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A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog
 Friday, September 20, 2002
Well, putting up the reference to the pseudo-Caesar quote has been great for my referers. I have gotten a lot of hits coming from google looking for the supposed quote. Cute. 8:16:42 PM 
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I love it when reported get self-analytical. Journalists wanted to sell newspapers. Not all of them, but enough to help the hype-masters. Any real in-depth analysis would be ignored by many editors, because telling people that the bubble was going to burst, as some did, really did not sell papers. Many industry writers just rewrote the press release the companies wrote. This was what was 'printed at the margins', as the article says. But it paid the bills for a lot of publications. As Sturgeon's Law states: 95% of all science fiction is crap. But 95% of everything is crap. I would posit that in the high tech arena of journalism, the number could have been higher. I know that in biotech, a large percentage of the reporting, particularly as reported in the mass media, is just flat wrong. It makes me wonder about the areas where I do not have direct experience. 2:20:20 PM
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Why aren't liberals fun?. I confess to being a knee-jerk, pacifist-leaning, NPR-listening, white-wine-swilling, heart-bleeding, Kennedy-voting, cigarette-banning, tie-dye-wearing, Mondale-mourning, Vineyard-vacationing, West-Wing-Tivo-ing, decade-old-spare-joints-in-a-bottom-draw-stashing, male-distrusting, race-apologizing, criminal-coddling Jewish atheist pointy-headed bleeding-heart middle class middle aged Liberal.
So, Alex Beam's column in the Boston Globe today was thought-provoking. (I usually find his writing just plain old provoking.) He points out that the Conservatives have much more fun than we do. They get to drive in their SUV's, blow up bad guys, and rant on talk shows about how the media don't give conversatives any air time.
There's something to this. They're the Bad Boys/Girls. We're the scolds. It'd be real good to make Liberalism fun again.
Again? Yes, kiddies, there was a time when being a lefty-liberal meant that you were cool and the conservatives were squares. We got to smoke dope while they watched John Wayne movies. We got free sex while they reproduced via the missionary position. We got to rethink the world while they were pledging their allegiance. If nothing else, the left was the happenin' place to be. Now it's as glamorous as sensible shoes.
We should work on changing this. Maybe a new hairstyle or something. [JOHO the Blog]
By the time liberals are cool again, I'll be way too old to be cool. Bummer. 1:58:44 PM
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Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Here comes Internet2 for businesses -- in 2005?. Before going on with our story, do you remember what is Internet2? It started in April 1999 as a $500 million project linking 37 U.S. universities. AT this time, the network was supposed to operate at a 2.4 gigabit-per-second speed and the project, linking more than 140 universities, completed by 2003.
Have you heard about Internet2 lately? Harvard Business School (HBS) Richard Nolan spent lots of time on this project and is telling us about the current status.
"I talk to managers about Internet2," Nolan said. The usual response? "Internet what? I thought Internet 1 was dead."
Some executives, he says, are experiencing "dot vertigo," that dizziness accompanying claims about all the wonderful ways the Internet is going to transform their lives. What they don't realize is that their fears make them discount the impact of the Internet in what Nolan called a very dangerous way.
Quickly and quietly, said Nolan, Internet2 is making inroads in important ways in collaborative learning and R&D. When privatization and business applications start to enter the picture, which he predicted would happen by the year 2005, managers will have much to gain -- or lose.
The power of Internet2 lies in its ability to connect networks of networks. Currently, he said, universities and labs use it to connect researchers working on collaborative projects. These projects can range from building virtual reality models of the ear -- a medical application -- to studying the stars -- a scientific application.
And, even in a publication from Harvard, there is the -- usually irrelevant -- comparison.
A DVD version of the Hollywood movie "The Matrix," for example, can be downloaded via Internet2 in about thirty seconds, Nolan said. The same DVD would take approximately 25 hours to download via a standard DSL/cable line (and 170 hours -- or more than seven days -- via a 56K modem).
Source: HBS Working Knowledge, September 15, 2002 [Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends]
Of course, the businesses of the moment, the major media, would never allow this technology to be deployed since all it would be used for is pirating their material, right? Society will figure something out, I am sure. And by society, I mean US, not corporations or the government. 11:12:29 PM
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NYT. Krugman on Thomas White's shady dealings as a senior Enron exec before he became the Secretary of the Army. He also gives a nod to Salon for breaking the story. Time to get a replacement. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
It is things like this that make me seriously consider A Wag The Dog scenario. In the movie, it was to cover up indiscretions of the president. Funny how, during midterm elections, we are hearing more and more drums of war. Are they to cover up the stench of corporate malefeasance? A stench that would overwhelm all of our senses, if it were not for that damned drumming in our ears? (Ohh. I just love mixed metaphors!! I wonder if I could enter this in the Bulwer-Lytton contest ?) 11:08:49 PM
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Monday, September 16, 2002
Using naltrexone to treat alcoholics with a 'Mediterranean drinking pattern'. Naltrexone has been used to treat alcoholism in the United States for close to a decade. Initial studies of naltrexone's effectiveness examined alcohol-dependent individuals who drank primarily on holidays and weekends. Researchers in Spain examined naltrexone's effectiveness on alcohol-dependent individuals who drank throughout the week. Fewer naltrexone-treated subjects relapsed to heavy drinking than placebo-treated subjects. Pharmazam/Zambón S.A. [EurekAlert - Medicine & Health]
I guess no one has ever heard of a 'Texas Drinking Pattern' - consume large amounts of alcohol whenever the temperature is above 50 degrees, no matter what day it is. More if you just cut the lawn. Or walked outside to get the paper. (I know. I grew up in Houston and the consumption of cheap beer was often what got you through most of the month of August ;-) 10:47:28 PM
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