By Sheila
Lennon
Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Fair and balanced, too!
January 28, 2005, 7:22 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
Weekend: Plan
your garden, play
a silly
game, move into a virtual world. The
links go to seed catalog links (and lots more we've gathered in our Garden section),
you're a bug avoiding a lizard in the Goki Dash Flash Game and the virtual world
is Second
Life (story
here). "Second Life is not about armed conquest, explosions or amassing
point totals. It simply is about living in a different place, a place where virtually
nothing is impossible."
It's the dead of winter, we're waiting for the Super Bowl...
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Groven
Piano Project - the un-tempered clavier -: Years ago, local piano
wizard Mark Taber joked that when the guitarist wanted to change the key
of a song, he just moved a strap on the neck of his guitar, but the keyboard
player had to play completely different piano keys.
Another problem: I hear notes between the notes, and I want to play them..
Enter The Groven Piano Project's goal is to "enhance the musical capabilities
of the piano by expanding the number of pitches available and freeing it from
the constraints of tempered tuning."
The Groven Piano is digital network of acoustic pianos whereby a master
input piano controls the actions of three separate output pianos via a computer
interface. Similar to a pipe organ, the network functions as a single instrument
with the combined resources of all the pianos available to the pianist from
a single keyboard....
The three output pianos (designated Blue, Gold, and Red) are tuned differently
from one another to produce three variants of each pitch (e.g., C#-, C#,
and C#+) about 1/8th of a step apart. This triples the available pitches
per octave to allow for more precise tuning, while the use of a single control
piano (with a silencing device) would maintain the same number of keys for
the performer.
You can listen to on the page at the link.
(The sheer difficulty of playing so many keys limited my piano career. I spent
the entire summer I was 15 teaching myself the most famous Chopin Polonaise
-- in A flat, Opus 53, here
performed by Arturo Rubenstein -- from the sheet music. I had never heard
the song. But occasionally, after I had worked parts of it out on the piano,
I would recognize it when I heard it on the radio, and learned how it should
sound.
The difficulty of this was overwhelming, and I eventually scaled back to playing Save
the Last Dance for Me at parties. That summerlong task would have
been so much easier today, with Web access to so much music, so many scores.)
Link
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1:01 p.m.
Rep.
Barney Frank blogs from World Economic Forum meeting in Davos: In
a post on the forum
blog at the annual economic summit in Switzerland this week, the Massachusetts
Democrat does some public head-scratching:
I come away from my first panel participation struck by a duality I often
experience at international forums. I am very critical of much of American
policy under President Bush, both foreign and domestic. In answer to the first
questions posed, I voiced these criticisms. I was pleased to have the chance
to point out the enormous disparity between the President's inaugural rhetoric
and the policy over which he presides. I can think of no country - literally
- that has made promotion of democracy or freedom the main part of policy,
or even an important one.
Even in Afghanistan, we invaded - with my support - only after they refused
to give up Osama. But as I listen to criticisms of the U.S. from some others,
the degree to which I support American policy in the broadest sense, and the
values I believe we embody, becomes clear to me intellectually and emotionally.
For example, when a Chinese representative essentially dismissed the notion
that there are fundamental democratic precepts by which China's governance
can be measured, and talked of an alternative form of democracy - apparently
unlike any the world has ever known - I had to voice my complete skepticism
and support for the western-type of democracy she denigrated.
Even more strikingly, when a British speaker expressed the idea that China
and Iran were admirable countries as sources of regional stability, I had
to ask her what countries she considered bad ones. When she responded with
a list
of negatively-rated nations consisting of Syria, Iraq and Israel, I was jolted
by the gap that existed between me and someone whom I first saw as something
of an ideological ally....
Later, he
confronts the embarrassment most Americans feel abroad when confronted
with our illiteracy beyond our native tongue:
...In fact, at intentional meetings, I am forcefully reminded of America's
bilingual problem - which is that too few of us are. As a citizen of one of
the few (if
not the only) countries in the world in which highly educated people speak
only one language, I am troubled by the thought that in a heated debate I may
be taking unfair advantage of someone who is my superior in linguistic skill
in general, but at a disadvantage because he or she has indulged me by speaking
the language native to me and foreign to him or her. In the end though, I'm
afraid that on important topics, after the first few minutes all of these concerns
melt in the passion of the argument and I am, for better or worse, in full
campaign mode.
Here's the news
from Davos.
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Hieronymus
Bosch action figures: These are amazing.
With the greatest respect for the original works of art the designers of the
Paratsone studios in The Netherlands have brought to live famous paintings
by lifting images out of the flat surface.
Not just Bosch. Also brought to still life are works
by Pieter Breugel the
elder,Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, Gustav Klimt, Charles
Rennie Mackintosh, Salvador Dali, Matthias Grünewald, Henriëtte
Ronner-knip, Edgar Degas, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Escher, Honoré Daumier,
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley, Egbert van Heemskerck, Edgar Degas, Rodin, Amadeo
Modigliani, Francois Pompom and lots of angels.
Wonderful!
Link
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More later...
January 27, 2005, 7:07 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
No one will be safe from mice with human brains: Animal-Human
Hybrids Spark Controversy is the headline over the scariest paragraph I've ever read:
(Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem
Cell
Biology and Medicine in California) has already created mice with brains that
are about one percent human. Later this year he may conduct another experiment
where the mice have 100 percent human brains.
Maryann Mott at National Geographic News is bringer of this very bad news.
Mice that smart will star in the Tom & Jerry cartoon from hell.
One of my colleagues has a heart valve donated by a cow, and that is not shocking.
But it is not difficult to imagine a mad scientist somewhere creating abominations
like the Sphinx. Or stunningly intelligent predators.
(I'd rather skip the wave of escaped superintelligent cockroach/scorpion/rattlesnake
movies.)
In
1896, H. G. Wells wrote The
Island of Dr. Moreau, which you can read online at that link. (Charles
Laughton played the doctor in the 1933
film version,
Marlon Brando in the 1996
remake. IMDB summarizes: "After being rescued and brought to an island,
a man discovers that it's inhabitants are experimental animals being turned
into strange looking humans, all of it the work of a visionary doctor")
Here's
a bit of Wells' text from XIV.
Doctor Moreau Explains
"Monsters manufactured!" said I. "Then you mean to tell
me--"
"Yes. These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought
into new shapes. To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms,
my life
has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining in knowledge as I go.
I see you look horrified, and yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay
in
the surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity
to touch it. It is not simply the outward form of an animal which I can change.
The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to
undergo
an enduring modification,--of which vaccination and other methods of inoculation
with living or dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be familiar
to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood,--with which subject,
indeed, I began. These are all familiar cases. Less so, and probably far
more
extensive, were the operations of those mediaeval practitioners who made
dwarfs and beggar-cripples, show-monsters,--some vestiges of whose art still
remain
in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist.
Victor Hugo gives an account of them in 'L'Homme qui Rit.'--But perhaps my
meaning
grows plain now. You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant
tissue from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another;
to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth; to modify the articulations
of its limbs; and, indeed, to change it in its most intimate structure.
Link
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Blogyard brawl: Jack
Shafer of
Slate vs. Jay
Rosen of NYU take off the gloves in an intramural flap over old and new
media, blog triumphalism and decency that really doesn't have anything to
do with the act of blogging.
I had planned to address some of these existentialist blog issues after an
email earlier in the
week
from Jon Garfunkel, who's analyzing
qualities of blogs and other online publications.
But after all this smoke and vitriol, I'm just going to point to Jorn Barger's
1999 Weblog
resources FAQ. It's simple, full of links (some historic, some gone by
now) and addresses questions still smoldering, such as "What is a weblog?,"
"How is a weblog different from an online journal?," "Are webloggers journalists?"
and more.
Notable: Barger's "Robot
Wisdom Weblog was the first to use the name 'weblog' in December
1997."
Robot Wisdom was my first daily read for a long time. Barger walked
away from it all, after this
last posting, dated Wednesday, October 01, 2003
5:06:13 AM.
The blog was the most popular part of his site, but his James
Joyce
Portal and Robot
Wisdom
Pages, among others, are still around, hurtling through time like an abandoned
spacecraft.
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Got a secret you want to get off
your chest? Give it to art:
You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to the PostSecret
project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, feeling,
confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long
as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.
Steps:
Create your own 4"x6" postcard.
Tell your secret anonymously.
Stamp and mail the postcard.
Tips:
Be brief – the fewer words used the better.
Be legible – use big, clear and bold lettering.
Be creative – let the postcard be your canvas.
Mail your secret to:
PostSecret
13345 Copper Ridge Rd
Germantown MD 20874
E-mail questions or comments to PostSecret@docdel.com
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North-African Soldiers cooking their meal in a village in Oise, France, 1917
(Autochrome color picture by Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud)
Color
photos from
World War I: "This
is the first picture of a slideshow with colour photographs of the Great War.
Click
on the picture to see the next in this series" More photos
are here and
here.
Above you see one of the few real color photographs of the First World War:
a group of Spahis, Algerian soldiers, who fought with the French on the European
battlefields.
This beautiful picture was made by Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud, Chief of the
Photography and Cinematography Organization of the French Army.
Tournassoud used a new technique, invented by Auguste and Louis Lumière,
forerunners in photography and movies. ...
...Microscopic grains of potato starch were dyed red, green, and blue-violet,
then mixed evenly and coated onto a sheet of glass. A black-and-white emulsion
was then flowed over this layer.
During exposure, the grains of potato starch on each plate acted as millions
of tiny filters. The light-sensitive emulsion was then reversal processed into
a positive transparency.
When viewed, light passes through the emulsion and is filtered to the proper
color by the starch grains. The resulting mosaic of glowing dots on glass gives
autochromes the look of pointillist paintings.
Autochromes were the first true color pictures, and the only industrial color
photography process until 1935. ...
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Limping
legend: Thank goodness for Owens -- he's already saved the Super Bowl:
Gwen Knapp in the San Francisco Chronicle says what most sports writers won't.
(She's writing, of course, about the drama over whether Eagles receiver
Terrell Owens, who snapped an ankle Dec. 19, will play in the big game)
Owens jogs at practice. Trainer says "our risk-reward is different
than (the doctor's) risk-reward.''
The story has already been inflated to the point of bursting. By next week,
football fans everywhere will recognize the Eagles' trainer as a member of
the family, a fixture in their living rooms. The coverage will be incessant,
every day, every hour -- even if it means nothing more than repeatedly replaying
Wednesday's news conference. There will be no timeout on T.O.
But if he has spared reporters a trip to see the long snapper's second cousin
who whittles Popsicle sticks into images of Paul Tagliabue, we will all be
grateful.
Link
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Methane on Saturn moon Titan not from life forms: AP,
Images snapped by the 340-kilogram probe as it parachuted through Titan's
atmosphere from the Cassini
orbiter show the moon's surface was cut by a weather
system leaving deep river beds and large reservoirs, implying activity by liquid
methane.
But unlike water in the Earth's atmosphere that continually renews itself,
methane is destroyed by ultraviolet light, so Titan must have a source deep
inside, scientists said.
The photo shows water ice and methane springs. Still a mystery. More
photos.
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HOW-TO: Turn your
Mac mini into a media center: With photos, at Engadget.
Link
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January 26, 2005, 7:13 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
The
alarm clock that physically drags you out of bed: Some days, the
right brain insists on taking over. Industrial design is where it took
the rest of me this afternoon, as snow falls and the football news about
toe jam may be the most exciting football news of the next 10 days. Somehow
I stumbled across We-make-money-not-art.com, the blog of Régine
Debatty -- born Belgian, but working in Italy.
She does not mention Iraq, Bush, executions, elections or snow. Instead she
goes to an exhibit in Turin called Strangely
Familiar. Unusual Objects for Everyday Life. Here, among other objects,
she meets Sfera the alarm clock.
Hayat
Benchenaa (with Garikoitz Iruretagoiena) designed a hanging radio alarm
clock that reminds me of my mother: lovely but merciless.
In the evening, after you've set the alarm, the glowing Sfera gradually
dims and the music fades as you drift off to sleep. When the alarm chimes
in the morning, you must reach up and tap the Sfera to silence it. Which
triggers the snooze function and makes the alarm rise higher. As it slowly
rises away from your reach, you must stretch higher each time to gain another
ten minutes of snooze.
When Sfera finally reaches the ceiling, you have no option but to get up
and drag it back down to your bed - an action which switches off the alarm.
Also found: The
table that cooks
For the Electrolux Appliances
for the Future competition in November, St. Martins College of Art
and Design (UK) created the "2015" cooking table. A series of
electronic grids are inset within its walnut wood top to allow food mixers,
laptops or any other appliances to be powered simply by being placed on
the surface, like rechargeable toothbrushes. No power sources nor cords
are needed.
And Objects
that refuse to interact with their users. Intentionally.
Roger
Ibars' Self-made
objects have lost any interest in interacting with the users and derive
pleasure from themselves. Devices interact with their own functions: an
alarm clock wakes up itself before waking up you, a selfish keyboard removes
all the keys except the ones that tells you its name (qwerty) and a kitchen
scale turns itself over and enjoys its own weight. ...
Link
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Endangered
gizmos: The Electronic Frontier Foundation makes the point that
some of our favorite toys and tools -- such as open WiFi access points,
CD burners and next-gen TiVos-- may join the Napsters of the world if we
don't "tdefend fair use and preserve the environment for innovation."
Link
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Times
may charge fee on Web site: Not soon, but Newsday reports,
Speaking to stock analysts, chief financial officer Leonard Forman said
that Nytimes.com would not soon join Wsj.com, the site of the Wall Street
Journal, in charging an access fee.
The Journal's site has signed up more than 700,000 subscribers since introducing
fees in 1996. Most papers' sites, including Newsday.com, do not charge.
The Journal's site has signed up more than 700,000 subscribers since introducing
fees in 1996. Most papers' sites, including Newsday.com, do not charge.
"We like 30 percent advertising-revenue growth," Forman said,
referring to nytimes.com's performance last year. "And charging for
the site just across the board would certainly have a negative impact on
that."
Still, the Times may be considering charging for certain online offerings.
A survey sent yesterday to some registered users stated that Nytimes.com
plans to charge people who don't subscribe to the print edition for some
content in the future. The survey outlined pricing options from $13.49 to
$15.99 a month for full access. Daily access might be obtained for $1 a day.
I was not among the surveyed, but no, I won't pay for the New York Times online.
It's only partially about the money. I have made donations to sites I value
-- including a couple of struggling bloggers -- but I won't help the Times
break the Web.
Remember when news sites were on Prodigy? If you're not on the Web you don't
exist. Even if you're the Times.
Related: Dave,
meet John L. Hess. Former newsman Tom
Matrullo reveals a Timesman with a blog.
Link
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Feedback: "Whatever happened to the almighty dollar?" Peter
Plimpton of Olympia, Wash., grew up in Rhode Island, but left in 1980. Today
he found this blog, and emailed in response to yesterday's link to Central
bankers shifting funds from US to eurozone,
That the Euro folk are getting disenchanted with the dollar is a wonderful
thing. Perhaps the Bush team will realize that the economic health of the
country is being harmed by this war. Or put it another way, perhaps they
will finally see the elephant!
I like your column.
Thanks, Peter. This is snow week here, not really the time to get nostalgic
about winter unless you're a kid, making memories on a sled.
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Seymour
Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult": The reporter
who broke the stories of the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison
torture spoke of those times recently, after discussion of the current
situation in Washington, at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York.
The speech was broadcast this morning on Democracy Now, a liberal radio show
hosted by Amy Goodman. Text transcript and audio at the headline link. I was
going to snip from it, but it's worth reading the whole thing.
Link
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2:05 p.m
Coach
denies
Big Ben played with broken toes: AP again,
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was exaggerating
when he said he broke two toes on his right foot during the AFC championship
game, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher said Wednesday.
Roethlisberger told reporters Tuesday he wore down physically during the
lengthy NFL season and broke two toes while scrambling late in the first
half of the 41-27 loss to the New England Patriots.
Cowher seemed irritated Roethlisberger would go public with such a claim,
that, in effect, suggested the Steelers gambled with the NFL Offensive Rookie
of the Year's health by playing him when he was hurt.
"We are unaware of any problems with his toes, OK?" Cowher said.
Roethlisberger didn't specify which toes were broken and wasn't walking
with an apparent limp Monday or Tuesday.
"Ben does not have broken toes," Cowher said, talking publicly
for the first time since Sunday night, when the Steelers lost an AFC title
game for the fourth time in 11 seasons. "At the end of the first half,
while scrambling, he aggravated some toes he has broken in the past, in high
school and college. He mentioned something to Ryan Grove, our assistant trainer,
and said he may have broke his toe. When he came off, he said he was fine,
and he went back out in the second half and didn't say anything to anybody
else for the rest of the game."
Cowher said the injury was never mentioned during his meeting with Roethlisberger
on Monday and nothing showed up during the rookie's physical exam Tuesday.
"I talked to Ben last night, and got it straight from his mouth, and
that's that," Cowher said. "He never broke his toes this season.
... Nothing more will be done with it; it's nothing that rest won't cure.
It's sore." ...
Link
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10:35 a.m.
Brady played with flu, Roethlisberger broke two toes,
T. O.'s doctor nixes start:
-- Brady shook off a fever of 103 degrees, chills and a sore throat to guide
the Patriots past the Steelers in Sunday's American Football Conference championship
game, Sports Illustrated magazine reports in this week's edition. (Reuters)
The magazine said Brady, twice the Super Bowl most valuable player, was
bed-ridden in his hotel room in Pittsburgh the night before the game, receiving
intravenous fluids in his left (non-throwing) arm and concerned he might
not play.
-- (Roethlisberger) came away from his only loss as a starter with two broken
toes on his right foot when "I almost got tackled and kind of fell on
it" near the end of the first half, he said yesterday. (Pittsburgh
Post Gazette)
-- Terrell Owens' doctor said Tuesday he will not give the All-Pro receiver
clearance to play in the Super Bowl.
Owens saw his doctor Tuesday, one day after telling reporters he would play
against the New England Patriots on Feb. 6.... (Chicago
Sun-Times)
Link
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New
Yorker archives: 1978 profile of Johnny Carson by Kenneth Tynan: I
usually let the headline stand, but who'd get a clue to the topic from
'Fifteen Years of the Salto Mortale'?
Link
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January 25, 2005, 6:41 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
Jacksonville:
I think I can...: This town of 750,000 prepares to go to the show
for the first time.AP finds
other Florida cities sniffing:
"Obviously they're going to have a few problems," Tampa's Leonard
Levy said.
"It could be 20 degrees there," Miami's Dick Anderson said.
"People are going to be staying on cruise ships -- how many are going
to be satisfied with that?" Levy said.
"Cruise ships with little bitty rooms," Anderson said....
They even had to dig up an old name -- "the city once known as Cowford."
But Jacksonville is game. The Host
Committee site is where to start if you're actually going.
Jacksonville.com, site of the Florida
Times-Union newspaper, owns
this event. (and lists
it well). Their classified
Super Bowl rentals are even linked on its homepage. One enterprising renter
used the space to point to his eBay listing, where photos can be seen. There
are 51 Super Bowl rentals on
eBay right now, and 79 superbowl
rentals (one word). If you can find a badly misspelled listing, you might
find a bargain.
The federal Dept. of Transportation has issued a warning to fans: Air travelers
going to Super Bowl XXXIX this year between the New England Patriots and the
Philadelphia Eagles should be aware that not all tour packages include a ticket
to the Feb. 6 game in Jacksonville, FL.
Party schedule: Let's not waste the work (The
party’s at Jax) of Sally Quinn of the Pittsburgh Tribune review.
In addition to a scene-setter, a basic list of scheduled concerts, feasts,
jousts and XBox NFL Player Mania, and the traditional "If you go..." info
of a Travel story, she passes on what she can't use: "For information
on Super Bowl housing, transportation, events, booking tee times and entertainment,
visit: www.superbowl.com; www.jacksonvillesuperbowl.com; www.visitjacksonville.com."
Jacksonville lacks hotels, so they're using cruise
ships: Holland America Line's Zaandam, Zuiderdam and Volendam, Carnival
Miracle and Radisson Seven Seas Navigator. More info on this at the Host
Committee site and at JaxPort.
Staying home: Fox Sports spokesman Lou D'Ermilio told Sports Business
News, "We're going to have 12 turf cams embedded in the field for the
Super Bowl. For the World Series we were only able to have two." Sounds
like your couch and mine will be the best seats.
Making it up? I winced when I saw this headline on a USA Today story
about the Patriots: Patriots
all about the rings.
Not
only does the story not mention the Super Bowl rings even once, but, as a nice
Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal story about high school coaches considering the
Patriots role models notes, "The Patriots are more likely to wear lettermen's
jackets than their Super Bowl rings." (That story, published Thursday
and headlined, Teaching
young teams, requires free registration to read.)
But maybe it's Pittsburgh that's all about the rings. A Jan. 13 Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette story went deep on this one (Super
Bowl bling: Companies line up to tackle ring job):
150 rings: That's how many the National Football League will buy for Super
Bowl XXXIX's triumphant team, paying a base price of $5,000 per ring, plus
adjustments for increases in gold and diamond prices as well as tax. ...
Who knew that the league also will buy the other team 150 pieces of jewelry
("a ring, a watch, a medal, etc.") costing up to half as much as
the winners' rings? But then, who's ever wanted a Losing Team Award?
Alas, for Pittsburgh fans, none for the thumb this time (a reference to the
four previous Super Bowl wins of the Steelers).
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Astronomers
Surprised by White House Plan to Scuttle Hubble: Space.com,
The prospect of the White House cutting off funding for any possible mission
to service and save the Hubble
Space Telescope caught the astronomy community largely by surprise Friday.
Scientists who have studied Hubble's science value and the safety and practicality
of servicing missions have concluded it is well worth saving. Congressional
hearings in coming weeks were expected to discuss the options to extend Hubble's
life.
Many astronomers deem such a mission crucial to the ongoing work of studying
the origin and evolution of the universe, while some analysts view the $1
billion or more mission as too costly to be practical.
In a Space News story Friday, sources said the White House will direct NASA
to drop plans for any servicing and instead mount a mission that would safely
de-orbit the telescope. Hubble, expected to run out of batteries or lose
its ability to point properly in the next 2-4 years, will be scuttled into
the ocean under that plan.
A culture that scraps its dreams and visions of the human race in favor of
funding a preemptive war is going backwards.
Related: The
Fight Begins Once Again for Hubble's Life . Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) "issued
a statement late
(on) January 21 in which she vowed to continue advocating an HST servicing
mission."
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Online
Finger Meditation Tool: We kid you not.
Link
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Researchers
Map the Sexual Network of an Entire High School: Ohio State researchers
expected that their 18-month study would show a core group of sexually
active students to whom they could target safe-sex messages. Instead, they
found,
The most striking feature of the network was a single component that connected
52 percent (288) of the romantically involved students at Jefferson. This
means student A had relations with student B, who had relations with student
C and so on, connecting all 288 of these students.
While this component is large, it has numerous short branches and is very
broad – the two most distant individuals are 37 steps apart. (Or to
use a currently popular term, there were 37 degrees of separation between
the two most-distant students.)
“From a student’s perspective, a large chain like this would
boggle the mind,” Moody said. (That's James Moody, co-author of
the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University.) “They
might know that their partner had a previous partner. But they don’t
think about the fact that this partner had a previous partner, who had a
partner, and so on....
...There were 63 simple pairs – two individuals whose only partnership
was with each other.
All told, only 35 percent of the romantically active students (189) were
involved in networks containing three or fewer students. There were very
few components of intermediate size (4 to 15) students.
Researchers were also suprised by the absence of "cycling" -- "situations
in which people have relationships with others close to them on the network."
The lack of cycling seems traceable to rules that adolescents have about
who they will not date. The teens will not date (from a female perspective)
one’s old boyfriend’s current girlfriend’s old boyfriend.
This would be considered taking “seconds” in a relationship.
The conclusion:
Networks such as the one seen in Jefferson High are extremely fragile and
just breaking one link in the chain – any link - will stop that part
of the network from spreading any further. If enough links are broken, the
spread of STDs can be radically limited.
“The students in this network are not unusual. They are just average
students, and not extremely active sexually. So social policies that could
help some of them protect themselves from STDs could break a lot of these
chains that can lead to the spread of disease.”
Link
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Google
Raises Word Limit to 32: Searches can become ever more pinpoint.
I hadn't realized the limit had been 10, but some complicated plusses and
minuses didn't seem operative.
I showed a reporter Google's advanced
search page last week. If you, like her, aren't aware of it, it can save
you some headbanging. Especially useful: you may search just one domain (i.e.
dot.gov) or restrict your results to English-language pages. Useless: Date
feature is supposed to return only pages updated since a date you supply.
Doesn't work well for me.
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Central
bankers shifting funds from US to eurozone: AFP reported yesterday,
LONDON (AFP) - Central banks have shifted reserves towards the eurozone
in a move that could make it harder for President George W. Bush to finance
the record US current account deficit.
"The US cannot take support for the dollar for granted," the Financial
Times (FT) quoted Nick Carver, one of the authors of a study by Central Banking
Publications that surveyed 65 central bankers who were not identified.
According to the study, 70 percent of those questioned said they had increased
euro-denominated reserves, and the report sent Europe's single currency higher
against its US counterpart.
The euro was being traded at 1.3086 dollars, up from 1.3044 late on Friday
in New York.
Most of the central bank directors "thought eurozone money and debt
markets were as attractive a destination for investment as the US",
the report said.
Together, the 65 bank chiefs control assets worth 1.7 trillion dollars, "and
the results showed a marked change in attitude over the past two years," it
added....
...US officials would have to raise interest rates if foreign investment
decreased significantly, dampening economic growth.
Whatever happened to the almighty dollar?
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