By Sheila
Lennon
Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Fair and balanced, too!
February 4, 2005, 6:29 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
Free Eyes
on the Prize by screening it Feb. 8: Worcester arts organization
Downhill Battle is organizing screenings of
the award-winning documentary Eyes
on the Prize: Part
I: Awakenings 1954-1956 on Tuesday, Feb. 8 throughout the world.
(As of Friday afternoon, 43 screenings are scheduled.)
Eyes
on the Prize is the most renowned civil rights documentary of all
time; for many people, it is how they first learned about the Civil Rights
Movement (more
about the film). But this film has not been available on video or television
for the past 10 years simply because of expired copyright licenses. Join
us in building a new mass audience for this film: organize or attend a
screening in your city, town, school or home on February 8th.
Originally, Downhill Battle hoped to spread the film through BitTorrent file-sharing
(Wired: Eyes
on the Prize Hits P2P ) but lawyers intervened. You must borrow it from
the library.
Downhill
Battle explains the copyright problem,
So why has Eyes on the Prize been unavailable for the past 10 years? Copyright
restrictions. For example, the film includes footage of a group of people
singing "Happy Birthday" to Martin Luther King. Incredibly, "Happy
Birthday" is under copyright and some rights holders believe that they
should be given licensing fees if the song appears in any film, even a documentary....Eyes
on the Prize is made up of news footage, photographs, songs and lyrics from
the Civil Rights Movement that are tangled up in a web of licensing restrictions.
Many of these licenses had expired by 1995 and the film's production company,
Blackside, could not afford the exorbitant costs of renewing them. "Eyes
on the Prize" has been unavailable to the public ever since.
Here's a link to copies
on R.I. library shelves. If you organize a local screening, let Downhill
Battle know, and let me
know. I'll blog any local screenings I hear about.
Link
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Scripps
Howard's Celebrity Super Bowl Poll: Truly weird. For example,
WILLIAM SHATNER, actor, "Boston Legal": New England, 35-22. I
saw a humming bird outside my window this morning and that was the key to
my prediction.
YOGI BERRA, Hall of Famer, New York Yankees. The Eagles, because they haven't
won in so long, they're kind of like the Red Sox.
AL ROKER, TV host, NBC's "Today" and Food Network's "Roker
on the Road" : Philadelphia. I like the cheesesteaks. 37-12.
KEITH OLBERMANN, TV host, MSNBC: I am forecasting a 0-0 tie called off after
five overtimes due to exhaustion. I know this is an unlikely outcome, but
consider my reputation if I am proved correct.
SCOTT ADAMS, Dilbert cartoonist: New England because no patriot has ever
soiled my windshield whereas I'm pretty sure that an eagle or two has intentionally
targeted me. 23-9.
STEVE SCHIRRIPA, actor, "The Sopranos": Philly, 17-14. Because
I'll shoot myself if New England wins again.
There are about 100 of these.
Link
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Happy
Birthday, Bob Marley: The late reggae giant would have turned 60
Sunday, and a giant concert called Africa
Unite is planned in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in his honor starring three
of his children, including Ziggy, the best known, Quincy Jones, Baaba Maal,
Angelique Kidjo and Youssou N’Dour. Then the celebration will move
to Shashemene, about 150 miles south, on land left to Rastafarians by late
Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie.
Browsing around:
International
Reggae Links
Photos
of Shashemene
The Jamaican
RASTAFARIAN Development Community (JRDC) has a rootsy
homepage.
BBC: Marley's
fans gather in Ethiopia
Ethiopia's
Rastas See the 'End Times'
Link
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OneBag.com:
The art and science of traveling light.
Link
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Fly
into space free: After Volvo's third-quarter Super Bowl ad runs,
you can sign up here for
a chance to to win a free seat on Richard Branson's Virgin
Galactic spacecraft's premier flight.
It will be a random drawing. The only restrictions are:
- Pass a physical
- US citizen
- 18 and older
- Nontransferable
Link
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Two additions to Garden Blogs:
Can You Dig
it? Adventures in Organic Gardening is the latest blog from Tamara
Galbraith, who had been blogging at Talking
Dirty: A Gardening Journal (which we described as "A chatty, entertaining
gardening journal from Dallas, Texas."). Tamara also writes an Organic
Gardening Column at Suite101.com. We'd consider adopting her if her
experience weren't so alien to New England gardeners: "It's unnerving,
really. I feel so...unappreciative of the fact that I live and garden in
zone 7B (or 8a, depending on which map you use). I mean, after all, I've
already started tomato seeds. Our last freeze date is only six weeks away.
What the heck am I griping about?"
Man
v Tree: Richard Harries, a tree-care pro in Llandyrnog, Denbigh,
Denbighshire, United Kingdom (i.e. Wales), uses his blog to link to stories
and sites I would never find, such as The
Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona, and
to useful stories -- Building
can be deadly for trees on a wooded lot. I'm glad he found me.
Link
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1:49 p.m
.
George
Herbert Walker Bush is 'Deep Throat,' says Deep Truth author: Jim
Romenesko, blogger of inside-media details, reports,
"Deep Truth" author Adrian Havill explains in a Romenesko letter
why George H.W. Bush would have it out for Richard Nixon and talk to Woodstein. "When
I presented this theory to Len Garment, a former Nixon aide he demurred,
saying that Bush wasn't the type of daredevil to skulk around in underground
garages," writes Havill. "Perhaps, but then who would have figured
the former President to go skydiving in his eighties."
The news has made Romenesko's Letters page unreachable, so I can't offer more.
Keep trying the link.
Updated 1:49 p.m. Finally, I got to the page.
2/4/2005 11:14:55 AM
From ADRIAN HAVILL: In my 1993 biography of Woodward and Bernstein, "Deep
Truth," I argued that Deep Throat had to be a composite portrayal.
No more. Yesterday's unveiling of Woodstein's notes at the University of
Texas
is an appropriate time to let Poynter's reader know -- based on recent
events and my own research at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland
--
who I believe DT is and why. He's not one of the nearly 100 suspects who've
already
been named -- either by the University of Illinois investigative team or
dozens of other Watergate scholars and experts.
Certainly nearly everyone who reads Poynter was mystified when George W. Bush
-- a President who arguably hates the press -- gave Bob Woodward seven hours
of interviews which became the core of two best-selling and largely laudatory
books. He also urged his cabinet to cooperate with Woodward and many did.
The explanation: George Herbert Walker Bush, the president's father, is Deep
Throat.
Historians will immediately point out that Bush, the elder, wasn't in
Washington between 1971 and 1973 but lived at the Waldorf-Astoria in New
York where he
was ambassador to the United Nations. Okay. But my examination of White
House records at the National Archives show Bush attending many Washington
state
dinners and weekly cabinet meetings during that period. More importantly,
he was in Washington nearly every weekend where he owned a house and where
his
son, Neil, attended St. Alban's prep school during the week. Seven of the
eight meetings between Deep Throat and Woodward that are chronicled in "All
The President's Men" take place on a weekend.
Did Bush have motivation? You bet. It was Richard Nixon who urged Bush to
leave a safe seat in Congress, hinting there would be a position as assistant
Secretary of the Treasury waiting for him if he failed to win a Senate seat
held by Ralph Yarborough. When Bush lost, Nixon reneged and asked him to take
the U.N. slot instead but teased him by hinting he would be the replacement
for Spiro Agnew in 1972. Instead, he was given the thankless task of heading
the Republican National Committee in 1973. The elder Bush got his revenge in
the end, by standing up at a cabinet meeting in August of 1974 and becoming
the first person in Nixon's inner circle to ask the President to resign....
There's more, all of it as circumstantial as Rabbi
Baruch Korff, dying in Providence in 1995 of pancreatic cancer, saying
Diane Sawyer was Deep
Throat. (Sawyer worked as an assistant to presidential press secretary Ron
Ziegler during the Watergate years.)
Earlier:
Havill,
author of the 1993 book, Deep
Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, at that time thought
Deep Throat was a composite.
From 1971 to 1973, George H.W. Bush was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Then, from 1972 until 1973, he was Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
In September 1974, a month after Richard M. Nixon resigned, Bush became Ambassador
to China. He became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on January
30, 1976, so named by President Gerald R. Ford.
Link
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On
the road with Dylan: The Independent (UK) publishes excerpts from
playright Sam Shepard's The
Rolling Thunder Logbook. (It's been republished with a new preface
by Shepard and a new foreword by T-Bone Burnett.)
Thirty years ago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard travelled
with Bob Dylan and friends across America on the Rolling Thunder Revue. Here
are exclusive extracts from his road diary
It's smart observation by a superb writer. Here's a bit about a performance
at the Seacrest Hotel in Falmouth, Mass., full of old ladies, where he
has followed poet Allan Ginsberg, Joan Baez and a virtuoso
child violinist:
Dylan moves up on the platform to the rickety old upright piano used for
years for the sole purpose of producing middle-class pablum Big Band sounds
of the 30s and 40s. He sits, stabs his bony fingers into the ivory, and begins
a pounding version of "Simple Twist of Fate". Here is where it's
at. The Master Arsonist. The place is smoking within five minutes. The ladies
are jumping and twitching deep within their corsets. The whole piano is shaking
and seems on the verge of jumping right off the wooden platforms. Dylan's
cowboy heel is driving a hole through the floor. Roger McGuinn appears with
guitar, Neuwirth, the whole band joins into it until every molecule of air
in the place is bursting. This is Dylan's true magic. Leave aside his lyrical
genius and just watch this transformation of energy he carries. A few minutes
ago the place was thick with tension and embarrassment, and now he's blown
the top right off it, infused the room with a high feeling of life-giving
excitement. It's not the energy that drives people off the deep end but the
kind that brings courage and hope and above all life pounding into the foreground.
If he can do it here, in the dead of Winter, at an off-season resort full
of menopause, it's no wonder he can rock the nation.
Link
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Historical
antecedents of iPod? Reader Adam Crane, formerly of Matunuck,
now a Minnesotan who vacations in Matunuck, responds to yesterday's item
about
the upcoming computer history auction:
Hey, am I the only one that thinks Jacob Leupold’s “Theatrum
arithmetico geometricum” (2/3/2005) looks like an early version of
the iPod? Is this where Apple has been getting their inspiration?
Scroll down to compare the iPod photo at right to the 1727 device.
Link
to this item | Comment
February 3, 2005, 6:41 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
The
history of computing to go on the block at Christie's: The Origins
of Cyberspace: A Library on the History of Computing, Networking & Telecommunications
will be auctioned Feb. 23.
LEUPOLD, Jacob (1674-1727).
Theatrum arithmetico geometricum,
das ist: Schau-Platz der Rechen- und Mess-Kunst. . . .
Leipzig: Christoph Zunkel, 1727.
Estimate 3,000 - 4,000 U.S. dollars
From the catalogue, it looks to be a bookish auction.
Link
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How
to cut... The link leads to an index of vegetables and fruits you
might want to cut, with buttons for left- and right-hand instructions.
This gray page bursts into large color drawings when you choose a hand.
The carrot at right is just one such illustration.
Link
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Valentine’s
Day cards from past Simpsons episodes: Geoff Stearns at deconcept writes,
Here's the “I Choo Choo Choose You” that Lisa gives Ralph. Well
I thought it was such a good idea that I found a screenshot of the card online
somewhere and traced it in Illustrator. So I’m offering the results
of that for download so you can give your special someone a neat little card
this year.
This was made as an .eps file, which many of you may not be able to convert,
so I converted it to a jpg. Click the small image at right to go to a larger,
printable one. Happy Valentine's Day.
Link
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WarTunine: "Wardrive
using your WiFi enabled laptop to listen to (download?) other people’s
shared music through iTunes." Scott Moschella's Plastic Bugs gives new
meaning to cruisin' for tunes. ("Wardriving" is driving around to
find open wi-fi access to the Web.)
He also finds a comics blog -- Comics
Curmudgeon -- and a $300 sticker that promises, according to this
Denver Post story, to "significantly increase gas mileage and improve
air quality. They don't say how it works, beyond claiming it sends 'holographic
frequencies into the gas tank and changes the molecular structure of the
gasoline.' "
Link
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Flash
game: Hostile Skies: Engaging fly-shoot-and-bomb moments. Two different
colleagues asked for the URL after seeing it on my screen.
It certainly is addicting.
More games.
Link
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Would you like a Gmail account? Google
Mail is invitation-only, with early users getting invitations to give
to new users. (Very viral way to populate it.)
I have some extras, and I'll give them to readers, first-come, etc. Let me
know if you want one.
Link
to this item | Comment
3:44 p.m.
Sox to beat Yankees again tonight at 6 on TV: Reader
Bill Marsland writes,
NESN is replaying the Fox broadcast of the 4th game of the Red Sox/Yankees
ALCS tonight at 6:00 until 10:00 with additional commentary by the NESN crew.
Here is a link to the schedule for the rest of the ALCS and World series
Seeing (the Red Sox) accomplish the unfathomable turnaround after being
down 3 games to none is still a New England historical event. I remember having
a
skeptical
friend ask me the day after game 4, and obviously before we knew the final
outcome, if I really believed the Sox could pull off what no other baseball
team had ever done. My answer was, Yes, just as much as I believed the Patriots
could win all those games in a row (this was during their streak, remember).
So there is the tie-in to the Superbowl this Sunday.
Remember: Feb. 17: Red Sox reporting date for pitchers, catchers.
Go Patriots!!
Link
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More Super Bowl recipes: Eat
beer! Super Bowl recipes made with what they're drinking
1:03 p.m. I actually sent this in around midnight, but it got lost in
translation, or earlier.
Bloggers quote and comment as chatters match wits: Bloggers
on the left and right quoted
from the early
transcript of President Bush's State of the Union Speech tonight, reacting
and typing in realtime. You may contrast and compare as you like.
About 35 chatters over at Personal
Democracy Forum went for the Free For All channel. (Another dozen or
so chatted in Democratic Leaning. Libertarian_Atheist, the alias of the lone
occupant of Republican Leaning, seemed to be waiting to collar one.) There
were few cheerleaders for Bush -- generally not buying the economics behind
overhauling Social Security or spreading freedom "through force." But
they weren't pleased with the Democratic response, either: Nobody addressed
the deficit. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's eyebrows mesmerized them.
They seemed a crowd in search of a party.
The
typing chatters responded to the speech and to each other with some serious
critique but with many more witty comments, like the gang on Mystery Science
Theater 3000 mocking the bad movies they watch. Even if you were paying attention
the threads are hard to follow. I've pared off parallel conversations to show
you what the chat looked like. It's no coincidence they noticed the parallel
to MST3K as well:
[22:30] <Micah> ahh,
now i've thought it would be fun to watch jon stewart and do this backchannel
at the same time
[22:30] <lisa_williams> what
would be the best is a sort of MSt3k meets SOTU
[22:30] <liza> it's
not time yet
[22:30] <liza> 11pm
[22:30] <Dupin> just
get him podcasting
[22:30] User
grump leaves the room Free For All.
[22:30] <lisa_williams> and
you could have any bloggers you want as the silhouettes heckling the show.
This search
on "state of the union" at Technorati.com will display the
speech's ripples through the blogosphere.
Link
to this item | Comment
Participants
Would Forfeit Part of Accounts' Profits: Washington Post. I
didn't realize this was the nut of the plan:
The plan is more complicated. Under the proposal, workers could invest
as much as 4 percent of their wages subject to Social Security taxation in
a limited assortment of stock, bond and mixed-investment funds. But the government
would keep and administer that money. Upon retirement, workers would then
be given any money that exceeded inflation-adjusted gains over 3 percent.
That money would augment a guaranteed Social Security benefit that would
be reduced by a still-undetermined amount from the currently promised benefit....
If a worker sets aside $1,000 a year for 40 years, and earns 4 percent annually
on investments, the account would grow to $99,800 in today's dollars, but
the government would keep $78,700 -- or about 80 percent of the account.
The remainder,
$21,100, would be the worker's.
The money you set aside is not yours -- it's what you would have given to
Social Security. If you can invest it better, you pay back the principal
of your loaned money and "any money that exceeded inflation-adjusted gains
over 3 percent."
But since there will only be a few choices of funds where you can invest
this money, you're not going to break new ground with a hot killer stock.
You're going to find, as most of us have with our 401k choices, that you
have no choice to ride the market up and down. If it's down when it's your
time to retire, tough.
So older folks, like me, will benefit from the new influx of younger people's
money in the stock market, as our 401ks will probably rise from their new
buying. Wall Street will smile. But younger people will probably get less
when they retire
than
they
expect
or are promised.
Christ Matthews told a story last night about a woman who said she wouldn't
vote for Barry Goldwater because she had heard he was going to take away
her TV.
"No," she was told, "he wants to end TVA (the Tennessee Valley Authority)."
"I'm not taking any chances," was the jist
of her response. Don't mess with it.
The President last night said that workers who are now 55 would see no changes
to their benefits, a likely attempt to keep the granny hordes from storming
the White House. These grannies are mommies too, and they don't want to imagine
their kids and grandkids struggling in old age either. These grannies were
raised on tales of the depression and, like me, had relatives who thanked
FDR for their peace of mind as they looked ahead to a time when they no longer
had a paycheck.
The primary motivation here is not to ensure old people a comfortable old
age. It's an "ownership society" without much of a safety net for those who
aren't in the alpha end of the pack.
Related: Social
Security Formula Weighed. Also WP. With chart.
Link
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February 2, 2005, 4:00 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
State
of the Union BackChannel Chat, tonight: Micah Sifry at Personal
Democracy
Forum writes,
It's one thing to talk about how new technologies are changing politics,
and it's another thing to actually experience that change. With that spirit
in mind, we at Personal Democracy
Forum are hosting an open online backchannel during President Bush's
State of the Union speech and the Democratic response tonight, for anyone
who would like to join in.
It's an experiment in creating a virtual conference around a real-time political
event, and, we hope, a nifty way for PDF subscribers and friends to discover
a new tool for enhancing community conversations. Feel free to invite other
people who you think would be interested.
We will be using "A Really Simple Chat" (ARSC), the simplest way we know
of to do group chats. Unlike other chat tools, ARSC is a program that lets
anybody with a Web browser -- any browser -- join in a discussion and see
what other members of the group are typing.
To join in, anytime after 8:30pm (Eastern) go to http://fwiki.com/pdf,
pick a nickname for yourself, and enter any password you like. It's easy
to add your own message; simply type it and hit "enter" to send your message
to the group. The "help" menu offers additional tips.
You will see a choice of three chats to enter: "Democratic-leaning," "Republican-leaning" and "Free
for all." We've created those three rooms to allow people to self-select
what kind of conversation they'd like to be part of. Please respect the other
participants in the room; disruptive or obscene posters will not be tolerated.
...
via Doc
Link
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February 1, 2005, 7:35 p.m.
The
Quest For Alfred E. Neuman: (pdf) The
folks at Metafilter gather all the pieces of this story.
In this memoir, Carl
Djerassi, Stanford University, California, describes his encounters
with the grinning face of Alfred E. Neuman, mascot of MAD magazine. For
Djerassi, the face recalls anti-Semitic posters seen in his European neighborhood
in the days prior to World War II. He discusses his personal inquiry into
the origins of Alfred E. Neuman -- an attempt to reconcile the comic-book
face with the troubling images of his youth.
The face I’d remembered -- the face that had remained with me for
decades and had brought me to MAD’s New York office -- first surfaced
in MAD in November 1955...
It took until the December 1956 issue before the likeness of Alfred E. Neuman
-- tbe famous Norman Mingo portrait apparently familiar to all Americans
but me -- filled the cover in lonely splendor. He was featured as a write-in
candidate for President under the slogan “What -- Me
Worry?”
I was totally perplexed by the incompatibility between these facts and my
memory until the first glimmer of vindication arose. An early Letters to
the Editor section, an amusing collection of feisty and succinct missives,
contained no less than eleven different images of Alfred alias who knows
who, sent in by readers claiming to have known the ur-Alfred. In three pictures,
the hair was actually slicked down...
These
letters and many other fascinating exhibits were in a huge binder containing
background material from a copyright suit that had been filed against MAD
in the 1950s. I found nyself rooting for MAD—my belated and, by now,
favorite introduction to American comics. Therefore I was relieved to find
that the magazine had won by demonstrating an abundance of prior art with
that face and with legends such as “Me worry?” or “Da-a-h..
.Me worry?” There were references to a publication of that face by
Gertrude Breton Park of Los Angeles around 1914; to a 1936 advertisement
from Brotman Dental Lab in Winnipeg; to a somewhat corny book, Hall of Fame,
published in 1943 in Toronto by one J. J. Carrick. There was no question
that at least in terms of chronology that face existed when I was a teenager
in the Midwest....
Readers offered more Alfred links --
and a copy of the 1908 Antikamnia Calendar with a similar mug is for
sale on eBay right now.
Carl Djerassi 's Wikipedia entry:
(born October 29, 1923 in Vienna,
Austria), is a chemist and playwright best
known for his contribution to the development of the oral
contraceptive pill (OCP).
Dr. Djerassi studied at Kenyon
College (B.A., 1942) and the University
of Wisconsin (Ph.D.,
1945). Since 1959, Djerassi has been a professor of chemistry at Stanford
University.
Link
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Volunteering
Opportunities in West Africa at Geekcorps: These are modestly
paid positions, like the Peace Corps:
The average Geekcorps volunteer assignment is three to four months. Although
we encourage volunteers and their employers to contribute if possible, we
take care of all volunteer expenses: air travel, inoculations, lodging and
a modest per diem. Long term programs, such as Geekcorps Ghana, benefit from
the efforts of a local country director and support staff. Smaller programs
rely on the support of the US-based staff. In all cases, we strive to balance
the needs of partner businesses with cross-cultural exposure for our volunteers.
The projects are in Mali, Ghana and Senegal. Mali is inland, and very hot.
Should you go to Senegal, Dakar, on the coast, is relatively cool and modern.
French fluency is required for Mali and Senegal, but years ago, after living
in Gambia, I spoke fluent Woloff, which is also spoken in Senegal. That would
probably have been an acceptable substitute.
I didn't have the geek chops, though. Still don't.
Link
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Fat
Car/2001, Atelier Erwin Wurm
via Burp
Blogger
Andrew Sullivan calls it quits: As a daily blogger, anyway. A book,
travel (and probably more TV appearances) beckon the gay conservative.
...It's not so much the time as the mindset. The ability to
keep on top of almost everything on a daily and hourly basis just isn't compatible
with the time and space to mull over some difficult issues in a leisurely
and deliberate manner. Others might be able to do it. But I've tried and
failed....
Link
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Paper
trail that led the press in wrong direction: The Times (U.K.):
AHEM.
We have a confession to make. We have, not to beat about the bush, been had.
If you have read, in this and other newspapers in recent days, an uncomplimentary
analysis of Tony Blair’s character based on doodles from his notepad
at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, erase it at once from your
memory. We, along with other titles of varying respectability, may have got
the wrong man.
Graphologists enjoyed their most lucrative day’s work in years when
a pad of scribbles was left behind on the platform after a press conference
given by Mr Blair, Bill Gates, the Microsoft tycoon, and Bono, the Irish
rock star.
From a few idle doodles, the experts were able to offer a thorough assessment
of Mr Blair as an aggressive, unstable man under enormous pressure, struggling
to keep his irritability under control. We do not profess to know how they
do it, but we do know that Downing Street insisted yesterday that the scribblings
were not the work of Mr Blair at all, but of Mr Gates....
The original story: Davos
doodles seem to show writing's on the wall for Tony) begins,
AS WORLD leaders discussed international aid for Africa, Tony
Blair scribbled notes and doodled. Unfortunately for him, after the World
Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, his notes fell into the hands of a
Emma Bache, a graphologist.
Her verdict: the Prime Minister’s surprisingly chaotic script indicates
an aggressive, unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure.
Mrs Bache, who regularly carries out employee assessments for firms such
as Barings, said: “I analysed his writing 18 months ago and there are
marked differences. Then, his writing was much more fluid indicating that
he felt more easy-come-easy-go. The ticks, such as the upward stroke on the ‘t’ in
taxes, were not so angular.
“He is a lot more assertive and aggressive than in recent years because
there are lots of very angular strokes. There is a lack of curves and a lot
of irritability which he is struggling to keep under control.
“There is also a lot of retracing of the strokes, which I have never
seen him do before. He is feeling very much under pressure so an obsessive-compulsive
nature is coming out. The pressure he is putting on the pen is also quite
heavy, which is an indication of stress and tension.” Mr Blair may
have been feeling some antipathy towards those at the meeting, including
the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and the rock star Bono, who are both
considerably richer than him, she added. ...
via Doc Searls
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Google
Is Now A Domain Registrar: at Netcraft,
Google is now an ICANN-accredited registrar of domain names,
providing it with yet another potential line of expansion. The fast-growing
search provider is approved to sell names in seven top-level domains (TLDs)
including .com, .net, .org, .biz., info, .name and .pro....
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January 31, 2005, 7:56 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
Useful
Dead Technologies: At Kuroshin,
Listed here are some technologies that were very useful, but have become
not more useful but less; or died off completely. These are good and useful
technologies that have been superceded by less useful and usually very annoying
technologies.
These include steel gears, properly constructed sandwiches, flat cotton shoelaces,
T-shirts that fit, volume control knobs, and more, each with little essays
praising their virtues.
But what was really exciting for me was an answer to a question a few of us
were discussing in last week's deep freeze: Why my circa 1910 furnace still
works when the power goes out. Nobody else's does.The answer is ...
Gravity furnaces with power piles
...The gravity furnace also had what was called a "power
pile." You can still get replacement power piles (I had one replaced
in that house), but no new furnace has one.
A power pile is a little tube about an inch diameter and maybe
an inch and a half long. It looks like a small can capacitor. It sits in
the furnace's pilot light and generates electricity for the thermostat from
the pilot's heat.
The electricity failed it one cold winter night when we lived
there. We were blissfully unaware of the fact, as the furnace did not need
the city's electrical supply!
Unfortunately, I didn't have a gas alarm clock and was late
to work.
A power pile couldn't work in today's furnaces, as today's
furnaces have no pilot lights, instead relying on an electric spark.
The new furnaces are cheaper to run - but if the power goes
out, you're going to have to shell out for a motel room.
Don't all trek to my house if your power goes out. Now I know
why I keep resisting a new heating system.
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Revenge
of the Right Brain: Logical and precise, left-brain thinking gave us
the Information Age. Now comes the Conceptual Age - ruled by artistry,
empathy, and emotion. Daniel H. Pink in Wired makes me think the '60s
are just around the corner again.
We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers
to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again -
to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning
makers....
The sorts of abilities that now matter most are fundamentally human attributes.
After all, back on the savannah, our caveperson ancestors weren't plugging
numbers into spreadsheets or debugging code. But they were telling stories,
demonstrating empathy, and designing innovations. These abilities have always
been part of what it means to be human. It's just that after a few generations
in the Information Age, many of our high concept, high touch muscles have
atrophied. The challenge is to work them back into shape.
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The
Artist as Healer: A conversation with Kenzaburo Oe, 1994 Nobel
laureate in literature.
Your son became a composer. Your family -- your wife, your children and
yourself -- in caring for him over time identified his ability to communicate.
Tell us how that came out.
Until my son was four or five years old, he didn't do anything to communicate
with us. We thought that he cannot have any sense of the family. So he looked
very, very isolated -- a pebble in the grass. But one day, he was interested
in the voice of a bird from the radio. So I bought disks of the wild birds
of Japan. I made a tape of fifty specimens of birds -- bird calls. There
are the bird calls and a very flat voice, a woman announcer, says the names
of the birds. "Tada-dada," then: "Nightengale." "Tada-da." "Sparrow." "This
is nightengale; this is sparrow." We continued to listen to that tape
for three years. During those three years, when we played the birds' songs,
my son became very quiet. So it was needed to make him quiet. My wife must
do her work, and I must do my work. So with the bird voices we three lived
on.
In the summer when he was six years old, I went to our mountain house, and
while my wife was cleaning our small house, I was in the small forest with
my son on my shoulders. Nearby there is a small lake. A bird sang, [one of
a pair]. Suddenly a clear, flat voice said, "It is a water rail." Then
I shook. Utter silence in the forest. We were silent for five minutes and
I prayed for something, there on my head. I prayed, "Please, the next
voice of that bird and please next the remarks of my son, if that was not
my phantom or dream." Then after five minutes, the wife of that bird
sang. Then my son said "It's a water rail." Then I returned to
my house with my son and talked to my wife. ...
via wood
s lot
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SAD: Conversation with an informed reader. Late
Friday, I got an email from Steve Hug that read,
Hi...I am a reader of your blog, and thought you might be able
to use this press release from Family Service of Rhode Island.
The press release, about Seasonal Affective Disorder, included
quotes from Karen Cunningham LICSW, senior clinical vice president at Family
Service of Rhode Island, such as,
“What’s known as ‘bright light therapy’ is sometimes
beneficial, or even getting outside in the winter sun for an extended period
of time could help,” she said. “If steps like that do not lift
your mood, antidepressant medications may be needed during the winter.”...
If you work in an office, see if your desk can be located in a place where
there’s sunlight. “That’s what I’ve done,” said
Ms. Cunningham. “And I can tell you from experience that it works!”
I wrote back to Steve,
I always wonder who reads my blog, so it's nice to hear from you.
I'm wondering if there's anything new about SAD -- every weatherman and
health reporter seems to say pretty much the same thing every year, and frankly,
that's not what I do here.
Can you disappear into the Web and emerge unscathed when the days are longer?
If more light doesn't help, can you try Vitamin D rather than becoming a
Prozac head?
I'm casting around for something cool here... Help me out.
And he did:
Maybe staring at a computer screen for a long time reading or writing blogs
would help. It's never been tested as far as I know. But the idea of having
bright light shining into your eyes is the general idea.
As for Vitamin D -- never heard anything about that. Maybe listening to old
Anita Bryant records would help. But I think that would give you a dose of
Vitamin C.
Whether or not you are able to use it, keep up the good work!
Steve
There ya go...
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Everything
in the World about Tree Climbing: There should be a branch of this
everywhere.
Welcome to TCI! We are a worldwide organization of people who love to climb
trees. We do this safely and with utmost care for the trees we climb. We
want the sport of "rope and harness" tree climbing available so
that everyone can experience the joy and wonder of seeing the world from
the height of a treetop!
Recreational tree climbing is no longer just for children. It's for people
of all ages who are young at heart and ready for the pleasure trees can provide.
Why don't you explore our website and experience the adventure with us?!
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Caffeinated
beer.
