psychology

shared by Ben Walters on 14 Nov 10 - Cached
  • A type of scan that illuminates brain activity showed that at the end of the three months, the girls’ brains were working less hard to complete the game’s challenges. What’s more, parts of the cortex, the outer layer of their brains responsible for high-level functions, actually got thicker. Several of these regions are associated with visual spatial abilities, planning, and integration of sensory data.
  • Other researchers are hoping to use video games to encourage prosocial behaviors - actions designed to help others.
  • Generalizability to non-game situations is the big question surrounding other emerging games, particularly software that is being marketed explicitly as a way to keep neurons spry as we age. The jury is still out on whether practicing with these games helps people outside of the context of the game. In one promising 2008 study, however, senior citizens who started playing Rise of Nations, a strategic video game devoted to acquiring territory and nation building, improved on a wide range of cognitive abilities, performing better on subsequent tests of memory, reasoning, and multitasking. The tests were administered after eight weeks of training on the game. No follow-up testing was done to assess whether the gains would last.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Now that researchers know these off-the-shelf games can have wide-ranging benefits, they’re trying to home in on the games’ most important aspects, potentially allowing designers to create new games that specifically boost brain power.
  • “Until now, people have been asking can you learn anything from games?’’ MIT’s Klopfer said. “That’s a less interesting question than what aspects of games are important for fostering learning.’’
  • Do students learn more with a more narrative game?
  • is assessing whether games that are novel, include social interaction, and require intense focus are better at boosting cognitive skills. McLaughlin and her colleagues will use the findings to design games geared toward improving mental function among the elderly.
  • Does this mean that Tetris is good for your brain?’’ Haier said. “That is the big question. We don’t know that just because you become better at playing Tetris after practice and your brain changes . . . whether those changes generalize to anything else.’’
  • an international team of researchers, including several from Iowa State University, reported that middle school students in Japan who played games in which characters helped or showed affection for others, later engaged in more of these behaviors themselves.
  • Researchers also found that US college students randomly assigned to play a prosocial game were subsequently kinder to a fellow research subject than students who played violent or neutral games.
  • Unlike, say, movies or books, video games don’t just have content, they also have rules. A game is set up to reward certain actions and to punish others. This means they have immense potential to teach children ethics and values
  • (Of course, this is a double-edged sword. Games could reward negative, antisocial behavior just as easily as positive, prosocial behavior.)
  • Some off-the-shelf games already contain strong prosocial themes
  • he classic Oregon Trail, which make players responsible for the well-being of other characters and feature characters who take care of one another.
  • “Ultimately, the video game needs to be an entertaining experience,’’ Seider said. “The game has to be fun.’’
Yasmin Tandon

Rethinking American Foreign Aid - US Foreign Aid - 0 views

usforeignpolicy.about.com/...helpcomm.htm

Foreign Aid America economy

shared by Yasmin Tandon on 11 Nov 10 - No Cached
    • Yasmin Tandon
      Yasmin Tandon on 11 Nov 10
       
      Blue- Background Yellow- Yes Green- No Pink- Need to read further to get more detail
  • zSB(3,3)Sponsored Links World Affairs DailyGlobal Headline News & Commentary from International Media Sourceswww.worldaffairsjournal.org Winter Programme on UNGeneva Winter Programme on the UN and International Developmentgraduateinstitute.ch/winter The Progressive Realista metablog about American foreign policywww.progressiverealist.org zob();if(zsForeign Policy Ads Budget Foreign Aid Foreign Policy Congress Federal Budget US Government Budget zSB(3,2);if(zsSponsored Links Life Experience DegreesNo attendance - No coursework Accelerated - Worldwide Shipmentwww.universityofdublin.org 16th Int'l Education Expo660 Exhibitors from 25 Countries Why not Check Now & Meet Yours?www.cieet.com January 10, 2008 America's foreign aid programs are controversial
  • Polls indicate most Americans want the United States to be a generous donor of foreign aid.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Explore US Foreign Policy
  • overestimate how much help we send overseas.
  • Others are concerned that our foreign aid falls far short of the global commitments made in the Millennium Development Goals.
  • And yet others say Western foreign assistance is focused more on "giving a man a fish" than on "teaching a man to fish."
  • The full report (215 pages, PDF) is available here.
  • The State Department budget plus all the foreign aid totals less than $40 billion (which is less than 1.5% of the federal budget). But Defense Department spending for this year, plus maintenance of America's nuclear arsenal, plus the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars
Simran Fabiani

Does the Media Influence Anorexia on Teenagers? - 1 views

ezinearticles.com/?Does-the-Media-Influence-Anorexia-on-Teenagers?&id=1580084

media anorexia teenagers

shared by Simran Fabiani on 11 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • When the media is constantly bombarding children and teens alike with messages about the "ideal" or "perfect" beauty, and uses underweight movie stars, singers, etc- then it's not hard to ask the question "Does the media influence Anorexia on teenagers?"
  • Instead of blaming themselves, the media and others- it's im
  • portant to remember that some teenagers are more susceptible to eating disorders than others, and some are going to develop Anorexia or another eating disorder with or without outside influences such as media or peers.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The latest example of this trend, is the recent come-back of Britney Spears- after she'd given birth to two children, she was ridiculed for wearing a skimpier outfit, due to being "fat." The problem is, although she'd had two children, she was far from fat- yet the media criticized her for daring to show her "less than perfect" body on national television. With issues like this, it's no wonder that children and teenagers are being bombarded with messages of what perfection is and how to "be" perfect.
  • to encourage a healthy body image.
  • now unless an actress or model is thin to the point of practically being able to see bones, she is criticized as being "fat."
  • The media influences teens' self-esteem and self-worth when it constantly bombards them with what society now considers ideal, and a distorted perception of what's "perfect." To stop the negative influence that the media has on children and teenagers, it's a good idea to limit exposure of body-image damaging programs, magazines and it's good
  • it's extremely unusual- rare even- for an actor, actress, or other star to be "over-weight"- or even of a normal weight.
  • When children see these images on television, in magazines, in songs, movies, etc- then it's no wonder that the rate of eating disorders among teenagers is rising rapidly, and now parents are feverishly searching for an answer.
  • If Marilyn Monroe or Rita Hayworth were around today, they'd be labeled as "fat." What a twist, and a shocking example of how our society has misplaced standards of beauty and "perfection!"
Puja DeGamia

anorexia and the media Essay - 0 views

www.directessays.com/...21584.html

Anorexia and the media attention to anoreixia media's impact on teenagers

shared by Puja DeGamia on 11 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Two main eating disorders pertain to thinness they are Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa
  • A National survey revealed that up to seventy five percent of women consider themselves too fat when in reality they are below the ideal weight standards that are established.
  • In America fifty six percent of all women are on diets.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Women of ages eleven years of age to seventeen years old number one wish is to lose weight and keep it off.
  • By the time these girls reach the age of eighteen eighty percent of them have dieted.
  • with young women
  • This is not only a problem
  • The advertisement for this product displays a thin, beautiful model dressed in a short, low-cut dress lounging on a bar stool. They have her long thin legs that take up most of the page with not a trace of cellulite on them. The caption for this advertisement is written across her tiny waist and it reads "Everybody could use a little less fat"
  • Lite Cheese portrays that a women cannot be thin enough an even every women who is thin must worry that their bodies are "too fat".
  • The ideal thin appears in television and magazines especially for women.
  • standard in television is slimmer for female then it is for males.
  • Popular women's magazines contain approximately ten times as many dieting articles
  • These students will gain weight and then diet. This triggers eating disorders
  • Suddenly they are on their own with food, usually for the first time in their lives
Ari Kewalramani

Gendercide Watch: Female Infanticide - 0 views

www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

Case Study Female Infanticide India

shared by Ari Kewalramani on 15 Nov 10 - Cached
  • female infanticide reflects the low status accorded to women in most parts of the world
  • murdering girls is still sometimes believed to be a wiser course than raising them
  • that "Sons are called upon to provide the income; they are the ones who do most of the work in the fields.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • igh value given to males decreases the value given to females."
  • dowry and wedding
  • to more than a million rupees
  • average civil servant earns about 100,000 rupees
  • In many cases, of course, the women are not independent agents but merely victims of a dominant family ideology based on preference for male children."
  • 3,500 abortions of female fetuses annually
  • Rajasthan,
  • UNICEF
  • Bombay in 1984 on abortions after prenatal sex determination stated that 7,999 out of 8,000 of the aborted fetuses were females.
  • Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh [states], it is usual for girls and women to eat less than men and boys and to have their meal after the men and boys had finished eating.
  • it is usually boys who have preference in health care
  • clothing
  • morbidity.
  • Indian state governments have sometimes taken measures to diminish the slaughter of infant girls and abortions of female fetuses.
  • f one parent undergoes sterilization, the government will give the family [U.S.] \\$160 in aid per child.
  • tate with one or two daughters and no sons
  • The money will be paid in instalments as the girl goes through school. She will also get a small gold ring and on her 20th birthday, a lump sum of $650 to serve as her dowry or defray the expenses of higher education. Four thousand families enrolled in the first year," with 6,000 to 8,000 expected to join annually (as of 1994
  • suffer
Kanika Vaish

EBSCOhost: The Truth About Teen Girls - 0 views

web.ebscohost.com/...detail

teen girls media

shared by Kanika Vaish on 14 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • essarily support one. Despite a minor increase in 2006, the rate of pregnancies among teen girls has been on a downward trend since 1991. Another indicator, the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, is alarmingly high: nearly 1 in 4 girls ages 14 to 19 and nearly 1 in 2 African-American girls, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But this is the first year such a study has been completed, and the study doesn't separate 14-to-16-year-olds from 17-to-19-year-olds, so it's still unclear which way that trend is heading.
  • Other studies imply that girls, while not exactly chaste, are not behaving in ways that media reports about the hookup culture might lead us to believe. According to the Guttmacher Institute, one-third of surveyed teenagers 15 to 17 had had oral sex, and most of those were not virgins. Of teens ages 15 to 19 who had had oral sex only, two-thirds reported having had only one partner.
  • They don't want to be like the characters in Gossip Girl (only 16% of whose viewers are actually teen girls) or America's Next Top Model; they just want to look like them, to try on that identity.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • "They think, If I have a baby, I'll be someone. It gives them an identity." How can Ireland be so sure? She gave birth to daughter Haley, now 3, when she was 15.
  • Once the idea has taken hold, it's hard to shake off, and the fact that the presidential campaign features a pregnant 17-year-old means that the debate about teenage sexuality is growing Only more heated. Girlhood sexiness seems to be everywhere: On TV shows and in movies, in advertising, in teen magazines and all over the Internet.
golan elzur

BBC - Ethics - Animal ethics: Experimenting on animals - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...experiments_1.shtml

animals ethics

shared by golan elzur on 11 Nov 10 - Cached
  • eriments are widely used to develop new medicines
  • Animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products.
  • Two positions on animal experiments In favour of animal experiments: Experimenting on animals is acceptable if (and only if): suffering is minimised in all experiments human benefits are gained which could not be obtained by using other methods
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Against animal experiments: Experimenting on animals is always unacceptable because: it causes suffering to animals the benefits to human beings are not proven any benefits to human beings that animal testing does provide could be produced in other ways
  • Are animal experiments useful? Animal experiments only benefit human beings if their results are valid and can be applied to human beings. Not all scientists are convinced that these tests are valid and useful.
  • Animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products.
  • In November 2008 the European Union put forward proposals to revise the directive for the protection of animals used in scientific experiments
  • The proposals have three aims: to considerably improve the welfare of animals used in scientific procedures
  • to ensure fair competition for industry to boost research activities in the European Union
  • The main changes proposed are:
  • to make it compulsory to carry out ethical reviews and require that experiments where animals are used be subject to authorisation to widen the scope of the directive to include specific invertebrate species and foetuses in their last trimester of development and also larvae and other animals used in basic research, education and training to set minimum housing and care requirements to require that only animals of second or older generations be used, subject to transitional periods, to avoid taking animals from the wild and exhausting wild populations to state that alternatives to testing on animals must be used when available and that the number of animals used in projects be reduced to a minimum to require member states to improve the breeding, accommodation and care measures and methods used in procedures so as to eliminate or reduce to a minimum any possible pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm caused to animals
Ben Walters

Video-game sales overtaking music - MSN Money - 0 views

articles.moneycentral.msn.com/...oGameSalesOvertakingMusic.aspx

Economy Games Money Sales Music Growth

shared by Ben Walters on 15 Nov 10 - Cached
  • 6/26/2007
  • video-game sector will remain one of the above-average growth segments of the global entertainment industries through 2011, with global games spending set to exceed music spending this year
  • Key growth engines will include online and wireless games, new-generation consoles and the burgeoning in-game advertising business.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • 2011, the worldwide gaming market will be worth $48.9 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1%
  • ith gains slowing every year because of the maturation of the current generation of consoles,
  • exceed the 6.4% advance that PwC foresees for the overall entertainment economy during the period.
  • Its data include consumer spending on games, but exclude spending on hardware and accessories.
  • For the U.S. gaming business, PwC projects 6.7% compound annual gains for the five-year period, to $12.5 billion. Asia-Pacific should remain the region with the highest overall spending on gaming during the period and reach $18.8 billion in 2011, PwC forecasts.
  • Despite its leading size, its 10% average annual gains will only be exceeded by the combined region of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), which is pegged for a 10.2% compound annual gain and is set to remain at No. 2 in terms of worldwide gaming.
  • In the U.S., online and wireless games should see the biggest gains through 2011
  • online will expand from an estimated $1.1 billion market last year to $2.7 billion in 2011
  • Consumer spending on console and hand-held games will go from $6.5 billion in 2006 to $7.9 billion in 2011
  • However, the U.S. PC games market will continue its decline, with PwC eyeing a contraction from an estimated $969 million in 2006 to $840 million in 2011.
  • growing from an estimated $80 million last year to $950 million in 2011
  • this estimate could prove conservative as "advertisers like to reach the younger males" that many games tend to attract.
  • He also said that the overall gaming audience continues to expand and become somewhat more female and older than in the past thanks to casual games and the arrival as games as an "important part of culture."
Mihikaa Naik

Mozart's Legacy: Early music lessons may help children later in life - 0 views

www.journaltimes.com/...8d-5579-92ae-222c06aa5103.html

mozart effect music children life

shared by Mihikaa Naik on 15 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • music instruction stimulates general intelligence.
  • Kindermusik is an early childhood program that introduces children as young as 1 to music, with the intent of stimulating a variety of abilities.
  • music and math relationship
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • interact with other kids, and learn to appreciate music, hopefully stimulate the brain…
  • coordination and movement, with social skills, and it's some one-on-one time with your child
  • strong foundation for language development.
  • music instruction has much longer-term benefits than listening to music
  • can learn a lot about how music works just by hearing it
  • you're an adult, don't count on a piece of music to work magic on your brain.
  • teachers who play Mozart to their students in the hopes their test scores will improve. "And for a lot of students it's not going to work simply because Mozart is weird to them. They're not used to it. They don't like it, and so nobody performs well under stress."
Ben Walters

Does game violence make teens aggressive? - Technology & science - Games - On the Level - msnbc.com - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/16099971

MRI Gaming Violence Agression Games

shared by Ben Walters on 14 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Can video games make kids more violent? A new study employing state-of-the-art brain-scanning technology says that the answer may be yes.
  • brain scans of kids who played a violent video game showed an increase in emotional arousal – and a corresponding decrease of activity in brain areas involved in self-control, inhibition and attention.
  • he does think that the study should encourage parents to look more closely at the types of games their kids are playing.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • “Based on our results, I think parents should be aware of the relationship between violent video-game playing and brain function.”
  • he scans showed a negative effect on the brains of the teens who played “Medal of Honor” for 30 minutes. That same effect was not present in the kids who played “Need for Speed.”
  • And it’s also not known what effect longer play times might have. The scope of this study was 30 minutes of play, and one brain scan per kid
  • But what about violent TV shows? Or violent films? Has anyone ever done a brain scan of kids that have just watched a violent movie?
  • Kids in his study experienced increased emotional arousal when watching short clips from the boxing movie “Rocky IV.”
  • Larry Ley, the director and coordinator of research for the Center for Successful Parenting, which funded Mathews’ study, says the purpose of the research was to help parents make informed decisions. “There’s enough data that clearly indicates that [game violence] is a problem,” he says. “And it’s not just a problem for kids with behavior disorders.”
  • But not everyone is convinced that this latest research adds much to the debate – particularly the game development community. one such naysayer is Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association.
  • “We've seen other studies in this field that have made dramatic claims but turn out to be less persuasive when objectively analyzed.”
  • And they’ve got plenty of answers at the ready for the critics who want to lay school shootings or teen aggression at the feet of the game industry. Several studies cited by the ESA point to games’ potential benefits for developing decision-making skills or bettering reaction times. Ley, however, argues such studies aren’t credible because they were produced by “hired guns” funded by the multi-billion-dollar game industry.
  • Increasingly parents are more accepting of video game violence, chalking it up to being a part of growing up. “I was dead-set against violent video games,” says Kelley Windfield, a Sammamish, Wa.-based mother of two. “But my husband told me I had to start loosening up.” Laura Best, a mother of three from Clovis, Calif., says she looks for age-appropriate games for her 14 year-old son, Kyle. And although he doesn’t play a lot of games, he does tend to gravitate towards shooters like “Medal of Honor.”  But she isn’t concerned that Kyle will become aggressive as a result. “That’s like saying a soccer game or a football game will make a kid more aggressive,” she says. “It’s about self-control, and you’ve got to learn it.”
  • “Let’s quit using various Xboxes as babysitters instead of doing healthful activities,” says Ley, citing the growing epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States. And who, really, can argue with that?
Dillon Patel

Solar Cycles Cause Global Warming & Cooling, not Humans - 0 views

www.lunarplanner.com/SolarCycles-climate.html

humans are not cause of global warming

shared by Dillon Patel on 14 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Planetary warming has also been observed on Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and on Neptune's largest moon Triton during the decades following the peak of the "Solar Grand Maximum" - wonder why - there are no humans there!
  • And Pluto is moving further from the sun in its orbit,
  • it should be cooling, but instead it is warming.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • due to solar changes rather than mere human antics.
  • t Earth's oceans are now beginning to cool.
  • The Earth heats up after a Solar Grand Maximum, lagging a bit after the peak. With a Solar Grand Minimum now on its way, a "global cooling" is on the horizon--a natural oscillation occurring in much longer solar cycles.
  • continue to ignore all of this, perpetuating fear and advocating spending billions of dollars on non-solutions.
  • humans contribute to greenhouse gases,
  • the overall effect is a tiny fraction compared to natural causes.
  • Dillon Patel on 14 Nov 10
     
    Humans ARE NOT the cause of Global Warming. Against my argument.
Simran Fabiani

The Media and Eating Disorders - 0 views

www.disordered-eating.co.uk/...edia-and-eating-disorders.html

media disorder

shared by Simran Fabiani on 19 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • The media is constantly bombarding us with images of celebrities who have slim, and sometimes very thin, bodies.
  • often appear in magazines and on television looking thin, and sometimes even verging on emaciated.
  • Celebrities are scrutinised when they put on a few pounds as well as when they lose them.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • it is interesting to watch those who appear to 'have it all' put on weight and see how long it takes for them to lose it.
  • After a celebrity gives birth, the paparazzi usually follows her everywhere ready to snap her, so the whole world (which appears to be waiting with baited breath) can see how long it takes for her to lose her baby weight
  • Personal chefs, trainers, assistants, plastic surgery, beauty treatments, you name it; they have everything they need at their disposal to whip them into their desired size and shape
  • The resulting image of physical perfection that celebrities project is unobtainable for the majority of people
  • Dieting is one of the contributory factors in the onset of eating disorders.
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