Wednesday, April 20, 2005

It's Linky, It's Linky

Here are some of the stories that I've bookmarked over the past couple of weeks.

BBC: Pile-up as berg hits Antarctica
An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has smashed into another vast slab of ice that juts out from Antarctica.
Scary. That's what Global Climate Change really looks like, kids. My fellow kids, I should say, lest anyone think I'm pontificating...

PC Mag dot com: Analysts: Merger Works for Adobe, But Customers May Suffer
"Adobe can now say $1,000 for Photoshop, and companies and designers won't have any other choice. Look at Microsoft. Once you get really big like that, nothing matters."
I love Photoshop, but I hate .pdf files. Worse than any other file format. They steal a ridiculous amount of system resources, take forever to load, and are much less user-friendly than most other document formats. What's wrong with good ole HTML, anyway? And come to think of it, Photoshop has many of the same memory/slowness drawbacks. And now the guys that bring us all this misery (dare I say it) rule ze vorld. Mwahahahahahahaha...

CNN: Einstein's legacy, like the universe, keeps on expanding

Nice bio piece in honor of the 100th anniversary of Einstein's "Miracle Year."

I think I'm supposed to stop with three. I believe the human mind can't deal with more than about three major points. But I'm having too much fun. Actually, I'm spring cleaning my bookmarks closet. So, look at the rest of these later, I guess.

BBC: Happy moments 'protect the heart'
Every moment of happiness counts when it comes to protecting your heart, researchers have said.

A team from University College London said happiness leads to lower levels of stress-inducing chemicals.

They found that even when happier people experienced stress, they had low levels of a chemical which increases the risk of heart disease.
Smiles, everyone, smiles! Doestn't the guy in the picture look like he's having an aneurysm, or something?

CNN: Students end six-day hunger strike
Students advocating for better pay for Washington University contract workers have ended a six-day hunger strike...

Students elsewhere have been making similar demands. A hunger strike for workers rights at Georgetown University ended last month.

Students at Yale University, Columbia University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst were expected to stage protests this week for contract extensions, union representation and higher wages for graduate workers.

"It's absolutely part of a national movement that students are becoming more aware of their dependence on the exploitation of workers," said Washington University sophomore Joe Thomas, 19, spokesman for the Student Worker Alliance, which coordinated the protests at the college.
Thank god these kids are bringing this issue into public consciousness. Labor is the foundation of our society, and many wage laborers are, essentially, exploited.

CNN: It's not easy living on Dork Street

TeeHee.

Statesville (NC) Record and Landmark: Dachshund dash shows who's top dog

Link will expire, like, really soon.
It was a weiner dog rampage in Mooresville on Saturday as the first dachshund race toddled through town.
Yeah, I live in Dorkville! Actually, it's kind of charming here, if you can look past all the right wingnuts.

It's not all fun and games here, though. This was in today's paper:
Local soldier dies in Iraq
Summer Lipford held the picture of her son and stared at his smiling face. She clutched the picture of Pfc. Steven Sirko of Statesville, taken just before his deployment to Iraq, and chanted “he should have made it back,” hugging the picture against her chest.
The article says he died in his sleep (heart attack or something), but the obituary says he died "in the line of duty." Regardless, it's a tragedy. I mourn along with Pfc. Sirko's family, although I didn't know him.

BBC: Google maps give fresh perspective

Yeah, this isn't creepy at all...
The detail in some of the Google photos is impressive - putting zoom at the highest level lets you pick out individual houses and even cars.

Almost any address has a satellite photo version but Keyhole has tried to calm privacy fears by pointing out that the photos are at least six months old.
In other news, nude sunbathing has suddenly become a lot less popular....

BBC: Broadway dancer, 101, in new show
A 101-year-old dancer who first appeared on Broadway in 1918 is to perform at the New York theatre where she began her career.

Aged 14, Doris Eaton Travis was in the famous Follies show run by Florenz Ziegfeld - regarded as Broadway's first glittering song and dance extravaganza.

She will be back at the New Amsterdam Theater to perform in the 19th Broadway Cares fund-raising gala on Monday.
C'mon. What could possibly be more charming than that? And yes, she did play a startlingly similar role in Man on the Moon. "I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle..." Remember?

You may have noticed, I've been largely skipping the political. Bad case of indigestion or something. But I'm still paying attention.

CNN: UN must reform or die, says Rice

You tell me which she prefers. Actually, she doesn't offer one concrete proposal. Her comments in the article sound like something from the Chinese foreign ministry.
"As important an institution as it is, one has to say that there are some things that are not so great about the United Nations right now.

"Everybody recognises that, and we've got to fix it.

"It is no secret to anyone that the United Nations cannot survive as a vital force in international politics if it does not reform."
The funny thing is, I agree with Dr. Rice. Kind of. Only, I'm sure she would balk at creating a mechanism to override a Security Council veto. That's the kind of reform the UN needs. She's basically saying it needs to do what the US tells it to do. Feh.

CNN: MIT students pull prank on conference
In a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference.

...

To their surprise, one of the papers -- "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- was accepted for presentation.

...

"Rooter" features such mind-bending gems as: "the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions."
Har har.

Wired: NextFest: The Shape of Things to Come

Dropping science with all the cool new shiznit. We got yer flyin' car, right here.

Here are two articles on 'safe blogging,' both from CNN:

Tips on how to blog safely
A is for Anonymous First, the "no duh" warning: don't post any pictures, reveal your name or even confess you work for, say, an unnamed weekly newspaper in Seattle. "(I)t's clear that you work in one of two places," cautions the guide. Posting using a pseudonym is smart but, if you think using "Leanne" when your name is Annalee is a good idea, think again.

Avoid getting fired for blogging
4. Don't hide it from your boss: [Pete] Quintas [CTO of a company that produces blogging software] says you should be honest about your blogging and ask your employer if it is OK to do. "I would consider it analogous to asking your employer: 'I have been invited to speak on a panel at this industry conference; can I participate?' "
Okay, the two articles contradict each other. To be fair, the first article's talks about blogging in general, and the second specifically discusses blogging about work. The advantage of blogging anonymously is that you have the freedom to say whatever the F*** you want. So there. But the downside is that you lose credibility. Who knows whether you know what you're talking about? [Clicky Linky - go on, you know you want to] Of course, if you're anonymous, you can choose one day to reveal yourself. But you can't go the other way. To digress slightly, I think it's just a matter of time before the first truly great blog whistleblower scandal, you know when someone will blog about their company secretly dumping nuclear waste in the Hudson, or whatever.

BBC: Blogging from East to West
What should we make of blogging? Is it simply the latest internet fad, a truly democratic tool for change or, as some have suggested, a vehicle for mob rule? David Reid finds blogs are rocking the boat both East and West.
Interesting, in-depth article about blogging, and its different meanings in different political climates.

Washington Post: (Science) Fans More Violent After Wins

Link may expire in the near future.
When sports teams lose important games, police worry that fans will unleash disorder and mayhem to express their frustration. But a new research study suggests that victory is a more potent cause of fan violence than defeat.

...

"Levels of self-confidence, assertiveness or patriotism which may be heightened following a win are important factors," wrote Cardiff researchers V. Sivarajasingam, S. Moore and J.P. Shepherd in a paper they published last week in the journal Injury Prevention. "Winning prompts celebration, a key component of which is alcohol consumption, and prompts the formation of crowds of intoxicated individuals, making interpersonal physical assertiveness more likely."
I'm glad the crowd in Chapel Hill was so nice. You know, when we WON THE 2005 NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP--WOO HOO!!! Really, really nice.

BBC: Google to start 'video blogging'
Search engine firm Google is to begin an experiment in "video blogging", according to co-founder Larry Page.

Mr Page told a conference in San Francisco that the company would be archiving people's video clips, starting in the next few days.
Dude, hurry up!

CNN: Florida to allow use of force even outside home
Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday he intends to sign a bill that would allow people who feel threatened -- even on the street or at a baseball game -- to "meet force with force" and defend themselves without fear of prosecution.
Yeah. Now they can shoot you if you look at them funny. Another good reason never to go to Florida again.

Another from the local paper: Gas prices guzzle public service budgets

This link will expire almost immediately.
The rising fuel costs have come at possibly the worst time, said Lee Darnell, the director of Iredell County Emergency Medical Services.

February was the busiest month in the 30-year history of EMS, with crews responding to more than 1,000 calls, Darnell said. In March, call volume exceeded 1,100.

“There’s really no way to cut back on driving, so we’ll have to cut back somewhere,” he said.
Thanks, President Bush! Yeah, I do blame him and his idiotic wars, and his idiotic energy policy.

Hey, ya gotta blame somebody.

Or, do you?

ContraCosta Times: Is anyone responsible anymore?

Link may expire soon.
Simple and direct like the man who put it there, it was a bold statement that summed up his approach to leadership and represented a value of the generation that helped him build a new America after World War II.

"The Buck Stops Here," said the no-nonsense sign on President Harry Truman's desk.

Today, it sits in a Missouri museum. And with it perhaps the sentiment it represented.

It was more than a slogan. The notion of accepting responsibility without passing the buck or blaming others when things went wrong was central to the work ethic and moral tone of the time.

By contrast today, almost none of the leaders of the country's great institutions ever step forward and take responsibility for failure or even honest mistakes.

It is sometimes imposed by others, notably juries, but less so by the broader American society and virtually never invoked voluntarily in politics, business, religion or popular culture.
It's true. Nothing is anyone's fault anymore. I wonder why that is? Hmm... I don't know, but just don't blame me.

I'm going to try to blog more regularly from now on. Not quite this much, but you know, more than lately.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Cue "Imperial March"?

[Listen while you read]

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has been elected pope, and will hereafter be known as Pope Benedict XVI.

There's a lot that concerns me about the new 78-year-old pontiff. Remember the whole 'no communion for pro-choice politicians' thing? You know, which cropped up kinda sorta right before the 2004 Presidential election?

That was his idea.

Yeah.

More 'good news for hardliners' from that declaration:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Well, isn't that...conveeeenient?

Oh, and he used to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--more familiar to you probably by its former name: The Inquisition.

I'm just glad I'm not a Catholic. Man, where's Father Guido Sarducci when you need him?

[addendum, 6:32 PM]

Two thoughts come to mind after a little reflection:
  1. Give the guy a chance. He could surprise everyone. Not likely, but it's best to keep an open mind.

  2. He's...old. So he probably won't be Pope very long. An interim Pope. To follow John Paul II with a reformer--in other words, with someone who would have worked against many of the things John Paul II held dearest--would have been something of a slap in the face to the memory of that well-loved man, and to his many supporters. I don't think Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is going to be nearly so well-loved, and following him with a progressive/reformist pontiff will likely be much more palatable.
Perhaps instead of the Imperial March, an intermezzo would be more appropriate....

Monday, April 18, 2005

Reflections of Lucy

My friends Ian and Tessa are now Dad and Mom. Welcome to Earth, Lucy Kent Blake-Williams!

Read a beautiful post Ian wrote about that

Inevitably, I've been thinking a lot about that. There are four of us, good friends since university. I'm the only one not married yet. Ian is the first to become a father.

The child is beautiful!

What makes a newborn more lovable than the rest of us, though? On the one hand, it's intuitively obvious, and evolutionarily necessary. Newborns are helpless, for one thing, and vulnerable, and so natural selection would seem more than just likely to favor strong protective, loving emotions towards babies.

In a more poetic sense, babies are all potential, a big bundle of stem cells, with a capacity for change the rest of us only had. Likewise, while a lot more of our future is genetically determined than we like to admit, and while randomness (chaos) plays a big role in what becomes of us, a lot of our 'fate' is our own doing, and the infant has a much broader range of future choices and possibilities than the rest of us do.

Again, this is probably so obvious to most as to be completely unremarkable.

But bear with me, if you can, because I've always seemed to be on a different page than most folks in regard to human reproduction. I once asked a woman who wanted to be a mother just why she wanted to be a mom, and she couldn't give me an answer. I still don't know if that was because she considered the answer too obvious, or whether it was too obscure.

I mean, I know why the human race needs babies, that much is obvious, but as to why any given individual wants to reproduce.... It's instinctive, I think.

Most people, I think, assume parenting will make them happier than remaining childless, despite ample evidence to the contrary. [Link One] and [Link Two] But really, I think most people just don't really consider that they have a choice.

In a different vein, Lucy's arrival has made me aware that, not only babies, but each one of us humans is, well, divine. Each one of us was, on the day we were born, the most important person to at least one other person (their mother), and probably to a host of others. Each one of us was that bundle of stem cells, and we all faced that seemingly-limitless horizon of possibilities with the zen-like awareness that comes naturally when you see everything for the first time.

My point is that, we're still that person. We are - each one of us is - every bit as special and important as we obviously were to our mothers on the day we were born. Each one of us is capable of great change, and faces a world full of possibilities. It's right there in front of us. We just have to see it the right way, always as if for the first time.

Thank you, Lucy, for helping me to see that!

Friday, April 08, 2005

The Southern Part of Heavenly Joy

Students with Silent Sam, UNC Campus, April 4, 2005

Click here to see my photos from Chapel Hill on Monday, April 4, the day we won the NCAA Men's National Basketball Championship. My pictures don't do justice to the day, but maybe they'll give you some idea.

I don't have but a couple from the celebration itself. I did shoot a bunch of video, but that'll have to wait until Google gets the video blogging thing going....

Monday, April 04, 2005

The Numbers Game

I feel inspired by this thought from my friend xtcian's blog:
By age 5, I'd already categorized all the single-digit numbers in terms of personality, and used them all day to satisfy some bizarre trains of thought. In my head:
1 = alone
2 = love
3 = erased the last bad thing
4 = luck
5 = bad luck
6 = bad luck for others
7 = good luck for others
8 = saving grace meant for rare usage
9 = erased the last whole cadre of things
I, too, have always associated personalities with numbers:
  • 1 = Perfection and/or solitary strength and/or new beginning
  • 2 = Duplicity and/or togetherness
  • 3 = Strength and/or masculinity
  • 4 = Femininity and/or weakness
  • 5 = Grace and/or gracefulness
  • 6 = Human weakness
  • 7 = Perfection (divine and/or earthly)
  • 8 = Excess
  • 9 = Ending, termination, annihilation (sort of the 'Shiva' of numbers)
I never gave this a moment's thought until I'd
  1. Smoked a lot of pot
  2. Dropped a lot of acid
  3. Read Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth
...all circa 1991.

I'd be very interested to know your "personal numerology." Mine is based (loosely) on various things I've read over the years--and on my own experience. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, right?