Brain scans find the penis at last

AT LAST we know where the penis is represented in the male brain.

The genitalia's location on the "homunculus", the brain's map of body parts, has been in dispute since the 1920s. Now Christian Kell at the University of Frankfurt in Germany has put eight men into an MRI scanner to help settle the question. Using a soft brush, Kell stroked parts of each volunteer's body while recording brain activity.

Each man's penis was represented in the same place - flanked by the areas for the toes and abdomen - Kell told the Organisation of Human Brain Mapping annual meeting in Toronto. "The only depressing thing," he says, "is that the representation is very small."

*Edit* Leo: I'm banned yet again (for an AC comment I made two days ago...heh). but yeah, if this law got passed in its current form, then these sites would become liable for all the comments posted. I don't think they wanted such a "solution". And they're also making it sound like they never intended to have any laws passed against inciteful comments...

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In an attempt to improve this place (is this a meme?), I thought it appropriate to write a JE on local politics. Namely, a strange media (and political) campaign that has started about a week ago. It had, however, been in the making for much longer. And what they're campaigning against is internet flames.

When the first Estonian news portals were built in the wake of the dotbomb boom, some of them also incorporated the possibility of anonymously commenting the news. Back then, this was hailed as the "collective mind" of the internet people, able to produce insightful commentary on any topic. Fast forward to today, and what you have is "toilet walls" -- the discussions are a mess of unmoderated flames, trolls, all sorts of idiots. But I guess this was quite predictable, yeah?

Now, these forums quietly existed for years, but lately, they've been getting quite a lot of media attention, mostly in connection to a court case where some guy was found guilty of inciting social and racial hatred (he had posted racist and antisemitic comments on different boards). I guess this is where it started -- some people were suddenly talking about how "something has to be done". The last drop -- but also the perfect excuse -- seem to have been some comments posted about the tragic accident where rally driver Markko Märtin's co-driver Michael Park died. This is when a few national newspapers openly started campaigning against all the hate-spewing. They soon coined a neologism, "leim" (pronounced as "lame"), derived from "flame", as the thing they were fighting against. Supposedly this word stands for a comment, blog entry, email, etc. with insulting or inciting contents.

Now, this is where it all gets a bit strange (of course this sort of course of events is quite normal in Estonia...). Instead of actually actively fighting against these "flames" -- like, say, by deleting the offending comments -- they chose to start this media campaign. A new law has also been proposed, making it easier for law enforcement organs to identify anonymous commentators.

Now, what I find absurd about this campaign is precisely the fact that instead of considering other possibilities (all forms of moderation), these people want to change the laws to punish the wrongdoers. I mean, I don't condone posting comments like "burn the Jews", it's just that I don't think having the police hunt them down is the answer.

It's been a week since my last JE and even longer since the last proper JE (ie not a one-liner). I do have a good excuse, though -- I've been busy. Busy helping to organize an...event that took place this weekend. Sort of a seminar (called the Autumn School in Semiotics). So on Saturday and Sunday, I was pretty much running around like a squirrel in a wheel, doing this, doing that... I guess the best part was my playing movies on Saturday night, almost nonstop. We watched three movies: "Withnail and I" (heh), "The Name of the Rose" (crap), "Fahrenheit 451" (great). And yes, my eyes were damn tired by the time the third movie ended at 2AM.

Anyway, I'm less busy now, meaning that I'll finally have time to catch up with all the things I haven't had time or energy to do. Like that JE on Stalin I promised to write a few weeks ago :7

The funny thing is, even though all this organizing almost wore me out (despite me not having to do all that much; I tend to be the one doing all the worrying and others doing all the work), I'm starting to miss it. I feel empty. I urgently need to find something to do...oh, wait, I already have tons of things to do. Now if I could only stop procrastrinating and get started with all these things...

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an email to write.

It's snowing.

You can't hatch the same egg twice.

I swear this will be the last "meme" I'll ever bother to fill in.

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.
I don't know anyone born on that day.

2. Where was your first kiss?
On a bench by the river. The irony is killing me.

3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property?
I've broken a window or two.

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
Yes, but this was a million years ago.

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?
I've sung in front of an audience of 100,000+ (plus the hundreds of thousands watching it on tv). There was about 10,000 other boys on the stage with me, though...

6. What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?
Ooh! A girl!

7. What really turns you on?
Intelligence, sense of humor, etc.

8. What do you order at Starbucks?
I've never been to a Starbucks, you insensitive coffee drinker!

9. What is your biggest mistake?

10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
Every time I enter the department library, the first thing I do there is bang my head against the wall (an Anti-Stress Kit is taped to the wall)

11. Say something totally random about yourself.
I just said something totally random about myself.

12. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity?
Several (well, two) drunk guys have stated that I look like John Lennon. Also, someone on Slashdot once said that I look like SamTheButcher.

13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?
"Oggy and the Cockroaches".

14. Did you have braces?
I had good teeth.

15. Are you comfortable with your height?
Yes. I'm also quite comfortable with my weight.

16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?
She gave me "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" for my birthday.

17. When do you know it's love?
When Love punches me in the face and tells me I'm an idiot for not recognizing Her :7

18. Do you speak any other languages?
Jah. Da.

19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
I'm white as snow.

20. What magazines do you read?
I've recently been reading old literary magazines from 1940's, full of quotes from comrades Lenin, Stalin, Marx, and Zhdanov. But I also read numerous other magazines.

21. Have you ever ridden in a limo?
No.

22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away?
I don't think I was all that close to my grandfather, but he still had quite a lot of influence on me.

23. Do you watch mtv?
No.

24. What's something that really annoys you?
Stupid people (because I'm an idiot).

25. What's something you really like?
Dark humor

26. Do you like Michael Jackson?
It's great to be here! Woo-hoo!

27. Can you dance?
No, but someone said she'd teach me when she comes back from Italy :7

28. What's the latest you have ever stayed up?
I've stayed up all night a few times. The longest I've been awake is 40 hours.

29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room?
No.

30. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?
Yes.

32. What are your car/truck radio buttons set to?
I don't have a car. Don't even have a driver's licence.

33. When you're completely burned out, what's a good way to recharge (other than sleep)?
Tea and music.

34. What's your favourite place that you've travelled to?
Berlin

35. What do you want to try that you haven't yet?
Write a book.

36. Five things you love to eat, and five things you hate to eat?
Pizza. Chocolate. Pasta. Cheese and ham sandwiches. Pancakes. Porridge. Mashed potatoes. Any Estonian national dish, really. Flies that fly into my mouth.

37. Did you learn to drive stick or automatic first?
I can sort of drive stick, but as already stated, I don't have a driver's licence.

38. Do you like board games?
Yes.

39. Tell me your opinion about gambling.
No opinion.

40. How many dictionaries do you own?
Estonian-English, English-Estonian, Estonian-Russian, Russian-Estonian (several different ones), Estonian-Estonian (different ones), Polish-English-Polish, English-English, Latin-Estonian, Finnish-Estonian, German-Estonian. That's...too few.

41. What's your favorite medium to work in?
Prose.

42. What was your undergraduate major, and was it always that or did you switch?
Semiotics and Culture Studies. Oh, and I started as a Computer Science student.

43. Worst physical pain you've been in?
A cramp in my leg two days ago? Naah. I think it was either the burns on my body (pulled a kettle of boiling water on myself) or the spinal injury (the longest-lasting pain).

44. Who's your best friend?
A girl called Maris.

45. Was high school good? Why (not)?
It was definitely better than junior high, but just as boring.

46. What kinds of music do you like best? Get specific, if you can.
Classical. Jazz. Indie. Yeah, I'm boring as hell.

47. Last three CDs you bought:
Blank ones (heh). Actually, these were EP-s and albums by some local artists that burn their stuff on blank cd-s, rather than pressing them.

48. And conversely, what kinds of music would you rather never hear?
I don't want to talk about it.

49. Five favorite movies:
"Mike Leigh's "Naked"", "Stalker", "Otesanek", "Acid House", "Brat"

50. What's something other people like that you just can't get into?
Spending time in crowded places

51. When you want to look good, what do you wear?
Err, nothing? Actually, I think the correct answer would be "a suit", because the rest of my clothes are quite geeky.

52. When your heart breaks, how do you put it back together?
Don't know.

53. Should the following be exterminated:
white briefs: Sure, why not.
blue eyeshadow: Why?
pants that create the muffin-top look on women: No use.
flip flops in the office: yes.

54. Were you a Boy/Girl Scout?
No.

55. Can you swim?
Yes.

56. Tell me your guilty pleasures:
song: "All I need is a miracle" by Mike and Mechanics
book: I enjoy reading Dostoevsky. Should I feel guilty about it?
movie: A campy comedy titled "Don Juan in Tallinn".
food: Chocolate.
other: Yes.

57. Do you have a library card?
I have several.

58. What's the best present you've received in the past five years?
I've probably answered this question already.

59. Do you have a favorite:
Painter: Ülo Sooster
Sculptor: No.
Photographer: No.
(fiction): Harms!
(science fiction/fantasy): A. and B. Strugatsky
Poet: Heiti Talvik
(nonfiction): Isiah Berlin

60. You're in a strange city for the weekend. What will you do while you're there?
Hang around all over the place and take photos.

61. Are you thrifty?
Not really.

62. You bought tickets for a cultural event. What are you going to see?
A play.

63. What's something you're hanging onto that you don't need anymore?
Hey, here's a joke for you: An Estonian man is driving down the road, when he sees a dead crow lying on the road. He stops the car and picks up the crow: "I might need this." Then he opens the drunk and puts the dead bird in there.

A month goes by, and the same man comes driving down the same road. He stops the car right in the same spot where he stopped the last time, opens the trunk, takes out the dead bird and puts it back in the place he found it: "Didn't need it after all."

I have two desk drawers full of dead birds.

A story I submitted this morning got accepted and made it to the front page (and of course I'm banned from posting comments to a story I submitted...). This marks yet another milestone in my ambitious plan to turn Slashdot into my personal blog, mwahahahahahaha! (Oops, I wasn't really supposed to tell you this, was I?)

In other news, I'm still alive. Sort of.

Ed. Perhaps I should've made it more clear that it's satire. Sorry for the confusion; it wasn't intentional.

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The Hungarian Writers' Union has been informed by a source in Brussels that, after a series of confidential conferences, an agreement is imminent on obligatory literary standards for all EU member states. Our correspondent has been able to obtain this draft copy of the chapter relating to the novel only.

Chapter CVIII. Prose Fiction (The Novel and Related Genres)

The formal criteria for narrative forms called Prose shall be understood henceforward as follows:

1) A volume of text not less than 116 pages and not more than 367 pages should be called a Novel. Any such text shorter than that is a Short Story, and as such, will not be supported by the European Union. Anything longer than such a text will cease to exist.

2) For Font Size, see also Paragraphs A and B of Chapter LXIII. Use of fonts over or under 12 points will result in the exclusion of the Novel from European Union support. Formatting more than 25 lines on a page and more than 60 characters in a line is prohibited.

3) For insetting, paragraph spacing and margins see Sub-Sections 234 and 235 of Chapter XVII. Any work failing to meet the requirements as laid down in Items 2 and 3 will not qualify as a Novel even if it should fulfill all other criteria.

4) The Novel must be arranged through an Action, namely into a beginning, middle, and an end, and this arrangement is obligatory. This trinity is defined as Action-Bow. In the absence of an Action-Bow, a Novel is not allowed to be published, distributed, or written in the territory of any Member State of the European Union.

5) The Novel must contain Dialogue and Author's Text. A work lacking either of these will not qualify as a Novel and will not be supported.

6) The ideal ratio between Dialogue and Author's Text is 2 : 1. A maximum divergence of + or 12 per cent is tolerable. Any divergence of a larger order will result in the disqualification of the work from European Union support.

7) The words used in a Novel must conform 99 per cent to the Common Word Stock of the language concerned. (For the definition of Common Word, see Family Standards of the European Union, Chapter on Mother, Sub-Section on Mother Tongue.) Every European Union Member State is permitted a maximum of 5 000 Common Words. The determination of these falls within the competence of the Academy of Sciences of every Member State of the European Union. By 31 December 2004, these Common Words will be published by the Member States at their own cost in a minimum of half a million copies, and are to be made available also on CD-ROM. If the total of words other than those contained in the Common Word Stock thus determined does not exceed 1 per cent, the Novel is to be tolerated; an excess of 2 per cent will disqualify the Novel from support. A divergence of 1.5 per cent will be judged by an International Literary Committee of Arbitration whether it is tolerable or not; the decision of this Committee is subject to the approval of the Supreme Language Court (SLC) of the European Union (the SLC is to be composed as follows: two members from each of the States whose membership of the European Union dates from before the 2004 current enlargement and one member each from the states acquiring membership in 2004, with the exception of Poland which, in recognition of the importance of its agriculture, may have three members). Rulings of the SLC are final.

8) In content, a Novel is required to describe an Action begun, developed, and completed in any of the languages of the Member States of the European Union, subject to the restrictions detailed above.

Read the rest of this fine essay here.

Two unfinished books;
A cellphone, its battery almost dead;
My blue denim bag;
My sister's rucksack and a sleeping bag;
Clothes that aren't mine (even though they'd probably even fit me);
An old guitar (out of tune) standing in the corner;
A Nokia cellphone charger;
Couple of notebooks -- probably my sister's;
A tube of Avon peel-off mask;
Speakers (stereo);
A dustbin under the table;
Dust.

Dust Demons living under my bed;
A letter informing me that I've been banned from posting comments on Slashdot;
Shadows hiding behind the bookshelves;
Darkness -- everywhere, even outside the window;
Invisible pawprints of an invisible cat (he's outside, hunting for real mice);
My feet, rather restless;
Letters escaping from books I've left lying on the floor. The carpet's infested with them. They're always on the move, forming letters and sentences -- whole pages of bad poetry and prose, if they happen to find a sheet of paper lying on the floor. They tend to infest my books, too, changing some words and sentences. Some of them eventually get tired and go back to where they belong; others, however, get sucked into the vacuum cleaner and are lost forever, leaving whole pages in my books empty.

Yeah, I know, I shouldn't leave my books lying on the floor.

Tikk?

The best way to listen to Sigur Rós is sitting (or, preferrably, lying down) in a dark room. Headphones are also recommended: that way, it'll only be you and the music. Some songs, however, also need a thunderstorm outside to sound right.

Takk.

Hoppípolla is not the new Starálfur. It's different. But I love it.

Tikk...

Hi. I've noticed that some of you have problems with <p> tags after the first paragraph interpreted as <br>. Well, to be honest, that is not at all the case. It's simply that the new version of Slash behaves a bit differently from the old one: namely, it still automagically closes all the <p> tags, but leaves out the first paragraph.

As far as I can tell, there's two workarounds for this problem (well, three -- you could always just not use HTML and go with plain text and no links or other fancy HTML stuff ;). The obvious one is starting all paragraphs with <p> and closing them with </p>. But if you're lazy, you could always simply put a <p> in front of the first paragraph.

That's it. Have a nice day.

Earlier today, some person posted an article about South Korea planning to introduce robot teachers to teach English in schools. Everything was fine and dandy, but then the site admin replaced the text in the article with a picture of the goatse guy (linked from web.archive.org) -- probably because they didn't like Slashdot linking to the print version of the article. Nice.

Of course people started complaining about it, discussing what could be the reason for this, and so on. I, too, posted a few comments in these threads (and I also emailed daddypants@slashdot.org). Finally, the offending link was removed -- and then (and this is the funniest part) all the comments about the goatse link in the article got slammed to -1*. See this thread, for instance.

Now, the question is, if there's a bloody goatse link in the article, then how come discussing this is off-topic?

* Two of these comments were mine, meaning that I'm banned again. Argh.

1. Peter got drunk and punched Ian in the face. 2. Ian was a wuss and didn't dare to hit him back. 3. But someone still had to pay for this injustice. 4. Ian went home and beat his wife. 5. The next morning, Ian's son asked his mother why she had a black eye. 6. But his mother got angry and hit him in the back of the head. 7. The boy ran out, crying, and hit his dog, Sparky. 8. Sparky bit his hand and ran under the shed. 9. The boy, still crying, went and told his father about it. 10. His father hit him for hitting the dog and then went to work. 11. Blind with anger, Ian didn't even notice how Peter's dog ran right in front of his tractor. 12. Ian ran over the dog. 13. Peter saw his dog being run over. 14. Crying with pain, he buried his dog and then went to the pub to drown his sorrow. 15. Then Ian entered the pub and Peter hit him in the face. 16. Feeling guilty about the dog, Ian didn't dare to hit him back. 17. Filled with resentment, he went home... 18. Therefore, violence is contagious.

Introducing: the Most Evil Court Jester of the Exploding Marotte.

It rained heavily for most of the day today, which meant that for some reason, I wasn't in the mood to do anything. But I still just couldn't sit around doing nothing, so I decided to fool around with the Slashdot CSS a bit.

Now, my web design skills are nothing to be proud of (they're even worse than my photoshop skills). So I was slightly surprised that I actually ended up with something that a) still rendered properly and b) didn't look too shabby. I would, in fact, even go as far as to say that I prefer my 'skin' (yeah, I just changed the colours of some elements; no fiddling around with the layout) to the original one ;H

Here's some screenshots:

The front page
An article with comments
A userinfo page
A user's journal

The CSS files I modified: slashdot.css, base.css, comments.css (there's about a dozen more css files that I didn't change -- like the ones for the sections). To save you the trouble of telling me that I suck: yes, I know. But the only reason I did this was to encourage you to do better :7