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[Poll #1309180]

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-4-2008

• Amazon.co.uk: MP3 store - DRM-free MP3 music downloads
  And about time too! All sorts of things not available, sadly.
  (tags: music mp3 amazon)
• First 'placebo gene' discovered
  Ten volunteers responded to the placebo much better than the rest. By the end of the experiment, their anxiety scores had halved, whereas the others' stayed the same. Brain scans also showed that activity in the amygdala, the brain's "fear" centre, had dropped by 3 per cent. To see if there were genetic differences between responders and non-responders, Furmark screened them for a variant of the gene for tryptophan hydroxylase-2, which makes the brain chemical, serotonin. Previous studies suggested that people with two copies of a particular "G" variant are less anxious in standard "fear" tests. Sure enough 8 of the 10 responders had two copies, while none of the non-responders did
  (tags: genetics psychology brains)
• What Your Computer Does While You Wait
  To put this into perspective, reading from L1 cache is like grabbing a piece of paper from your desk (3 seconds), L2 cache is picking up a book from a nearby shelf (14 seconds), and main system memory is taking a 4-minute walk down the hall to buy a Twix bar.
  (tags: technology speed optimization memory performance computers)

Where is My Mind?

I would like to see this film:

Best review opening Evah!

You used to be able to depend on a bad film being poorly made. No longer. "The Punisher: War Zone" is one of the best-made bad movies I've seen. It looks great, it hurtles through its paces and is well-acted. The soundtrack is like elevator music if the elevator were in a death plunge. The special effects are state of the art. Its only flaw is that it's disgusting.

At least, that's what Roger Ebert says.

(Because at least two people on my friends list have mentioned wanting to see it.)