History
of the Ampersand
This is interesting (found at
Adobe.com):
One of the first
examples of an ampersand appears on a piece of papyrus from about 45 A.D.
Written in the style of early Roman capital cursive (typical of the
handwriting of the time), it shows the ligature ET. A sample of Pompeian
graffiti from 79 A.D. also shows a combination of the capitals E and T, and
is again written in early Roman script. Later documents display a more
flowing, less formal Roman lowercase cursive, which evolved into our italic,
and the appearance of a ligature et becomes more frequent...
Link
Posted Fri Mar 31st, 2006 - 9:14am by CPC
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Up With Grups*
He owns eleven pairs of
sneakers, hasn’t worn anything but jeans in a year, and won’t shut up about
the latest Death Cab for Cutie CD. But he is no kid. He is among the ascendant
breed of grown-up who has redefined adulthood as we once knew it and killed
off the generation gap.
By Adam Sternbergh |
New York Magazine
* Also known as
yupster (yuppie + hipster), yindie (yuppie + indie), and
alterna-yuppie. Our preferred term, grup, is taken from an
episode of Star Trek (keep reading) in which Captain Kirk et al. land on a
planet of children who rule the world, with no adults in sight. The kids
call Kirk and the crew “grups,” which they eventually figure out is a
contraction of “grown-ups.” It turns out that all the grown-ups had died
from a virus that greatly slows the aging process and kills anybody who
grows up.
"Let’s start with a question. A
few questions, actually: When did it become normal for your average
35-year-old New Yorker to (a) walk around with an iPod plugged into his ears
at all times, listening to the latest from Bloc Party; (b) regularly buy his
clothes at Urban Outfitters; (c) take her toddler to a Mommy’s Happy Hour at a
Brooklyn bar; (d) stay out till 4 A.M. because he just can’t miss the latest
New Pornographers show, because who knows when Neko Case will decide to stop
touring with them, and everyone knows she’s the heart of the band; (e) spend
$250 on a pair of jeans that are artfully shredded to look like they just fell
through a wheat thresher and are designed, eventually, to artfully fall
totally apart; (f) decide that Sufjan Stevens is the perfect music to play for
her 2-year-old, because, let’s face it, 2-year-olds have lousy taste in music,
and we will not listen to the Wiggles in this house; (g) wear sneakers as a
fashion statement; (h) wear the same vintage New Balance sneakers that he wore
on his first day of school in the seventh grade as a fashion statement; (i)
wear said sneakers to the office; (j) quit the office job because—you know
what?—screw the office and screw jockeying for that promotion to VP, because
isn’t promotion just another word for “slavery”?; (k) and besides, now that
she’s a freelancer, working on her own projects, on her own terms, it’s that
much easier to kick off in the middle of the week for a quick snowboarding
trip to Sugarbush, because she’s got to have some balance, right? And she can
write it off, too, because who knows? She might bump into Spike Jonze on the
slopes; (l) wear a Misfits T-shirt; (m) make his 2-year-old wear a Misfits
T-shirt; (n) never shave; (o) take pride in never shaving; (p) take pride in
never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger
bag, because, seriously, only his grandfather or some frat-boy Wall Street
flunky still carries a briefcase; or (q) all of the above?
This is an obituary for the
generation gap. It is a story about 40-year-old men and women who look, talk,
act, and dress like people who are 22 years old. It’s not about a fad but
about a phenomenon that looks to be permanent. It’s about the hedge-fund guy
in Park Slope with the chunky square glasses, brown rock T-shirt, slight
paunch, expensive jeans, Puma sneakers, and shoulder-slung messenger bag, with
two kids squirming over his lap like itchy chimps at the Tea Lounge on Sunday
morning. It’s about the mom in the low-slung Sevens and ankle boots and
vaguely Berlin-art-scene blouse with the $800 stroller and the TV-screen-size
Olsen-twins sunglasses perched on her head walking through Bryant Park
listening to Death Cab for Cutie on her Nano...."
Read the whole article
here
(thanks Dick!)
Posted Thu Mar 30th, 2006 - 10:50am by CPC
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Fake Magazine
Covers
The latest Photoshop contest at
1000 Words...
Posted Wed Mar 29th, 2006 - 6:02am by CPC
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Crazy Cat Ambushes the Avon Lady
FAIRFIELD,
Conn. (AP) Residents of the neighborhood of Sunset Circle say they have been
terrorized by a crazy cat named Lewis. Lewis for his part has been uniquely
cited, personally issued a restraining order by the town's animal control
officer.
"He looks like Felix the Cat
and has six toes on each foot, each with a long claw," Janet Kettman, a neighbor
said Monday. "They are formidable weapons."
The neighbors said those
weapons, along with catlike stealth, have allowed Lewis to attack at least a
half dozen people and ambush the Avon lady as she was getting out of her car.
Some of those who were bitten
and scratched ended up seeking treatment at area hospitals.
Animal Control Officer Rachel
Solveira placed a restraining order on him. It was the first time such an action
was taken against a cat in Fairfield.
In effect, Lewis is under
house arrest, forbidden to leave his home.
Solveira also arrested the
cat's owner, Ruth Cisero, charging her with failing to comply with the
restraining order and reckless endangerment.
Via the Connecticut Post
See also:
My Cat Hates You
Posted Tue Mar 28th, 2006 - 11:01pm by CPC
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Building a Hippy
Housetruck
Seeing is believing.
Build it, and they will come.
Check it out at
Hoopty Rides
Posted Mon Mar 27th, 2006 - 6:42am by CPC
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by William
Greider | the Nation
At the risk of damaging his
reputation, I want to say a few words in praise of a New York Times reporter.
David Sanger had a very smart piece in Sunday's "Week in Review" section titled
"Suppose We Just Let Iran Have the Bomb." The President and Vice President
continue to hint darkly that "all options" remain on the table until Iran
surrenders its nuclear ambitions. Sanger punctured the unilateral bluster and
never raised his voice.
That bold article required a
reporter with considerable self-confidence--a rare quality these days, when most
Washington reporters act like nervous bunny rabbits, always jumping out of the
way. Sanger has an advantage. He understands the diplomatic complexities of
nuclear proliferation--deeply, soberly--because he has been covering this story
for many years. I surmise he has reached that sublime point in a reporter's
career where he knows the subject far better than the passing-through
"government officials" he covers.
Despite the "crisis"
rumblings, Sanger coolly observes: "Some experts in the United States--mostly
outside the administration--have been thinking the unthinkable, or at least the
un-discussable: If all other options are worse, could the world learn to live
with a nuclear Iran?" ...
Read the rest at
the
Nation
Posted Sun Mar 26th, 2006 - 5:16pm by CPC
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Recessed
into a urinal is a pressure-sensitive display screen. When the guest uses it, he
triggers an interactive game, producing images and sound. The reduced size of
the “target” improves restroom hygiene and saves on cleanings costs (like the
“fly in the urinal” at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport). It also makes a trip to
the urinal “fun and games” – more than just a necessary nuisance. By projecting
the game experience into the public space, viewers are treated to a new way of
visualizing the abstract, and the entertainment value is boosted. The projection
of the project into a museum space was conceived of as a critical-ironic
measure, questioning the concept of art, but extending it at the same time. “On
target” is an interactive installation with the functional purpose of improving
hygiene.
Guys, you know that you want one.
Check it out
here
(@ Yanko Design)
Posted Sat Mar 25th, 2006 - 7:59am by CPC
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It's been a good few years since I've seen an IB map (I used to follow such
things when the internet was younger and thinner; no cracks please!).
Check this out:
What is this ball of colors? It is [part of] the North American Internet,
or more specifically a map of just about every router on the North American
backbone, (there are 134,855 of them for those who are counting). The colors
represent who each router is registered to. Red is Verizon; blue AT&T; yellow
Qwest; green is major backbone players like Level 3 and Sprint Nextel; black
is the entire cable industry put together; and gray is everyone else, from
small telecommunications companies to large international players who only
have a small presence in the U.S. If you click on the map it will take you to
much bigger version complete with labels that tell you the address of many of
the routers.
Link to CIO
Posted Fri Mar 24th, 2006 - 11:09pm by CPC
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Kevin Phillips, no lefty, says that America -- addicted to oil, strangled
by debt and maniacally religious -- is headed for doom.
Book Review by Michelle Goldberg | Salon.com
In
1984, the renowned historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Barbara Tuchman
published "The March of Folly," a book about how, over and over again, great
powers undermine and sabotage themselves. She documented the perverse
self-destructiveness of empires that clung to deceptive ideologies in the face
of contrary evidence, that spent carelessly and profligately, and that
obstinately refused to change course even when impending disaster was obvious to
those willing to see it. Such recurrent self-deception, she wrote, "is
epitomized in a historian's statement about Philip II of Spain, the surpassing
wooden-head of all sovereigns: 'No experience of the failure of his policy could
shake his belief in its essential excellence.'"
Though the last case study in "The March of Folly" was about America's war in
Vietnam, Tuchman argued that the brilliance of the United States Constitution
had thus far protected the country from the traumatic upheavals faced by most
other nations. "For two centuries, the American arrangement has always managed
to right itself under pressure without discarding the system and trying another
after every crisis, as have Italy and Germany, France and Spain," she wrote.
Then she suggested such protection could soon give way: "Under accelerating
incompetence in America, this may change. Social systems can survive a good deal
of folly when circumstances are historically favorable, or when bungling is
cushioned by large resources or absorbed by sheer size as in the United States
during its period of expansion. Today, when there are no more cushions, folly is
less affordable." ...
Read the rest
here
See also, a review at the
NYT
Posted Thu Mar 23rd, 2006 - 6:22pm by CPC
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I
have yet to find a blog entry here
that is not fascinating in some way. Recent entries include "Cleaning the Paris
Sewers" (used to involve a giant ball), "the Drost Effect" (about chocolate, but
probably not what you would think), and the "Zadar Sea Organ". Father
Athanasius has definitely made my list of people (dead or alive) that I'd like
to have a long chat with.
The Athanasius Kircher Society was chartered to perpetuate the
sensibilities and pursuits of the late Athanasius Kircher, SJ. Our interests
extend to the wondrous, the singular, the esoteric, the obsessive, the arcane,
and the sometimes hazy frontier between the plausible and the implausible —
anything that Father Kircher might find cool if he were alive today. Records
of our proceedings are maintained for the public’s edification.
Waste some time
here
see previous entry:
Hall of Mirrors for Cats
Posted Wed Mar 22nd, 2006 - 6:48am by CPC
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by Paul Craig Roberts |
AntiWar.com
If you were President George W. Bush with all available US troops tied
down by the Iraqi resistance, and you were unable to control Iraq or political
developments in the country, would you also start a war with Iran?
Yes, you would.
Bush’s determination to spread Middle East conflict by striking at Iran
does not make sense.
First of all, Bush lacks the troops to do the job. If the US military
cannot successfully occupy Iraq, there is no way that the US can occupy Iran, a
country approximately three times the size in area and population.
Second, Iran can respond to a conventional air attack with missiles
targeted on American ships and bases, and on oil facilities located throughout
the Middle East.
Third, Iran has human assets, including the Shi'ite majority population in
Iraq, that it can activate to cause chaos throughout the Middle East.
Fourth, polls of US troops in Iraq indicate that a vast majority do not
believe in their mission and wish to be withdrawn. Unlike the yellow ribbon
folks at home, the troops are unlikely to be enthusiastic about being trapped in
an Iranian quagmire in addition to the Iraqi quagmire.
Fifth, Bush’s polls are down to 34 percent, with a majority of Americans
believing that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
If you were being whipped in one fight, would you start a second fight
with a bigger and stronger person?
That’s what Bush is doing. ..
Check out the rest of this article
here
Posted Tue Mar 21st, 2006 - 8:10am by CPC
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Amsterdam — The camera focuses on two gay men kissing in a park. Later, a
topless woman emerges from the sea and walks onto a crowded beach. For would-be
immigrants to the Netherlands, this film is a test of their readiness to
participate in the liberal Dutch culture.
If they can't stomach it, they need not apply.
Despite whether they find the film offensive, applicants must buy a copy
and watch it if they hope to pass the Netherlands' new entrance examination.
The test – the first of its kind in the world – became compulsory
Wednesday, and was made available at 138 Dutch embassies.
Taking the exam costs €350 (about $488 Canadian). The price for a
preparation package that includes the film, a CD ROM and a picture album of
famous Dutch people is about $86.50...
Read the rest at the
Globe and Mail
Posted Mon Mar 20th, 2006 - 6:12am by CPC
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by Rod Dreher |
NPR
At a time when the Republican Party seems to be fracturing from within,
commentator Rod Dreher says it's time for the GOP to return to its roots. And he
thinks conservatives could find inspiration from fellow Republicans who embrace
a counter-cultural yet traditional conservative lifestyle -- what Dreher dubs
"Crunchy Cons."
"Crunchy cons prefer old houses and mom-and-pop shops to McMansions and
strip malls.... Many of us homeschool our kids, and cheerfully embrace
nonconformity. I read Edmund Burke and wear Birkenstock sandals. Go figure."
Read a book excerpt
here
Posted Sun Mar 19th, 2006 - 7:52pm by CPC
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By MICHEL MARRIOTT |
NYT
A
segmented tower on a metal and plastic base swiveled around. Two glowing
segments, suggesting a head, tilted forward and spoke: "Hello. My name is Scoty.
Let me explain a few things about myself."
In a vaguely female synthesized voice — but always in plain English —
Scoty, the latest robot from the robotic-toy maker
WowWee, demonstrated its functions for a
visitor recently.
Chief among them are managing a personal computer's communication and
entertainment abilities, finding and playing songs by voice request, recording
television shows, telling users when they have e-mail and, again by voice
request, reading the e-mail aloud. It takes and then sends voice-to-text e-mail
dictation. It takes pictures, and gives the time when asked.
Scoty, pronounced Scotty, has no keyboard and does not require mastery of
any specialized computer languages to nudge it to perform and reply in a
likeable human manner, its makers said.
While its name stands for smart companion operating technology, "Scoty is
more of a companion than operating technologies," said Richard Yanofsky,
president of WowWee, which is based in Hong Kong. For lack of a better term, he
said, Scoty, which is 24 inches tall, is a "digital maid."
As robots increasingly migrate from heavy industrial tasks, like welding
automobile chassis on assembly lines, to home uses as restless toys and
venturesome vacuum cleaners, a fetching personality and appealing appearance
become critically important. A flashy show called "Robots: The Interactive
Exhibition" is touring museums and science centers in the United States through
2012 with the aim of demystifying robotics, especially their harder edges...
Read the rest at the
NYT
Posted Sat Mar 18th, 2006 - 7:22am by CPC
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See previous entry:
Patrick
Posted Fri Mar 17th, 2006 - 11:06pm by CPC
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by Nell Boyce |
NPR's All
Things Considered
Imagine
a yellow smiley face. Now imagine 50 billion smiley faces floating in a single
drop of water. That's what scientists have made using a new technique for
building super-tiny shapes using the familiar double helix of DNA.
DNA holds our genetic code, and geneticists have studied it for decades.
They have developed all kinds of tools to synthesize and manipulate this
molecule. About 20 years ago, a researcher named Ned Seeman at New York
University realized that scientists should be able to use all that's known about
DNA to help them build nano-scale shapes that normally would be hard to
engineer.
Since then, Seeman and other chemists have shown that they can use DNA to
build really simple shapes such as cubes or octahedrons that are 1,000 times
thinner than a human hair. They've done it by laboriously designing small
snippets of DNA that will hook themselves up into the desired form...
Go see and hear the rest
at NPR
Posted Thu Mar 16th, 2006 - 9:33pm by CPC
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Commemorate Caesar: Take a Deep Breath!
by Robert Krulwich |
NPR
Though
you may not have noticed, today is the 2050th anniversary of Julius Caesar's
assassination.
Most of us have a vague sense of what happened that day. Caesar was, of
course, a great conqueror. He was very popular with the ordinary folks in Rome,
but not so popular with a small group of senators who feared that at any moment
he would make himself an absolute dictator.
The senators, including his friend Brutus ("Et tu?"), conspired, invited
him to the Senate, gathered round and stabbed him over and over. Caesar,
mortally wounded, exhaled and died.
And it's not like Caesar hadn't been warned. Soothsayers had told him to
"Beware the Ides Of March" -- "ides" meaning the middle of the month. But he
paid no heed.
That's what most people know.
Here's what chemistry students know: For some reason, Caesar's dying
breath, his last exhalation, has become a classic teaching tool in high school
and college. When Caesar exhaled, he released an enormous number of "breath"
molecules, mostly nitrogen and carbon dioxide. It's a very, very big number says
Dan Nocera, chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT). By Nocera's calculation: .05 x 6 x 10 to the 23rd.
"10 to the 23rd" all by itself looks ridiculously large. It's 10 followed
by 22 zeros: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Over the years, a number of scholars have tried to figure out what
typically would happen to all those molecules. They figured some were absorbed
by plants, some by animals, some by water -- and a large portion would float
free and spread themselves all around the globe in a pattern so predictable that
(this is the fun part) if you take a deep breath right now, at least one of the
molecules entering your lungs literally came from Caesar's last breath.
That's what they say.
If you look around the Internet, you will find professors who say we take
in three of Caesar's molecules per breath, or eight, or 10. It all depends on
your assumptions about the size of a breath, the size of the atmosphere, the
location of the breather (on a mountain, or at sea level?)
But bottom line?
Even though these calculations apply to any breath exhaled long ago --
Shakespeare's, Cleopatra's, Lincoln's, your great-great-grandma's -- you may
still want to take a moment today to share with Caesar. Just breathe in and
share his molecule.
Check it out
here
Posted Wed Mar 15th, 2006 - 8:01am by CPC
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Space.com via CNN
High
on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, there is a baffling mountainside "anomaly," a
feature that one researcher claims may be something of biblical proportions.
Images taken by aircraft, intelligence-gathering satellites and commercial
remote-sensing spacecraft are fueling an intensive study of the intriguing
oddity. But whether the anomaly is some geological quirk of nature, playful
shadows, a human-made structure of some sort, or simply nothing at all remains
to be seen.
Whatever it is, the anomaly of interest rests at 15,300 feet (4,663
meters) on the northwest corner of Mount Ararat, and is nearly submerged in
glacial ice. It would be easy to call it merely a strange rock formation....
Read the rest
here
Posted Tue Mar 14th, 2006 - 12:39pm by CPC
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Inside the empire of
the world's largest company
An excerpt of Tony Bianco's new book,
The Bully of Bentonville (via the Willamette Week online).
H.
Lee Scott Jr. looks every inch the chief executive of America's biggest and most
powerful corporation as he strides through the lobby of the Omni Los Angeles
Hotel on his way to make the most important speech of his career. Wearing an
expensive, well-tailored suit on his stocky frame, his hair carefully coiffed,
and his corporate game face on, Scott shows no sign of his natural fear of
public speaking. To the contrary, the 54-year-old executive appears eager for
the chance to justify his company, Wal-Mart Stores, to the 500 business and
community leaders who await him in the Omni's ballroom.
The Omni—a luxury high-rise located in a solidly pro-union, politically
liberal city—is an unlikely venue for the chief executive of an Arkansas-based
corporation that is famously frugal, deeply conservative, and Southern-fried to
the core. Wal-Mart already has 180 stores in California, but its ambitious
expansion plans call for it to quadruple this total while moving from the
outskirts into the heart of Los Angeles and the state's other big cities. In
many Golden State locales, Wal-Mart was being denied the zoning and other
clearances it needed, and so Scott has flown out on this February day in 2005 to
make the case for himself and his company in person at a luncheon sponsored by
Town Hall Los Angeles, a nonpartisan group that immodestly but not inaccurately
bills itself as a forum "for the most important thinkers and leaders on Earth."
Scott takes the stage to polite applause and opens with an aw-shucks
flourish reminiscent of the late Sam Walton, the disarmingly folksy "Mr. Sam,"
who founded Wal-Mart in the remote Ozarks hill town of Bentonville in 1962. "I
know that Town Hall Los Angeles has a national reputation for hosting
conversations on the issues that matter—talks that feature prominent figures
from the worlds of government, business, the nonprofit sector, and the arts,"
Scott says. "It's a little humbling for a shopkeeper from Arkansas to follow
such folks to Town Hall's distinguished podium."
Scott soon discards the faux humility to offer a ringing defense of the
embattled company where he has worked for 26 years. By selling vast quantities
of goods at its trademark "Every Day Low Prices," Wal-Mart has single-handedly
raised America's standard of living, saving consumers about $100 billion a year,
he contends. "These savings are a lifeline for millions of middle- and
lower-income families who live from payday to payday," he says. "In effect, it
gives them a raise every time they shop with us." As Scott tells it, Wal-Mart
also provides good jobs for hundreds of thousands of equally deserving
employees, offers even part-time workers generous health insurance and other
benefits, and contributes hefty tax payments to thousands of towns and cities
from sea to shining sea. "I believe that if you look at the facts with an open
mind," he says, "you'll agree that Wal-Mart is good for America."
Hold it right there. When America's largest corporation conflates its
self-interest with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, alarm bells
should go off in every city hall, statehouse and union hall in the land. Scott
likes to call Wal-Mart an "agent" of the consumer, but this seems far too mild a
description of a company of such size, power and righteous zeal. In the name of
the shopper, Wal-Mart systematically bullies its workers, its suppliers, and the
residents of towns and cities disinclined to submit to the expansion imperative
of a company currently opening new stores at the rate of 1.45 as day. ...
Read the rest
here
See also the
Bully of Bentonville @ Working Life
Posted Mon Mar 13th, 2006 - 6:43am by CPC
Top of page
The president's $5 billion program does more for foreign banks than the needy
by JOSHUA KURLANTZICK | Rolling Stone
In March 2002, with one war raging in Afghanistan and another looming in
Iraq, President Bush announced that he intended to undercut terrorism by
attacking poverty overseas. "I'm here today to announce a ma
jor
new commitment by the United States to bring hope and opportunity to the world's
poorest," Bush declared. Under his watch, the president said, America would
increase its annual foreign aid to $5 billion. And instead of giving handouts,
he added, the program would employ an entirely new model: investing in countries
to spark their economic growth and holding them accountable for their policies.
"I carry this commitment in my soul," Bush said, concluding his speech with a
trademark religious touch. "We will make the world not only safer but better."
The president's plan looked revolutionary. U.S. aid efforts, long hampered by an
ossified bureaucracy, often fail to ensure that recipient nations spend the
money wisely. Bush's plan, by contrast, recognized that poverty cannot be
conquered without economic development, and that countries should continue to
receive aid only if they use it effectively. "It seemed a bold, exciting new
experiment in development policy," says Mary McClymont, the former head of
InterAction, the largest alliance of aid organizations in the U.S.
In a pattern that has become a hallmark of the administration, however,
Bush's aid initiative -- the Millennium Challenge Corporation -- has become an
object lesson in dramatic ideas followed by disastrous action. Over the past
three months, Rolling Stone has reviewed the MCC's "compacts" with foreign
countries, compared the work of similar agencies and spoken with a wide range of
supporters and critics -- including many of the conservative insiders
responsible for creating the program. Instead of hiring aid experts, the
administration at first staffed the MCC with conservative ideologues. Rather
than partnering with other countries, the White House operated on its own,
disconnected from the rest of the world. And when experts criticized the new
agency, the administration responded with a bunker mentality, refusing to talk
to detractors and learn from its mistakes. ..
Read the rest of the article
here
Posted Sun Mar 12th, 2006 - 11:16pm by CPC
Top of page
by Kelly Sharp |
the Texas
Observer
Juliet
Schor’s latest book, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer
Culture, represents the culmination of many things: her training as an economist
and sociologist, her ongoing analysis of consumer culture in previous books (The
Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure and The Overspent
American: Upscaling, Downshifting and the New Consumer), and her own experience
as a mother. Born to Buy examines the increased involvement of children in
consumer culture, specifically as targets of advertising, and the resulting
effect on their well-being. Schor balances her well-researched presentation of
rather alarming data with a voice that is not alarmist, but practical,
informative, and readable.
In many ways her conclusion comes as no surprise. Readers may be
surprised, however, by her data—namely, the sheer volume of marketing to which
children are exposed. According to Schor, the advertising industry spent $100
million on marketing to children in 1983; by 2004 that amount had increased to
$15 billion. Advertisements saturate television, radio, and print media. More
disturbing, however, is the extent to which marketers have infiltrated schools,
the Internet, airplanes, restrooms, and essentially every other public space
available. These ads are the product of some of the finest anthropological
research and creative thinking in the marketing business. Techniques such as
anti-adultism, which pits children against adults in the struggle for marketed
goods, and age compression, which targets children of younger and younger ages,
combine with all the traditionally manipulative advertising techniques to create
a culture in which children do not merely consume, but also find their identity
in consumption...
Read the entire review
here
Posted Sat Mar 11th, 2006 - 11:05pm by CPC
Top of page
The folks at the Athanasius Kircher Society, who showed us to the twisted
17th century cat piano, point us to another
of Kircher's
strange/bizarre inventions. This time around, it's a hall of mirrors -- that
would almost certainly drive cats friends insane if it was ever to be built.
Hrrmmm...
From a text by Gaspar Schott:
“You
will exhibit the most delightful trick if you impose one of these appearances on
a live cat, as Fr. Kircher has done. While the cat sees himself to be surrounded
by an innumerable multitude of catoptric cats, some of them standing close to
him and others spread very far away from him, it can hardly be said how many
capers will be exhibited in that theatre, while he sometimes tries to follow the
other cats, sometimes to entice them with his tail, sometimes attempts a kiss,
and indeed tries to break through the obstacles in every way with his claws so
that he can be united with the other cats, until finally, with various noises,
and miserable whines he declares his various affectations of indignation, rage,
jealousy, love and desire. Similar spectacles can be exhibited with other
animals.”
Via Boing Boing
Posted
Fri Mar 10th, 2006 - 6:33pm by CPC
Top of page
By E&P Staff |
Editor and Publisher
NEW YORK A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all
Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the
statement, "God created man exactly how Bible describes it."
Another 31% says that man did evolve, but "God guided." Only 12% back
evolution and say "God had no part."
Gallup summarized it this way: "Surveys repeatedly show that a substantial
portion of Americans do not believe that the theory of evolution best explains
where life came from." They are "not so quick to agree with the preponderance of
scientific evidence."
The report was written by the director of the The Gallup Poll, Frank
Newport.
Breaking down the numbers, Gallup finds that Republican backing for what
it calls "God created human beings in present form" stands at 57% with Democrats
at 44%.
Support for this Bible view rises steadily with age: from 43% for those 18
to 29, to 59% for those 65 and older. It declines steadily with education,
dropping from 58% for those with high school degrees to a still-substantial 25%
with postgraduate degrees.
Newport wraps it up: "Several characteristics correlate with belief in the
biblical explanation for the origin of humans. Those with lower levels of
education, those who attend church regularly, those who are 65 and older, and
those who identify with the Republican Party are more likely to believe that God
created humans 'as is,' than are those who do not share these characteristics."
Gallup has asked this question, in different forms, going back to 1982,
but has consistently shown support at 45% or higher for the notion that "God
created man in present form."
The most recent poll, last September, posed the question this way: "Which
of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and
development of human beings." This produced the 53% who chose "God created man
exactly how Bible describes it," the 31% who said man did evolve but "God
guided," and the 12% who backed evolution with God playing "no part."
See the article at
Editor and Publisher
Note: Thanks to Dick for forwarding the above...
Also forwarded the following on Mar 10th:
Why I Am a Christian (Sort Of)
Posted
Thu Mar 9th, 2006 - 7:12am by CPC
Top of page
I usually follow the Wal-Mart war with some interest -- and came across the
following article in yesterday's NYT:
By MICHAEL BARBARO |
New York Times
Brian
Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state
legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health
insurance. "All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great
friends of business — are ripping the bills," he wrote.
It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write
itself. And, in fact, it did.
Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from
different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of
Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.
Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the
mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive
nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit
its corporate headquarters.
But the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride
themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation's
largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of
its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say
they do not compensate the bloggers.
But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for
word, without revealing where it came from. ..
Read the
rest of the article at the NYT
Posted
Wed Mar 8th, 2006 - 7:44am by CPC
Top of page
1. Viagra Men being treated for erectile dysfunction should salute the
working stiffs of Merthyr Tydfil, the Welsh hamlet where, in 1992 trials, the
gravity-defying side effects of a new angina drug first popped up. Previously,
the blue-collar town was known for producing a different kind of iron.
2. LSD Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann took the world's first acid hit in
1943, when he touched a smidge of lysergic acid diethylamide, a chemical he had
researched for inducing childbirth. He later tried a bigger dose and made
another discovery: the bad trip.
3. X-rays Several 19th-century scientists toyed with the penetrating rays
emitted when electrons strike a metal target. But the x-ray wasn't discovered
until 1895, when German egghead Wilhelm Röntgen tried sticking various objects
in front of the radiation - and saw the bones of his hand projected on a wall.
See the entire list
here @
Wired
Posted
Tue Mar 7th, 2006 - 6:05am by CPC
Top of page
CBC News
The H5N1 strain of avian flu surpasses AIDS in terms of the challenge it
poses to worldwide health systems, an official with the World Health
Organization warned Monday...
Read the rest of the article
here
Posted
Mon Mar 6th, 2006 - 7:23pm by CPC
Top of page
Found at
kirchersociety.org:
Athanasius Kircher first described the cat piano in his landmark 1650 work
Musurgia Universalis.
In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares
of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected
cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages
side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove
a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of
meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could
not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his
melancholy.
(From a book by Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman, with several chapters on
Kircher’s inventions,
Instruments and the Imagination.)
Posted
Sun Mar 5th, 2006 - 8:27pm by CPC
Top of page
NPR
Jeff Hawkins created the PalmPilot and Treo smart phone. His new company,
Numenta, is developing a type of computer
memory system modeled after the human neocortex, what he calls the "the big
wrinkly thing" at the top of the brain. He's also the co-author of the book
On Intelligence, which details his
vision of how the brain processes information.
See (and listen to) the interview
here
I blindly trust that it won't be obsolete six months after it comes on the
market.
Posted
Sat Mar 4th, 2006 - 8:04am by CPC
Top of page
Americans apparently know more about "The Simpsons" than they do about the
First Amendment.
Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms
guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly
and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half can name at least
two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.
The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22
percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with
just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
Joe Madeira, director of exhibitions at the museum, said he was surprised
by the results.
"Part of the survey really shows there are misconceptions, and part of our
mission is to clear up these misconceptions," said Madeira, whose museum will be
dedicated to helping visitors understand the First Amendment when it opens in
April. "It means we have our job cut out for us."
The survey found more people could name the three "American Idol" judges
than identify three First Amendment rights. They were also more likely to
remember popular advertising slogans. ...
Read the article
here
Posted
Fri Mar 3rd, 2006 - 7:22am by CPC
Top of page
LONDON,
England (Reuters) -- Actor Jack Wild, best known for playing the Artful
Dodger as a teenager in the 1968 film "Oliver!", has died from cancer aged 53.
Nominated for an Oscar for that role aged just 16, he went on to star in
the U.S. television series "H.R. Pufnstuf" and in several films before his
career began to derail, in part because of excessive drinking from an early age.
"Jack died peacefully at midnight last night after a long battle with oral
cancer," his agent Alex Jay said on Thursday.
"He always said he was an entertainer. He wanted 'The Entertainer' to be
played at his funeral," Jay added, referring to the Scott Joplin tune used for
the film "The Sting".
Wild, also a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and underwent
an operation in 2004 to remove part of his tongue and several vocal cords. As a
result he lost his speech, but appeared on stage after the surgery miming his
part in a pantomime...
Read the rest
here
see previous entry:
the Return of H.R. Pufnstuf
Posted
Thu Mar 2nd, 2006 - 9:38pm by CPC
Top of page
Ash Wednesday
Like last year, I'm off to have ashes marked on my forehead at
our Ash Wednesday
service this evening. Afterwards, I'll be taking myself on a walk along Ste. Catherine
street. This year, I will be leading
the worship music part of the service, as it coincides with
the
Outpouring that we have twice per month.
From
Wikipedia.com:
"Some
Christians treat Ash Wednesday as a day for remembering one's
mortality.
Masses are traditionally held on this day at which attendees are
blessed with
ashes by the priest ministering the ceremony. The minister marks
the forehead of each celebrant with black ashes, leaving a mark that
the worshipper traditionally leaves on his or her forehead until
sundown, before washing it off. This symbolism recalls the ancient
Near Eastern tradition of throwing ash over one's head
signifying
repentance before
God (as related numerous times in the
Bible). Often these Ash Wednesday ashes are made by burning Palm
leaves from the previous year's
Palm Sunday celebrations and mixing them with
olive oil as a fixative. In
Roman Catholicism Ash Wednesday is a day of
fasting and
abstinence. The penitential
psalms are read."
