|
| |
- 2005-03-02t16:56:41Z. RE: Art 2D+time
. Conservation
. Cyber Life
. Cyber Tech
. Entertainment
. Faith, Philosophy
. Health
. Local
. Martial
. Math, Science, Technology
. Money
. Obituaries
. Politics
. Quirky
. Relations [SFW ]
.
- Making aaBlog v2, Part 3. RE: Cyber Life
. aaBlog
.
- 2005-03-09t19:43:29Z. RE: Conservation. Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Faith; Philosophy;. Health. Local. Martial. Math; Science; Technology;. Medium 2D. Medium 2D+text. Medium 2D+time. Medium 3D. Medium Audio. Money. Play. Politics. Quirky [Possibly NSFW]. Relations [SFW].
- 2005-03-11t23:17:29Z. RE: Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Education. Faith; Philosophy;. Flow. Health. Geography; History;. Local. Martial. Medium 2D. Medium 2D+text. Medium 2D+time. Medium 3D. Mind. Money. Play. Politics. Relations [SFW].
- Fairness and Freedom. RE: Faith; Philosophy;. Politics. Rambling.
- Objective and Subjective. RE: Faith; Philosophy;. Rambling.
- 2005-03-24t03:32:30Z. RE: Conservation. Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Food. Local. Medium 2D+time. Play. Relations [NSFW].
- Terri Schiavo. RE: Faith; Philosophy;. Health. Politics.
- I am open source. RE: Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Faith; Philosophy;. Martial. Money. Politics. Rambling.
- 2005-03-31t19:43:21Z. RE: Conservation. Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Faith; Philosophy;. Food. Health. Life. Martial. Math; Science; Technology;. Medium 2D. Medium 2D+time. Medium 3D. Mind. Play. Politics. Quirky [Possibly NSFW]. Rambling. Relations [SFW].
2005-03-02t16:56:41Z
| RE: Art 2D+time
. Conservation
. Cyber Life
. Cyber Tech
. Entertainment
. Faith, Philosophy
. Health
. Local
. Martial
. Math, Science, Technology
. Money
. Obituaries
. Politics
. Quirky
. Relations [SFW ]
.
2005-03-02t16:56:41Z
Art 2D+time
Conservation
- The
Tangled Webs They Weave
- 'After 15 years of research, Dr. Randy Lewis, a professor of molecular biology at the
University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming, and his team say they have determined the
sequence of genes underlying the spider silk protein. '
- 'The silk is pound-for-pound five times stronger than steel and three times tougher than
today's high-performance synthetic fibers used to make protective clothing. It's these and
other properties unique to dragline silk -- the type of silk that spiders use to make the
'spokes' of their webs -- that makes it an ideal substance from which to make a host of
lighter, stronger materials that are also tougher and have more stretch.'
- 'That has researchers turning to alternative means of production, which includes
combining silk-making DNA into plants and animals that can produce it en masse. Lewis, for
example, has already been working to combine the spider genes with bacteria and alfalfa
plants. After the plants have grown, the spider silk genes are extracted to produce a
material that Lewis says is nearly 85 percent pure silk, and could be used to extract
protein to spin fibers as soon as next month.'
- TreeHugger.com
- 'TreeHugger is the definitive, modern yet green lifestyle filter. It will help you improve
your course, yet still maintain your aesthetic.'
- Man, conservations has never looked so hip!
- Dual Flush Toilet by
Caroma
- 'We've talked about the no-flush urinals, but what about toilets for the *other* waste us
humans continually produce? The folks at Caroma have figured it out with the dual-flush toilet.
But don't be fooled, this toilet doesn't flush two times it actually has two different buttons,
one for, er, how do we say this, #1 and #2 and it uses 0.8 and 1.6 gallons of water, depending
on the flush. This single innovation with its Half Flush and Full Flush technology can reduce
water usage by up to 67% compared with the traditional toilet that uses 2.9 gallons in a single
flush. Caroma guarantees that this toilet is reliable, simple to use and has proven itself
through a decade of rigorous testing.'
- Genius!
Cyber Life
- InnerGeek.us. I think I've taken this geek test
before. I scored 51.28205% - Super Geek. I could have scored higher if I had cheated AND avoided
the trick questions which (I assume) would actually lower your score. SPOILER: Counting
exactly to 31 on one hand is easy: binary
digits.
- Wikipedia suffered a power failure so significant that it is publicly noticeable!
- 'At about 14:15 PST some circuit breakers were tripped in the colocation facility where our
servers are housed. Although the facility has a well-stocked generator, this took out power to
places inside the facility, including the switch that connects us to the network and all our
servers. (Yes, even the machines with dual power supplies -- both circuits got shut off.) What's
wrong? After some minutes, the switch and most of our machines had rebooted. Some of our servers
required additional work to get up, and a few may still be sitting there dead but can be worked
around. The sticky point is the database servers, where all the important stuff is. Although we
use MySQL's transactional InnoDB tables, they can still sometimes be left in an unrecoverable
state. Attempting to bring up the master database and one of the slaves immediately after the
downtime showed corruption in parts of the database. We're currently running full backups of the
raw data on two other database slave servers prior to attempting recovery on them (recovery
alters the data). Update 19:20 PST: We have at least one database server with intact data. When
we have a second up and running, we'll be able to put the site back online in read-only mode as
we continue.'
- I noticed it at 2005-02-22t05:59:09Z. I felt as if the sun was being eclipsed.
- That sure provides incentive for their fundraising efforts.
- Wikimedia needs your
help
- 'You may have noticed recent slowdowns, and periods of downtime, for Wikipedia and her
sister sites. We are working to make our system more efficient, but traffic on the Wikimedia
servers is doubling every four months. Wikipedia.org is already one of the top 200 most popular
websites on the Internet and will likely be in the top 100 before the end of the year.'
- Right now they have $27,000 (USD) out of their goal of $75,000.
- Hotmail, MSN Search. I tried them both again today (2005-02-22t21:02:09Z) using MSIE 6
instead of Firefox. They're both still buggy. How can a company as big as Microsoft be this bad?
- A dynamic DHTML all text
clock/calendar [view on MSIE only]. And I thought that we had seen the last of mouse
trailing animations!
![[IMAGE: Sample of the DHTML clock and calendar]](http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/aaBlog/2005/media/03-01_DHTMLClock.jpg)
- Customizing Firefox. A
collection of some nice Firefox extensions. I just installed the following:
- IE drops below 90 percent market share
- ' For most companies, 87.3 percent of a global market might seem just fine. But most
companies are not Bill Gates' Microsoft. Founded by Earth's richest man, the firm still stands
astride the world when it comes to browser usage; but the might of its Internet Explorer is just
a little diminished. On Monday, two reports were released -- one American and one Continental --
that show IE's share of the browser market dropping below 90 percent. advertisement Click Here!
The culprit? Last year, Mozilla Foundation launched Firefox version 1.0, an open source browser
lauded as both faster and more secure against popups and other irritations of online life. Last
month, Mozilla said that since the launch of version 1.0, there have been over 25 million
Firefox downloads. '
- 'Maybe that figure is nothing that ought to concern Gates' software leviathan--unless one
compares it with IE's 95.5 percent market share in June 2004.'
- Whee!
- The world could really use
Google Calendar
- 'There's been a lot
of
speculation
about
Google Calendar
recently. And you know what? I sure as hell hope they do it. There's been so little
innovation in the world of on-line calendars these last few years. Perhaps Google getting into
the act would finally change that. '
- Dave Jung started the meme with
"I know what
Google's going to do next!" on 2005-02-22. By coincidence, I posted that Gmail needs a
calendar on the same day.
Cyber Tech
- SimpleCode.
- 'Enter normal (X)HTML in the markup box below. Press "Process" and it will spit out
entity-encoded markup suitable for <code> examples. Use spaces in increments of two for
nesting indents.'
- Nice and simple. Reminds me of my own
Cheat Sheet.
Entertainment
- Brad Bird on an
Incredibles Sequel
- The Incredibles was the obvious
choice for the Best Animated Film Oscar in 2004.
- The 2-disc DVD set coming out on 2005-03-15 looks sweet!
- Fantastic Four. 2005-07-08 release.
IMDB. Trailer. The effects
looks good but I hope the story matches. Of course they have to have Dr. Doom as the
super-villain!
Faith, Philosophy
- Last night (2005-02-22) I went to another Landmark Education event.
- To see my previous blog on my first LE event see
2004-12-17/21 My
Landmark Education Experience.
- The first event was the "Landmark Forum". The thing I went to was the "Landmark Seminar
in Action". Here's the main differences between the two:
- The LF focuses on introducing you to their "technology". The LSA focuses on having
you practice their technology.
- The LF is all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and several hours on
Tue. The LSA is three hours a Tuesday for 10 Tuesdays.
- You pay for the LF and it includes for free the optional LSA.
- They gave us two options last night: (A) Attend all ten seminars. Or (B) Specify which
seminars I'll miss and arrange to make them up. I created for myself a new possibility: (C)
I will not attend any more seminars.
- Their "technology" is fine. It's effective stuff. However:
- There's a lot of stuff that's effective. Much of the Landmark technology is public
knowledge. And of course there's nothing wrong with Landmark restating, repackaging,
rephrasing, etc., etc.
- Stilling the "Already always listening" or being present to the chatter that
goes on in our heads is practiced by many people. EG: Japanese martial artists are
familiar with mushin ("no mind"). Fighting occurs so fast that you cannot
have that chatter, you have to reflect/respond like a mirror, but your training has
to enable a good response.
- The concept of making distinctions and using distinctions to free yourself is
common. The aphorism of "Knowledge is power" encapsulates the idea that nuances in
knowledge are important.
- The fact that possibilities/dreams have to be kept alive over time is
perseverance, patience, "Rome wasn't built in a day".
- Honoring your word (over circumstances), integrity, authenticity, the power of
your word, etc. There are many fine applications of this but it can also be used to
manipulate. I feel that the LE focus on this crosses over to a fixation.
- Breaking the vicious {cycle of "what happened" and "interpretation" leading to a
false reality} is something to be present to, but can also be used to manipulate.
- The idea of becoming present to chatter, assumptions,
in-authenticities/rackets/stories, strong suits, etc. is all about an ongoing
process of awareness, reinvention, and transformation. People do this naturally.
- Being aware of opportunity costs, of possibilities of freedom, power, and
expression are nice common ideas.
- "Anything is possible" is an overstatement. Period.
- Their constant repetition of "Landmark", "Landmark Forum", "Landmark Education",
etc. is annoying. Their constant selling of Landmark is annoying. Their persistence on
getting us to sell Landmark to others is annoying.
- I understand that understanding their technology is not the same as vigorously
practicing their technology, esp. in conjunction with others that are also actively
practicing with the technology. However: I got it. I got it. I would be more inspired to
attend if the sessions weren't so crassly commercialized.
- Illness Perspective
- Several days ago I was sick. It was no big deal: Just some laryngitis, congestion,
muscular ache and headaches. I was just pondering how my my feelings or psychological being
were colored during my illness. I was reviewing my weaknesses, the bad things in my past,
etc. and dwelling on them. The best self-help was perspective: I kept drawing upon
perspective to keep me aware that my outlook was a temporary condition due to illness, that
my place in the universe was as it was, etc.
- I imagine that people in really dire situations (long term illnesses, limb loss, parents
of dying children, etc.) must have it much worse since the condition is not temporary. The
issue I think is not that you or someone you love is dying, because in one sense we're all
dying, we all die, and that everything is transitory. A larger issue then must be the
quality of life.
- Pain and suffering, the absence of pain and suffering, are certainly important factors
that affect the quality of life. The proximity and awareness of quality of life also affects
your quality of life. Each of us is unavoidably aware of our own QoL. We are also more
keenly aware of the QoL of those who are close to us (or at least we should be). However
there is so much pain and suffering in the world that trying to stay aware of it all is not
pleasant and can be immobilizing, hence most people focus on their proximity.
- While we have some control over our QoL by will power, determination, character,
perseverance, etc., our QoL is also determined via genetics, stratus born into,
circumstances, chance, etc. Plus even if you manage to maintain a high QoL and die
painlessly in your sleep, a good human being should also be aware of the QoL of others. So
no matter who you are, eventually you're going to run into QoL issues.
- I have long felt that you should do what you can about the QoL for your self, for your
loved ones, and for others. However I have also long thought that a larger issue than QoL is
the issue of a meaningful life. Lately I have been thinking about how inescapable QoL issues
are and acceptance of them. For example: I have to eat, I have to rear my young, I have to
clean myself, I have to clean my environment, I have occasional illnesses and injuries.
- This line of thought leads to hope, peace, patience, love, and meaning. If I have to do
laundry, which many see as a meaningless, time consuming task, then I can improve my QoL and
meaning in my life by doing it peacefully, calmly, and out of love for myself and my family.
This concept can be applied to any aspect of life, from our best moments to our worst.
- And that's what I got out of being sick.
- "Martial Arts: The Truth Behind
It". It reads like a joke but I think the Fundamentalist Christian writer is serious. How
pathetic.
- Christian Jugglers Association. I've always
liked jugglers.
- DigiBless.com.
- 'At our site you can have all of your electronic documents blessed with a blessing of your
own choice, using our Holy Server. ... By adding your url to our website, our blessing algorithm
will visit your site and bless all of the files it finds there. The site will then be added to
our list of Blessed Sites.'
- He he he.
- dltk-bible.com
- With stuff like a recipe called "Jesus Walks on Water: Prepare blue Jello in indvidual
plastic cups. When Jello sets place Sour Patch kids (since they are shaped like people) to stand
on top of Jello."
- I have much more appreciation for the peaceful, fun, I-just-want-to-be-happy Christians than
the Fundies.
Health
-
For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be 'Evil'
- I'm going to over-quote because it's a likely to go offline article and because I've
always felt that we need to study evil in order to increase good.
- 'Most psychiatrists assiduously avoid the word evil, contending that its use would
precipitate a dangerous slide from clinical to moral judgment that could put people on death
row unnecessarily and obscure the understanding of violent criminals. Still, many career
forensic examiners say their work forces them to reflect on the concept of evil, and some
acknowledge they can find no other term for certain individuals they have evaluated. In an
effort to standardize what makes a crime particularly heinous, Dr. Michael Welner, an
associate professor of psychiatry at New York University, has been developing what he calls
a depravity scale, which rates the horror of an act by the sum of its grim details. And a
prominent personality expert at Columbia University has published a 22-level hierarchy of
evil behavior, derived from detailed biographies of more than 500 violent criminals.'
- ' "Evil is endemic, it's constant, it is a potential in all of us. Just about everyone
has committed evil acts," said Dr. Robert I. Simon, a clinical professor of psychiatry at
Georgetown Medical School and the author of "Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream." Dr. Simon
considers the notion of evil to be of no use to forensic psychiatry, in part because evil is
ultimately in the eye of the beholder, shaped by political and cultural as well as religious
values. The terrorists on Sept. 11 thought that they were serving God, he argues; those who
kill people at abortion clinics also claim to be doing so. If the issue is history's most
transcendent savages, on the other hand, most people agree that Hitler and Pol Pot would
qualify. "When you start talking about evil, psychiatrists don't know anything more about it
than anyone else," Dr. Simon said. "Our opinions might carry more weight, under the patina
or authority of the profession, but the point is, you can call someone evil and so can I. So
what? What does it add?" '
- ' As part of an extensive, in-depth interview, a trained examiner rates the offender on
a 20-item personality test. The items include glibness and superficial charm, grandiose
self-worth, pathological lying, proneness to boredom and emotional vacuity. The subjects
earn zero points if the description is not applicable, two points if it is highly
applicable, and one if it is somewhat or sometimes true. The psychologist who devised the
checklist, Dr. Robert Hare, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver, said that average total scores varied from below five in the general population
to the low 20's in prison populations, to a range of 30 to 40 - highly psychopathic - in
predatory killers. In a series of studies, criminologists have found that people who score
in the high range are two to four times as likely as other prisoners to commit another crime
when released. More than 90 percent of the men and a few women at the top of Dr. Stone's
hierarchy qualify as psychopaths.'
- 'Checklists, scales, and other psychological exams are not blood tests, however, and
their use in support of a concept as loaded as evil could backfire, many psychiatrists say.
Not all violent predators are psychopaths, for one thing, nor are most psychopaths violent
criminals. And to suggest that psychopathy or some other profile is a reliable measure of
evil, they say, would be irresponsible and ultimately jeopardize the credibility of the
profession.'
- ' "I think the main reason it's better to avoid the term evil, at least in the
courtroom, is that for many it evokes a personalized Satan, the idea that there is
supernatural causation for misconduct," said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist in
Newport Beach, Calif., who examined the convicted serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as
Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents in Beverly Hills.
"This could only conceal a subtle important truth about many of these people, such as the
high rate of personality disorders," Dr. Dietz said. He added: "The fact is that there
aren't many in whom I couldn't find some redeeming attributes and some humanity. As far as
we can tell, the causes of their behavior are biological, psychological and social, and do
not so far demonstrably include the work of Lucifer." '
Local
Martial
- Rules? In A Knife Fight?:
Redrafting The Rules Of Engagement In The First Terrorist War
- What a lovely slippery slope. Next thing you know we'll be torturing them... o wait, we
already did. OK, next thing you know we'll nuke them.
- 'It is ritualistic for most Americans to assert that they "Support our troops," but the
truth of the matter is that far too many Americans are becoming far too interested in making
sure our troops are behaving correctly than actually supporting and sustaining them. Knowing
well that nice guys finish last, it is past time for Americans to ask themselves how 'nice'
they want to be in fighting the Terrorist War.'
- 'Democracy and freedom for others cannot be the goals of war. They can only be the
fruits of something more primary -- victory. Absent the goal of victory, this will indeed
become "The Forever War," and America cannot sustain such an effort. In historic terms, the
American will to wage war suffers a serious fall-off after three years unless victory can be
see as a clear end state, and only then if progress toward victory is repeatedly
demonstrated . We are already beyond the three year limit, and it is unlikely that Americans
can be made to care much longer, in the face of trickle-down casualty rates, whether or not
Iraqis ever become free and democratic.'
- 'Regardless of the ostensible goal of our actions in Iraq -- the establishment of a
functioning democracy -- the more compelling goal for America's national-interest must
remain the military domination and control of the Middle East by any means necessary.
Failure to achieve this will place the fate of United States and the developed world in the
hands of rogue regimes able to achieve nuclear weapons, and ready to employ them. If the
world is to cross the dangerous divide of the next decade, this cannot be allowed to occur.'
Math, Science, Technology
- Engineers devise
invisibility shield
- ' The key to the concept is to reduce light scattering. We see objects because light
bounces off them; if this scattering of light could be prevented (and if the objects didn't
absorb any light) they would become invisible. Alù and Engheta's plasmonic screen suppresses
scattering by resonating in tune with the illuminating light.
Plasmons are waves of electron density, caused when the electrons on the surface of a
metallic material move in rhythm. The researchers say that a shell of plasmonic material
will scatter light negligibly if the light's frequency is close to the resonant frequency of
the plasmons. The scattering from the shell effectively cancels out the scattering from the
object. '
- Sounds good but then the article proceeds with a lot of catches.
Money
- Buyer
has been bold about name changes
- 'Will the name Marshall Field's become a footnote in Chicago retailing history?
Federated Department Stores Inc., which on Monday finalized its proposal to purchase Field's
parent May Department Stores Co., is not shy about changing the names of the regional
retailers it buys. If the deal is approved, Federated is expected to accelerate its rollout
of the Macy's and Bloomingdale's names into national brands. Federated's chief executive
said Monday that the retailer would convert most of May Department Stores Co.'s
holdings--which also include Filene's, Famous-Barr and Kaufmann's--into Macy's.'
- I think the "Field" name will be a footnote. If I travel around the country and I want
to go to a "Macy's" style department store, then I'd want it to have a nationally familiar
name. Calling the stores in Chicago "Macy's-Field's" would be a good compromise but I
wouldn't expect it.
- Honey, I
shrunk the dollar
- ' As a former Clinton Commerce Department official, David Rothkopf, notes, despite all
the talk about Social Security, many Americans are not really depending on it alone for
their retirement. What many Americans are counting on is having their homes retain and
increase their value. And what's been fueling the home-building boom and bubble has been low
interest rates for a long time. If you see a continuing slide of the dollar - some analysts
believe it needs to fall another 20 percent before it stabilizes - you could see a
substantial, and painful, rise in interest rates.
"Given the number of people who have refinanced their homes with floating-rate mortgages,
the falling dollar is a kind of sword of Damocles, getting closer and closer to their
heads," Mr. Rothkopf said. "And with any kind of sudden market disruption - caused by
anything from a terror attack to signs that a big country has gotten queasy about buying
dollars - the bubble could burst in a very unpleasant way." '
- ' Why is that sword getting closer? Because global markets are realizing that we have
two major vulnerabilities that this administration doesn't want to address: We are importing
too much oil, so the dollar's strength is being sapped as oil prices continue to rise. And
we are importing too much capital, because we are saving too little and spending too much,
as both a society and a government.
"When people ask what we are doing about these twin vulnerabilities, they have a hard
time coming up with an answer," noted Robert Hormats, the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs
International. "There is no energy policy and no real effort to reduce our voracious demand
of foreign capital. The U.S. pulled in 80 percent of total world savings last year [largely
to finance our consumption]." That's a big reason why some "43 percent of all U.S. Treasury
bills, notes and bonds are now held by foreigners," Mr. Hormats said. '
- Getting Back To Work: A
Personal Productivity Toolkit
- 'Now I know that procrastination is a habit, and so is productivity. You can disrupt
your negative behaviors, and reinforce your productive ones. It takes some work to implement
this system, but by doing so, you'll learn what to avoid and what to do to be more
productive.'
- Such a promising topic but it sort of fizzled.
Obituaries
- Jef Raskin (1943-03-09/2005-02-26)
- ' Viridian writes "Jef Raskin, GUI pioneer, interface
expert, Apple employee #31, and the man
most credited with the creation of the Apple Macintosh,
died of cancer on Saturday
February 26, 2005. It was Raskin who named it after his favorite fruit, the McIntosh apple,
although he said that he changed the spelling to "Macintosh" to avoid potential copyright
conflicts with McIntosh, the audio equipment manufacturer." ' [/.]
- Odd that even after Jef's died, Steve Jobs will not speak of him.
The rest of us, however, say thank you Jef for your work on GUI.
Politics
- Dinner with my Right-leaning friends
- I had dinner with my Right-leaning friends several days ago* and one of the topics my
friends touched upon was exploitation. The topic aimed at me was whether it was
"exploitation" to have goods made by foreign labor while paying them a wage so low that they
couldn't afford the goods they were making. I basically said that it wasn't exploitation if
they paid a fair wage. After all I, like many other workers, make a product that I
personally couldn't afford. They responded by saying that companies like Wal-Mart pay more
than local companies so the locals flock to Wal-mart for work. And this proves that it
wasn't exploitation but that Wal-Mart was actually a benevolent company.
*2005-02-18: The evening, by the way, was not mainly about politics. It was
about gathering as friends. We ate a ridiculous amount of food, reminisced, yakked, and drank. It was a
fine evening and we discussed many other things. My only regret was that we spent too much money. Food and drinks at
Fogo de Chão [FogoDeChao.com]
was $100 per person. However, we have been having a tough time getting our schedules
coordinated and it seems that to get a bunch of people to commit to something, sometimes
you have to get them to put money down in advance.The biggest news was that one of my
dear friends announced that he will probably move to Las Vegas in several weeks. He will
be severely missed but it's a good reason to visit Las Vegas!
- The conversation sort of ended there. They were happy and content with their
analysis, plus I could barely hear half the things being said on the far side of the table all
evening, so I let it slide. It was an odd topic to bring up since I have stopped discussing Right v Left
politics with them since a month before the 2004 Presidential election. Most of the evening
when we discussed politics, we talked more objectively about what we think is happening, will happen, or
should happen.
- Privately, though my original sentiment still stands: It is only unfair exploitation if
they pay an unfair wage or demand unreasonable labor. It doesn't matter whether it's foreign
or domestic labor. EGs:
- Child labor should be unacceptable in any country. The only place I consider child labor
reasonable is if the child is your own child helping out with your own home, business,
property, farm, etc. It should be very rare to have families where the parents cannot make
money but the children can. If families like that are common place in a country, then that
country has too many exploiters. American companies should not condone, copy, or be blind to
such practices.
- Harsh labor should be unacceptable in any country. Jobs that demand harsh labor should
come with benefits to make up for the risk and suffering.
- Every country should have a minimum wage. Even a sub-cost-of-living minimum wage is
better than no minimum wage at all. If America is so dependent upon undocumented, illegal
labor here in the U.S., then I imagine that there must be even more latitude on foreign
soil, esp. in less developed countries.
- No one doubts that Wal-Mart is exploitative in the sense that they are very efficient.
Whether Wal-Mart unfairly and illegally exploitive is up to investigation. Who will do that?
Who has the power to investigate such a profitable company? Whether Wal-Mart is unfairly but
legally exploitive is a matter of conscience. It is likely that Wal-Mart is better than
local employers and are following local laws, but as such a wealthy country we should have
higher standards than that. Just because human beings are far away, doesn't make them less
human. Wal-Mart could break the cycle of poverty for thousands and still have ridiculous
profits --but they don't.
- Speaking of high standards, I personally am willing to pay more for companies that are
more ethical. I personally buy eggs that are raised cage free. I personally do not shop or
invest in Wal-Mart.
- Related:
Quirky
- Girl Basketball [video]. A bunch of guys toss
a girl through a basketball hoop. The bums are too busy celebrating to notice that she bumped
her head.
- How to destroy the Earth
- 'Mission statement: For the purposes of what I hope to be a technically and
scientifically accurate document, I will define our goal thus: by any means necessary, to
render the Earth into a form in which it may no longer be considered a planet. Such forms
include, but are most definitely not limited to: two or more planets; any number of smaller
asteroids; a quantum singularity; a dust cloud.'
- Sweet, sweet. This should be a foot note on the classic
Evil Overlord list [EvilOverlord.com/lists/overlord.html].
Relations [SFW]
- The smile
that says where you're from
- : )
- ' While we British smile by pulling our lips back and upwards and exposing our lower
teeth, Americans are more likely simply to part their lips and stretch the corners of their
mouths. So distinct is the difference that the scientist behind the research was able last
week to pick out Britons from Americans from close-cropped pictures of their smiles alone,
with an accuracy of more than 90%. '
- ' Infants use the Pan-Am smile when unknown adults enter a room as a gesture of
appeasement and, Keltner says, so does the actress Julia Roberts. "She has a wonderful
smile, but it does not often reach her eyes in public. By contrast, Angelina Jolie not only
smiles broadly, and twinkles, but also tilts her head a little, which pushes the pleasurable
body language into a higher gear. That is a smile which is impossible to resist." '
- ' The power behind the smile may also be more potent than anybody has previously
realised: Keltner recently released a study of photographs of women in college yearbooks
dating back to the 1960s in which he separated the Duchenne smilers from the artfully posed.
Researchers then tracked the women down and found that those who had smiled most happily at
college overwhelmingly tended to have had the happiest lives since they had graduated. "It's
a virtuous circle," Keltner concluded. "Happy smiley people cheer others up around them,
which in turn makes them more stable and less prone to depression or divorce than those who
faked it in their yearbooks." '
2005-03-04t23:34:07Z
| RE: Cyber Life
. aaBlog
.
Making aaBlog v2, Part 3
Six months ago, I had blogged about upgrading my blogging system (Part 1 and
Part 2). I
haven't had time to work on it until this week, but I think I've finished version 2!
As mentioned before, the big change is that a permalink to a post will bring up an individual
post instead of a whole month's worth of posts. This should help folks with smaller bandwidths.
Of course, my archives will still be accessible by the month.
I'm too lazy to put in "next/previous post/month" options. However I think I still deserve a
little "I did it! I did it! It works! It works!" dance.
2005-03-09t19:43:29Z
| RE: Conservation. Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Faith; Philosophy;. Health. Local. Martial. Math; Science; Technology;. Medium 2D. Medium 2D+text. Medium 2D+time. Medium 3D. Medium Audio. Money. Play. Politics. Quirky [Possibly NSFW]. Relations [SFW].
2005-03-09t19:43:29Z
Conservation
-
Germany shines a beam on the future of energy Nation gambles on amped-up push for renewable
power
- ' Muhlhausen, Germany -- A solar-power project built by a Berkeley company may point
Germany toward a pollution-free future. Set in the heart of Bavarian farmland, the 30-acre
facility went online earlier this month, becoming the biggest solar energy plant in the
world.'
- 'PowerLight's three Bavarian solar parks, consisting of 57,600 silicon-and- aluminum
panels, will generate 10 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power 9,000 German homes. The
amount of electricity produced is much less than power plants fueled by coal or natural gas,
but with very low operating costs, the solar project is expected quickly to turn a profit
while emitting zero pollution. Schroeder's left-of-center Social Democrat-Green coalition
has turned Germany into the world leader in renewable energy since it took office in 1998.
Billions of dollars have been spent on wind and solar projects, and Schroeder, in a
politically risky move, has sharply increased taxes on petroleum products in an attempt to
reduce consumption of conventional fuels.'
- 'The campaign accelerated a year ago when Germany enacted a law forcing electric utility
companies -- and, ultimately, all electricity users -- to pay higher rates to businesses or
individuals who generate solar or wind energy and feed it back into the grid. With this
guarantee of revenue, solar panels have become commonplace on new German houses and huge new
windmills are a typical sight in rural areas, especially in the more windy north.
"This is part of our commitment as a government, to make Germany the world leader in
alternative energy and in taking action against global warming, " said Juergen Trittin,
Germany's environment minister. "We are willing to do what is necessary."
The country is now the No. 1 world producer of wind energy, with more than 16,000
windmills generating 39 percent of the world total, and it is fast closing in on Japan for
the lead in solar power. Wind and solar energy together provide more than 10 percent of the
nation's electricity, a rate that is expected to double by 2020.
It has become a profitable business, too, with about 60,000 people employed in the design
and manufacture of wind and solar energy equipment. '
- 'The lion shall lay down with the
lamb. But first, it shall lay down with
the tiger, the leopard, and the jaguar. And then smaller cats will lay down with different
smaller cats, and then there are those gazelles
and bears that were always hard enough to tell apart anyway, well, now we can't seem to keep
them apart. Long live the
anomalous felids!
posted by
breezeway' [MeFi ]
- Poor Bubba the 22 pound lobster died. However the funny thing is that on 03-02, BoingBoing
made a post called "Massive
lobster" which talks about the wonderful live lobster, then the very next day they come out
with "Bubba the Lobster
(RIP)" and "Lobsters
bigger than Bubba".

Cyber Life
- The Most Hated Advertising Techniques
-
|
Design Element |
Users Answering
"Very Negatively"
or "Negatively" |
|
Pops-up in front of your window |
95% |
|
Loads slowly |
94% |
|
Tries to trick you into clicking on it |
94% |
|
Does not have a "Close" button |
93% |
|
Covers what you are trying to see |
93% |
|
Doesn't say what it is for |
92% |
|
Moves content around |
92% |
|
Occupies most of the page |
90% |
|
Blinks on and off |
87% |
|
Floats across the screen |
79% |
|
Automatically plays sound |
79% |
- The key concept is that people hate that stuff, not just dislike but hate.
- And some of the good techniques:
- 'indicate what will happen if people click on them,
- relate to what people are doing online,
- identify themselves as advertisements,
- present information about what they are advertising, and
- provide additional information without having to leave the page'
- Open Office
2.0 Beta Candidate Released [/.]. ' "The
OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta candidate
has been released. You can find the
feature guide that covers
the wide array of improvements over the current 1.1 release. There are a bunch of problematic UI
quirks in 1.1 that have been fixed in 2.0." Feature categories include increased
interoperability with Microsoft Office, Asian Language Features, Developer-Specific Features,
and new Internet based features. Commentary and an interview with Colm Smyth available at
NewsForge.com. '
- The New York Public Library
Digital Gallery. 'NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from
primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library,
including
illuminated manuscripts,
historical maps,
vintage posters,
rare prints and
photographs,
illustrated books,
printed
ephemera, and more. '
- Ghosts in the Machines: What
Happens to Your Online Self When You Die? [MeFi]
- 'Uncyclopedia.
Why put up with Wikipedia boring or
questionable
entries? Uncyclopedia has the straight
dope on
Life,
Universe, and
Everything.
posted by
MiltonRandKalman' [MeFi]
- The Book Stops Here
- 'Jimmy Wales wanted to build a free encyclopedia on the Internet. So he raised an army of
amateurs and created the self-organizing, self-repairing, hyperaddictive library of the future
called Wikipedia.'
- 'Now Wales has brought forth a third model - call it One for All. Instead of one really
smart guy, Wikipedia draws on thousands of fairly smart guys and gals - because in the
metamathematics of encyclopedias, 500 Kvarans equals one Pliny the Elder. Instead of clearly
delineated lines of authority, Wikipedia depends on radical decentralization and
self-organization - open source in its purest form. Most encyclopedias start to fossilize the
moment they're printed on a page. But add Wiki software and some helping hands and you get
something self-repairing and almost alive. A different production model creates a product that's
fluid, fast, fixable, and free.'
- I love Wikipedia so much that it is pleasant to hear people talk about it.
- The new Gmail features (Picassa integration and basic HTML viewer) are no big deal.
- I'm still not switching from Yahoo Mail for several reasons:
- No WYSIWYG or raw HTML composing.
- You can have contacts but you can't make contact lists.
- There is no calendar.
- You can't make folders for your inbox.
- Spell check is nicely implemented but slow.
- And a bunch of other stuff that make it clear that Gmail is still a beta service.
- On the other hand, they have some nice stuff:
- 1 GB of storage but the 250 MG at Yahoo is enough for now.
- No advertising.
- The auto complete is nice but Yahoo has something similar.
Cyber Tech
- SOAP is boring, wake up Big
Vendors or get niched
- 'Evidence continues to mount that developers can' t be bothered with SOAP and the
learning requirements associated with use of the standard for information interchange. It is
often described as "lightweight", but its RPC roots keep showing. Developers are turning
their backs on the standard. Folks that is, building interesting information splicing
apps--semantically rich platforms like flickr and Amazon are being accessed by RESTful
methods, not IBM/MS defined "XML Web Services" calls. Now it seems the Creative Commons is
responding to RESTful demand. Or more pertinently-not responding to SOAP demand
because
there isn't any.'
- Related:
- I think that Microsoft has been in one of its ugliest technical lulls in years.
- MS is lagging but they persist and will continue to dominate because they have such a
large base.
- MS is betting a lot on .NET and their next version of Windows and SQL Server. It's
simply taking too long. People are forking off in different directions because we can't wait
for Microsoft which may be working on some fork that no one wants anymore. Google and others
are already working on searching your own laptop and network (besides MSN and MSDN searching
has no "intelligence").
- One of the foundations of .NET is XML and Web Services. Their XML is fine but Web
Services has been stumbling as this REST issue shows.
- One of the foundations of Visual Studio .NET is the "multiple languages" capability. Do
they think they're fooling anyone? The differences between VB .NET, C#, J .NET, etc. is just
syntax, since they are all translated into CIL (Common Intermediate Language) bytecode,
hence the difference is trivial. The class library is nice, but the CLR (Common Language
Runtime) virtual machine only runs on versions of Windows, whereas the JVM (Java Virtual
Machine) runs on different operating systems.
- MSIE v Mozilla/Firefox browser. Firefox is better and yet because of the prevalence
Windows, there are many sites that do things that are not standard and MSIE specific. EG:
Yahoo, Google, and (of course) MSDN.
- MS does manage to get some things right. EG: I work with MDX (related to OLAP, data
mining, business intelligence, MDX, multidimensional analysis, etc.) and MS is busy setting
up trans-industry standards for this field while the competitors are closed and proprietary.
- AMD jockeys
with Intel in multi-OS race
- 'Advanced Micro Devices will detail its "Pacifica" virtualization technology by the end of
this month, enabling software companies to start working with the feature, which makes it easier
for a computer to run several operating systems simultaneously. The Pacifica technology is
scheduled to arrive in processors in 2006, later than the comparable Vanderpool technology--now
officially called Intel Virtualization Technology--that is promised to appear this year in Intel
chips. What's not clear is whether the two technologies will be compatible, raising the prospect
of complications for some software makers. '
- Screw a dual boot, I want to run multiple OSes concurrently. I hope it runs fast. I remember running virtual Window OS on a Mac
OS and it was too slow.
- Intel's Dual-core
strategy, 75% by end 2006 [/.]
- "Intel
is moving ahead rapidly with their dual core chips, anticipating 75% of their chip sales to
be dual core chips by the end of 2006. With AMD also starting to push their dual core solutions,
how long until applications make full use of this. Some applications already make good use of
multiple cpu's and of course multiple applications running at the same time instantly benifit.
Yet the most cpu intensive applications for the average home machine, games, still mostly do not
take advantage of this. When game manufacturers start to release games designed to take
advantage of this, are we going to see a huge increase in game complexity/detail or is this
benifit going to be less than Intel and AMD would have you believe?"
- Yes, I'll delay replacing my laptop so that I'll have dual core and dual OSes!
- Related:
AMD Plans
Simultaneous Desktop and Mobile Chip Releases [/.]
- The Code is
The Design [/.]
- ' "In 1992 C++ Journal published an essay by Jack W. Reeves called 'What Is Software
Design?' Many credit this essay as being the first published instance of assertions such as
'programming is not about building software; programming is about designing software' and 'it is
cheaper and simpler to just build the design and test it than to do anything else'. developer.*
Magazine has republished this groundbreaking essay, plus two previously unpublished essays,
under the title
Code as Design: Three Essays by Jack W. Reeves." '
- UML, pseudo-code, English, whatever. It's all about communicating --otherwise you're talking
to empty air. Whether your app works once is another story.
- Magnetic Stripe
Snooping at Home [/.]
- "Have you ever wondered what information is actually stored on all those cards you have in
your wallet? Well, it turns out you can find out yourself! An excellent project,
Stripe Snoop started by Billy Hoffman, a
Georgia Tech computer science student, contains
schematics,
source code and a
wide variety of information
about the standards used to store all sorts of information on your magnetic cards."
- I've had to do work with magnetic striping before but I can think of funner things to do
when I'm not working.
- Microsoft
Loses Key Engineer to Google [/.]
- ' "Microsoft Watch reports Marc Lucovsky, one of Microsoft's key Windows architects has
defected to Google.
His confidence in Microsoft's
ability to ship
software seems to have waned, too. Some hypothesize Google working on an OS but in the wake
of Google's inroads into Ajax tech applications (GMail, Suggest, Maps), I think Google may have
other plans for the chief software architect for Microsoft's .Net My Services ("Hailstorm")"
CT Many users are reporting 404s on the Microsoft Watch article, but its working fine for
others. Hopefully they'll fix their server soon. '
- Intel 6xx Series Reviewed and
Benchmarked [/.]. Whee! It's 64-bit and it's not a Pentium.
- A
Linux Nemesis on the Rocks
- 'SCO's lawsuit is floundering -- and now the struggling software company faces regulators'
scrutiny and questions about its management'
- Hopefully SCO will disappear from our radar so we can focus on positive change.
- The Newly Inspired
Bushy Tree [MeFi]. 'A re-visiting and
revising the famous Bushy Tree diagram of the lineage of visual interactive computing systems '
Faith; Philosophy;
Health
Martial
- Two killed in
Wheeling shooting
- 'When officers arrived, they found the bodies of Roman A. Drobetskiy, 34, of Wheeling
and Arkadi Stepankovski, 29, of Des Plaines. They found a third man alive at the scene and
covered with blood. He was taken to police headquarters for questioning.'
- This would be just another crime to me except that Arkadiy Stepankovski is the head of System-Chicago.com,
the local branch of a Russian martial art called Systema. I belong to the ChicagoSwordplayGuild.com
and several of our members take Systema and we were even going to have a Systema seminar in
April.
- Condolences to the family.
- Violence happens. However, unless you are a professional combatant (EGs: soldier,
police, security) or you live in a violent environment or seek violence, you will never do
real combat regularly.
Math; Science; Technology;
- Science Made Stupid [besse.at/sms/smsintro.html].
Ha ha ha! Merely posting the title was fun enough ... but there's more!
![[TABLE: Planets of the Solar System]](http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/aaBlog/2005/media/03-08_PlanetsOfTheSolarSystem.gif)
![[TABLE: Types of Rocks]](http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/aaBlog/2005/media/03-08_TypesOfRocks.gif)
- Double-Slit
Experiment in Time, Not Space [/.]. "Thomas Young's double-slit
experiment is a classic experiment
that helped establish the wave-like nature of light. Since then, it has been done with atoms,
buckyballs, and
biomolecules. It has even been seen in
a single molecule, and the single
electron version was voted the most
beautiful experiment by Physics World
readers (covered
previously on
Slashdot). Now, PhysicsWeb is reporting that
Gerhard Paulus and coworkers have conducted the double-slit experiment using a
double-slit in time, not
space. The "slit" was a crafted femtosecond pulse consisting of one-and-a-half cycles--say, two
maxima and one minima--passed through an argon gas. Each maxima has a probability of ionizing an
argon atom and producing an electron. The electrons were accelerated to a detector which
observed an interference pattern since the detector had no idea which maximum produced the
electron."
- 'The Harmonograph is a device
that translates motion into drawings called
Lissajous curves or just
harmonograms. Build your own or just
check out the
various online
emulators.
[Java required for emulators]
posted by Gyan'
[MeFi]
- 'Quantum physics made
relatively simple. Personal and historical perspectives of
Hans Bethe, who has
died at 98.
posted by
liam' [MeFi]
- Battlestar Galactica on
the SciFi channel has a hot chick character played by Tricia Helfer. The character's name,
"Number Six", is as sexy as "Seven of Nine". See? Numbers are sexy!
![[PHOTO: Tricia Helfer as Number Six]](http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/aaBlog/2005/media/03-08_TriciaHelferAsNumberSix.jpg)
Medium 2D
- MakingRoom.com. 'MakingRoom is a magazine about the
process, intention and results of image-making.'
Medium 2D+text
Medium 2D+time
- 'Soviet Animation On the
heels of the post on Soviet music, here's a link to 10 short video clips of well-known
Soviet-era cartoons. (Set your browsers to cyrillic KOI8-R encoding.)
posted by
gregb1007 ' [MeFi]
- Watch it shred [videos]. Oddly
fascinating to see videos of different things being shredded.
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of
the Sith trailer. I've seen most of the footage before. Lucas CGI still looks
unrealistic. (The automatic and needless resizing was annoying.)
- 'Superfriends/Office Space mashup. This video-mash of footage from Superfriends cartoons combined with the audio track from Office
Space is stupendous. It's not just that the creator managed to get the lips to synch up really well,
but there's also the hilarious choice of clips and shots, and the judicious use of original
Superfriends sound effects. This thing is about the funnies thing I've seen all week. Month.
Link [This Place Sucks video]' [BoingBoing]
Medium 3D
Medium 3D+time
- Suite Vollard: the only
revolving building in the world. I'm dizzy already.
![[PHOTO: A revolving building]](http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/aaBlog/2005/media/03-02_SuiteVollardARevolvingBuilding.jpg)
- 10-minute motor
spinning for hours [BoingBoing]
- 'This morning I spent ten minutes making the motor from the Howtoons cartoon in
Make. It consists of one AA battery, two safety pins, a
magnet, some Scotch tape, a piece of telephone extension cable wire, a pad of Post-It notes, and
a little nail polish. It's been spinning for four hours so far. I like the clickety clickety
sound is makes. I shot a little movie of it in action. (It's an MP4, so you might have to
download it to watch it.)
Link '
- That's so cute. If a kid does stuff like this on his or her own, then it can really install
a sense of "ownership" or identity about engineering.
Medium Audio
Money
Play
Politics
- 'Frank Luntz GOP Playbook Now
Online: No Downloads, Searchable Text I can't stress enough the importance of reading this
document. It is absolutely amazing how politicos co-opted so much of our language and led us
down the path to THEIR agenda. Unfortunately, the monstrous PDF file previously available for
download made that a 'challenging' endeavor. Thus, I thought it was very important to bring to
everybody's attention the existence of an online, readable, searchable, text version of Frank
Luntz's Playbook. It is a masterpiece of manipulation and an historic political document.
posted by
jb_thms' [MeFi]
- Going Nowhere: The DLC Sputters to
a Halt [MeFi]
- 'What Bush got Right.
Recent events:
Syrian withdrawl.
Palestinian reform.
Egyptian Elections.
Libyan disarmament.
Iraqi elections.
The Domino Theory
in action.
posted by
dios' [200 comments at MeFi]
- Like I've said all along, it was the right war but done the wrong way at the wrong time.
There were no WMDs in Iraq (just in Iran and North Korea), no real U.N. support, no Muslim
support (like his dad did). Torture is still wrong. However, that's all in the past and it
would be good for us to focus on the future.
- Missile
Counter-Attack Axworthy fires back at U.S. -- and Canadian -- critics of our BMD decision in An
Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
- 'I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere
mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its
last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see
laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.'
- 'As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed
out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial
accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and
health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence. Sure, that doesn't match
the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting
a "liberation war" in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the
world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while
cutting food programs for poor children.'
- 'Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign
minister.'
- I love Canada. Too bad it's so cold up there.
- U.N. landmine
commercial won't air in US [BoingBoing]
- I'm going to post the whole BoingBoing post here. I hope they don't mind for the sake of
the cause. I will however store the image locally.
- It's a sad case of people burying their heads in the sand. Tip O'Neil said that "All
politics is local" and this is a case of trying to raise empathy for the landmine cause by
making people imagine that it were local.
A U.N. commercial depicts American girls playing in a soccer match. A girl steps on
a landmine and there's a big explosion. Kids get blown apart. CNN and other networks don't
want to air the ad.
The explosion appears to kill and injure some girls, sparking panic and
chaos among parents and other children. Shrieks of horror are heard through much of the
spot, and a father is shown cradling his daughter's lifeless body, moments after
celebrating a goal she had scored.
It closes with a tag line reading: "If there were landmines here, would you stand for
them anywhere? Help the U.N. eradicate landmines everywhere."
You can view the ad here.
(Here's a
torrent file). Link
and another
Link
- StopLandmines.org
Quirky [Possibly NSFW]
Relations [SFW]
- Infants, Children Prefer Sounds
Over Pictures And Only Slowly Become Visually Oriented, Studies Find
- ' "We found that sounds are dominant over visuals from infancy, and only slowly through
childhood do visuals become more important," said Vladimir Sloutsky, professor in the Center
for Cognitive Science at Ohio State University. "The younger the children are, the more
dominant their auditory system seems to be." '
- 'For infants, sounds are preferred almost exclusively. Older children tested at 4 years
of age generally preferred sounds over visuals, with the exception of familiar objects --
they paid more attention to a familiar visual when it is paired with an unknown sound.'
- 'Overall, the new research showed children seem to be able to process only one type of
stimuli at a time -- usually sounds, but sometimes visuals. Adults, on the other hand, can
process both sounds and visuals together, but prefer visual information.'
- I guess I need to come up with even more variations of "goo-goo gah-gah"!
- Finger length
predicts physically aggressive personalities, study shows
- '[Dr. Peter] Hurd and his graduate student Allison Bailey have shown that a man's index
finger length relative to ring finger length can predict how inclined that man is to be
physically aggressive. Women do not show a similar effect.'
- 'researchers have found a direct correlation between finger lengths and the amount of
testosterone that a fetus is exposed to in the womb. The shorter the index finger relative to
the ring finger, the higher the amount of prenatal testosterone, and--as Hurd and Bailey have
now shown--the more likely he will be physically aggressive throughout his life.'
- Hmm. I wonder if giving someone the bird is subliminally correlated to this.
- Rhesus monkeys can
assess the visual perspective of others when competing for food
- 'Researchers Jonathan Flombaum and Dr. Laurie Santos, both from Yale University, have found
that rhesus monkeys consider whether a competitor can or cannot see them when trying to steal
food.'
- 'These latest results, however, suggest that rhesus monkeys can do much more than just
follow the gaze of others; they can also deduce what others see and know, based only on their
perception of where others are looking. These data potentially push back the time during which
our own abilities to "read the minds of others" must have evolved. Moreover, they suggest
strongly a reason why these abilities may have evolved in the first place, namely for
competitive interactions with others. Finally, these results lay the groundwork for
investigating the neural basis for this kind of social reasoning in a readily available
laboratory animal -- an urgent endeavor for developing a better neural understanding of diseases
such as autism, in which this kind of social reasoning appears impaired.'
- Why those shifty eyed thieves!
Words
- Word of mouth 'winner
for books'
- 'John Bond, manager of HarperCollins' literary division said the findings were
"fascinating". "Publishers often stand accused of becoming ever more sophisticated and
cynical in their pursuit of creating instant author brands, when ultimately it is as likely
to be good old-fashioned personal recommendation that really sells," he said.'
2005-03-11t23:17:29Z
| RE: Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Education. Faith; Philosophy;. Flow. Health. Geography; History;. Local. Martial. Medium 2D. Medium 2D+text. Medium 2D+time. Medium 3D. Mind. Money. Play. Politics. Relations [SFW].
2005-03-11t23:17:29Z
Cyber Life
-
American kids gorging on a diet of media, report finds
- ' That multimedia juggling act has been mastered by many American children and
teenagers, according to a study released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an
independent health-care philanthropy. The report shows that youths are increasing the time
they spend with "new media" (computers, Internet and video games) without shedding the old
(TV, print and music). Consequently, students are stuffing an increasing amount of media
content into their lives, using more than one medium at a time and packing 8 1/2 hours of
media content into just under 6 1/2 hours each day. '
- ' Those 8 1/2 total hours--which do not include exposure at school or as part of
schoolwork--are up an hour from five years ago, with the biggest increase coming from video
games (now at 49 minutes a day) and computer use (slightly more than an hour). The study
also found that children's bedrooms are plugged-in places, with two-thirds having a TV in
their bedroom. The percent of kids with VCR or DVD players in their rooms rose to 54 percent
from 36 percent over the last five years, and 37 percent have cable or satellite television.
'
- Why when I was 7, all we had in the house was a small black-and-white TV that
required a pair of pliers to change the channel!
- 'Titled "Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 year-olds," the study involved
more than 2,000 participants who completed questionnaires and kept media diaries.'
- ' Dr. Miriam Bar-on, a pediatrician at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, said
in an interview that the sheer amount of time spent tethered to TV and videos (nearly 4
hours a day), music (1 hour, 44 minutes), computers (1 hour, 2 minutes) and video games (49
minutes) is cause for concern. Kids spent an average of 43 minutes reading. '
- Of course don't blame the devices. It's all still a matter of house rules.
- 'Ever need to make a really long or convoluted URL shorter? Or need to hide some bit of web
naming from someone? You'll want to use something like
TinyURL, BabyURL ,
URL123, and
Make A Shorter Link. All that shortening can't be
good. Fun ways to play with your enemies! HugeURL and my favorite -
EvilURL (Evil - NSFW)' [MeFi]
- Old but it's good to post stuff like this on ocassion.
- The Wikipedians Who
Make it Happen [/.]
- 'Many of us might have wondered who these crazy people are, spending lot of time at
wikipedia and presenting us with such an invaluable information. Wired has decided to give some
credits to the
most
active wikipedians, in their article titled
Wiki
becomes a way of life '
- Yep, I just love Wikipedia, our modern Encyclopedia Galactica. These guys make me feel so at
home.
- It's as if editing is a game. #1 has 131,521 edits. #1000 has 1,019 edits. They should make
a separate list for robot editors.
- Mutual online calendar
- My wife and I both have Yahoo and Hotmail accounts but we primarily use our Yahoo accounts.
We haven't liked the shared calendar feature, so what we're trying out this plan:
- Keep using our Yahoo email and IM as usual.
- Create a new hotmail account just for our shared calendar and IM alerts.
- Yahoo and Hotmail each has its own pros and cons.
- UPDATE 2005-03-14t16:03:31Z:
I quickly found out that the Hotmail calendar is inferior to Yahoo's calendar. Sure the Hotmail
calendar has some nice DHTML and ActiveX features, but given that Microsoft is so big and that
Hotmail has been around for so long, I was surprised to find the Hotmail calendar lacking in simple
things that you notice right away when you use the product.
- EG: The events list. If you are entering a bunch of birthdays or whatever, then at some
point you'll want to see them as a list instead of just from the calendar views (day, week,
month, year). However Hotmail has no event list. The closest thing you get is a reminders list.
And even then you are limited to 10 to a page and then there is no one-click to the next page
--you have to open a drop down then select a page. That's just too many clicks.
- EG: The year view should bold the individual dates that have events.
As a result, Julia and I have opted to form a private Yahoo Groups and we're entering our common
calendar there. We won't get IM reminders for common events, but we rarely use that anyway and we
can enter an IM reminder via our personal Yahoo accounts if we want to.
- Google
Adds News Personalization [/.]
- 'ZDNet is reporting that the Google News home page is
now customizable, allowing you to
add or delete main news categories (such as business, sports and so on), as well as increasing
or decreasing the number of headlines within a section. They've also introduced a feature that
lets you create your own section using keywords for a topic that interests you. '
- Sweet! I just removed the sports section and added a "Teletubbies" section!
-
Madrid: Terrorism, the Internet and Democracy
- Besides the content, the feeling behind the content is good.
- 'The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core
values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.
- The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression
for all -- increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
- The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief
systems.
- The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them
to form civil societies.
- The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and
markets.
- The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to
political violence.
- The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in
the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.'
- Tips for Mastering E-mail
Overload.
- This topic is a must read for all the idiot emailers out there. Here are the bullets for you
lazy bastards!
- 'Use a subject line to summarize, not describe.
- Give your reader full context at the start of your message.
- When you copy lots of people (a heinous practice that should be used sparingly), mark out
why each person should care.
- Use separate messages rather than bcc (blind carbon copy).
- Make action requests clear.
- Separate topics into separate e-mails … up to a point.
- Combine separate points into one message.
- Edit forwarded messages.
- When scheduling a call or conference, include the topic in the invitation. It helps people
prioritize and manage their calendar more effectively.
- Make your e-mail one page or less.
- Understand how people prefer to be reached, and how quickly they respond.
- Check e-mail at defined times each day.
- Use a paper "response list" to triage messages before you do any follow-up.
- Charge people for sending you messages.
- Train people to be relevant.
- Answer briefly.
- Send out delayed responses.
- Ignore it.'
Cyber Tech
- Learn UNIX in 10 minutes.
Wham, bam, thank you ma' am!
- Torvalds switches to Apple
- The title is misleading. He switched to from PC to Mac HW but his OS is still Linux.
- ' "My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970) - it's physically a
regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don't think you can call it a
Mac any more ;)" he said. '
- ' "As to the why ... Part of it is simply that I wanted to try something else, and I
felt like there were enough people testing the x86 side that it certainly didn't need me.
Part of it is that I personally believe there are two main architectures out there: Power
and x86-64 are what _I_ think are the two most relevant ones, and I decided that I had to at
least check the other side of it out seriously if I really believed that," said Torvalds. '
- ' "Oh, and part of it is that I got the machine for free," said Torvalds, "I'm really a
technology whore." '
- HOW-TO: Make your own annotated
multimedia Google map.
- Bwah-ha-ha! Let the Google map-hacking begin!
- 'One of the great things about Google maps is it has its roots in XML. To translate for
the non-web developers out there, it basically means Google maps are user hackable. This
how-to will show you how to make your own annotated Google map from your own GPS data. Plus,
you'll be able to tie in images and video to create an interactive multimedia map. We'll
walk you through the steps we took to generate an annotated map of a walk we took recently
through our hometown, now that it's actually starting to get warm enough to want to walk
about!'
Education
- Chiropractic
school angers FSU professors
- Old story but I just had to post the hilarious fake campus map.
- 'A growing number of professors in the Florida State University College of Medicine are
saying they will resign if FSU administrators continue to pursue a proposed chiropractic
school.'
![[MAP: FSU map with fake bad schools]](http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/aaBlog/2005/media/03-10_FakeFSUMap.gif)
Faith; Philosophy
Flow
- "10 Things I Have Learned"
by Milton Glaser
- Very nice list. It's almost frightening in its simplicity and truth. He's obviously a
fellow who loves to shake up clichés like I do.
- Here's the list without the details.
- 'You Can Only Work For People That You Like.
- If You Have A Choice Never Have A Job.
- Some People Are Toxic Avoid Them.
- Professionalism Is Not Enough or The Good Is The Enemy Of The Great.
- Less Is Not Necessarily More.
- Style Is Not To Be Trusted.
- How You Live Changes Your Brain.
- Doubt Is Better Than Certainty.
- Solving The Problem Is More Important Than Being Right.
- Tell The Truth.'
Geography; History;
Health
Local
-
Citywide 'Wi-Fi' network pondered
- 'Chicago officials took the first tentative steps Tuesday toward installation of a
citywide wireless network that would allow residents to connect to the Internet from easy
chairs, school desks and office break rooms--and provide City Hall with a major source of
new revenue.'
- 'Service probably could be provided more cheaply than what people now pay for wired
Internet service, and "instead of going to Starbucks or another upscale coffee or sandwich
shop to get wireless access for your laptop, it could be available throughout the entire
city," Burke said.'
- 'Aside from scattered businesses that may charge a fee, the biggest provider of Wi-Fi
service in Chicago is the city's public library system. People with laptops can connect for
free at 78 library locations where installations "provide high speed data into communities
and bring people into the libraries," said Christopher O'Brien, the city's chief information
officer.'
- 'Citywide Wi-Fi installation would entail placing about 7,500 small antennas on street
light poles "every block and a half or two blocks" citywide, O'Brien told aldermen attending
a joint meeting of the City Council's Finance and Economic Development Committees. He
estimated the cost at $18.5 million. Possible service options range from offering the
connectivity for free to creating a public utility that would provide the service for a fee,
O'Brien said.'
- I just noticed that it got slashdotted!
- 'Chicago Indymedia reports on
developments pertaining to community internet in Chicago. A
press release
from the Center for Neighborhood Technology reports that
the city's Finance Committee has commissioned a study to explore the possibility of low-cost
wireless internet across the city of Chicago, and reserve Chicago's right to establish a
citywide Wi-Fi network. It could run into efforts
underway now in
the state capital by Big Telecom to shut out muni Internet in Illinois." Several readers
also pointed to the
Chicago Tribune's story on this possibility, including efforts to head off regulation
which would make municipal Wi-Fi difficult.' [/.]
Martial
-
Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction.
- 'A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.
Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the
Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12,
2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.
"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent,
who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in
a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.
"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of
Sudanese origin was killed," he said.
He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window
of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender.
... There is no point in resisting."
"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of
Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.'
- O well.
- Army frowns on Dungeons
and Dragons
- '
My
coming My going, Two simple happenings that got entangled... Japanese Death Poems. Small
beautiful simple poems written before death. I just discovered them and thought I would share.
A few
more here ' [MeFi]
- Martial measurements
-
If we go by the standardized length of the kanejaku
(1 shaku = 10/33 m = 10 sun = 100 bu), use the exact length SI to IS for length (0.0254 m =
1 inch), and dump it into a spreadsheet, then we get numbers like this:
-
Maximum length for a tanto blade =
1 shaku = 0.3030 m = 11.930 inches
-
Minimum length for a daito blade =
2 shaku = 0.6061 m = 23.861 inches
-
A hanbo or sanshaku bo =
3 shaku = 0.9091 m = 35.791 inches
-
A 37 shinai =
3 shaku, 7 sun = 1.1212 m = 44.142 inches
-
A 38 shinai =
3 shaku, 8 sun = 1.1515 m = 45.335 inches
-
A 39 shinai =
3 shaku, 9 sun = 1.1818 m = 46.528 inches
-
A yonshaku bo =
4 shaku = 1.2121 m = 47.721 inches
-
A jo =
4 shaku, 2 sun, 1 bu = 1.2758 m = 50.227 inches
-
A goshak |