Maka-Maka, wocka wocka, I’m confused?
Google’s apparently vying for a spot in your soul, too. Or maybe it just wants what’s left of your soul after Facebook ? the post-Facebook sloppy seconds. Nice.
Maka-maka (or makamaka, which is a name from manga, another life-stealer) will be launched in early November, and will pretty much be the poorman’s Facebook, with similar applications until someone comes up with something new.
As if Google doesn’t have enough control. It’s the original brand-name verb! “I’ll Google it!” came before “I’ll Facebook him!” lest we forget. Oh well. If you’ll excuse me, I’m just gonna go upload some new pictures of myself from my Macbook’s webcam onto Facebook. Any comments can be forwarded to my g-chat. PEACE!
Sleep to think
While staying up until sunrise is romantic and actually quite fun, it’s not the best way to nourish your intellect, says the New York Times. According to recent studies, apparently we do some great thinking, reflecting, logical categorizing and relearning while we’re in deep sleep.
Now, a small group of neuroscientists is arguing that at least one vital function of sleep is bound up with learning and memory. A cascade of new findings, in animals and humans, suggest that sleep plays a critical role in flagging and storing important memories, both intellectual and physical, and perhaps in seeing subtle connections that were invisible during waking ? a new way to solve a math or Easter egg problem, even an unseen pattern causing stress in a marriage.
The theory is controversial, and some scientists insist that it?s still far from clear whether the sleeping brain can do anything with memories that the waking brain doesn?t also do, in moments of quiet contemplation.
So, technically, we really should sleep on our arguments and problems, instead of staying up until the early hours of the morning trying to resolve them. Similarly, college students should not stay up for 11 nights straight, studying or otherwise.
Previous studies of nocturnal sleep have found the same thing. Memory of learned facts, whether they are names, places, numbers or Farsi verbs, seems to benefit in part from deep sleep. Healthy sleepers usually fall into deep sleep about 20 minutes or so after head meets pillow. They might spend an hour or more in those lolling depths early in the night, and typically less time later on. When cramming on facts, in short, it may be wiser to crash early at night and arise early, than to burn the candle until 2 a.m., the research suggests.
This confirms what I’ve known all along ? a good night’s sleep is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.
Dog days/daze?
I’d like to extend my deepest apologies (and thanks!) to those who have checked in to Brink to find no new posts. It’s midterm week here at Ithaca, and we students are worked to the bone. Kind of. Anyway, it would have been nice to have one of these this week, to lick my face and get excited when I came home. In fact, here’s a picture of a puppy that looks somewhat like a dinosaur.
Instead, all I got were dirty coffee mugs and empty red bull towers, which isn’t some stereotype I’m simply evoking to look cool. Two Brink roommates have literally created a tower of RedBull cans in our kitchen nook. And brava to them for jolting their hearts into pumping much-needed blood to their brains.? That’s the spirit!
Plug it in … NEVER!
Imagine a perfect world, where you could sit at the Internet for 30 years without ever having to recharge your laptop battery. Perfect, indeed. And it’s closer than you think! In two to three years, we may all spend the next 30 years of our lives online.
Thou shalt always steal
The Village Voice’s Lynn Yaeger wrote a nice little piece about fashion fraud. Apparently, Anna Sui is su-ING (zing!) Forever21 for their knock offs. Nitrolicious offers a side-by-side here:
But right now, honestly, it’s not like someone who could afford designer clothes would be caught dead in a Forever21. Forever21 is for we, the people, the plebians. The proletariat. Those who find it ridiculous to have to spend thousands of dollars to look how we feel: Young, healthy and beautiful.
Anyway, Yaeger Bomb’s got a point with her story. Our whole culture, right now, is one of collage, pastiche, and general remix. Fashion’s no different. So, designers, keep designing, and please leave Forever21 and H&M and Zara and all others alone. For the sake of the poor college student who tries, desperately hard, to look good and not drink so much coffee all the time. I need the under-$30 dresses. They’re such a nice gift to give oneself.
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