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Music

Submission + - Turns out that music really is intoxicating, after (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "Our reaction to the music that we love stimulates the flow of dopamine into certain sections of the brain, concludes a new study out of McGill University. The findings "help to explain why music is of such high value across all human societies," the scientists note."
Math

Submission + - How long before apps overtake physical video game (asymco.com)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "Horace Dediu crunches some numbers and comes to a startling conclusion: 'If you look at the red line above and its slope, it would indicate that, given time, the App store will overtake the entire physical media gaming industry. The time when that happens will depend a lot on the growth or decline of the physical game media business, but another four years seems a safe bet.' This follows on the heels of some earlier analysis of apps per iOS device and what that steady upward growth means."
Education

New Study Links Video Games and Mental Problems 306

Posted by CmdrTaco from the think-of-the-children dept.
eldavojohn writes "A new study published today in Pediatrics Journal conducted in Singapore on three thousand children in grades third, fourth, seventh and eighth claims that one in ten are video game addicts and almost all of those suffer mental health problems. This comes conveniently after the suspect in the Tucson shooting has widely been reported as an online gamer. Among the accusations from the study are that playing video games leads to lower school performance and fewer social skills while exacerbating existing depression, anxiety and social phobias. Gamasutra reports that the Entertainment Software Alliance is already criticizing this study, saying, 'Its definition of "pathological gaming" is neither scientifically nor medically accepted and the type of measure used has been criticized by other scholars. Other outcomes are also measured using dubious instruments when well-validated tools are readily available. In addition, because the effect sizes of the outcomes are mainly trivial, it leaves open the possibility the author is simply interpreting things as negatively as possible.' It seems that the doctors are still disagreeing on whether or not gaming causes problems."
The Internet

Submission + - A New And Maybe Better Way To Stop People From Bei (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "The people running the video game League of Legends knew they had a problem. They had the same problem that makes much of the Internet unpleasant. Too many people were being jerks online. They're hatching a novel solution: citizen justice."
Science

Submission + - NOAA: 2010 Tied For Warmest Year on Record (noaa.gov)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "A NOAA preliminary analysis reports that 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average — 0.62 +/- 0.07 C above, to be precise. It was the wettest year on record too, according to the Global Historical Climatology Network."
The Internet

Submission + - The Right's war on Net Neutrality (dailykos.com)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "To understand the debate being waged in the United States over Net Neutrality, it's important to understand just how drastically one side has been misled. The leaders of the American Right are spreading the lie that Net Neutrality is a government takeover of the internet, with the intention of silencing conservative voices. (Limbaugh: "All you really have to know about Net Neutrality is that its biggest promoters are George Soros and Google.") This may be hard to believe to those of us who actually know what it's about — reinstating pre-2005 law that ensured internet providers could discriminate on the basis of volume but not content. Since the opposing side is so badly misinformed, those of us who want the internet to remain open to innovation and freedom of expression have to help educate them before the debate can really be held."
Math

Submission + - Shtetl-Optimized  Blog Archive  QCut (scottaaronson.com)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "As some of you may have heard, the incoming Republican majority in Congress has a new initiative called YouCut, which lets ordinary Americans like me propose government programs for termination. So imagine how excited I was to learn that YouCut’s first target — yes, its first target — was that notoriously bloated white elephant, the National Science Foundation."
Math

Submission + - TheoryMine | Home (theorymine.co.uk)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "The gift of personalised, newly
discovered theorems: immortalise in mathematics your loves, friends,
teachers, and even your favourite pets by naming a new mathematical theorem."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - Breaking News on EFF Victory: Appeals Court Holds (eff.org)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "In a landmark decision issued today in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service provider..."

Submission + - 41Latitude - Google Maps & Label Readability (41latitude.com) 1

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "Google Maps & Label Readability Why Do Google Mapsââs City Labels Seem Much More âÅ"Readableâ Than Those of Its Competitors? For months, Iââve been trying to figure out why Google Mapsââs city labels seem..."

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