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Buzz Out Loud 980: You can't poke the pope

Pope Benedict XVI has embraced Facebook but it's just an app. So you can't write on the pope's wall or poke him. We also are excited for the queen to get her golden Wii. And we're somewhat excited about the Palm Pre.

Tom Merritt Former CNET executive editor
4 min read

Pope Benedict XVI has embraced Facebook but it's just an app. So you can't write on the pope's wall or poke him. We also are excited for the queen to get her golden Wii. And we're still somewhat excited about the Palm Pre. We also discover the meaning of PORN: Private Online Retail Network.


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Episode 980

No visual voice mail on Palm Pre
http://gizmodo.com/5264854/palm-pre-doesnt-have-visual-voicemail
Best Buy stores only getting four Palm Pres for launch day?
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/05/21/best-buy-stores-only-getting-4-palm-pres-for-launch-day/

New version of Chrome…still no love for Mac
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/21/2054230
http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/05/speedier-google-chrome-for-all-users.html

More Americans play games than go to the movies
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/21/2221246

Her Majesty the Queen gets a gold-plated Wii
http://gizmodo.com/5264715/queen-elizabeth-is-getting-a-gold+plated-wii

Pope joins Facebook
https://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE54L3AS20090522

Apple rejects iPhone app over access to Kama Sutra
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10247565-37.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/22/apple-says-no-projec.html

California wants to reinstate ban on violent video games
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=66714

Google StreetView in Germany
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=66727

Energy Star standards are not as useful for servers
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/22/0714225
http://www.infoworld.com/d/green-it/energy-star-servers-merely-first-step-258

1,000th episode coming Thursday, June 18. Want to be on the episode? Post a video of yourself. MUST be less than 30 seconds long. And send a link. No attachments. Could be well-wishing, could be memories, epithets we don’t care. We’ll choose from all the messages we get and play a selection on the 1000th episode as well as post them in the Wiki.

Want to get involved in the production of the show? Find your favorite BOL moment, clip it out of the MP3, or video, and send us the moment. For video, please upload to a video hosting service and send us a link. Email either to buzz@cnet.com

VOICEMAIL
Garrett from Grand Rapids goes Cooley-spotting

E-MAIL
Hey Buzz,

I can really see the possibilities for Google’s new tracking/ad delivery idea: “Hello, we see that your parachute has not deployed. Would you like to buy a reserve?” Yes, Google has gold here. LTS.


Nathan Pilling

**********

Dear BOL,

In show #977 Brain Cooley mentioned the work with Dove prisms that invert and reverse the world. His statement included a bit of hyperbole.
I’m a behavioral optometrist and we use prisms in our work.
The brain researcher Karl Pribram did a good bit of this work and I had the chance to chat with him about this work.

Prism after effects of simple prisms that shift images side to side or up and down last about the same amount of time the prisms are actually worn.
Put on the prisms, reach for an object and miss to the side. In a few minutes we recalibrate the movement.
After 5 minutes of wearing the prisms, when you take them off your hand moves in the opposite direction.

A fallacy that is often promulgated about the Dove (inverting and reversing) prisms is that after a period of time the world looked normal to the wearer.
This is not true.
What happened is that the conscious perception never flipped but the motor patterns were rewired so that all movements were made accurately.
Normalization, when the prisms come off, then does happen but takes a while.

Pribram did say however that they never should have done this work with humans.
The new software remains in the brain and later in life, during emergency types of situations, such as may happen when driving, the person might use the wrong motor software.

Perhaps an overzealous researcher or grad student wore the Dove prisms too long and then made an error in judgment in just such a situation.
To my knowledge there was no suicide as Cooley mentioned.

IN DEEP BASS VOICE: LOVE THE SHOW

Paul – the behavioral optometrist

**********

I’ve thought Ben was the new Alex for a while, but….

Google search counts for names on the bol blog:

Ben: 249
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Freviews.cnet.com%2Fbuzz-out-loud-podcast%2F+ben

Paul: 399
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Freviews.cnet.com%2Fbuzz-out-loud-podcast%2F+paul

Alex: 378
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Freviews.cnet.com%2Fbuzz-out-loud-podcast%2F+alex

Fordo: 129 (by herself! But, tied with Remy?)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Freviews.cnet.com%2Fbuzz-out-loud-podcast%2F+fordo

Remy: 129
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Freviews.cnet.com%2Fbuzz-out-loud-podcast%2F+remi

Here’s the chart, that doesn’t always work.
http://sites.google.com/site/bolalexscale/