Slow Takes


  • Chrenkoff
    "George W Bush is raising money - indirectly: "Outland Books, a New York publishing company, said today that it would donate $3 from each internet sale of its popular daily calendar, Presidential (Mis)Speak: The Very Curious Language of George W Bush, to the UN aid agency Unicef." I'm sure his contribution will be misunderestimated again."

  • how-to record on your ipod (for free) - hack a day - www.hackaday.com
    apple cripples recording on an ipod so belkin and griffin then have to sell us add-on devices for over $50 that can only record at 8khz, which is all pretty shitty. apparently (the rumor is) apple does this so people don’t use their ipods to record stuff they think we shouldn’t, like concerts, whatever. but don’t worry, there’s a way around it and you can record at high quality, all for free.

  • Mark Steyn: On tsunami's shore
    You would think an unprecedented tsunami in a region that has never been a U.S. sphere of influence would be hard to pin on the Great Satan. And, to be fair to the global rent-a-quote crowd, for an hour or two they were stunned into silence. But it wasn't long before they were back singing the same old song: Disaffected young Muslim men in Saudi Arabia, devastated coastal villages in Sri Lanka ... "These Foolish Things Remind Me Of U.S.A." You really need Cole Porter:

    You're The Pits

    With your massive armies

    You're The Pits

    And you cause tsunamis.


  • Michael Barone: The lessons of Clintoncare (1/10/05)
    Social security overhaul seems to be the Bush administration's first priority for 2005. To gauge the prospects of success, it may be helpful to compare Bush's formidable task with the No. 1 goal of the incoming Clinton administration in 1993, healthcare finance overhaul. On the surface, Clinton's odds of a win looked better in early 1993 than Bush's do today. But Bush actually has a better chance of prevailing.

  • Foreign Affairs - Grand Strategy in the Second Term - John Lewis Gaddis
    Summary: In his first four years, George W. Bush presided over the most sweeping redesign of U.S. strategy since the days of F.D.R. Over the next four, his basic direction should remain the same: restoring security in a more dangerous world. Some midcourse corrections, however, are overdue. Washington should remember the art of speaking softly and the need for international legitimacy.

  • TV to Go: TiVo Unveils Portable Service

    SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - TiVo Inc. pioneered digital video recording as a new way of watching television - when you want it. Now it could be TV where you want it, too. The long-awaited service feature called TiVoToGo, set to launch Monday, will give users their first taste of TiVo untethered. No longer confined to TiVo digital video recorders in the living room or bedroom, subscribers will be able to transfer their recorded shows to PCs or laptops and take them on the road - as long as the shows are not specially tagged with copy restrictions. That's also the case for pay-per-view or on-demand movies, and some premium paid programming. Users also will be able to copy shows onto a DVD - soon after but not immediately at the service launch, company officials said.


  • Predicting 2005: Going Global >

    Web Globalization Goes Mainstream Based on surveys I've conducted, discussions with executives at Fortune 500 companies, and a few recent discussions with reporters, the signs are pointing toward a very public year for the field of Web globalization. You may remember that Web globalization was a hot topic back in the heady days of 2000. But this time around, growth will be driven by real revenues. Amazon could see more than half of its revenues come from outside the US by the end of 2005, and definitely by 2006. And it won't just be the virtual companies that embrace Web globalization; we'll see companies from industries such as hospitality, retail and financial services launch multilingual Web sites --another sign that this emerging field has crossed over from luxury to necessity.


  • The Penny-Wise Aren't Foolish Anymore
    But in 2004, signs were abundant that small can be beautiful, too. In the stock market, less-heralded stocks crushed their larger, more famous brethren. Through Dec. 29, the Russell 2000 - an index of smaller-capitalization stocks - was up an impressive 17.32 percent for the year. That's almost double the return of the Standard & Poor's 500 (up 9.13 percent). And it dwarfs the meager 3.6 percent rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, composed of 30 titans of business.

  • Celebrity Butts 2004 is at an end so what better way to celebrate than to see the back of some gorgeous celebrities. These stunners have all had a great year and they're bound to have even more success in 2005. But can you guess who they are? We've been a bit cheeky and we're only showing you a snapshot of their bum along with a little clue to their identity.

  • 100 things we didn't know this time last year 1. Street brawlers sometimes arm themselves with potato peelers, according to the Home Office, which wants to make them banned weapons. More details 2. Farmers plant their crops up to three weeks earlier than 15 years ago. In the 1960s, temperatures from January to March averaged 4.2C; it rose to 5.6C in the 1990s. 3. Brussels sprouts have three times as much vitamin C as oranges. .... 100. Bill Clinton sent just two e-mails while he was president.

  • Yoko Ono Appointed Spokesperson for New Chemical Castration Drug NEW YORK — Yoko Ono has been appointed spokesperson for a new chemical castration drug, tentatively called “Chop-Chop.” It has just been approved by the FDA after a lengthy delay. It seems laboratory rats wanted nothing to do with her because she was always in the way during recording sessions. “Let me tell you,” said Ms. Ono, speaking from her Chalet in Switzerland. “I know a thing or two about robbing males of their manhood. We considered calling the drug, ‘Balls-Be-Gone,’ but that’s the beauty of this drug. It leaves you with your balls intact.

  • Scientists develop fly-eating robot Scientists at the University of the West of England have developed a robot that powers itself by catching and eating flies. The carniverous robot, named EcoBot II, uses human sewage as bait to catch the insects.

  • Agog with blogs Bloggers offer access, megaphones to the showbiz underclass By JENNIFER NETHERBY Showbiz is blogging itself silly about insider comings and goings. The industry's underclass dishes everyone from Paris Hilton to Harvey Weinstein in a growing number of showbiz blogs....

  • Evolution is a Friend of Creation, says Evangelical Professor “Denying science makes us look stupid…People should not feel they have to deny reality in order to experience their faith.” Richard Colling, a biologist/evangelical, is swinging a new voice in the creation/evolution debate this winter: Darwin’s theory of evolution is compatible and complementary to the theory of intelligent design. Colling, who received a Ph.D in microbiology and chairs the biology department at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, recorded his new symbiotic theory in his book, “Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with Creator.”

  • Tsunami must be fault of the US In the past three days I have been impressed by the originality of the latest critiques of the evil Americans. The earthquake and tsunami apparently had something to do with global warming, environmentalists say, caused of course by greedy American motorists. Then there was the rumour that the US military base at Diego Garcia was forewarned of the impending disaster and presumably because of some CIA-approved plot to undermine Islamic movements in Indonesia and Thailand did nothing about it.

  • Words A Go-Go
    The NYTimes ran a contest for best alternative definition for words. The winner was "coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon"... Second place went to "flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained".

  • Coric to Anchor CBS News?
    Moonves could easily justify the $20 million or more that he'd have to pay Couric: Aside from the ratings jolt she'd almost certainly give the evening news, she could also be deployed to do a raft of prime time specials and contribute to 60 Minutes. Twenty mil? Hell, David Letterman makes more than that.

  • NASA plans massive Mars rover
    Building on the success of the two wheeled geologists that arrived at Mars in January, 2004, NASA has begun planning a new rover mission to the red planet %u2013 the Mars Science Laboratory. Planned to be twice as long and three times as heavy as the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars Science Laboratory would collect martian soil samples and rock cores and analyze them for environmental conditions and organic compounds that could have supported microbial life now or in the past.

  • Camera Phone Tips
    We've compiled this list of camera phone tips and techniques to help us get the best results from our camera phones. They are not rocket science and will not guarantee crystal clear pictures like those you'd get from a Digital SLR - but they could drastically improve the shots your Camera Phone produces.

  • The network is the blog
    The blog network is made of people. We are the nodes, actively filtering and retransmitting knowledge. Clearly this architecture can help manage the glut of information. More subtly, it can also help ensure that no vital inputs are suppressed because nobody has to rely on a single source. If one of the feeds I monitor doesn%u2019t react to some event in a given domain, another probably will. When they all react, I know it was an especially important event. The resemblance of this model to the summing of activation potentials in a neural system is more than superficial. Nature knows best.

  • Doc Searls on BuzzAgent
    Several people have asked me what I think about BuzzAgent, so here's my joint answer to all of them: It sucks. Where Marqui is up front about what it's doing, and engaging bloggers in conversation (as well as promotion), BuzzAgent and its clients are being surreptitious and false, and spreading a virus of falsity through its agents. Mass market advertising has always been impersonal, and often (okay, almost always) fake. BuzzAgent's system allows advertisers to be no less fake, but in person, face to face. Even if the agents really do love the products they shill, their love is bought. Worse, it comes cheap.

  • Jarvis' First Law of Media
    Whenever citizens can exercise control, they will. Today they are challenging and changing media -- where bloggers now fact-check Dan Rather's ass -- but tomorrow they will challenge and change politics, government, marketing, and education as well. This isn't just a media revolution, though that's where we are seeing the impact first. This is a chain-reaction of revolutions. It has just begun.

  • Friendship and Relativity
    If Einstein succeeded in transforming time into space, Gdel would perform a trick yet more magical: He would make time disappear. Having already rocked the mathematical world to its foundations with his incompleteness theorem, Gdel now took aim at Einstein and relativity.

  • Open Letter to a Digital World
    It's time for anyone running a Windows PC to switch to Linux.You see, the Windows platform is not just insecure - it's patently, blatantly, and unashamedly insecure by design and for all the lip service to security it's really not going to get better, ever. To make matters worse, it's more expensive and gives you fewer necessary applications right out of the box than Linux. Everyone, even Microsoft, knows this - they are just too afraid to say it. The tide is coming in. Nothing on this planet can stop it.

  • Books by the Foot ~ Books by the Yard
    We sell books by the foot and offer 2 catagories of books: Jeweltone at $9 a spine in quantities up to 250 and $8 a spine in quantities of 250 . Designer Mix are $13 a spine in quantities up to 250 and $12 a spine in quantities of 250 . We consider ten books equal to a foot and we ship a minimum ten books (one foot). Filling a bookcase couldn't be easier... Measure how many linear feet you need to fill, and then order by the foot from Book Decor.

  • Forget Cue Cards, Make a Teleprompter!
    Creative problem solving is a trait many creative professionals share, but perhaps no one possesses that skill more than Brian P. Lawler. See how he made a teleprompter with a laptop, Adobe InDesign, and some scrap wood.

  • Laura Bush's Christmas Letter
    And what with George Sr and Barbara having spent four very happy years here and Jeb hinting that he is quite keen to move away from Florida some time, we have come to regard it as family property In the end, fortunately, the landlords seemed to find the other couple completely insufferable and virtually begged us to stay on....

  • A Stoning in Iran
    The single job for a writer that would most certainly condemn you to hell in this life and the next has to be reporting for Reuters. Impervious to sense and humanity, this "Service" continues to pump out what passes for "reportage" using editorial rules and filters from somewhere in "the Stone Age". I use that term advisedly. Here's a full report that just moved over the wires from that bastion of religious peace, harmony and toleration, Iran.

  • Europe is Kaput
    In the major newspapers of the US east coast, to be sure, Europeans continue to read about their sad little concerns. What "red state" Americans hear, by contrast, is that Europe is dying, like the now-vanished "evil empire" of Soviet communism.

  • Kyoto is a Sham
    So what if a reduction in emissions by the means prescribed is impossible by 2050? Politicians don't want to hear it. And since politics very often consists of promising the impossible to the ignorant, the scientific bankruptcy of currently proposed Green initiatives is entirely irrelevant. Kyoto, like Peacekeeping is always good, though no one can say why. The climate change initiatives will continue to be put forward; they are an end in themselves.

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January 02, 2005

MindMatters

Elders' Sea Knowledge Spares Some Thais: "Knowledge of the ocean and its currents passed down from generation to generation of a group of Thai fishermen known as the Morgan sea gypsies saved an entire village from the Asian tsunami, a newspaper said Saturday. " On AP Science

Thousands of Seals at Home in New England: "It's a sight New Englanders aren't entirely used to seeing: thousands of seals swimming through the Long Island Sound or hauling out to Maine, where they like to have their pups. " On AP Science

Summary Box: Busting Up a Comet: "BIG BLOW UP: NASA scientists later this month will send the spacecraft Deep Impact (named after the 1998 movie about a comet headed for Earth) to blast a crater into Comet Tempel 1. " On AP Science

The Future of Calamity: "In seven hours last week, great ocean waves exacted a terrible price in wealth and human lives. Future catastrophes may be far grimmer." On New York Times: Science

God vs. Darwin: "Centre Daily Times,---... Voltaire was"a French atheist" and"a disbeliever in revealed theology" and changed ... percent of the vote here -- and its cultural values are Christian, with an ...::" On theology News

What is Social Medicine?: "Monthly Review,---... In the late nineteenth century the striking advances made in pathology and microbiology made social factors seem less germane in the etiology of disease. ...::" On Microbiology News

Teaching evolution at Christian college: "Crossmap Christian News--... prospect as a biology professor at Olivet Nazarene University -- teach pure creationism and deny his knowledge gained from a Ph.D in microbiology, or teach ...::" On Microbiology News

January 2, 2005 in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 01, 2005

Science Today

Summary Box: Busting Up a Comet: "BIG BLOW UP: NASA scientists later this month will send the spacecraft Deep Impact (named after the 1998 movie about a comet headed for Earth) to blast a crater into Comet Tempel 1.

On AP Science

Six More Lynx Kittens Born in Colorado: "The year ended happily for state biologists with news that six more lynx kittens have been born to transplanted lynx in Colorado, bringing the total of newborns to 36 this year and 52 since a reintroduction program began in 1999."
On AP Science

Scientists Free Entangled Whale Off S.C.: "Scientists apparently freed a young whale from more than 150 feet of lobster fishing gear Friday after riding alongside the animal on a Coast Guard cutter for nearly 24 hours."
On AP Science

In the Middle of Iraq, it's Gaming, Gaming, Gaming for the American Military: "The generation brought up on video games has taken their chosen entertainment with them as they do real battle overseas."
On Technology Review: Nanotechnology & Materials

Lithuania shuts down atomic unit: "Lithuania starts shutting down a Chernobyl-style nuclear reactor, heeding EU concerns."
On BBC: Science/Nature (UK Edition)

Snow leopard project faces finish: "An imaginative way to save the highly endangered snow leopards of Central Asia looks likely soon to run out of money."
On BBC: Science/Nature (UK Edition)

The top 10 news stories of 2004: "Read the stories that were most popular with you, the readers, including enigmatic signals from space, stun guns and mystery viruses"
On New Scientist

Temptations in Disaster: "Christianity Today MagazineÔøΩ-... of society at-large. We evangelicals are so individualistic that we have a very weak theology of the body of Christ. We have so ...::"
On theology News

Commentary: The indifferent man -- part 2: "World Peace Herald,ÔøΩDCÔøΩ-... to say, unless of course the brightest lights in Protestant theology knocked at ... The ex-Christian"homo indifferens," of whom Cardinal Poupard, president of the ..."
On theology News

Tsunami begs us to make sense of the senseless: "eTaiwan News,ÔøΩTaiwanÔøΩ-... Christian theology has tackled this question - often referred to as theodicy or the justice of God in the face of evil - in various ways. ...::"
On theology News

Earth's permafrost starts to thaw: "Scientists find many regions on Earth that once had permanent frozen ground are now experiencing a thaw."
On BBC: Science/Nature (UK Edition)

Conquerors' Hopes Dashed: "Dutch researcher Florine Asselbergs has discovered the Spanish conquering of Guatemala portrayed on an indigenous painting. This sixteenth-century panel had scarcely been investigated up until now and provides a detailed overview of the battles and the landscape. It is an important find, as relatively little is known about the conquest of Guatemala."
On ScienceDaily Magazine

Daily Social, Physical Activity Improves Sleep And Cognition In The Elderly: "More than half of adults over the age of 65 have trouble sleeping, characterized by both lighter sleep and frequent awakenings during the night. A decline in cognitive function is common with advanced age, and research has shown that disturbed sleep in younger adults and in the elderly causes daytime sleepiness and negatively affects cognitive performance."
On ScienceDaily Magazine

Understanding The Voice Mechanisms Of Sopranos: ""The analysis of aerodynamic parameters enables an understanding of the physiological bases of the voice mechanisms in classical and lyrical soprano singers". This is the conclusion of the PhD thesis undertaken by Dr. María Uzcanga whose research work was carried out in the Voice Laboratory at the Navarre University Hospital."
On ScienceDaily Magazine

New Clue To Nerve Growth May Help Regeneration Efforts: "Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered how one family of proteins repels growing nerves and keeps them properly on track during development. The finding, described in the Dec. 16 issue of Neuron, might provide a chance to overcome the proteins' later role in preventing regrowth of injured nerves, the researchers say."
On Science Daily

January 1, 2005 in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 18, 2004

Mars discoveries lead Science's Top 10 list

Marsplanet
Opportunity and Spirit found unmistakable proof of Martian water: rippled sediments that were once at the bottom of a shallow sea, and rock that once was so water-soaked that "it had rotted," the journal said. "Their finds mark a milestone in humankind's search for life elsewhere in the universe."

Other winners were:

The first runner-up for breakthrough of the year was the discovery on the Indonesian island of Flores of fossils from a species of tiny humans who stood about 3 feet (1 meter) tall and had a brain less than a third the size of modern humans.

Cloned human embryos were produced through a procedure pioneered by South Korean researchers.

Researchers have developed techniques to identify genes in ocean water or in specimens recovered from deep underground. Thousands of new genes have been found. By sequencing these genes, researchers hope to identify new species and, perhaps, learn how organisms survive in harsh and forbidding locations on Earth.

December 18, 2004 in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Maldives island rises from the depths

041217_island_vlg7pvlarge
HULHUMALE, Maldives - Life can be cramped when you live on a remote cluster of tiny coral islands in the Indian Ocean, so the Maldives has plumped for a novel if seemingly extreme solution -- build a new island from scratch.

Emerging from the sea where a turquoise lagoon used to sit, man-made Hulhumale is springing to life as an overflow to the congested capital, Male, a short boat ride away.

Around 1,500 people now live in a first cluster of housing erected on the 188-hectare (465-acre) island, a giant building site to which the government hopes around 15 percent of the country's 300,000 mostly Sunni Muslim inhabitants will opt to migrate over the next 15 years.

December 18, 2004 in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack