Category Archives: Bloggers

Copycat killers use knives, where guns are scarce

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Consumerism doesn't work for everyone. Photo: Ernie/Flickr CC

The latest attacks suggest that middle-aged men are struggling to cope in capitalist China. — MB

Loren Coleman suspects the wave of school killings by older males that horrified the Chinese in April, hasn’t ended:

“I have pointed out that in China and Japan, due to their strict firearms laws, such countries tend to manifest their ‘copycat school violence’ in terms of ‘stabbing’ series. Will this current stabbing spree spread to Japan or other Asian nations?”

The attacks, as Coleman suggests (noting what precipitated the attacks, and how they ended), probably reflect an increase suicidal behavior amongst Chinese men, many of whom are struggling to get ahead within their new, ruthless, economy.

Japan and South Korea already lead much of the world in suicides.

Alas, the most recent World Health Organization data for China is 11 years old.

In 1999, the suicide rate for men over 65 was four-to-five times higher than for their middle-aged cohorts. My bet is that the 40-something set has been closing that gap.

via Twilight Language: 3 Days, 3 Attacks.

Forteans, esotericists: New book will make you crazy for Maine

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Image: Via Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo

Loren Coleman calls a new book by Strange Maine blogger and esotericist, Michelle Souilere, “a great and significant addition to the growing regional literature on the unknown…”

Coleman also notes that a 1-2 month estimated wait at Amazon.com, for the book, is likely incorrect.

Don’t despair, writes Coleman:

“…you can stop by the Green Hand Bookshop in Portland, Maine, and pick up a copy directly from the author, today. She’ll even autograph it. Or, if you are far away from Maine, you probably can order it from Amazon or your local bookstore, and have it next week, not next month!”

via Cryptomundo.

“Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State This book is a great and significant addition to the growing regional literature on the unknown by new authors who are out there digging up new and old information overlooked by previous writers, investigators, and historians.”

For some Bigfoot hunters, the thrill is gone

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So close... Image: Jeremy Burgin/Flickr CC

Loren Coleman last week discussed the Bigfoot hunters who’ve given up their single-minded pursuit of the elusive beast.

Here’s how one Squatch-seeker said “so long,” recently:

“There comes a time when all things must change, when our interests transform, and our needs become different. That time has come for me in respect to this blog. I have enjoyed the journey that this blog represents, but my friends, I must tell you, it is done.

“In fact, I am now retired from looking for bigfoot in any capacity from here out. For me, bigfoot has become not less of a mystery since I started looking into it in 2004, but much, much more mysterious. I despair of actually ever discovering what lies at the bottom of the matter.”

Coleman offers-up even more reasons why he thinks his colleagues cut bait.

via Cryptomundo » Why Do People Leave The Bigfoot Field?.

"V" is very bad, indeed

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Christopher Knowles says what you’re thinking, about one of television’s worst sci-fi series:

“This is binary conflict of the lowest variety, really a terrible comedown given the pedigree of talent involved. What an incredible disappointment. I must say I’m not surprised this show lost over a million viewers in its second half-hour.”

via The Secret Sun: TVOD: V jumps the lizard (UPDATED).

Coleman partners with Strange Maine on Bigfoot tome

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Photo: Ryan McBride/Flickr CC

Premier cryptozoologist and Bigfoot hunter, Loren Coleman, is collaborating on a new book with another, not-so-crazy Mainer:

“Tentatively, Bigfoot in Maine by Loren Coleman and Michelle Souliere, is due for 2012, from Idyll Arbor, Inc.. The company’s publisher, Pine Winds Press has released Bigfoot in Georgia: Legends, Myths, and Sightings by Jeffrey Wells, the now-classic Bigfoot Casebook Updated by Janet and Colin Bords, Valley of the Skookum by Sali Sheppard-Wolford, and Robert W. Morgan’s two books. Pine Winds Press shall be trekking its way through other states in the near future, in search of writers of other Bigfoot books.”

via Cryptomundo » Coming Soon: Bigfoot In Maine.

Facebook post nabs Boston bong thief

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Good glass will cost you. Photo: Igor Bespamyatnov/Flickr CC

From UH (link below), a short while ago:

Wicked Local Allston/Brighton reports the owner of a Comm. Ave. shop that sells high-quality bongs nailed one of the men who allegedly stole several of them by posting photos on Facebook – which resulted in tips leading to a Saugus man – with tattoos showing on his own Facebook page that matched those seen on surveillance video.

via Bing bong: Facebook helps head-shop owner catch a thief | Universal Hub.

Google to reroute cyclists through cities

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Lost. Photo: Ollie Crafoord/Flickr CC

Even cyclists, many of whom see themselves as the Apache of their city’s roadways, will soon be taking orders from Google.

A blogger at MIT’s Center for Future Media asks,

“Does this spell the end for DIY cycle mapping? Will having a major commercial bike map provider decrease people’s motivation to contribute their own routes or use potentially clunkier interfaces? Can we learn something here about the relationship between crowd-sourced, DIY public services and corporate takeovers?”

And I thought the whole point of cycling was doing your own thing, with the added thrill of risking head injury.

via cfd’s blog | Center for Future Civic Media.

Attention unimaginative bloggers: IBM app spits out topics to write about

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Every writer could use a muse, sometimes. Photo: Ygor Oliveira/Flickr CC

You might think a roomful of monkeys could generate most of the blog posts you read.

But IBM Research has got it all down to a single program. Called Blog Muse, it generates topics for you to write about, based upon what audiences are asking for.

Blog muse isn’t an artificial brain. Rather than tapping that roomful of monkeys for raw material, however, it crowd-sources requests for stories from the naked apes in your community. (Read the paper about Blog Muse, which is being presented at computer conferences this winter and spring, below.)

IBMers Werner Geyer and Casey Dugan created Blog Muse.

Dugan studied at MIT, under the computer science giant, and Creative Commons founding director, Hal Abelson. She is working IBM’s Beehive Project, which aims to influence social networking behavior.

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Interested in tech from the Hub? Check out this week’s User Friendly

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407n-geyer

Crypto-sexpots: Coleman's list

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Nicole Hosack, owner of Niki’s Quick Six store in Spring Church, Pa. Cryptomundo donated this Sasquatch statue, after someone made off with the store's three-foot original.

Loren Coleman’s racked ‘em up for us — all are pics from his posts over the past decade, at Cryptomundo — and some readers already calling for a calendar, to feature the sexiest scientists operating outside the mainstream.

Dr. Andrea Marshall is pictured above, in the photo that accompanied her appeal to get support for her work, funded by conducting trips and tours related to manta research. She was named Cryptozoologist of 2008 by Cryptomundo.

Coleman also notes the ever-present lid, which male cryptozoologists seem to don in the presence of even a strong bulb:

Clearly the lines of division were drawn sharply during the ’00s. Those with hats turned out to be good sexy field cryptozoologists, and those without were, well, without ~ and often debunkers, skeptics, and scoftics.

via Cryptomundo » The Top Ten Sexiest Cryptomundo Images Of The ’00s.

Pot as "miracle drug": It's complicated

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Andrew Sullivan. (Photo: Trey Ratcliff/Flickr CC)

Marijuana not only doesn’t kill brain cells, as do alcohol and heroin — and depression –   it grows ‘em back, Andrew Sullivan asserts.

He quotes some recent rat brain research:

The team found that rats treated with HU-210 on a regular basis showed neurogenesis – the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus. This region of the brain is associated with learning and memory, as well as anxiety and depression.

The effect is the opposite of most legal and illicit drugs such as alcohol, nicotine, heroin, and cocaine. “Most ‘drugs of abuse’ suppress neurogenesis,” Zhang says. “Only marijuana promotes neurogenesis.”

For me, the key phrase in this excerpt (above), is “drugs of abuse.” No doubt, pot is one of them — experience tells us this. (There is also massive anecdotal evidence of pot’s benefits.)  And the drug’s effects on the brain are more complex than Sullivan’s post suggests.

Still, as Lester Grinspoon says, that pot will eventually emerge as the gold standard among anti-anxiety medicines.

I also agree with Sullivan: Reason dictates that pot must be made legal, and fully available to scientists, if we are serious about relieving human suffering.

via The Miracle Of Marijuana – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.