A reader points out that the caption on the picture of Stylianos Kyriakides posted earlier undersells “arguably the most significant Boston Marathon victory of all time”:
That’s the best you can do? I don’t think you could have understated Stylianos Kyriakides victory any more. Kyriakides’ victory in the Boston Marathon in 1946 changed the world. There’s a very, very inspirational story behind the picture. Do you know what it is?
William Lambers summarizes Kyriakides’ achievement:
His mission was to bring attention to famine and suffering in his homeland. During World War II the German Army left Greece practically in ruins and short on food. Aid was desperately needed. April 1946 was a pivotal time in world history; hunger then was the World War II enemy that had yet to be defeated. …
For Kyriakides, the Boston Marathon offered an opportunity to shine the spotlight on the hunger in his homeland. He faced a tough challenge. There was the defending champion Johnny Kelley and other great runners to contend with. Kyriakides also had to overcome years of living in the harsh occupation conditions with below-average nutrition. His life had been spared by German troops because he was a marathoner and had competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Kyriakides overcame the odds, overcame the great Johnny Kelley, and sprinted to victory in the marathon. When he crossed the finish line he shouted “For Greece!” for he knew what this victory would mean in telling the world of his country’s plight. His mission was not over even after he crossed the finish line, though. Next was touring the country to raise donations for Greek relief.
The NoFap “movement” is much more about Internet porn than it is about fapping, whether the participants are aware of this or not. It’s not that frequent masturbating in itself is detrimental to sexual performance; it’s that frequent masturbation to online pornography is detrimental to sexual performance. For the first time in human history, a male can view more sexually arousing females in one hour than our ancestors did in a lifetime. The ubiquitous nature of Internet porn has provided a level of sexual novelty that our brains have not evolved to handle. The key here is dopamine and the brain’s reward circuitry. It’s one thing if you masturbate to mental images. It’s another if you just look at porn. Combine the two to orgasm, day after day, and you will have very real, very detrimental consequences to sexual performance. And once you do this for years on end, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain boner-levels of dopamine when you’re with just one, 3-dimensional woman.
There is an epidemic of younger guys who are struggling with erectile dysfunction, seemingly due to the over consumption of Internet porn. Check out Gary Wilson explaining the problem in his TEDx talk [above]. So you get this group of guys who can’t get aroused by a real girl (or guy), maybe throw in some other issues such as depression and social anxiety, and due the psychological and social aspects of masturbation, they misinterpret cause-and-effect and quite “fapping” when they should be quitting porn.
Another confesses:
I can’t even maintain an erection in a condom anymore, and during sex often think about the porn scene I watched the previous (or that same) day. Refraining from porn, deleting our downloaded collections, is an attempt to get some control back in our lives.
Another recommends a website that might help:
The Your Brain on Porn site, for all its pseudoscientific sins, was the first place I found that convinced me that maybe too much porn wasn’t such a good idea. I’d heard that a lot before, but always from people who said it would rot your brain and turn you into a crazed junkie craving your next lolicon bukkake fix, or from people who implied that clearly, a true manly man wouldn’t need such artificial aids for his sexual needs, both of which are viewpoints I reject. After browsing on NoFap, I kind of get how porn and masturbation can be natural and healthy for some people, but just not a good idea for others, especially those who did too much too early and missed a lot of early sexual experience.
Another:
I’m as skeptical as the next guy about the magic bullet properties of nofap. They’ll write it cures depression, inspires motivation, and makes you irresistible to women. This should be taken with a grain of salt. But I can tell you from experience – as a 33-year-old gay man who’s been on Viagra for seven years, who was given my first tablet from a 30-year-old man who was dependent on them, who has a handful of straight and gay friends who “can’t stay hard with condoms”, who knows guys who fight ED in their early 20s, and knows guys who can only come if it’s on someone’s face – there’s something happening to young men these days.
A lot of guys find the forum from the website yourbrainonporn.com. It features Gary Wilson’s TedX talk “The Great Porn Experiment” and Philip Zimbardo’s “The Demise of Guys”. It’s compelling stuff; the idea that Internet porn is not your father’s Playboy collection, that our brains aren’t equipped to handle what we’re putting them through, and the effects of tying dopamine reception to internet porn daily, for years at a time.
I encourage you guys to check out the site. It’s an interesting subject, and it deserves better than what New York magazine and Gawker gave it.
Mat Honan struggles with correcting errors or misinformation on Twitter, like the recent tweet from the AP’s hacked account:
Here’s the problem with the way the current system works. Let’s say you tweet something that turns out to be incorrect to your 100 followers. Let’s say 5 of those retweet it to their 100 followers. At this point, some 595 potential people have seen it. (Or at least spambots, but bear with me.) You realize your error, and issue a correction on your Twitter feed. Your 100 original followers may see the update, but it leaves 495 who do not unless those same five people again retweet you. In short, while the automatic retweet button on Twitter lets people spread information far and wide beyond your followers, there’s no way to makes sure those same people see your attempts to correct it.
His suggestion:
So here’s one way it could work using Twitter’s metadata. Twitter could add a function, similar to a retweet or favorite, that let you edit and correct a tweet after it had been posted. Those tweets then show up in a timeline as having been corrected–again, they could be flagged like favorites or retweets. Click on a tweet marked as edited, and it uses Twitter’s Cards function (the same system that lets tweets embed images, videos, and text) to show the original.
That’s the number of states that will soon have marriage equality, with today’s news from that little state. All of New England now guarantees civil equality. Delaware’s House just passed a bill as well. TP notes:
Rohin Dhar explores the success of the popular jam band, whose revenue from ticket sales over the past four years “handily [surpasses] more well known artists like Radiohead, The Black Keys, and One Direction”:
From 1989 onward, before the band had even been signed to a record label, Phish was profitable from live touring. … Because Phish achieved financial independence before the music industry even recognized them, they more or less could do whatever they wanted.
The took their early profits and started their own management company, Dionysian Productions. They hired a staff of 40+ people that handled their elaborate stage productions and back office operations. They built their own merchandise company so that their shirts and other paraphernalia reflected the band’s artistic sensibilities. They even started a mail order ticket company so that fans could send them money orders and buy tickets directly from the band.
… Perhaps more so than any major musical artist today, the Phish business model is derived from having hard core fans of its live music. When Madonna sells out arenas across the country, she’s selling tickets to her various fans that live everywhere. When Phish sells out arenas or festivals across the country, it’s because the same die-hard fans fly across the country to see the band. In the rare instances where fans don’t make the trek and the shows don’t sell out, the band punishes the no-shows by performing a particularly epic set. In a forum where ardent Phish fans compare how much money they had spent on going to see the band, the answers were in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Alex Engler’s analysis from February looks at how immigration reform could affect the House. He finds that, “while the Republican Party has a great deal to gain from successful bipartisan immigration reform, House Democrats face little benefit and even, paradoxically, the possibility of significant losses.” The main reason why:
Democrats currently control the majority of districts with large Hispanic populations. There are 39 Republican districts that are more than 20 percent Hispanic, and only five that are more than 50 percent Hispanic (compared to Democrats’ 76 and 28 districts, respectively).
This concentration of the Hispanic vote means that “a dramatic shift in Hispanic support toward Democrats would have yielded startlingly small gains in the House”:
Under the 42 percent Hispanic voting scenario, a 10 percentage point shift toward Democrats would net only one additional seat, and a 20 percentage point shift would turn only six seats. Conversely, shifts away from Democrats by Hispanics could be devastating. Under the 42 percent scenario, a 5 percentage point shift toward the GOP would have turned five races into Republican victories. A 10 percentage point shift to the right would have handed Republicans 12 seats, and a 16 percentage point shift would have flipped 21 districts. Using the lower turnout models reduces the number of seats changing hands, but the narrative remains the same.
This doesn’t answer the question of which party immigration reform is likely to help. What it does say is that it’s a no-lose proposition for Republicans. Even if it turns out to help Democrats more, Republicans aren’t likely to suffer much because of it.
A crowd gathered during a vigil for the marathon bombing victims held at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Boston. By Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe via Getty Images.
“If they are going to kill him. I don’t care. My oldest son is killed, so I don’t care. I don’t care if my youngest son is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And, I don’t care if I am going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu Akbar!” – Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, mother of the Boston Marathon bombers.
Helius Energy officially cut the ribbon on its new Scottish biomass power plant in Rothes [last week] at the inauguration of the latest facility capable of turning whisky by-products into energy.
The Helius CoRDe Ltd biomass energy plant and animal feed processing unit in Speyside was formally opened yesterday by HRH The Duke of Rothesay, with promise of delivering clean power to 9,000 homes in the region. The 8.23MW combined heat and power plant has been developed by a joint venture incorporating biomass power developer Helius Energy, Rabo Project Equity BV, and the Combination of Rothes Distillers Limited (CoRD), and will now replace the carbon intensive CoRD plant that has previously been used to process waste biomass produced by the region’s world famous whisky distilleries.
The Dish 