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 Monday, August 5, 2002
A telling comment from Glenn Reynolds last night, and now I have a clue what a warblogger is. I may try to write a new definition. It'll probably involve the words blow and hard, and examples from playgrounds. Dangerous stuff. Watch out for the humiliation, that's where holocausts come from. [Scripting News]
I agree with Dave here. Humiliation is not the way. Humiliation of Germany after WWI led to WWII. I read Instapundit to get the views of those who see the US as an Empire. In their view, we are right, we are strong and we should demonstrate that. In my view, that path does not lead to glory. It leads to Gallipoli, to the Crimea, to countless loss of the lives of our own people with little true effect on the world. It is the twin promises of capitalism and democracy that changed the world. We need to use these tools, not those of the Romans and British empires before us.
I need to re-read Poul Anderson's work. He wrote of the rise and fall of a civilization, one that started with merchant capitalists, like Nicholas van Rijn, and ended with the dimming twilight of empire, in the Flandry series. I hope we chart a different path. 11:51:49 PM 
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I'll have to look at this more in depth. I still have not figured out what a chaord is. 11:12:47 PM
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What are the goals of a CMS?. Quote: "This article outlines some of the common business goals of a CMS. Use this list as the starting point when identifying goals tailored to your business." [Serious Instructional Technology]
A classic article but I tend to mistruct projects that start off more concerned about proper branding of the corproate intranet than the smooth flow of information and knowledge. Many CMS do not really align well with transparency and require the end user to adapt their way of doing things, rather than adapt to the user. 10:57:55 PM
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Managing intranet projects. Every month I write a Behind the Firewall column for the US magazine EContent. At 1500 words it is longenough... [Intranet Focus Blog]
Some excellent points about effectively gettinga content management program up and running in a compnay. I would add that in my experience, the failure of many of these comes from forcing the use of standards that do not fit the criteria of the user. It may be best for the project manager and vendor but does not fit the way people think. Important materials never get put into the system because things have changed since implementation. 10:51:32 PM
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Computational geneticists revisit a mystery in evolution. Why, biologists first asked 60 years ago, do members of the same species have such similar traits, or phenotypes, despite the fact that they have such diverse genes, or genotypes? They couldn't fully explore that question until now - when, aided by computers, they can sift through mountains of experimental data. In the June 24 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stanford researchers provide a surprisingly simple answer. Stanford University, Paul G. Allen Foundation, National Institutes of Health [EurekAlert - Biology]
I'll have to check this paper out. It could have some important consequences. Complex networks, like the internet, have tremendous emergent properties that serve to protect them from change -but not by hiding the effects of change. By being adaptive. Genetic buffering, the topic of a column I hope to have up soon, is one way to create genotypic variation without changing phenotype. This paper may open other paths. 10:43:25 PM
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Physical map of mouse genome now available. A physical map of the genetic makeup of a mouse--the mouse genome--is 98 percent complete and is being released online by the journal Nature. Researchers at the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis played a major role in the international effort, as they did in the sequencing and mapping of the human genome. Wellcome Trust, National Institutes of Health [EurekAlert - Biology]
A physical map always makes a genetic map much more useful. This will also be very helpful with the continuing examination of the human genome. 10:35:49 PM
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Netting the NET: An anorexia nervosa gene is caught!. Researchers in Sydney, Australia, have just discovered a gene variant that contributes to the cause of anorexia nervosa in a large group of sufferers. The multi-centre study was led by scientist Ruth Urwin and child psychiatrist Kenneth Nunn at The Children's Hospital at Westmead to clarify the genetic background of anorexia nervosa. They discovered an unknown part of the norepinephrine transporter (NET) gene. While exploring their finding they detected the gene variant. [EurekAlert - Biology]
Not the best written press release but the possibility that anorexia is due to an altered promoter and not a gene itself is pretty interesting. If altered levels of the NET protein are responsible, it continues the story that it is not JUST the genes that are important but the amount of them, which can be influenced by the environment. 10:31:16 PM
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We Need to Support Democratization in the Middle East. Tom Friedman hits another one out of the park. I think he's absolutely right: we are the good guys, and good guys act like good guys. I don't think the Bush administration understands this... Bush's Shame Watching the pathetic, mealy-mouthed response of President Bush and his State Department to Egypt's decision to sentence the leading Egyptian democracy advocate to seven years in prison leaves one wondering whether the whole Bush foreign policy team isn't just a big bunch of... [Semi-Daily Journal]
It is articles like this that make me so proud to live in America. Journalists in many countries would be arrested for writing this. In fact, the Egyptians just imprisoned someone for doing similar things. It has always been a truism that we let our friends get away with things we condemn in others. That is realpolitik but at least we can complain about it as loud as we want. What a great country, that is only made greater by allowing dissent. It will be interesting to see what actions result from this dissent.
Many think we are an Empire and had better start acting like it. I think Americans need to find a new and better way. We are smart enough and creative enough to do it. Some things stay the same but I also believe that novelty inhabits this world. We need to seize change and ride it to a brand new conclusion. Old ways will not fix things. The person and the country that figures this out will probably rule the world. I sure hope it is us. 10:24:07 PM
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Skulls Found in Africa and in Europe Challenge Theories of Human Origins. Scientists are speaking about the potential of two ancient skulls to reveal crucial insights in the evidence-disadvantaged field of human evolution. By John Noble Wilford. [New York Times: Science]
The problem with trying to understand hominid evolution is that primates do not spend a lot of time near areas where fossilization is likely. They tend to be jungle or savannah animals, not near a source of water where their bones could be fossilized. This problem hampers much of paleontology, but we are constantly finding novel ways to find the unfindable ;-) 10:11:53 PM
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Teeth and Millstones. This week's question: When wheat was ground with millstones, did grit end up in the flour and damage the teeth? By C. Claiborne Ray. [New York Times: Science]
Anyone who thinks that ancient peoples had no dental problems needs to read this. Maybe no cavities but sand and grit in everything caused tremendous problems with their teeth. 10:07:48 PM
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Deadly or Dull? Uproar Over a Microbe. New York Times Aug 5 2002 7:46PM ET [Moreover - moreover...]
When some scientists are not able to reproduce your work, you should not state that this is because they are not working with the proper organism, and that only you have the right one.Saying that you have to protect your graduate students. This all started in 1988. It is perfectly proper to hold onto materials while you get a good start on the research. I have known scientists who copy slides presented at meetings, run home, reproduce the work and publish quickly to gain some of the credit. But, when others are not able to proceed with work in the field, and even produce contradictory results, you owe it to science to exchange materials and have a bake-off. The truth is there and they owe it to us to display it. Egos get in the way of science so much. But, the wonderful thing about science is that it is self-correcting. They will find the truth. It is just taking longer than it should. 9:59:29 PM
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At least I was sleeping a little later on the weekends. Maybe it is because I can make my first claims for unemployment today. SHould be fun. 6:23:28 AM
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