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Colbert Brandishes Lightsaber Against Gadget Consumerism [Lightsaber Vs Sticks]

- 26 minutes ago

pscript type="text/javascript" newVideoPlayer("/colbertlightsaber_gizmodo.flv", 506, 305,""); /scriptimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/stills/colbertlightsaber_gizmodo.flv.jpg" style="display:block;display: none;" /After a href="http://gizmodo.com/5101181/jon-stewart-trashes-black-friday-succumbs-to-lego-millennium-falcon"Jon Stewart trashed Black Friday, talking about his C-3PO and Lego Millennium Falcon/a, Stephen Colbert strikes back brandishing a lightsaber against the curator of the National Toy Hall of Fame. The reason: A wood stick./p pLast month, a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-stick-huppke-monnov10,0,5380154.story"Christopher Bench inducted a stick/a into the National Toy of Fame. Yes. A wooden stick. The kind of sticks that grow on trees, which is probably the oldest tool/gadget/toy ever invented by humans. And certainly, the most basic toy one can have. And totally free, a href="http://gizmodo.com/5101510/caption-contest-recession-laptop"perfect for the recession/a./p pColbert doesn't agree:/p blockquote pWrong! Free is never the perfect price! Retailers depend on holiday toy sales but thanks to Mr. Bench here, parents are gonna realize that sticks literally grow on trees. He makes me so mad I want to poke him in the eye, with not a stick, but a Star Wars Force FX authentic replica lightsaber. (Waves lightsaber around.) Just $79.99!/p /blockquote pYeah. We agree with him. Screw the kids' imagination. We want toys that do pew-pew! [a href="http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2008/12/03/colbert-urges-nation-to-buy-lightsabers/"Star Wars Blog/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9fef339b9ec811b10f8ecad0801f6e45p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=9fef339b9ec811b10f8ecad0801f6e45p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=9fef339b9ec811b10f8ecad0801f6e45" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=I56iYUyD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=nSjoJxnG"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=WQCZ9z26"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=WQCZ9z26" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=nV0lt1Jd"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=nV0lt1Jd" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/uu-NUCkID7A" height="1" width="1"/

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Colbert Brandishes Lightsaber Against Gadget Consumerism [Lightsaber Vs Sticks]

Catching Up: Gizmodo Gallery Setup Timelapse Video [Gizmodo Gallery]

Gizmodo

- 29 minutes ago

pobject width="495" height="326"param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2432245amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=00ADEFamp;fullscreen=1" /embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2432245amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=00ADEFamp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="495" height="326"/embed/objectbr / Hey Jason, Chris and I got into NY yesterday and haven't really stopped moving since then. The Gizmodo Gallery has been a huge success so far, especially with a href="http://blog.makezine.com/"Phil Torrone/a from Make doing free laser etchings all day for anyone who brought him a graphic and a gadget to tattoo. But setup, well, it took awhile. Especially deciding where to put what furniture, and what gadgets to put on what particular pieces of furniture. We ended in a mental loop for a few hours, trying to sort everything out so it would be presented perfectly, and in the end, we were satisfied. But from start to finish, it took us 15 hours to do. Which we compressed into a 45 second time lapse video which you can see above./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=ba481f490ecb41ab32c076fec500ae4aamp;p=1"img style="border:0;" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=ba481f490ecb41ab32c076fec500ae4aamp;p=1" border="0" //adiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=LPCMxn2o"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=BBqGbLzh"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=N1DV36ew"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=N1DV36ew" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=so163Yyn"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=so163Yyn" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/lfR7fni4v8o" height="1" width="1"/

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Catching Up: Gizmodo Gallery Setup Timelapse Video [Gizmodo Gallery]

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No Men Allowed: Girls In Tech Expands To New York, LA, And Beyond

Silicon Valley Watcher--reporting on the business and culture of disruption

- 37 minutes ago

"Women in the work place are very competitive with each other and that makes the glass cieling twice as thick," says Adriana Gascoigne. She is the founder of Girls in Tech, a 1300 strong organization that seeks to empower women in the technology industry.

Tech companies continue to be heavily male dominated and that's something that Girls in Tech hopes to change through networking, roundtables, and entrepreneurial workshops. And only women are invited.

"When women get together we can connect on a deeper level than if men are around," says Ms Gascoigne. "It helps to build to build confidence and it helps to create stronger relationships."

Men are allowed to some events such as dinners but they have to be a guest of a member.

A lot of women in tech tend to try to blend in, they dress in a similar manner to the men, and they behave in a similar way but this is a mistake she says.

"It is important to embrace feminity, to embrace girliness," says Ms Gascoigne. "Too many women think they need to be more like men to succeed. You don't."

Ms Gascoigne says she was lucky growing up, her parents encouraged her to be very self-confident, but that's not true for many women. Being in a heavily male dominated workplace can be intimidating.

It was this realization that led Ms Gascoigne to create the Girls in Tech organization.

The first meetings started with just five or six women getting together every other week. In March 2007 Girls in Tech was launched as an official organization.

In September 2008 Jessica Valenzuela and Davina Anthony were brought in as co-founders to help expand the organization. There are now chapters in New York, Los Angeles, and plans for chapters in Portland, Austin and London.

(Ms Gascoigne is the director of corporate communications at Hi5, one of the world's largest social networks.)

Please see:

» About Us : Girls In Tech :

Recent Girls in Tech articles:

» How To: Biz Dev in a Slow Economy

» Tune Out to Tune In

» Keeping your career UP in a DOWNTURN: Job Strategies for a Bad Economy

Here is an upcoming Girls in Tech event:

- - -

Please see:

Thoughtleaders: Where are the women in technology? Anita Borg Institute aims to shake things up

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Computer Assisted Memory: Brilliant or Horrific? [Tech Culture]

Gizmodo

- 46 minutes ago

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/mouse_x220.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2"/I'm no memory or brain expert, having only barely having the necessary equipment, but this a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/01/woman-has-perfect-ep.html"perfect episodic memory/a post on BoingBoing got me thinking about memory and how technology will alter it in the future./p pTo summarize, Jill Price, 42, can remember everything from the year 1980 on. This is fine if she wants to remember exactly when and where O.J. Simpson was arrested, but ihorrible/i if she wants to forget an embarrassing situation, a loved one dying or any slights anyone has ever caused her. In Price's case, she's actually not that great at all types of memory recollection, but can remember exactly how she felt during certain instances./p pThe researcher who studied her case and subjected her to five years' worth of tests, says that it's actually a part of our brain's design that we have to forget things. If there are too many connections, "the brain would be hopelessly overburdened and would operate more slowly." (a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,591972,00.html"Full article here/a)/p pBut in the next 50-some years, super memory may not be relegated to just the realm of individuals with specific genetic quirks, but belong to ieveryone/i by way of computer assisted memory. a href="http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200518/000020051805A0661216.php"Here's one of several research projects dedicated to the topic/a. Here's a a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E3D9173FF933A15755C0A9649C8B63"NYT/a article talking about replacing living neurons with silicon ones. It's all very far in the future, but would you want it if you could?/p pstrongNo/strong: If all it meant was an increase in what we currently have; meaning, the ability to make more memories like Jill Price but no further ability to control it. Not to get too existential, but what would you do if you couldn't forget ianything/i? You'd be like Leonard in a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/"Memento/a, reliving your wife's death every time anything reminded you of her. You'd alienate yourself from not being able to forgive others' indiscretions. No thank you./p pstrongYes/strong: If the technology gave you iextra/i abilities to control your memory. You could access anything you wanted from the pastmdash;a href="http://gizmodo.com/5101998/mamoru+kun-finds-misplaced-glasses-and-slippers-i-no-longer-fear-getting-old"where your keys are, for example/amdash;but control what you wanted to remember. a href="http://gizmodo.com/5067451/forget-for-good-chemicals-could-permanently-erase-memories-one-day"There's already a chemical found to erase long-term or targeted memories/a. Had a bad day at the office? Block it off, or at least block off the emotions that are attached to it. Had a family member pass away? Technologically put some distance between you and the event, letting mental scars heal faster. This option introduces many other implications that are more philosophical than we should get into here, but as we're doing more and more body modifications in the future, it's something we'll all have to think about./p pWhat do you think? Which would you choose? [a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,591972,00.html"Spiegel/a via a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/01/woman-has-perfect-ep.html"Boing Boing/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=91cb849daa6035c690911426bba68646p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=91cb849daa6035c690911426bba68646p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=91cb849daa6035c690911426bba68646" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=ru6xrwD3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=kf9io4zB"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=uA85Ul2q"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=uA85Ul2q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=NqQX1Ol3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=NqQX1Ol3" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/1s8B003KYKo" height="1" width="1"/

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Computer Assisted Memory: Brilliant or Horrific? [Tech Culture]

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School accused of Mumbai terror role opens its doors

Guardian Unlimited

- 50 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/47153?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+School+accused+of+Mumbai+terror+role+opens+its+doorsch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Mumbai+terror+attacks+%28News%29%2CIndia+%28News%29%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CTerrorism+-+international%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Saeed+Shahc7=2008_12_05c8=1129193c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Mumbai+terror+attacksc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FMumbai+terror+attacks" width="1" height="1" //divpAt first sight, they could be the grounds of an English public school, with neatly trimmed lawns and earnest young pupils walking between classes. But this is the site that India believes is the headquarters of the terrorist group responsible for last week's Mumbai attacks. /ppBoarding houses provide spartan accommodation, and orderly rows of trees line the sprawling site, just outside the eastern city of Lahore. Smartly turned-out pupils perform science experiments in the classrooms, peering into microscopes and connecting electric circuits. There is a farm, a swimming pool and a hospital. /ppIndia, and some western terrorism experts, believe this is the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Islamist group suspected of carrying out last week's Mumbai attacks. But according to the organisers of a tour of the site yesterday, it is simply the educational and charitable arm of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic group that is legal in Pakistan but declared a terrorist organisation by the US./ppFollowing Pakistan's ban on Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002, it is widely believed to have morphed into Jamaat-ud-Dawa, though the two claim to have no link./ppThe campus, set in countryside at Muridke, an hour's drive from Lahore, is the place that India would be likely to target if it took retaliatory military action over the Mumbai attacks. /pp"This is a residential and educational complex," said Abdullah Muntazir, Jamaat-ud-Dawa's spokesman, taking journalists around the Muridke site yesterday in a media charm offensive launched by the group. "You can see for yourself. This is all Indian propaganda."/pp"Jamaat-ud-Dawa speaks up very loudly against Indian conspiracies; we let the public know that India is the real enemy. That's why they always point at us."/ppThe carefully orchestrated visit took foreign and local journalists around the beautifully equipped school and hospital. The school follows the national curriculum, the headteacher, Rashid Mehnaz, said, taking pupils from around the country. The poor were given financial help, with richer pupils paying fees. Mehnaz condemned violence, saying suicide attacks were "absolutely wrong - it is forbidden in Islam"./ppA press conference and sumptuous lunch was laid on for journalists. However, the madrasa, mosque, and other facilities remained out of bounds, and once the official tour was over the media were no longer welcome. Although the group had said anyone was welcome to look around the site at any time, the Guardian's attempt to take up this offer after the tour was met with a heavy-handed response: burly young men arrived on motorcycles and circled, demanding that we leave. /ppGiven the attention that has suddenly been focused on Lashkar-e-Taiba, and on to the complex at Muridke, the invitation to visit may have been arranged after a prod from the Pakistani authorities. /ppCertainly there were plain-clothed officials present, who said they were members of "special branch" - often a euphemism for the Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency. They wanted to provide an armed escort back to Lahore, but why intelligence agents were there - and why an escort might be necessary - was unclear. Muridke is not in a dangerous part of Pakistan, and the offer was declined. /ppIt has long been said that the ISI has secretly backed Lashkar-e-Taiba, though the agency always rejects the accusation./pp"The Indian media is creating a hype, but I don't think they'll bomb us," said Muntazir. "If they did, it would be up to the government of Pakistan and the armed forces to deal with it."/ppHe said Jamaat-ud-Dawa was a peaceful group, but it had "supported" Lashkar-e-Taiba until that organisation was banned. He said that "morally", they still backed those who were fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. Lashkar-e-Taiba is the leading such group. "The [Kashmiri] freedom fighters are doing their job very well. Their cause is just," said Muntazir. "But I can't speak on behalf of Lashkar-e-Taiba."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mumbai-terror-attacks"Mumbai terror attacks/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/india"India/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Zq_LTmdsuXM6b-VPE7JkoUpXN4Y/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Zq_LTmdsuXM6b-VPE7JkoUpXN4Y/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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