Jinn of Quality and Risk

friday five:

• What is your favorite scary movie? The Shining
• What is your favorite Halloween treat? pumpkin ice-cream
• Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume. Normally not, but once I was a pirate...
• Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events? not deliberately
• Will you dress up for Halloween this year? I'll probably wear a suit (very scary thought, hehe)

[via the weekly Friday Five] 

NYT: The lake records from the Northeast [US] show that the region had much stormier eras that peaked 11,900, 9,100, 5,800 and 2,600 years ago. Then, about 600 years ago, another period of storminess appeared to begin... The current trend is so prolonged and diffuse that the century-plus history of recorded weather data is not long enough to pick up a pattern.

There is increasing scientific evidence that major climate variations have been the norm, not the exception, even within the last 12,000 years. And we don't know what natural phenomena have caused these variations in the past. Agricultural and industrial revolutions notwithstanding. Remember this when you observe today's global-warming-is-man's-fault frenzy (right after the cooling hysteria of the 70s). The inescapable conclusion is that one who claims to reliably predict climate changes based on a mere century of recorded weather data is not a fool but a charlatan (certainly not a scientist). 

NYT: The aim of systems biology is to be able to give doctors the same kind of control over cells as electronic engineers have over their circuits. ... systems biologists [are] discussing how they might construct computer models of the entire cell. We may soon find that the elaborate simulation tools developed for computer systems have paved the way for modeling tools in gene technology. It's fascinating to think of how humans are quickly understanding fundamental biological mechanisms, and getting ready to precisely model and control them. What ambitions! what possibilities! 

Magnus the Good, 1024-47, was king of Norway and Denmark. Early career start. Died young. May be correlated. [Columbia Encyclopedia] 

I'm using a "bookmarklet" to easily view what I wrote one year ago. It's in JavaScript so it automatically computes the correct date. To use it, copy this link to your toolbar and edit the path variable 'p' so it's pointing to your own weblog: One year ago

Here is the code. Linebreaks have been inserted to make it (somewhat) more readable and to fit on the screen:

javascript:{p='http://radio.weblogs.com/0103811/';
d=new Date();y=d.getYear()-1;m=d.getMonth()+1;j=d.getDate();
location.href=p+(y<1000?1900+y:y)+'/'+(m<10?'0':'')+m+'/'+(j<10?'0':'')+j+'.html';} 

Here's the scoop: According to critics, jinns are eavesdroppers, constantly striving to go behind the curtains of heaven in order to steal divine secrets. May grant wishes.

See also this poem by Victor Hugo, in French: Les Djinns, Les Orientales (1829)