Magic Camera (No Comments):


And a comic, you guys! It’s here despite Wes melting his brain while Tony swept up the place.

Warning labels can act as nocebos:
Remember the nocebo effect? It’s the flip side of placebos. Placebos can make people feel better or even relieve pain (to a certain extent). Nocebo happens when a placebo causes negative side-effects—nausea, racing heart, dizziness, etc. And here’s one more weird thing to add to this veritable bonfire of weirdness: When we tell people about the possible negative side-effects of a real drug, that might make them more likely to experience those side-effects.

In one study, 50 patients with chronic back pain were randomly divided into two groups before a leg flexion test. One group was informed that the test could lead to a slight increase in pain, while the other group was instructed that the test would have no effect. Guess which group reported more pain and was able to perform significantly fewer leg flexions?

Another example from the report: Patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment who expect these drugs to trigger intense nausea and vomiting suffer far more after receiving the drugs than patients who don’t.

And, like placebos and classic nocebos, this isn’t just “all in their head”—at least, not in the sense that they’re making it up or deluding themselves. There are measurable physical effects to this stuff.

As science writer Steve Silberman says in the article I’ve quoted from above, what we’re learning here is that the feedback we get from other people (“That might make you feel yucky” or “You look tired today”) has a physical effect on us. It’s a little insane. It’s also worth thinking about when we talk about medical ethics. Full disclosure of what treatments you’re getting and what the risks and benefits are is generally regarded as the ethically right way to practice medicine. And that’s probably correct. But how do you balance that with what we know about placebo/nocebo? What happens when transparency keeps you from using a harmless placebo as a treatment? What happens when transparency makes you more likely to experience negative health outcomes? It’s a strange, strange world and it’s not always easy to make the right ethical choices.

Read Steve Silberman’s full story on the nocebo effect

Wine Cork Portraits by Scott Gundersen:







I’ve been known to pocket the occasional sentimental wine cork, but that’s nothing compared to the thousands of used and recycled corks needed by Grand Rapids-based illustrator and artist Scott Gundersen to complete his large scale portraits. Starting with a large photograph that’s transferred to a drawing, Gundersen pins each cork to the canvas, creating a correlation between the hues of the wine-stained corks and the value of light or shadow in the portrait. His latest work, Trisha, took 3,621 corks to complete, but other works have required over 9,000. Watch the timelapse videos above to see how he does it. And can I add, what I wouldn’t give to have a completely idyllic barn studio. Such a beautiful space.

[Colossal]
Tilt-Shift Spain:

Every time I think I’ve had enough of the tilt-shift phenomenon, something amazing like this comes along. Behold the wonderful camera work of filmmaker Joerg Daiber of Spoonfilm, shot in locations around Seville, Madrid and El Chorro in Spain. Resisting. Urge. To charge. Plane tickets. (via vimeo)

Mouth of Sand:


Stumbled onto this striking 2010 photograph by Cuban artist Liset Castillo while poking around on ArtStar.

In my new body of work, “Human Studies,” from 2010, I subvert notions of enduring beauty with life-size images of women sculpted in a labor-intensive process out of sand, which I then photographed before destroying them. I create life-size sand sculptures of models typically found in high-gloss fashion magazines, photograph the works in sand and then I destroy them as a commentary on the ephemeral nature of beauty, America’s obsession with youth culture and decay.

See more of her work at Black and White Gallery.

[Boy, did I love these books as a kid. -egg]
[Boing Boing]
Your adventure ends here:

My friend Jeff Simmermon points us to a Tumblr of the “death-pages” from Choose Your Own Adventure books, popular in the 1980s.
“I recognized some of the Interplanetary Spy ones from my own childhood, too,” Jeff says.

July 16, 2012:

[Boing Boing]
Coffee ad from the 1650s:

This handbill — which can be seen in the British Museum — dates back to the 1650s, and was produced by the first coffee shop in London, in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill.

It is a simple innocent thing, composed into a drink, by being dryed in an Oven, and ground to Powder, and boiled up with Spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an hour before and not Eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any Blisters, by reason of that Heat.

The Turks drink at meals and other times, is usually Water, and their Dyet consists much of Fruit, the Crudities whereof are very much corrected by this Drink.

The quality of this Drink is cold and Dry; and though it be a Dryer, yet it neither heats, nor inflames more than hot Posset.

It forcloseth the Orifice of the Stomack, and fortifies the heat with- [missing text] its very good to help digestion, and therefore of great use to be [missing text] bout 3 or 4 a Clock afternoon, as well as in the morning.

The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink.

Recently I’ve been posting from Instapaper directly to my blog (and thence to Facebook). But the newest version of the Instapaper app has a bug that prevents me from doing that. So here’s a roundup of some recent stories I’ve enjoyed. -Egg

14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever
Technology Provides an Alternative to Love. – NYTimes.com
STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2010 > Features > Clelia Mosher

[Charlie Stross]

The Blitz spirit:

To all those of you who live in London and are having to put up with the current Olympic insanity, I send my condolences.

For those of you who don’t, to give you some idea of the sheer cognitive weirdness of LOCOG (who, I swear, could keep a psychiatrist working on new diagnoses to add to DSM-VI for a decade), here’s one example of how London (and the UK in general) is responding to these neo-fascist killjoys.

See, the Olympics have two cuddly toy mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville. (Never mind, for now, that these focus-group-tested horrors resemble a bizarre cross between an animated CCTV camera and a dildo with legs: it’s the thought that counts.)

Of course, as is always the case with sporting mascots these days, merchandising happens: toy plushies are on sale. And so are much more dubious souvenirs. (“Hello, I’m Wenlock! Don’t I look smart in my police officer’s uniform? I have the important job of protecting you on your journey to the London 2012 Games … we can have lots of fun together!”)

No, seriously: go marvel at the true Orwellian horror of the product, then read the customer reviews. Especially the one-star reviews.

The Blitz Spirit is still alive and screaming and on display inside Amazon.co.uk’s reader feedback!

(Final note for LOCOG rights gestapo: I do not consent to the idiotic terms of use that I have been informed can be found at the other end of that link. If you object to this blog entry, feel free to piss up a rope.)