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 Thursday, November 28, 2002
More on ideological web deletions by the Bush admi .... More on ideological web deletions by the Bush administration....An internal memo from the Department of Education declares an intent to delete information from the department web site if it "does not reflect the priorities, philosophies, or goals of the present administration."
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) and 12 other research and library groups have written an open letter to Department Secretary Roderick Paige to protest the plan. Quoting from the open letter: "Such materials are essential to advancing scientifically-based research and need to remain accessible to the library, educational research, and related scholarly communities." For more details, see the AERA press release and Richard Monastersky's article in the November 25 Chronicle of Higher Education (accessible only to subscribers). [FOS News]
I've said this before. Isn't this what the Russians did all the time, what 1984 talked about and what 'Brazil' showed? The difficulty is that people will just mirror the information. Once something is on the internet, it is hard to ever completely remove it. these people are fighting a losing battle. 3:38:57 PM 
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In today's Boston Globe, Jonathan Zittrain argues .... In today's Boston Globe, Jonathan Zittrain argues for calling off the copyright war. He distinguishes the corporate concept of copyright (ideas are property that nobody can use without paying) from the public view (ideas are free). Excerpt: "Now that the public's tastes and the publishers' profits appear in direct conflict, the publishers also have joined a cultural war, trying to ensure that the prevailing model for the new Internet territory is grounded in the complex legal rules previously reserved for corporations, rather than the informal sense of sharing that has prevailed for individuals....As the publishers gird for a battle in which they are at risk of overreaching, the public must pay attention - and make it clear, without begrudging rightful profits to artists and publishers, that it's a bad idea to tighten control over ideas and their expressions. Freedom of trade must not trump freedom of mind." [FOS News]
The people will speak on this, as we have in the past, and woebetide any politician that fails to hear it. These topics were argued over 200 years ago. Read about it and learn. 3:35:34 PM
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DMCA: Open for Comments. For a quick overview of current DMCA status, and a reminder that comments on its anti-circumvention clause are now being taken by the government, read Declan's piece today at CNET.... [bIPlog]
DMCA Shuts Down Fatwallet's Use of Sale Data. Fatwallet, an online service that collects and compares sales prices from Walmart, Staples, Best Buy, and Target, has been told to stop by those retailers because the practice is in violation of the DMCA. "We don't think sales prices can be copyrighted, or that the DMCA was meant for this type of thing," said Tim Storm, Fatwallet's owner. "But it would cost us a heck of a lot of money to be right." He is... [bIPlog]
DOE Pulls Plug on PubScience to Placate Private Interests. News.com has a story about the Department of Energy closing down PubScience, a research database with about 2 million documents. Some private companies complained successfully that there was some overlap of published documents, which the companies sell, since federal law prohibits the government from competing with private interests. At the opening of PubScience in 1999, the U. S. Secretary of Energy at the time, Bill Richardson said, "For science to rapidly advance at the frontiers,... [bIPlog]
A DMCA Déjà Vu at Princeton?. Good thing for Alex Halderman ('03) that Ed Felten is on the faculty. The Princeton senior could use his professor's seasoned advice right about now on the perils of doing computer science research under the rule of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. On Monday, Halderman presented his junior paper, "Evaluating New Copy-Prevention Techniques for Audio CDs," at the 2002 ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management -- an act that could be seen as a violation... [bIPlog]
Something to be thankful for. The ability to discuss and comment on government policy without having to worry about being put in jail, as China does. 3:28:41 PM
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SEC may ease investment curbs on biotechs. Boston Globe Nov 27 2002 7:46PM ET [Moreover - moreover...]
While this could be a useful new method for companies to get ahold of capital, will it result in the rise of 'biotech' companies that are better at investing than they are at biotech? I hope there are rules in place to define just what a biotech company is. I'd like to start an investing co and not have to play by the rules simply by calling it a 'biotech'. 3:05:07 PM
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When Filtering Algorithms Attack!. When filtering algorithms attack! Premium Blend: A group weblog from the editors of Corante: The Wall Street Journal on how TiVo and other personalizing technologies can get it wrong: "[Basil] Iwanyk, 32 years old, suspected that his TiVo thought he was gay, since it inexplicably kept recording programs with gay themes. A film studio executive in Los Angeles and the self-described 'straightest guy on earth,' he tried to tame TiVo's gay fixation by recording war movies and other 'guy stuff.'... [Semi-Daily Journal]
The same thing happened to me. My wife was watching 6 feet under, Oz, Queer as Folk alot and Tivo wanted to recommend gay-themed programs that we were not interested in. But then it also recommended some Spanish programs because we watched some Spanish soccer. My son got to the TV and Tivo then recommended almost everything Nickelodean had on the air. But a few times playing with the thumbs up-thumbs down feature and it got a lot better. As I check now, it is giving the following recommendations (try to make something out of this list, you raiders of civil liberties ;-). I'll put whose viewing habits are most likely responsible:
_3 Thumbs Up_
The Fairly Oddparents (son)
will & Grace (wife and son)
Simpsons (son and I)
Hey Arnold! (son)
Premiership Soccer (son and I)
Soccer (son and I)
The Mexican (wife and I)
_2 Thumbs Up_
Miss Congeniality (all of us)
Charlie's Angels (all of us)
Wonder Boys (wife and I)
Heist (wife and I)
Hello, Dolly (??)
Not too far off but because we all watch, it kind of gives us the lowest common denominator. It gives us things that several of us will watch but not something that one of us will chase everyone else away for. West Wing and Gilmore Girls are two of these but they do not appear on the list. 2:48:42 PM
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NASA Breakthrough Method May Lead To Smaller Electronics: "NASA scientists have invented a breakthrough biological method to make ultra-small structures that may well be used to produce electronics 10 to 100 times smaller than today s components." [Google Technology News] [Universal Rule]
Because of their self assembly properties, people have been trying to use proteins for years. If this technology improves, it could make some very sophisticated processors. 2:03:00 PM
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Hybrid cars are not economical. Let's assume, in the best case, that you pay an extra $5,000 for a hybrid car with double the fuel efficiency (30mpg vs 60mpg), ceteris paribus (all other things being equal).
In order to recover the extra payment you've made, you'd need to use 3333 gallons (at $1.50 per gallon) which translates to covering a distance of 200,000 miles. Let's say you keep your car for 10 long years. That's 20,000 miles per year. Are you commuting about 100 miles each day? (I wouldn't.) Will you keep your car for 10 years? (I might, not sure.)
What if you had invested those $5k instead? standard bond rates (6%) would turn that into $9k after 10 years. Historical, average stock market index growth (12%) would turn that into $15k over 10 years. Take into account (deduct $500 a year) the $5k you'd spend on the extra fuel (remember, 30mpg not 60mpg) and at the end of 10 years, you're still much better off having bought the cheaper, non-hybrid car. In fact, you've saved money to buy a new car... Scale: multiply by millions of capitalist citizens.
Hybrid cars are not an economical solution, because capital investment is a very expensive proposition. If you choose to buy a more expensive hybrid car today, you're limiting your options and using capital which could have been allocated to other, more productive and profitable uses. Current market prices and profit rates clearly indicate so. [Jinn of Quality and Risk]
This is not the only impact. Most people buy such cars for reasons other than their own wealth. What happens to our use of gas when that 3333 gallons is multiplied by thousands or millions of people? This analysis does not take into account of the effects on society as a whole when more oil is available for other uses, not to mention the effect on the environment. People would view the extra $5000 much as they view charity. There is not a direct effect on the giver personally but a great effect on society. I'd willing pay $50 a year for 10 years to provide more oil for other strategic uses. 1:50:40 PM
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911 call a harbinger of deadly shooting. Lorraine Laxton, former chair of the Federal Way Domestic Violence Task Force, called 911 about 2:54 p.m. Saturday to say she was following someone who had kidnapped the child of a friend. [Home]
Woman known for her guns, temper. Lorraine Laxton is described as a person with a temper and a penchant for carrying handguns, according to the prosecutor who filed a murder charge against her Wednesday. [Home]
Such a sad story. A woman (who carried 2 guns - a 9 mm and a Magnum) working to prevent domestic violence kills another woman whose only fault was being the sister of a man being chased by a vigilante. Any civilian killing an unarmed person by using a firearm for non-self defensive purposes should be treated as harshly as possiible. Using guns for intimidation purposes resulting in a death should put that person in prison for a long time. She knew where the child was and should have waited until the police arrived. Her poor decision-making killed another person. This is such a tragedy and one that I expect to be a TV movie sometime soon. I would say that Lorraine let her anger make her become exactly what she was fighting against. This is the greatest danger of vigilantism - becoming your enemy. Anyone with power, either locally with a single gun, or globally with nuclear weapons, needs to be aware of this danger. 1:40:23 PM
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BSE may cause more CJD cases than thought [New Scientist]
What this may indicate is that CJD was present in the population before because of eating 'infected' meat. Since the prevalence of such meat increased substantially in the present epidemic, this makes sense. The difficulty is that this is a slow disease and we can not be certain when it will have run its course for quite some time. This is a fascinating premise though, because this work was done by injecting the protein into the brains of mice. How does this work in humans where we eat the variant protein that causes the disease? How does it get across the digestive system and across the blood brain barrier? 1:19:29 PM
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The best hour of television ever: last night's West Wing. Best line in a television show. "Unless you want to start now." Add to my list of dream jobs, speech writer at the White House. [Scripting News]
I've got this on my Tivo and am looking forward to watching it today. West Wing started slow but is building up quite nicely. I am getting to reall like Lily Tomlin and I think the approach they are taking with rob Lowe's departure is classy. I WANT this on DVD NOW!!! When is the fisrt season going to come out? 1:12:59 PM
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When You Own the Market You Don't Have to Support Standards, Do You .... When You Own the Market You Don't Have to Support Standards, Do You ...
Microsoft's comments on joining the OASIS project:
However, Simon Marks, Microsoft Office product manger, said that Microsoft would not be interested in joining if the technical committee produced "just another file format that panders to the lowest common denominator."
Marks said Microsoft is more interested in working with "customer defined" XML built using XSD 1.0, rather than interoperability between competing suites. File formats in Microsoft's up-coming Office 11 suite use XSD 1.0. [ Go ]
[The FuzzyBlog!]
Those 'least common denominator' things happen to be anything that is NOT MS. Why be a good neighbor when you own the slums? 1:08:51 PM
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The Visual Thesaurus: What Does it Show About Thanksgiving?. It's Thanksgiving Day today so it's about time for me to thank you for reading this column. It's also time to offer you a gift.
With the help of Joe Sullivan, we are going to take trip to the Visual Thesaurus website.
It[base ']s kind of like a regular thesaurus -- but much cooler. Type a word, any word, into the Visual Thesaurus and a little fountain of its related words whirls before you: synonyms, antonyms, origins, and a host of other relations. In 3-D, the site visually illustrates the root word[base ']s relationship to its components with a set of revolving lines leading to seemingly endless links the user can click on.
Here is a small image of what the Visual Thesaurus knows about "Thanksgiving".
A better and larger version is available here.
Joe Sullivan discussed with Marc Tinkler, CTO and principal of New York City-based Plumb Design, the company behind this application.
Q: Where did you get the idea for the site?
A: We were looking for a publicly available database with appeal to a broad audience in order to demonstrate our Thinkmap technology. We wanted to build a site that could show the interrelationships between words and meanings typically obscured by alphabetical representations and traditional interfaces (lists, tables, etc.). When we learned about WordNet, a lexical reference system developed by the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University, we realized that we had found a data set full of rich content and interesting relationships.
Please remember to bookmark this site. This will not modify your lives, but it might change your relationship with words.
Sources: Plumb Design's Visual Thesaurus; Joe Sullivan, Darwin Magazine, November 4, 2002 [Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends]
This is so much fun. What a wonderful way to 'play' with something that is found everywhere. I really wanted to explore a lot. 12:35:24 PM
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First Baby of 2003 to Be a Clone?. A cloning advocate with a checkered reputation announces he's successfully orchestrated a cloned pregnancy, and says the baby is due in January. Other scientists greet the news with raised eyebrows. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News]
I am sceptical. The process is so inefficient for other, more tractable animals, I find it very hard to believe that they actually have a clone. It is easy to be fooled and we have had similar claims made before that were never verified. Clones cause a real problem with variations. Variability is one of the key aspects of Darwin's theory. If every organism is the same, the species is very vulnerable. We grow monocultures of domesticated species because it is more efficient. But we then have to spend tremendous amounts of money and time protecting them because they are usually much more vulnerable to outsode threats. Modern turkeys have almost no immune system, for example. Cloning humans reduces our variability making us more more susceptible to things like disease. It is not an hysterical response. It is a biological one. Too many clones reduces not only our ability to respond to the environment but also reduced our cultural variability. The best groups are those with diverse points of view working together. Too many people who think similarly does not usually produce innovative solutions to problems. 12:04:39 PM
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Briefly - Seattle Genetics names new CEO. Seattle Genetics Inc., a Bothell-based developer of antibody-based therapeutics to treat cancer, announced Friday that it has promoted Clay B. Siegall to president and chief executive officer. [Business]
My wife worked with Perry when they were at Oncogen/Bristol Meyers. She worked on some of this technology. One of the few biotechs with useful products and/or technology. 11:47:42 AM
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Leukemia-Related Protein is a Master Editor of the 'Histone Code' [Science Blog]
This is very exciting. The mechanisms that control how genes get turned on will be hot spots for research. Each cell control the genes that are expressed through a very tightly controlled system that gets disrupted in cancer. This work will be very useful for many aspects of molecular research. 11:45:58 AM
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Scientists Detail Neural Circuit [Science Blog]
Instead of a passive camera, the eye is well desgned to detect edges, movement, and all sorts of things. Makes since. If only a small portion of the cells actually focus on an object, then making other cells that recognize movement off-axis will create a huge selective advantage. The animal would be able to quickly spot predators this way withour devoting a huge amount of 'processing' power. 11:37:18 AM
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