http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/yXWfxJI1s6I/advisor-am-i-an-inte.html

You spend a lot of time online. Maybe it comes with the job. Maybe your idea of a perfect weekend is to be perched in front of your computer reading blogs, buying shit you don't need on Amazon, Tweeting and Facebooking, or surfing YouPorn. But at what point are you considered a bona fide Internet addict? To find out, I called up a psychologist and a fancy rehab center who specialize in this type of thing. I must admit there was a part of me that went into reporting this story with a smirk. Internet addiction? Aren't we all Internet addicts to some extent? And then I talked to Coleen Moore of the Illinois Institute of Addiction Recovery, who told me that 20% of all addicts who check into the rehab center are there for Internet addiction. Some of them use drugs along with the Internet so they can stay awake and online longer, and others get urinary tract infections or wet themselves because they don't want to take bathroom breaks. Carpal tunnel and eye strain are only the tip of the iceberg. For some, Internet addiction is a very real psychological issue that calls for medical help.

The compulsion to be online all the time is slightly different than more conventional addictions like alcoholism and prescription drugs, says Dr. Kimberly Young, a clinical psychologist who runs the web site NetAddiction.com. "It's not quantitative," she says. "It's not like you can measure how much they're drinking." And while it's more common in people who have other mental health conditions to begin with — staving off depression by surfing online porn, for example — the accessibility of the Internet has also spawned a new population of addicts. "A lot of patients describe situations like this: 'I never thought about porn but then I found it online, and the more I found the more I wanted it,'" says Dr. Young. "It's something very specific to cyberspace — they don't have to go to the adult bookstore in town, it's just right in their rooms."

When Young started treating Internet addiction in 1994, the biggest problem people saw her for was day trading. Now, there are more addicts who show up (voluntarily, or at the heels of concerned parents) for online gaming. "World of Warcraft and Everquest seem to be the ones that individuals identify most often," says Moore, who is the admissions manager at the Illinois Institute. These addicts typically stay at the Institute for 30-90 days, paying up to $1200 a day (though many insurance plans cover at least part of it) to follow the same treatment program that alcoholics and sex addicts go through. "We have a philosophy here that an addiction is an addiction, and that those who suffer from gambling or sex or Internet or alcohol can all learn from one another," Moore says.

There's no concrete definition of what qualifies you as an Internet addict. And because the Internet is such a prevalent part of everyday life now, complete abstinence isn't usually an option. Instead of trying to gauge your addiction level by how long you're online, you're supposed to be looking more at whether your Internet usage is affecting the way you perform in other parts of your life. Are you getting in trouble at work? Is your partner leaving you? Are you forgetting to shower, eat, and pee? If so, you might want to consider getting help.

"An addiction is an addiction," Young says. "It doesn't matter if it's porn or the Internet."

Or, for that matter, if it's porn and the Internet.

You can take Dr. Young's Internet addiction test here.

Advisor is a column about how to juggle technology, relationships, and common sense. Got a story to tell? Email me at lisa [at] boingboing [dot] net.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/0FVpOLisWx8/peter-max-the-fables.html

The Fables comics are an infinitely entertaining and moving series of comics about a world in which every fable, legend and belief of humanity has been chased from the worlds of fantasy to exile on Earth, hiding in a secret side-street in Manhattan. The chaser is The Adversary, an evil emperor, and his numberless goblin shock-troops. This is such rich material, as it allows for tellings and retellings of every beloved story of humanity.

In Peter & Max: A Fables Novel, writer Bill Willingham tells a key piece of the story in prose form, and proves that he's every bit as wonderful a prose-writer as he is a comics-writer. Peter and Max is the story of two brothers, Peter (Piper, also Pumpkin Eater) and Max (the Pied Piper), who grow estranged from one another on the eve of the Adversary's invasion of their homeworld, and lose themselves in a blood-soaked Black Forest, where they are both fired by the crucible of war and magic into men whose innocence will never be recovered.

Max is the villain here, jealous of Peter's inheritance of Frost, the magic flute of their father. Max acquires Fire, another powerful magic flute, from Frau Totenkinder, the evil witch of the Black Forest, and he and Fire warp each other into something monstrous.

Peter, meanwhile, is orphaned in Hamelin, where he becomes an accomplished thief, escaping from the worst circumstances with the help of Frost, and forever pining for his lost love, Bo Peep, disappeared into the evil woods.

The action moves from this mythic backstory to a contemporary tale in which Max has come at last to contemporary Fabletown, and Peter must hunt him, even though it means his certain doom.

As with the Fables comics, Willingham manages to merge the gentle, meandering feel of fairy tales with a breakneck, contemporary pacing -- a very clever trick indeed. The characters and stories are very engaging, the tension real, the mythos powerful. There's everything to like about Peter & Max, even if you've never cracked a Fables comic (though you probably will, once you've finished reading the book).

Peter & Max: A Fables Novel

Please vote in my local poll... Was it good or bad that the house passed a health care bill? Click on http://mohavedailynews.com/ and vote on the poll that is in the right margin. Thanks!

http://coilhouse.net/2009/11/better-than-coffee-the-maori-legend-of-the-kiwi/

http://coilhouse.net/?p=11011

[Good morning, dear comrades. I'm chugging redbull and running to catch a ferry in a few minutes, so please forgive the sloppiness of this edition of BTC!]

Last night, I and ten other curious folks took a guided nocturnal hike through the Karori Sanctuary. A dense and verdant square mile of forest located mere minutes from downtown Wellington, the preserve is surrounded by a predator-proof fence (specially designed to keep out invasive species like hedgehogs, possums, cats and dogs), and has become “a safe haven for some of [New Zealand's] most iconic and endangered native animals, including tuatara, little spotted kiwi, saddleback, hihi and giant weta.”

Our lovely tour guide, Tracy, told us that there are approximately 100 little spotted kiwis living in the sanctuary. They’re extremely shy and elusive critters, so there was no guarantee we’d get to see one. But we lucked out and encountered one foraging in the underbrush mere feet from the trail. He was one of most adorable, strange, lovable creatures I have ever seen. I will cherish the memory of his fuzzy rump bounding off through the twilight for the rest of my life.

There are hundreds of different factoids I could share about his species. Perhaps when I return from my travels in a few days, I’ll add some of them in comments. Hopefully some of Coilhouse’s more knowledgable NZ and/or birding readership will chime in as well?

For now, here is the Maori legend of New Zealand’s beloved hairy little whiskered flightless bird, imparted by Ben, Hayden and Gavin, three young storytellers from Mangakahia Area School in Titoki, Northland:

The Maori Legend:

Why Kiwi Lives on the Forest Floor

One day the king of the forest, Tanemahuta, was walking through the forest. He looked at his trees and noticed that they looked sick. They were being eaten by the bugs that lived on the forest floor. Tanemahuta told his brother Tanehokahoka (King of the sky) what had happened to his children the trees.

Tanehokahoka wanted to help his brother so he called all the birds together for a meeting. Tanemahuta said to them all
“The ground bugs are eating the trees. I need one of you to give up your life in the sky and come and live on the forest floor so the trees will be saved. Who will come?

Tanemahuta and Tanehokahoka waited and listened – but everything was quiet, and not a single bird spoke. Tanehokahoka turned to Tui…

[Story continues after the jump]

Read the rest of Better Than Coffee: The Maori Legend of the Kiwi

---

Post tags: Better than coffee, Flora & Fauna

this is such a good record.

Kevin, why did you have to get all Indie-OK on us?

Got a letter to the editor into the Montreal Gazette today, which is kind of the Canadian firearms rights advocacy equivalent of bangflopping an eighteen-point 500 pound buck, given that particular newpaper's execrably biased coverage of firearms rights issues.

( Text behind cut for my own future reference. )

Off to physiotherapy.

http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/701d923/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg20A4273350B0A0A0A0Egizmos0Eallow0Eartists0Eto0Efeel0Etheir0Ecreations0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427335.000

Artists are leaving keyboards and mice behind to work more intuitively with touch screens, input devices with physical feedback and air-drawing

http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/70174ae/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg20A4273310B0A0A0A0Eextraterrestrial0Erafting0Ehunting0Eoffworld0Esea0Elife0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427331.000

Do the moons of Jupiter and Saturn harbour life in their chilly oceans? A flotilla of space probes is being lined up to haul anchor and find out

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/020883.html

Fat chick to friends: And then he said I reminded him of Rosie O'Donnell! (starts hysterically crying)
Friend #1: How? Like because you're funny?
Fat chick: No! Because I'm fat! (continues crying)
(man walking by bursts out laughing)
Friend #2: It's not funny!
Man walking away: Yes it is!

--7th St & 2nd Ave

Overheard by: Jesse H.

Cold Graey continues to spread its back-catalog for free access.
Stpocold - What happened outside
CD was released in 2007 by limited edition. Heres some reviews:
Heathen Harvest
Connexion Bizarre
Gothtronic

Now we decided to let more people to listen to it.
Music is some kind of power electronics variations. As one of listeners said: "It sounds like noise made by humans, apart from noise made by gadgets feeding back themselves. Excellent."

Proceed to download page

FLAC and mp3 VBR are available.

Label: fatureNet recordings ( http://www.fature.net )
Cat#: FNet005
Artist: Various
Title: Pick n Mix Vol.1 (By Sevish)
Genre: electronic
Sytles: breakbeat, dnb, idm
Licence: Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)

Here's the latest of a streak of fine releases from our label faturenet recordings. It was compiled by me, Sevish, and normalised by Fature.
You should bow to the artists included, as their work represents the type of great music that we attract – and is selected for it's energy, sense of fun and for generally being sick.
Enjoy!

Download here

http://feeds.reference.com/click.phdo?i=6053af813a9f65eb4941933fd9eb1cf2

http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/11/09.html

fungible: interchangeable.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/020882.html

Asian conductor to ballerina on train carrying scissors, needle and thread: You know, I could confiscate those scissors. Since 9/11 they are really strict.
Ballerina: I'm just sewing my shoes, they're to cut the thread.
Asian conductor: Some of us would just take them. I won't, I'm just warning you. The needle too. There is this place in the neck you could stick the needle and paralyze someone. (walks away)
Ballerina's seatmate: He watches too many ninja movies.

--Metro North

Alleged shooter tied to mosque of 9/11 hijackers
Hasan apparently attended mosque when a radical imam preached there

( the article )

So the full article is under the cut, and it's really pointless, but here's why I'm posting it. The headline hints at all sorts of terrible connections, but this single paragraph is the important part:

The family of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded 29 at the Texas military base, held his mother's funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper.

He didn't "attend the mosque." He went to his mom's funeral there!

'Sesame Street' Dig at POX News Draws Backlash, Rebuke From PBS
Posted Friday 06 November 12:40 PM By: PopEater Staff

A 2-year-old skit on 'Sesame Street' that referenced a "trashy" news channel called POX News came under fire this week when conservative bloggers accused the long-running PBS series of a liberal bias. In the clip, Oscar the Grouch is a reporter for the Grouch News Network (GNN), but he bored one female viewer, who responds: "From now on, I'm watching Pox News. Now there's a trashy news show!"

Big Hollywood, the celeb blog founded by conservative writer Andrew Breitbart, called out the old skit (re-run this week) as a jab at the mega popular news network. "The message is clear," a blogger named Stage Right noted, "I can't even sit my kids in front of 'Sesame Street' without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority."

Since then, the ombudsman for PBS has weighed in and agrees the parody "should have been resisted" by producers.

Writing on his PBS blog, Michael Getler told his readers:

"Everybody who wrote to me heard this as "Fox News," and I can't really blame them. When I went and watched the tape for the first time, I thought I heard "Fox" as well, perhaps because of the association one assumes when you hear "news" right after the word.

I don't know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn't do it through the kids."

While PBS' ombudsman may believe the dig at FOX may have been a bit over the line, the show itself doesn't know what all the hubub is about. In comments to Yahoo! News, Sesame Workshop VP of communication Ellen Lewis called the offending skit "just another one of the many parodies that 'Sesame Street' has done over the years."

( The skit in question )

This source is brought you by the letters S-T-F-U

A group of students, both past and present, of the all-male St. Paul's College at Sydney University, decided to create a pro-rape Facebook page called "Define Statutory" that reportedly was allowed to stay up on the site for several months.

The site, which went up in August, was shut down recently, but Reverend David Russell, an outgoing master at Wesley College, tells the Sydney Morning Herald that the Facebook page is simply an encapsulation of the rape culture that has pervaded the campus for some time. "This is a story that has to be told," Russell says, "there is no question in my mind, women are seen as meat. That is the awful, ugly truth of it.''

( Read more )



Source

Comments point out there are hundreds of groups on FB that have "rape" in the title.  Granted, many probably don't have anything to do with actual rape or may be anti-rape support groups, but FB needs draw a line.