Jinn of Quality and Risk

Philip Greenspun: America's most grade-inflated schools tend to be its most expensive, e.g., Harvard.  Assuming a 5 percent annual increase the cost of education at a top school will top $1 million within 40 years.  Are the employee-teachers really going to give Fs to people donating $1 million to the institution?  Is there any way to maintain academic excellence and good relations with our wealthy patrons (the students)? 

The Cumulative Cost of Additional Wakefulness: Dose-Response Effects on Neurobehavioral Functions and Sleep Physiology From Chronic Sleep Restriction and Total Sleep Deprivation: Objectives: To inform the debate over whether human sleep can be chronically reduced without consequences, we conducted a doseresponse chronic sleep restriction experiment in which waking neurobehavioral and sleep physiological functions were monitored and compared to those for total sleep deprivation. ... Results: Chronic restriction of sleep periods to 4 h or 6 h per night over 14 consecutive days resulted in significant cumulative, dose-dependent deficits in cognitive performance on all tasks. Subjective sleepiness ratings showed an acute response to sleep restriction but only small further increases on subsequent days, and did not significantly differentiate the 6 h and 4 h conditions. [Journal SLEEP] 

Usable Help recommends Write minimally: A cogent and compelling argument for the practice of minimalism in documentation. It won't take but a few minutes to read it, and it could change your career. 

Matthew Thomas presents the ultimate Weblogging system, outlined. Many good points. 

BBC News: The company that operates cross-Channel rail services between London, Paris and Brussels may need a £1bn ($1.6bn) government bail-out... London and Continental Railways, which runs Eurostar trains, has already had one financial rescue backed by government guarantees. Passenger numbers are less than half the original forecasts, and falling.

If you choose to travel on the Eurostar, get a first class ticket; the price is very reasonable and includes more legroom, newspapers, magazines, champagne, good wine, and a three-course dinner. 

The Guardian: Advice that a high-fibre diet with plenty of fruit, vegetables and grains might protect against one of the commonest forms of cancer is questioned by US researchers. Their study, covering 45,000 women, between the early 1970s and late 1990s, suggests there is little evidence that those eating the most fibre are less likely to develop bowel cancer, the second most common cancer. However... see below. 

European scientists have studied the diets of more than 500,000 people in 10 European countries and found that people who ate the most fibre rich food had the lowest incidence of bowel cancer, while those with least fibre in their diets had the most cases of the disease. ... A fibre rich diet was defined as 35g a day. That equates to seven portions of fruit and vegetables per day plus five slices of wholemeal bread. Fibre is found in high quantity in cereals, vegetables and fruit.