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Thursday, February 20, 2003 |
Other times it's only me
This never ceases to amaze me:
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.
I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
9:58:25 PM Permalink
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200 Steves Can't Be All Wrong!
Now here's something I can solidly get behind: Project Steve.
Denver, Colorado, February 16, 2003 -- A first-of-its-kind statement on evolution signed by over 200 scientists was unveiled today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual convention iin Denver, Colorado, following Lawrence Krauss's topical lecture entitled "Scientific Ignorance as a Way of Life: From Science Fiction in Washington to Intelligent Design in the Classroom." The statement -- sponsored by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit organization that defends the teaching of evolution in the public schools -- reads:
Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate scientific debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism of evolution. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design, to be introduced into the science curricula of the public schools.
The 220 signatories are a distinguished group. Almost all hold PhDs in the sciences. They include two Nobel prize winners, eight members of the National Academy of Sciences, and several well-known authors of popular science books such as Why We Age, Darwin's Ghost, and How the Mind Works.
And they're all named Steve.
...Eugenie C. Scott, the executive director of NCSE, explained the significance of the statement. "Creationists are fond of amassing lists of PhDs who deny evolution to try to give the false impression that evolution is somehow on the verge of being rejected by the scientific community. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Hundreds of scientists endorsed the NCSE statement. And we asked only scientists named Steve -- who represent approximately 1% of scientists."
3:54:58 PM Permalink
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Who Gets Hurt When You Pirate Music?. There's a case study in the NYDaily News -- apparently a propos nothing but this Sunday's Grammy Awards -- that breaks down the cash flow of a hypothetical hit album by a hypothetical rock quartet. It illustrates all the people that get paid along the food chain, including some odd recoupable record company expenses, like a 25 percent "packaging deduction" and a 15 percent "free goods charge," off the top, most of which the label keeps.
The bottom line is that a gold record (500,000 copies) selling at $16.98 will gross roughly $8.5 million, of which each member of the hypothetical quartet will pocket about $40,000. (The case study doesn't take songwriting royalties into account.)
So for every $16.98 album you rip, you're costing a performing artist about 34 cents, and the lawyers, producers and labels about $16.64.
[Over the Edge]
9:14:44 AM Permalink
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One miserable cat. [mirabilis.ca]
My grandmother had a black long-haired cat named Fluffy. Every summer as the weather heated up, Creta would get Fluffy's hair cut like this. Poor humiliated cat.
9:03:26 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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