Author: Serkadis

BioDroid Productions has announced a new PSN exclusive called Replika. Apparently it’s an action/strategy hybrid with a cyberpunk flair.

Because that’s the best-case scenario. The CBO’s more pessimistic scenario has federal spending nearing almost 70%. (via CATO)

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Earlier this month, Honda said that it had taken 7,000 orders in Japan for the new CR-Z hybrid hatchback, which went on sale at domestic dealers on February 25. Honda had originally planned on selling 12,000 units of the CR-Z annually in Japan.

Today, Honda announced that it has received more than 10,000 orders for the CR-Z hybrid after a full month on sale, 10 times more than its monthly sales target.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Honda Insight.

The Japanese automaker said that it expects to sell 40,000 to 50,000 units of the CR-Z worldwide. North American and European sales will start this summer, so we’re looking forward to see how well the CR-Z sells internationally.

Click here for more news on the Honda CR-Z.

Refresher: The 2011 Honda CR-Z is powered by a 1.5L i-VTEC mated to Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist hybrid system. It produces a total of 122-hp and a maximum torque of 128 lb-ft when mated to manual transmission (123 lb-ft for CVT models). Fuel-economy is estimated at 31/37 mpg (city/highway) for the manual model and 36/38 mpg for the CVT model. Sales begin in the second half of 2010.

2010 Detroit: 2011 Honda CR-Z:

All Photos Copyright © 2010 Stephen Calogera – egmCarTech.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

It seems rumors about MotorStorm 3 just keep cropping up. A NeoGAF member has snapped a pic of what appears to be someone playing the as-yet-unconfirmed game.

Investors wariness of Treasuries forced the yield on the $42 billion in five-year Treasury notes up to 2.605%.

Bid to cover was 2.55, which was just a tick below the 2.66 six-auction average five-year sales.

Five-year notes yielded 2.547 percent in pre-auction trading, according to Bloomberg. That was up from 2.395 percent at the prior sale of five year securities on February 24.

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The new Toyota iQ based Aston Martin Cygnet is expected to help increase sales of the company by more than 30 percent from 2009. Aston Martin sold 4,000 units last year as compared to 5,800 units in 2008. CEO Ulrich Bez says he expects sales to surpass 2008 levels and top 6,000 units in 2010.

Bez says that the launch of the Cygnet and the Aston Martin Rapide will provide the boost in sales.

“We sold 4000 cars in 2009, and we want to sell 5500 to 6000 in 2010,” Bez told Automobilwoche. “The Rapide, in particular, is starting off well. “We can’t talk about a great recovery in the market for luxury cars. All told, I believe that the situation won’t be worse than in 2009, however.”

Bez again defended the company’s decision to build the Cygnet and said he doesn’t feel it will dilute the sports car brand.

“Many of our customers need a city car,” he said. “The exclusive Cygnet is the natural choice for them.”

Click here for more news on the Aston Martin Cygnet.

Hit the jump for the updated high-res image gallery.

Refresher: Based on the Toyota iQ, the Aston Martin Cygnet will be powered by a 1.3L engine making 97-hp, allowing it to hit a top speed of 105 mph. Aston Martin will make around 2,000 units and will sell them for around £20,000 (about $35,000 USD) a pop. The Cygnet is only available to those who currently own an Aston.

Aston Martin Cygent:

– By: Kap Shah

Source: AutoCar

You can’t say your company is not for sale these days without incredulous stares and doubtful gasps. The big flip has become the holy grail. Worshipped to the point where non-believers are chastised, straight-faced, for refusing to give up their life’s work.

See, the new world of “sell it and do it again” belongs to the serial entrepreneur. The too-cool-to-stick-around nouveau rich of the 21st century. Staying for the long term is now seen as old-fashioned and uncool, a handknit sweater from your grandfather’s closet.

Fuck that.

Do you think Steve Jobs wants to be a serial entrepreneur? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Larry Ellison? All these guys put big stakes in their life’s work. Companies that they built from scratch, that they’ll champion until they can champion them no more. Sure, they may have hobby companies on the side, but for each of them, there’s one defining business, one spectacular legacy to leave behind when they’re gone.

These are my business heroes. People so dedicated to their company and its impact on society that you couldn’t pay them any amount of riches to leave. People willing to build for decades.

But, aside from the ideology behind it — the pride and satisfaction of building a company of real value to the world — there’s the financial side too. Why would you want to take a 10 times multiple of today’s earnings, if you believe you can still grow your business and you’re committed to sticking around to do it?

Why do you think you’d do a worse job than a prospective buyer of running your own business? Selling your company only makes sense if you think they can do a better job than you can. Or when you think they’re overvaluing the prospects of your company. That’s either the talk of the meek or a con man (“let’s get these suckers to overpay for this company of questionable value…”).

Flipping is a servant’s game. As the Chris Rock joke goes, Shaq is rich, the man who signs his check is wealthy. Be the man who signs the check, not the baller who takes it.

Last month, we noted that the White House’s “Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator,” Victoria Espinel, better known as the IP Czar — a position just created by 2008’s ProIP bill — had reached out to us and a bunch of other websites that discuss issues surrounding intellectual property and alerted us to the request for public input on the White House’s IP enforcement strategy. Below is the email that I am sending in response. If you would like to send your own email, please note that they’re due today, Wednesday, March 24th by 5pm (ET, I assume). If you notice, there are some similarities between this letter and the one I filed with the USTR on the Special 301 report. There seemed like no reason to reinvent the wheel, when I was happy with how parts of that first letter turned out:

Re: Comments on the Joint Strategic Plan

Victoria Espinel
Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator
Office of Management and Budget
Executive Office of the President
Filed via email

Dear Ms. Espinel:

I write to you today as a long-time content creator, who makes a living off of my ability to continue to create content and receive remuneration for that activity. And yet, I am concerned about the state of US copyright law, and the fact that it does not serve my interests or the interests of the vast majority of content creators today. Despite being a professional content creator, I have purposely chosen not to make use of copyright law, because the way it is structured today actually hinders my own ability to profit from my content creation.

Based on this, I would like to address three key points in response to your request for comment on the strategic plan for IP enforcement:

• Any efforts at enforcement should be judged on the actual evidence, rather than faith-based claims of “harm” where no harm may exist.
• The actual evidence suggests that less enforcement may actually increase economic and cultural progress — and thus, any government run enforcement plan should tread carefully.
• There is an important difference between harm to certain companies that don’t want to adapt to a changing market, and harm to an overall industry — and we too often confuse the two.

Promoting Progress

The central tenet of copyright law has been, “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” and the mechanism for this is both copyright and patents, or more specifically, “securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Unfortunately, over the years, all too often we’ve lost sight of the beginning of that sentence, in the assumption that any increase in those “exclusive rights” must surely “promote the progress.” And, yet, as we have expanded and stretched copyright law time and time again — and almost never contracted it — no one ever seems to ask for any actual evidence that stronger and lengthier copyright law leads to promoting more progress.

This is not a new concern. Thomas Macaulay famously argued in 1841 that we ought to be careful to only extend and expand copyright upon evidence that such an extension or expansion would, in fact, lead to greater incentives to create. Yet, to this day, our public policy has been to take it on faith that stricter copyright laws lead to greater incentives to create — despite the lack of evidence to support this position. In fact, the evidence has suggested that as technology has decreased the ability of copyright holders to enforce copyright, the incentives to create have only increased. And this is not just the ability to create as an amateur, but the ability to create and earn money as a professional.

A Look at the Evidence

A recent paper by economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf demonstrated this in rather great detail, highlighting that even as new technologies have undermined classical copyright law, there remains little evidence that this change has undermined the incentives to create. In fact, the research collected in that paper and other papers (such as the research by economist Will Page of PRS for Music in the UK) suggests that more people are creating new works of music today than ever before in history. The same is true of movies, an industry that has seen the number of annual releases double in the last five years alone and box office results continue to increase to record numbers.

Given this, it is unfortunate that your request for comment on enforcement strategies focuses solely on one half of the equation: “the harm.” Looking at the actual evidence on the economics of intellectual property, it suggests that there are also benefits to reduced intellectual property enforcement — and, in fact, those benefits may outweigh the costs. A bigger concern should be that overly aggressive expansion of intellectual property enforcement will actually cut off important forms of expression along with cultural and economic progress. The Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf paper is quite detailed in reviewing the facts, concluding that “weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society.” They do this analysis both economically and from the viewpoint of output. More content than ever before is being produced and distributed, and the vast majority is being done outside the boundaries of traditional copyright law. At the same time, the amount of money being made by the various industries involved in these endeavors has continued to rise.

Even the music industry — often seen as being the most hard hit — is actually doing better than it has done in the past. This is because the breakdown of traditional scarcities in the market has fueled important and valuable new business models. The greater efficiencies of the system mean that consumers are actually getting more value, and are actually paying more than in the past. In economic terms, the shift in the market, sometimes associated with intellectual property infringement, has actually driven much greater complementary revenue streams. This argument may seem counterintuitive at first, but it is not as surprising when you recognize that modern technology, often by enabling further infringement, has also made the creation, distribution, promotion and consumption of such content significantly more efficient. Trying to block the infringement through greater enforcement via the law does not come without costs. It can serve to significantly burden those other areas as well, leading to decreased output and decreased economic activity.

The real issue is not harm to society or to the economy as a whole. Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf’s report shows that the overall music market has grown, such that in 2007 it was actually 66% larger than in 1997 in terms of revenue. This is not an industry in trouble. The problem is that one segment of the entertainment industry has seen harm: those firms that have relied heavily on copyright protections for their business models. However, as we have seen, the wider industry has already successfully been putting in place alternative business models.

Given that, it would be a dangerous mistake to increase enforcement policies, or to put in place new rules that may stifle these new opportunities and new models, as they are growing. I recognize the concerns of those in companies that have not been able to successfully adapt, but we should not be setting policy to rescue or support specific companies — especially as the overall industry is thriving and consumers are benefiting greatly.

For detailed methodology on how the music industry has been thriving, you can read the Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf report at the following URL http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-132.pdf. Further support for similar results in more focused areas comes from Will Page, the chief economist for PRS for Music, looking at the UK market for music, which is also growing: http://bit.ly/ukX9Y.

Policy Implications

These studies, along with numerous others, point to important facts about how industries can adapt, even in the face of technologically-weakened copyright, without the need for greater enforcement. But they also raise an important point: before our policy on copyright is made without actual evidence, it is important to allow the market to function to see if it can adapt appropriately. This often creates disruption, but we should not assume that a disruption within some companies within an industry means that the entire industry is imperiled.

Given all of this, it would be unfortunate to rush into any form of greater enforcement without evidence that it is actually needed.

From a specific policy perspective, then, the Joint Strategic Plan should set out a process for actually judging the real economic impact of stronger enforcement, rather than starting from the assumption that greater enforcement is necessarily good. It should not only look at the claimed “harm,” but the flip side as well, the vast “benefits.” It should step back from the question of “how do we increase enforcement” to ask whether stronger enforcement actually does serve to “promote the progress.” For 300 years, since the Statute of Anne in the UK, copyright has been mostly a faith-based initiative. There is an opportunity now to bring actual evidence into the decision making process. I look forward to seeing how IPEC proceeds in making sure that any efforts in enforcement are based on actual evidence and tied back to that key requirement: “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.”

Sincerely,

Michael Masnick

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It’s not just speculation anymore. Nintendo’s chief spokesman has confirmed that the 3DS will indeed be playable this June at E3.

Whether your hard drive has failed or your OS has become corrupt, you may occasionally have to reinstall the Mac OS.  Fortunately, Apple does a beautiful job of making installing or reinstalling your operating system relatively painless compared to our Windows brethren. Unfortunately, it’s still a painfully slow process running off a DVD. Not to mention, optical media can get scratched easily (one of the reasons for the long install times is Apple’s optical media verification).

To solve this problem, I recommend backing up your Mac OS installation DVD to a hard drive. Doing so protects it and allows you to install the OS quickly, as well as run Disk Utility on your main drive or reset a password. I keep a hard drive with Leopard and Snow Leopard installers so I can reinstall or repair multiple OS versions easily.

Getting Started

To start, you’ll need a copy of Snow Leopard (or whatever OS version you want to install). Open Disk Utility, which is typically found in /Applications/Utilities. On the left-hand side you see your disk appear as “Mac OS X Install DVD.” Go ahead and click the New Image icon to make a copy of the DVD. Save the file at your preferred location (I have a Archive folder on my hard drive for installer disks).

Prepare the Drive

Now that you have a digital copy of your installer, the next step is to prepare the hard drive you will use for the restoration. In this example, I connected an old 160GB hard drive from my MacBook into an external case. I’m dividing this particular one into three partitions: one for Leopard, one for Snow Leopard, and one for other installers such as iLife. I could put Tiger on it, but I get few requests for that OS. Since I want this to boot Intel-based Macs, I’m going to click options and make sure GUID Partition is selected. I’m making the partitions 10GB, but you can choose any size above 8.5GB to play it safe. You could also use a USB flash drive, but those can be slow. I suggest sticking with a hard drive-based solution for speed reasons.

Restore the Image

After preparing your drive, you’ll need to restore the image to your hard drive partition. Click the Restore tab in Disk Utility. For Source, click Image… and choose that image you created earlier. For Destination, drag the partition you want to restore the OS to, then click “Restore.”

You might get an error saying, “Restore Failure: Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to imagescanned before it can be restored.” If you get this message, go ahead and go to the Images menu and choose “Scan Image for Restore.” Choose the disk image you are using as source. Now click Restore; it shouldn’t ask again.

In my example, I’ll do the same for the second partition and put Leopard on it. Both partitions will be named Mac OS X Install DVD. That can be confusing on boot, so I suggest you copy the icon from each installer CD and paste it onto the respective hard disk volumes. You’ll easily be able to tell from the icon alone which OS you are installing. If you hold down Option during the startup of your Mac, you’ll be presented with those icons as well so you know which installer will boot, and you can go ahead and install the Mac OS the normal way.

James Hamilton at EconBrowser bemoans the frustrating recovery:

Is this as good as it gets? For the time being at least, it seems to be.

The Chicago Fed national Activity Index fell from -0.04 in January to -0.64 in February, leaving it well above the recession trough, but still below the normal or trend value of zero.

Read the whole story at EconBrowser >

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Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Ford, Reviews

We know what you’re thinking. Isn’t it a little late to be reviewing the 2010 Shelby GT500? After all, Ford introduced the 2011 version with the new aluminum block at last month’s Chicago Auto Show. It’s not that we didn’t want to get our hands on the 2010 GT500 before now. In fact, we were champing at the bit to review one a few days after our First Drive, but apparently the universe didn’t want us to have one until now.

Last summer, a few issues delayed our chance at driving Ford’s hottest ‘Stang, beginning with Ford running out of tires for the GT500s in the press fleet (we can’t imagine why). When Fall rolled around, the transmission in our tester was damaged the week before we were scheduled to take delivery. We were ready to give up hope when the call came in that it would be available in March. Better late than never, right? Besides, who’s going to turn down a week with a 540-horsepower muscle car? Al Gore? Definitely not us.

To be honest, our expectations couldn’t have been higher. Our last encounter with the 2010 GT500 at Infineon Raceway allowed us to let loose on the 1/4-mile drag strip and smooth pavement of the road course, the perfect playgrounds for a high-horsepower Mustang laden with its infamous solid rear axle. It was essentially on par with the $80,000 GT500KR, but cost $30,000 less and came without Shelby’s controversial carbon fiber hood, which we could do without anyway. After a day’s worth of fruitful flogging, we were ready to sign the check. But would the GT500 be a less likable character off-track? Could a 540-horsepower Mustang suit our daily requirements of equal parts grocery-getting and canyon-carving? Read on to find out.

Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

Continue reading Review: 2010 Ford Shelby GT500 is the best car we’d never buy

Review: 2010 Ford Shelby GT500 is the best car we’d never buy originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scoreboard:

The Dow is down 16 points to 10,871. The NASDAQ is down 10 points to 2405 and the S&P 500 is down only 2 points to 1171.

That could have been a lot worse, given the early action and the surging dollar.

Meanwhile, oil is falling hard, down 1.5% to $80.68 a barrel. Gold is down 1.1% to $1091.30 and silver is down 1.9% to $16.71. Commodities are taking a big hit from the stronger US Dollar.

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See Also:

• Stocks Hold Their Gains, Retailers Rebound, And Oil Falls
• The Unstoppable Bulls: Indices Post Solid Gains, Gold Retreats
• Another Solid Day For Equities As Commodities Take A Beatdown

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has set the scene for publication of the care and support White Paper.

Giving his final budget speech before the general election, Mr Darling said:
 
“I have also decided to freeze the inheritance tax threshold for a further four years, and this will help pay for the cost of care for older people. And my Right Honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Health will shortly set out further proposals.”

His Budget 2010 report says:

“The Government will shortly set out its long-term plans for a fair and comprehensive reform of care and support alongside the steps needed in the next Parliament to move towards that goal, building on the new entitlement to free care at home for those with the highest needs already announced.

“Budget 2010 announces that, alongside those reforms, the Inheritance Tax threshold for the next Parliament will be frozen, and that a new taskforce will be established to ensure that the reforms are accompanied by major efficiency and costs improvements.”

The Government will shortly publish a White Paper setting out plans for building a National Care Service for adults in England.

Just when you thought that horsepower wars were a thing of the past, the 305-hp 2011 Ford Mustang V6 outdid the 304-hp 2010 Chevrolet Camaro V6 by 1-hp. Of course, GM wasn’t about to settle for second place and promises that within the next year, the base V6 Camaro will see a horsepower output bump.

Well, it seems like that muscle cars isn’t the only segment where the two are battling each other, according to sources, Ford is about to add some more horsepower to its new 6.7L Power Stroke V8 diesel found in the 2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty pickup in response to GM’s recent announcement of best-in-class power ratings for its 6.6L Duramax V8 diesel?

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Ford F-150.

Sources told PickupTrucks.com that we could see Ford bump up output in its 6.7L Power Stroke V8 diesel within the next year.

Ford announced in February that its 6.7L Power Stroke V8 diesel will make 390-hp and 735 lb-ft of torque in its 2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty. GM responded with its 6.6L Duramax V8 diesel that it says will make 397-hp and 765 lb-ft of torque in the 2011 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra HD pickups.

How far is Ford going to go? Sources say that the upgraded engine will produce 400-hp and 775 lb-ft of torque.

2011 Ford Super Duty:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: PickupTrucks.com

Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Cadillac

When the first-generation Cadillac CTS went on sale in 2003, the brand-revitalizing sedan incorporated a new design language that General Motors called “Art & Science.” The idea behind the new design language was to “”incorporates sharp, sheer forms and crisp edges – a form vocabulary that expresses bold, high-technology design and invokes the technology used to design it.” The design came with its own marketing campaign too, which brought many new customers to the Cadillac brand.

In recent years Cadillac has used the tag line “Life. Liberty. And the Pursuit” as its marketing mantra, but Automotive News reports that the Wreath and Crest is getting back to its roots. GM Marketing Chief Susan Docherty told AN that “Art & Science” is making a comeback, and the brand’s new ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty is creating all-new assets for print, web and television spots, along with a fresh perspective for the Cadillac website.

And while Docherty is now in charge of all of GM’s marketing initiatives, she’s also going back to her roots with the Art and Science revival. Docherty was at Cadillac a decade ago when A&S was created. She’s even bringing back Kim Brink, who is leaving her post as Chevrolet marketing director to oversee Art & Science part deux. The all-new ad campaign will reportedly hit the mass media in about three weeks.

[Source: Automotive News – sub. req.]

Cadillac resurrecting Art & Science ad campaign originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sleep Awareness Week (as sponsored by the National Sleep Foundation) technically ended March 13^th, but somehow I’m guessing there are just as many sleep deprived folks milling about this week as there were a few days ago – just like our good reader Monday. Maybe a few of us feel better adjusted to the time change these days, but probably just as many stayed up late to watch the NCAA games this weekend. Or maybe it was a late St. Paddy’s Day party. Somehow it’s always somethin’, isn’t it?

Even if we’re good and diligent and never sacrifice sleep for entertainment purposes, life too often pokes holes in our most worthy intentions. Babies wake up in the middle of the night. Flights leave early. Deadlines, projects and bills keep us up later than we’d planned. Maybe we even burn the midnight oil to get a jump on the next morning’s tasks! Nighttime too often becomes a default slush fund for the day’s chores. Still others of us might deliberately stay up to bask (however groggily) in what seems like the only time we have to ourselves. The house is quiet, the kids/partner are asleep. The world is hushed, and the deep solitude is too much to resist.

But there’s always a price…. The next morning has us clutching our pillows in fervent denial. Cruel, callous and relentless as it is, the alarm tolls for thee and you’re suddenly reeling in regret. However much you enjoyed or appreciated the previous night’s extension, you now see the error of your ways. Your bed is suddenly the most wonderful, restful place in the world, and you couldn’t possibly tear yourself away. Snooze button it is.

When the necessities of life (or an incredible bracket-busting game) strike, it’s good to keep ye olde 80/20 Primal Principle in mind. Nonetheless, let’s give shut eye its due. I’ve done Definitive Guides on all manner of Primal priorities. It was high time, I thought, we offer the same deference to our non-waking Primal efforts.

The “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” overachiever mindset assumes our bodies aren’t doing anything useful when we’re buried beneath the covers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sleep is an incredibly active time for our bodies and brains when we undergo all manner of growth and repair processes through a dynamic biochemical orchestration. When we know the facts on sleep, we’re more likely to give it our full respect – and wholehearted Primal commitment. Let’s begin….

What’s Sleep Done For Me Lately?

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.  ~Irish Proverb

Sleep is key, essential, absolutely downright necessary for our basic physiological operations – with special support for neurological performance, endocrine balance, immune system functioning, and musculoskeletal growth and repair. For one, you wouldn’t be half the man or woman you are without the physiological feats sleep achieves. I mean that both literally and figuratively, since sleep spurs the release of human growth hormone (HGH), an essential player in cellular regeneration.

Before you stay up for your favorite late night host, consider the fact that a solid night of shut eye bears all kinds of gifts. A full night of sleep will enhance your memory performance and creative problem solving skills the next day, not to mention make you a better person to be around by helping you see the positive in your interactions. Oh, but there’s more of course. A good night’s sleep will further boost your athletic performance, including speed, accuracy, mood and overall energy.

Then there’s your immune system. Hate getting sick? How about cutting your risk for the common cold and other basic illnesses? Your immune system is, in fact, most active during sleep. (So, that’s why the flu leaves you in a coma-like state…) To boot, adequate sleep makes you more resilient to daily stress, which supports your immune functioning that much more.

Finally, there’s the big picture. Solid, consistent sleep over the long-term has been linked to self-reported “successful” aging.

The Ugly World of Sleep Deprivation

Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds.  ~JoJo Jensen, Dirt Farmer Wisdom

Now consider the flip side. Believe it or not, you’ll die of sleep deprivation before you will starvation. Of course few people ever venture that far into the insomniatic tunnel, but the fact underscores the damage done when we skimp on sleep. When you pull that all-nighter or drag yourself through multiple months of newborn-induced sleep deprivation, you feel like crap because, well, you’re body is legitimately struggling. Every system suffers in some regard. Make no mistake: even a single hour of missed sleep takes its toll, as the research on daylight savings time shows. If you continue down the path of scarcity, you build up what experts call a sleep debt – one that the body tries desperately to repay.

In the short term, you find a full spectrum of unsavory impacts. On the cognitive side, you sacrifice all manner of memory abilities, including short-term and working memory. Over time, even long-term memory and the generation of nerve cells are impaired. Of little surprise is the impact on emotional mood and well-being. Sleep deprivation has been shown to increase the risk for conditions like depression and exacerbate pre-existing psychological illnesses. However, even a single night of sleeplessness can throw our emotional regulatory abilities out the window. Sleeplessness causes our emotional selves to revert to their more primitive roots, effectively shutting down the reasonable prefrontal cortex and putting the primally defensive amygdala in the driver’s seat. One study even linked sleep deprivation with a corresponding increase in people’s dissatisfaction with their primary relationships. (An important bit of perspective to cranky new parents…) Finally, the physical self pays a price of course. A single night of sleep loss increases systemic inflammation, and (as I shared Monday) impairs the body’s ability to handle the kind of moderate oxidative stress we deal with every day.

When you graduate to the extended – however “minor” – levels of sleep deprivation, you’ll enjoy the above experiences (magnified of course), all the while putting significant strain on many of your body’s systems, including your neurological and cardiovascular systems. One study found that skipped sleep led to a shrinking brain. Bye, bye gray matter! The heart and kidneys also take a beating as does your blood pressure. You, in fact, put yourself at continually increased risk for a whole host of lifestyle diseases, including obesity and diabetes. The logical extension of this pattern? Numerous studies link partial sleep deprivation/disruption and increased mortality risk!

Not All Sleep Is Created Equal

“An hour before midnight is worth 2 after.” ~Sleep Proverb

Although it might feel like it some days, it’s not an instantaneous plunge into cataleptic nothingness. Sleep fills a progressive spectrum of sorts. The process and pattern of sleep reveals the complex, dynamic experience it is. We likely all recall the REM and non-REM designations gestured to in our middle school health classes. The picture is a little more complicated than that, but those categories represent the bones of it. Essentially, the body moves through three stages of non-REM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement) sleep that are called N1, N2 and N3, proceeding eventually to REM sleep (typically with a N1, N2, N3, N2, REM pattern) and then back again through numerous cycles throughout the night.

Phase N1 represents the initial switch in brain wave frequency. It’s the stage in which you feel like you’re mostly under but can still see the light above the water. It characterizes most surreptitious office naps that people think no one will notice – until your head slips off the hand that was holding it up. (Hmmm…forgot about that N1 relaxation of muscle tone, I guess.) Most notably, it’s the stage in which you scare the crap out of yourself and your spouse with those annoying sudden jerks. From there, N2 takes you down enough that any residual awareness of your environment is gone. Finally, N3 takes you into deep, slow wave sleep. Those of you who walk or talk in your sleep tend to begin performing now.

If you recall from your textbooks, REM sleep hosts most of our dreaming, particularly those memorable bits in the early morning that confound us for hours throughout the day. Although muscle tone was progressively relaxed in non-REM sleep, it’s generally non-existent in the REM stage.

REM sleep constitutes about a quarter of the typical adult’s sleep. The N2 stage of non-REM sleep makes up an additional half. The remaining quarter is split between the initial N1 stage and the deep sleep of N3. We experience most of our deep sleep early on in the night – hence the instructive proverb about going to bed early.

What moves us to sleep in the first place, however, is our circadian rhythm, the physiological clock responsible for putting in motion temperature changes and hormonal releases associated with sleep and waking. As we approach sleep, our body reaches its highest concentration of adenosine, a sleep promoting neurotransmitter. Simultaneously, the body begins to kick out melatonin and begins reducing our core temperature, which will hit its lowest point in the second half of our normal sleep schedule – around the time when melatonin will incidentally be at its highest. Our best sleep, not surprisingly, results from staying on consistent course with our natural circadian rhythm and – if we nap – not napping too late in the day. Speaking of which…

Closed for Siesta

There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest, than in all the alcohol ever distilled.  ~Edward Lucas

I’m a big believer in naps, and I consider them one of the most useful (and pleasurable) of the PB sensible vices. Research supports the benefit of inducing the relaxation response each day, and one study showed that even the anticipation of a nap can lower your blood pressure. Following a truly bad night, naps can help us recharge our cognitive and physical stores. Longer naptimes following sleepless nights tend to include more REM sleep for better restoration. Although some “authorities” might balk at the healthiness of daily napping, I think long-time tradition (as well as the natural circadian rhythm) shoots that one down sufficiently. Problems can arise when naps signify symptoms for an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle or when they become a consistent, necessary stand-in for good sleep quality and adequate hours each night. Nonetheless, for those with young babies or swing/night shift jobs, sometimes the best Primal choice we can make is doing the best we can with the reality in front of us. Naps can be part of that effort.

Our Need for Sleep

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.  ~Leo J. Burke

Of course the need for sleep varies by individual. Though most of us fall into the pot of the seven-eight hour average, others of us genuinely can’t get by without nine or ten. A few lucky ones among us hit our optimum with only six or so hours of shut eye. (These folks are honest to goodness mutants, as science has confirmed.)

However, the majority of our sleep differentiation is determined by age. Babies, no surprises here, need the most (however patchy it is), while adults require the least. The notion that older adults need less sleep is actually hogwash. Although sleep patterns become more fragmented as we age, we still need the same good old average. Sleep still fosters critical hormonal secretion (like growth hormone) necessary for healthy aging. One study in particular linked solid sleep with higher levels of testosterone in older men.

Children, however, are especially susceptible to the ravages of sleep deprivation. Sleep is essential for babies to learn and retain new information. Sleep deficits have been long been linked to an increased risk of ADHD, depression and behavioral problems in children.

Getting Some Good Primal Sleep

There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock. ~Author Unknown

In Grok’s world, of course, there were no alarms, no clocks, no trains to catch or appointments to make. Likewise, there were no lamps or computers, T.V.s, smart phones and all the other technological gadgetry that tests our circadian rhythm and tempts us to stay up instead of hit the sheets. Although Grok and his tribe didn’t turn in the second the sun fell below the horizon, they undoubtedly slid into a hunkered down, lower key mode. On a typical night, the darkness – even with a central fire or bright moon – would’ve been enough to impose a quieter sense of consciousness. The stars, the flames would’ve been enough to inspire calm, maybe meditative stillness if not sleep. What would our experience of night be – how rested and composed might we feel – if we spent ten to twelve hours in relative darkness?

Although I suspect most of us have at least several hours to trudge through before we can call it a night, maybe some of you are already planning a clandestine nap this afternoon. (There’s always our Primally approved plan for selling your boss on the siesta idea….) Looking forward to sleep is the first step to taking back bedtime, I’d say. Not only is it an essential investment for your health, it’s one of life’s best luxuries. You wake up looking better and feeling like a million bucks. How much better can it get? Now take the money you’ll save on extra coffee and buy yourself a nice set of sheets or the pillow you’ve always wanted.

In the meantime, be sure to check out our past tips for a great night’s rest!

How Light Affects Our Sleep

10 Ways to Get an Extra Hour of Sleep

The Primal Blueprint for Busy People – Part 1: Sleep and Stress

5 Tips to Get a Great Night’s Sleep Tonight

Getting Over an Afternoon Slump

When it Comes to Sleep, Average is Best

10 Sleep Tips to Get Your Zzzzss

Thanks for reading. Be sure to send along your thoughts. I’ll look forward to reading your comments!

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Related posts:

1. Your Heart is Telling You to Sleep
2. Definitive Guide: The Primal Blueprint
3. Sleep More to Forget Less

Workshop participants with Dr. Mo Ibrahim (centre)

Sudanese journalists attending “Reporting Elections” training with IPS Africa have been urged to use their responsibility as journalists to tell the stories of ordinary people.

IPS Africa, with support from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, hosted a training workshop for South Sudanese print, radio and television journalists in Nairobi (Kenya) during 15-17 March 2010, to critically examine the role and responsibility of the media during elections reporting.

African Media Initiative (AMI) Executive Director, Mr. Amadou Mahtar Ba, one of the guest speakers at the workshop, reminded Sudanese journalists about being responsible in their election reporting to the Sudanese public.

Close to 16 million Sudanese will head to the polls on April 11th for the first time in more than 20 years.

Mr. Ba acknowledged that Sudanese journalists suffered tremendously during the lengthy civil war waged between the North and South, and reiterated that they have a very important role to play in the country’s future.

“I know you have your own feelings and histories and you will face dilemmas in your reporting of the election but you have a responsibility to report accurately to the people.”

Addressing the Pan African Media conference during the media and conflict debate, Mr. Ba re-told the story of the Sudanese journalists and the dilemmas they face in reporting the forthcoming election.

During the final session of the workshop, which ended with a certificate ceremony, the head of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Dr. Mo Ibrahim, told journalists they have a responsibility to report with honesty and tell the stories of ordinary people.

Dr. Ibrahim said they should execute their job with honour and take charge of communicating issues. “Don’t just be sensational in reporting on issues”, he added.

Veteran African leader and the former African Union envoy for Darfur, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim said the media plays a very important role in reporting on the forthcoming election but also the referendum due in 2011: “You are in an honourable profession and people’s lives depend on your reportage.”

Both leaders wished the journalists well in their reporting of the April 11th election. Participants also attended the Pan African Media conference on 18 and 19 March, where African presidents including Kenyan President HE Mwai Kibaki and other leaders spoke during the opening session.