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 Saturday, September 7, 2002
In the August 19 issue of The Scientist, Mignon Fo .... In the August 19 issue of The Scientist, Mignon Fogarty and Christine Bahls survey a range of methods for coping with information overload. "Better search engines, free journal access, proprietary databases and E-mail alerts are all helping scientists get what they want. But some worry that they are not getting all they need." Fogarty and Bahls close with a short profile of BioMed Central. (Thanks to Shelflife.) [FOS News]
BioMed Central is really nice and is trying to create a new way for science to communicate on the web. The article in The Scientist is right on and is one of the areas I would like to make a real impact. Biotech companies that do not have resources in place to deal quickly with this glut of inormation will be left behind. AstraZenaca looks like ti is well on the way. It will be interesting to see how well they succeed.Faculty of 1000 is another site that has smoe very novel approaches to finding important information. It is something else from BioMed Central. 11:48:43 PM 
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Parent offended by lesson in vocabulary: "Use of a word that sounds like a racial slur has landed a New Hanover County teacher in the middle of a controversy." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]
This comes up almost every year. Niggardly has been around since the 1500s. It is from Old Norse. I remember an old Mad magazine 'article' that purposely used sound-alike words in its descriptions. So, we had 'He masticated nightly in front of his teenaged daughter.' What frightens me is that this teacher could lose her job because someone is upset about a word that is found in Lord of the Rings, for goodness sakes. How about we ban that book since it has a word that upsets people? Let's get upset about this word, used by many physicians - substantia nigra. Or lets change the name of the Niger river? How about these people just plain niggle too much? Words do have power and learning how to use them is vitally important. Sometimes people should be upset by the use of words, especially when used by the powerful to denigrate the weak (Oh, Oh. I hope I don't get in trouble for using the word denigrate. Someone might be offended because it sounds like it COULD be offensive.) In truth, denigrate is derived from latin meaning to blacken. If you are going to get upset, at least show some intelligence and go after a word that comes from the same root word as the hated word does. 11:07:41 PM
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How to Get Rich: "A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money. The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said, "Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents. The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I'd accumulated a fortune of $1.37. Then my wife's father died and left us two million dollars." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]
An oldie but a goodie. 10:41:07 PM
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High-Tech Investment. High-Tech Investment If you read your business pages, you might well think that business purchases of computers are way down. Guess what? They're not. This year it looks like America's businesses are going to buy 13% more in the way of quality-adjusted computers and peripherals than in any previous year. In 2001--the only year in which real investment in computers and peripherals fell--quality-adjusted purchases fell by only 3%. Spending on computers and peripherals has indeed fallen. But that's because computers... [Semi-Daily Journal]
So, it is NOT true that we are really spending less on computers. We are buying MORE computers than before, they just cost less. Moore's law is the main reason high tech is so cut-throat. Everything is faster and cheaper every year. It is a losing Red Queen's race. And it is not helped when companies apply 19th century accounting techniques (i.e. 10-15 year amortization of digital switches that are obsolete in under 5, necessitating massive write-offs) while using 20th century approaches to lining the pockets of the executives. I think it will be quite some time before we come out on the other side of this mess. Just remember Voltaire's quote (see below). 10:26:01 PM
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Hearts and Minds. Jim Henley explains how Yasser Arafat and company permanently and totally lost their battle for the hearts and minds of him, me, and I would bet most Americans in the summer of 1972. Some of my schoolmates were on the airplanes flown to Jordan and blown up in 1970, so Palestinian terrorism seemed very real as we watched the Munich Olympics Massacre on TV... Unqualified Offerings: ...I was twelve years old at the time of the Munich Olympics and I... [Semi-Daily Journal]
A very interesting bit of writing, one that comes close to describing my thoughts. The difficulty I have now is watching the Israelis moving down the path to becoming what the Palestinians are and have been for over 30 years. It is a path that I hope we can turn away from. 9:47:38 PM
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Think Analytically!. Think Analytically! I remember one day during the first Clinton Administration when Joe Stiglitz came into the room to chair a meeting, looked around, noticed that--so far--only economists had shown up, and announced that nobody who did not have a Ph.D. in economics would be allowed to speak at the meeting. All of us cheered and applauded. We did so not because we Clinton-era economists all agreed on all the issues--anybody with half an ear to the ground would know... [Semi-Daily Journal]
I do agree with him about being able to accomplish a lot more when everyone tries to think analytically. Some arenas are more amenable to this, sucha as science, while politcs would be an example of an arena where the ability to think analytically is not a major requirement. Simply finding ways to raise the most money is much more important. 9:34:53 PM
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He Who Controls the Past Controls the Present. I used to think that Paul Krugman was being too shrill when he described the Bush Administration's tactics as "Orwellian." I hereby confess: I was wrong. He was right. The Bully's Pulpit: ...Ari Fleischer's insistence that Mr. Powell and Mr. Cheney have no differences over Iraq seems to have pushed some journalists into facing up, at least briefly, to the obvious.... "The Bush team has always had a credibility problem with some reporters because of their insistence on saying 'up... [Semi-Daily Journal]
While this is not something that is unique to the Bush administration, it does show the general cowardice of the mainstream media and the lack of any backbone when it comes to describing either party's agenda. Its need to show balance means that any loony is put on the same basis as an expert. But, since the media's only reason for existence, at least in the eyes of its owners, is to sell ads for its customers, getting the consumers to buy more, I do not think this will change anytime soon. 9:18:28 PM
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The coming ice age. At the stealth conference I'm at we just heard from David Gallo from the Woods Hole Oceanic Institute (WHOI) who has explained that we're entering into a mini-ice age in the next 10-15 years that will drop temperatures 10-15 degrees (Fahrenheit) in the northeastern US and northern Europe. It will last 200-300 years. It is due to the current warming cycle which is melting the polar ice caps which is putting fresh water into the Atlantic which is disrupting the flow of warm air up the coast of the US and cycling down to Europe.
Stockpile eiderdown.
Here's a Discover article. And one from the WHOI. [JOHO the Blog]
I expect to hear all sorts of people claim that this proves that global warming does not exist. But is because of global warming that the Arctic Ice pack is melting, causing the Gulf Stream to shut down. I would expect this to also have a drastic effect on the ecology of the Northern Atlantic. But I also expect it to make skiing in Vermont a whole lot nicer. It will also probably increase the move westward of the population. Although I would also expect rain patterns to be greatly altered, meaning that drought could be a big factor in the West, where water usage is a very important question. 8:39:33 PM
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