Understanding Weblogs. You read 'em all the time, but what makes a weblog a weblog? And how can you quickly jump in and start publishing your own? Wei Meng Lee shows you the blogging ropes. [O'Reilly Network Articles]

I think the combination of weblog and news aggregator applications was one of the great software solutions of the last few years. This is a nice reminder of how it all works.  9:37:02 PM    

Yet More Bad Business-Cycle News. Over the course of the past year, the long-run news about the economy--about what the rate of trend productivity growth is--has been uniformly and extraordinarily good. Yet the short-run news about the state of the business cycle has been largely bad. The past month's news has made Paul Krugman much more depressed about the prospects for a healthy business cycle recovery. I wish I could disagree with him, but I can't. Lumps of Coal December 27, 2002 Lumps of Coal... [Semi-Daily Journal]

I guess I'll hold my money in cash a little while longer. I wonder how much I should keep in my mattress?  9:30:01 PM    

Mathematical prediction of on-off switches in cell division proven [EurekAlert!]

reading releases about science are interesting since some writers are nuch better than others. I like to hear about the science first and then boilerplate about the institution. This one starts the other way. But the science looks really interesting. Bistable switches may be the most dominant kind. As we learn more about these networks and switches, the beter we will be able to model the systems.  9:09:39 PM    

In mutually beneficial relationship, slowest-evolving species gains upper hand [EurekAlert!]

Nice mathematical solution but I wonder what really happens in Nature? What happens if both try the Red King strategy? Probably they both die off or one removes itself from the symbiotic relationship. Such relationships can be dangerous for a species since it now makes them dependent on another species' success.  9:03:28 PM    

Google Offers Easy, Mac-Centric Search Function

4:14:37 PM    

As Patents on Popular Drugs End, Costs for Generics Surge. New York Times Dec 27 2002 0:10AM ET [Moreover - moreover...]

I think that there will be a difficult market for generics based on protein therapeutics. The produciton requirements are much greater than chemical ones and the payoff may not be as great. Some drugs will become generic but I don't think a lot will. The problem here is that consolidation removes competition. So generic prices will increase because they can and they don't have to worry about others.  4:05:49 PM    

New research addresses confusion about juice [EurekAlert!]"QB

Gosh, I love disclaimers! First paragraph:

The relationship between children's juice intake and their growth has been debated for years. New research published today in the January 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association supports what many nutrition experts say they have long suspected: Children and adolescents are drinking higher amounts of less nutritious fruit-flavored beverages and carbonated soft drinks than 100 percent juice.

Last sentence:

The study was conducted at the University of Florida, with support from the Florida Department of Citrus.

Now, the research may very well be valid but it is something that none of us find surprising but the Florida Dept. of Citrus can now quote it in its literature.  3:59:52 PM    

Gabor Marth, Greg Schuler, Raymond Yeh, Ruth Davenport, Richa Agarwala, Deanna Church, Sarah Wheelan, Jonathan Baker, Ming Ward, Michael Kholodov, Lon Phan, Eva Czabarka, Janos Murvai, David Cutler, Stephen Wooding, Alan Rogers, Aravinda Chakravarti, Henry C. Harpending, Pui-Yan Kwok, and Stephen T. Sherry

Sequence variations in the public human genome data reflect a bottlenecked population history
PNAS published December 26, 2002,

10.1073/pnas.222673099 ( Anthropology , Genetics )

[Abstract] [PDF] [Supporting Information]   [PNAS Early Edition]

More and more information coming in about a bottleneck. I wonder if the Raelians are responsible?  3:42:36 PM    

The baloney generator. Ian Glendinning in his [weblog] has recently been reading and reviewing a book by Steven Pinker - [The Blank Slate] - that explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. One of Ian's comments is as follows:

Pinker refers to the entire left side (?) of the brain as the "baloney generator" designed to produce convincing sounding "arguments" in difficult situations. Humans have an innate comfort with the "rational" and dislike of the "irrational", needing rationale to explain experience. Often the rationale may be a gross simplification, simple near-term logic, basic correlation, even an analogy, with little or no true causal connection with the real situation - almost certainly also a mechanism for recording, recalling and reconstructing knowledge in ways that minimize the mental resources needed to do so (Keep it Simple Stupid).

This view of the left brain struck a chord with me as time and time again I have felt that what we do with a complex situation - especially when it comes to human relationships - is to look for a simple model - "she is doing this because she is angry with me" - "she is doing this because she is scared" or whatever - the list is endless. Do we get it right? - "rarely" - in fact I would say - "never". The motivation behind human behavior - why people do or don't do things is sufficiently complex and hidden that is almost impossible to analyze and if we really do have an onboard "baloney generator" then what chance do we ever stand of understanding the motivations of another person? Maybe we should stop wasting our time trying and accept them as they are!

We also need to think about the effect of this "baloney generator" on our ideas about KM. How much of so called 'explicit knowledge' that we capture and store on paper or in computer databases is nothing more than baloney? And when we have a conversation - how much baloney do we talk?

Also how do we recognize baloney? Here is a simple answer. If we think we understand a complex business issue (one that almost invariably involves people and their behaviors) then it is most likely baloney. Which of course means that this last statement is also almost certainly baloney [] [Gurteen Knowledge-Log]

The Blank Slate is on my reading list. I'm not sure how I will react to it but it should be an interesting read. But in my way of looking at things knowledge allows you to make decisions. Maybe baloney does help you but if it is bad baloney you will make bad decisions. What are important in a life, a tribe, a city, a state, a nation , a country are the decisions that are made. You need knowledge to make decisions. If you are unable to get useful knowledge, you'll make bad decisions. So we select for people and groups that CAN see the patteren and make the right decisions. This is why men who were great warriors are lousy when the war no longer exists. An open, transparent democratic society decreases the friction and allows the right people to make decisons. al least it has a better chance of doing this than totalitarian states.  3:17:01 PM