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Quote of the day

From Lawrence Krauss, in a discussion with Natalie Jeremijenko that is featured in the latest issue of Seed: I think that's what makes science special. As a scientist and someone who tries, for better or worse, to extol the virtues of science in a society that doesn't appreciate many of those virtues, I think that ultimately the good stuff wins out even if it takes a while to do it. Because the final arbiter of success isn't people. In science, it's experiments. It's the ability to make it work. If it works, then people buy into it, whether they like it or not. And I really think that's…

The internet is a series of tubes

This is helpful. Senator Ted Stevens explains how the internet works. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. Stay with this idea, please, because it is how I'm going to get rich. My plan is to install peristaltic pumps on fiber optic cables, and working on the same principle as…

Rove's Math

I know too much schadenfreude isn't good for you, but I just couldn't resist posting this little excerpt of Rovian braggadocio from NPR last week: SIEGEL: We're in the home stretch, though, and many would consider you on the optimistic end of realism about - ROVE: Not that you would be exhibiting a bias ... SIEGEL: I'm looking at all the same polls that you're looking at every day. ROVE: No, you're not. No, you're not. SIEGEL: No, I'm not. ROVE: No, you're not. You're not. I'm looking at 68 polls a week. You may be looking at four or five public polls a week that talk about attitudes…

Sucky Hybrids

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the vast majority of hybrid cars aren't worth the surcharge. You'd get much better mileage with a smaller engine, especially if it was a clean diesel. What worries me about hybrids is that they seem to satisfy this bourgeois lust for environmentally friendly brands - nothing says upper class liberal like a Prius parked in a Whole Foods parking lot - and yet typically don't represent significant environmental improvements. We assuage our conscience without doing much good. Now Forbes has compiled a list of the least fuel-efficient hybrids: In fact,…

Tim Tebow gets a lesson

Tebow is an obnoxious hyper-religious football player. He recently had to take some kind of test with a group of other players, and this is what happened: At the Scouting Combine, the Wonderlic exam is administered to players in groups.  The 12-minute test is preceded by some brief instructions and comments from the person administering the test. Per a league source, after the person administering the test to Tebow's group had finished, Tebow made a request that the players bow their heads in prayer before taking the 50-question exam. Said one of the other players in response:  "Shut…

Kratos has a new mission

There is a video game called Gods of War in which you guide your ultraviolent hero, Kratos, through a series of missions that lead to an assault on the Greek gods. You get to kill Zeus! There has been a whole series of these games, apparently, and Penny Arcade hints at a new direction they could take. One has to wonder what the public response to such a game would be. Killing Zeus is reasonable and uncontroversial (except for generic concerns about violence), but I suspect a swordfight with Jesus would freak a few people out. I've never played this game, but I admit…give me a shot at the…

Pale Male on Labor Day

tags: Pale Male, NYC red=tailed hawk, Image of the Day The photographer writes: I caught the world famous celebrity Red-tailed Hawk Pale Male in a patriotic mood on one of his favorite perches atop the flagpole at the Castle in Central Park. No doubt he was getting into the spirit of this holiday weekend. Let him be an inspiration to us all. Viva Labor Day. It appears to me the city could find the budget to buy a new flag. This one's a bit worn around the edges but then some of us feel the same way. Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George. [larger].

How depressing

Creationist can actively impede science. One of the largest mastodon fossils ever found was discovered on a ranch in Texas owned by a fellow named Joe Taylor — an infamous creationist who runs the Mt. Blanco Fossil "Museum", a wacky little place that peddles fossils while claiming they support a 6,000 year old earth. Now he's putting it up for auction, and you can buy the skull for something north of $60,000. We can't win this one. Even if it's bought by a reputable museum and studied scientifically, it still means that this creationist is going to get a huge chunk of change to use in…

I'm not the only biologist with too much free time.

I just want to say that this might be the coolest thing I've ever stumbled upon while surfing the net. Hands down, by far, the best. Subsequently, it would be downright immoral for me not to share it with you: Someone (found by this person) actually figured out how to knit a dissecting rat and frog. I'm sorry - I just couldn't help myself. I officially need to learn to knit, so I can make a pair of my own. Get the pattern for the rat or frog and make your own! Or if you're lazy, buy them. I think they'd make a great gift - especially if I'm on your Christmas list.

Last call for Skepticon

Only a few weeks are left until Skepticon III takes place, and only a few seats are left — this is a conference that has some fabulous speakers (well, except for me. Since I utterly reject the notion of the supernatural, I'm merely mundane), yet admission is entirely free. All you have to do is cough up travel money. If you can't make it, there's something else you can do: buy one of their calendars to help them pay for this event. They're amazing works of art, and educational, too. I have learned that naked skeptics are masters of the art of the Strategic Placement of Random Objects. I think…

Minchin morning

At the youtube page for this video, it's recommended that you buy his DVD. I agree! I want it! But, unfortunately, I only found one Minchin DVD at Amazon, and it won't play in the US. Any suggestions? Anyone? When I see Tim Minchin in London in the fall, do I have to beat him up, steal his computer, bootleg everything he has encoded on it, and get rich selling the stolen data on the internet? No, that wouldn't be nice at all, especially since he'd probably beat me up and then write a satirical song about me that would mean I could never leave my house ever again. Where's the Minchin HBO…

"What use has this company for an electrical toy?"

It is said that these were the words uttered by William Orton, President of Western Union, when given the chance to buy out a 10% share of Alexander Graham Bell's patents for $100,000. Those patents included those related to the telephone. A few weeks later, on this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Watson carried out the first two-way "long"-distance conversation on a telephone, borrowing for the purpose in-place telegraph line, between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. By spring of the next year several additional tests were run over much longer distances, most (but…

420: Friday Fractal LXXVI

For some of my friends, today is a holiday. So, to celebrate, here’s a fractal: Fractal 420(Click the image for a desktop sized version, or here for an alternate version.) Note: If you’re wondering where I’ve been, or why this post is so brief, don’t worry. I’ve just been having some issues with my keyboard (it keeps typing the wrong things or jumping a "page up") which makes any writing a serious pain in the wrist. I’m going to try to clean my keyboard out with canned air later today, or, if all else fails, I’ll just buy a new one. Fractal created by the author using ChaosPro.

Science Fiction Anthology Book - Buy Now!

TheScian Science Fiction Anthology - a collectible very first paperback edition is now available for purchase. For eye-candy, preview and to buy visit the book page. Shipping to US is 2-3 days (one day with Amazon Prime), to Europe and UK takes about 5 days. Kindle eBook edition and an Indian paperback edition will be available in a few weeks if you don't want to spend more on shipping. That said, I think you'll enjoy this 150 page volume more on real paper. Follow us on Twitter where we talk about books, publishing and more. (How do you handle spam on twitter? I just created the account…

On second thought...

So naturopaths want to be licensed to practice "primary care". I've come down pretty hard on this idea, but one of my colleagues is asking me to reconsider for some pretty good reasons. If we license them as PCPs, then they must be held to the same standards as MDs, meaning they must provide insurers including medicare with PQRI data on quality measures and outcomes, and they must buy malpractice insurance (and lots of it). I have a feeling that as when they have bad outcomes and are found to not be following the standard of care, the trial lawyers can make a few more boat payments.

Two Recommendations

1) Away, by Amy Bloom. The prose is perfect. It's the best written new novel you'll read this year, and that's saying something, since Ian McEwan also came out with a new novel. Another interesting thing about the book is that I almost didn't buy it because the cover is so terrible, or at least unappealing to me. But that would have been a mistake. 2) Into the Wild, by Eddie Vedder. Haven't seen the movie, but the music is fantastic. If Thoreau had an iPod, he'd be listening to this in the woods. That, of course, begs the question: would Thoreau have owned an iPod?

The Bush Boom: How a Misunderestimated President Fixed a Broken Economy

One of the great things about the internet is that you can always look back. See the 5 star reviews for The Bush Boom: How a Misunderestimated President Fixed a Broken Economy. Pretty funny. Here's a sample: Jeff and Larry have written a volume destined to stand alongside "The Hoover Miracle" and "Lyndon Johnson: Triumph in Vietnam". If you have to buy one book about a nonexistent phenonmenon this year, this is it. In the bizarro world there really is a Bush boom. But over there Larry Kudlow is a vegan with a ponytail delivering tofu pizzas for minimum wage. That's a review which came out…

Wal-Mart scares the bejeebus out of 2-year-old

Wal-Mart scares me on the best of days, but not quite like this. Seems there was a two-year-old who "had a fit" when he came across a Wal-Mart Halloween display that came to life before his innocent little eyes: The tot was with his grandmother on Tuesday night at the Hendersonville [N.C.] Super Wal-Mart when a Halloween display seemed to take on a life of its own. As Hendersonville resident Jan Overcash and Tucker were leaving the store, an employee directed their attention to the display, said Overcash, 47. It seemed harmless at first. "The head was still on it, but then the arms raised up…

Save Net Neutrality from The Corporate Takeover of Media

From Al Franken: The Comcast-NBC merger is the first domino. If it falls, the rest will soon follow. If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before 4 or 5 megacorporations effectively control the flow of information in America not only on television, but online? How long do you think it will take before the Fox News website loads 5 times faster than DailyKos? It's almost too late to stop this from happening, but not quite. The government can stop them. . . but first the government has to be MADE to act. Net Neutrality is THE First Amendment issue of our time. If you want to…

Sea turtles are bloggers,too

Conservation International wins this year's Award for Affirmative Action by hiring an endangered species to raise awareness about biodiversity conservation and habitat loss. His health benefits are probably better than ours. He'll need those benefits, too. Nearly 90% of leatherback turtles in the Pacific Ocean failed to show up at their nesting grounds a few years back. Apparently, one of them quit the pelagic life to take a jobby job in the nation's capitol. Mr Leatherback has become so popular that he blogs daily, keeps a website on MySpace, and he's friends with rock stars like Stone…

Underrepresented Groups, Online Science Media, and ScienceOnline2010

Over at A Blog Around the Clock there are a series of posts with great video interviews from ScienceOnline2010, but I'd like to especially point your attention to this one with David Kroll and Damond Nollan, both of North Carolina Central University. It was filmed shortly after their session on "Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Session: Engaging underrepresented groups in online science media". I missed this session due to a combination of sleep deprivation and headache, and am really regretting it. Isis has a good post based on her attendance at the session, however - you should read it…

Lefty Blogosphere and the Love/Hate of Hillary

I wrote this on January 28, 2006. Was I wrong then? Is that wrong now? Have things changed in the meantime? ------------------------------------------------ Chris Bowers on MyDD recently had a post asking why the Progressive blogosphere does not like Hillary Clinton. Here's a little bit from Chris: Now I can explain what this all has to do with Hillary Clinton. As obvious as I thought my last point was, it is probably even more obvious by now that Hillary Clinton is, um, not exactly the most popular Democrat within the blogosphere and the netroots. I can offer loads of anecdotal…

How to get minority kids interested in geology field work? Check out Rue Mapp's Outdoor Afro blog!

While many folks 'round these parts have been focusing on tweets and posts from the Society for Neuroscience meeting, several of our geology blogger colleagues have been at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA). Geobloggers rock and we've got a great outcrop at ScienceBlogs. They're usually really gneiss people and they don't take any schist from anyone. And while their ideas may not always hold water, they are quite often a gas. I really get a recharge out of them and their attitude is uplifting. Put simply, I am an alluvial fan. I hope that she doesn't mind the…

Hugo and Nebula Thoughts

There's been a fair bit of discussion of this year's Hugo nominees around the Internets, most of it centering around the gender of the nominees (that link goes to a fairly civilized discussion, which includes links to a rather more heated argument). For those who haven't been following the controversy, only one of the twenty nominated works in fiction categories was by a woman. What follows will be rambling and discursive and probably not terribly productive, but I've become accustomed to thinking by typing, so there you go. If you're not fascinated by squabbling over SF awards, scroll down…

Miscellaneous Comments on Who Killed the Electric Car?

Who Killed the Electric Car? opened this evening. As Seed has a nice interview with the filmmaker, Chris Paine, I thought I would see it and write of a review. (Incidentally, I saw this film tonight in a theater of a whopping 27 people in downtown Manhattan. Considering that this is Manhattan, and it is opening night I wouldn't be holding out for An Inconvenient Truth level turnout over the next couple weeks.) (I don't have time to write a coherent essay on the film, so my issues with it are dealt with below in more or less random order.) First, I disagree with this movie's title. I guess…

Best Science Books 2010: Toronto Star / Public Policy Forum

Another list for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure. This list is the Holiday Reading list from the Toronto Star Public Policy Forum, picked from individual lists in today's print newspaper. Bizarrely, I wasn't able to find the list online. Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It by Robert Glennon The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow Carbon Shift: How Peak Oil and the Climate Crisis Will Change Canada (and Our Lives) by Thomas Homer-Dixon I'm…

Take Denialism 101

John Cook, of Skeptical Science fame, has created an online course through the University of Queensland and edX, on denialism and climate change. Easy to access and free to take, I found it simple to join from their facebook page, and if you don't want to join you can still see the lectures from their Youtube channel. Having gone through the materials so far I have to say Cook nails it. His graphic depicting the 5 tactics is very clear and easy to understand. Also I think he has done a great job of making clear that the problem isn't one of education, facts or knowledge. The problem is…

Go East, Young Neanderthal

Map of newly extended certainty of Eurasian Neanderthal range. From Nature It has for some time been difficult to assess the eastern limit of classic "Neanderthals." Some have claimed that Neanderthals were limited to western Asia, others that they extended across much of Asia. The fossil remains themselves have been difficult to interpret. One reason for this is that Neanderthals are not different enough from other contemporary hominids to assert a similarity or difference for a particular fossil, unless you have enough of it, and the fossil record in Central Asia and East Asia for the…

Gary Null can kiss mein tuchas

But apparently he'd rather have me fill it with coffee. Really...I mean it. I love coffee, but c'mon now! I can't stand that this idiot is given time on public television during pledge drives to peddle his woo... I stumbled across a website that goes on and on about the supposed vast conspiracy of the medical community to...well, I'm not sure. Anyway, given that you have to buy Gary Null's quack tomes to get his advice, it's hard to know exactly what he is selling. The conspiracy theorist from the above-linked site was kind enough to share some of Null's secrets (at least they are cited that…

Lack of Regulation, and the Crisis

Mean-spirited reactionary politics below the fold. If you're a kind-hearted liberal here for the physics, you might want to skip this post, have a nice tea instead, and calmly meditate on Obama's recent rise in the polls. I've had several conversations with people over the past few days about the cause of the current financial crisis. One common refrain is that deregulation regulation pushed though by heartless free marketers is the cause. "Ok", I ask them, "what regulation specifically?" And I generally don't get an answer. The reason is that the crisis is due to loans not being repaid…

A Weight Loss Plan That Works. (or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the gym.)

As you might have noticed, ScienceBlogs picked up a couple of new bloggers recently. Peter Janiszewski and Travis Saunders moved their blog, Obesity Panacea, over to these parts last week. Their move gives me an opportunity that's way too good to pass up - an excuse to present my latest excuse for a prolonged gap in blogging. I've been too busy getting thin to post much. OK, maybe "getting thin" isn't the most accurate description. But it sounds so much nicer than reality - which is more like "becoming merely overweight instead of downright obese". (For starters, it's a much pithier…

Bailout 2.0 is Upon Us

From href="http://londonbanker.blogspot.com/2008/09/quotable-on-bank-balance-sheets.html">London Banker: "The problem with financial institution balance sheets is that on the left hand side nothing is right and on the right hand side nothing is left." It's pretty obvious that financial institutions are struggling.  We've had href="http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html">16 banks taken over by the FDIC in the past two years, 13 so far this year.  Other failing banks have been taken over or merged, lest they too have the FDIC take them over.   href="http://ml-…

Which American Accent Do You Have?

I found this nifty little quiz that tries to diagnose where you are from in the USA based on how you pronounce certain words. Okay, I show you my results below the fold, so the least you can do is show me yours, too! By the way, I am curious to know how the Aussies and Brits score on this quiz, too, so don't be shy! What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast   Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell…

Jurist

This word is from the 29 October 2006 New York Times Magazine's feature, entitled "Islam and the Bomb" by Noah Feldman (print; not yet online). This week's issue is particularly good because, in addition to the article that I cite (below), it also contains a piece about the Taliban, several articles about bipolar disorder, an interview with a psychiatrist about depression and an piece about Alzheimer's disease. Jurist (JOOR-ist) [French juriste from Medieval Latin jurista, from Latin jur- jus law] n. a legal scholar versed in civil law or the law of nations. a public official…

Joseph Oehmen, MIT Research Scientist: "there was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity from the damaged Japanese reactors"

I assume by now you've seen this: "You Can Stop Worrying About A Radiation Disaster In Japan -- Here's Why". I repeat, there was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity from the damaged Japanese reactors. By "significant" I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on - say - a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation.... I'm so glad to hear the situation is under control. And that Business Insider, an online journal, is getting us this important information in a…

Human/Chimp difference

From EurekaAlert: Approximately 6 percent of human and chimp genes are unique to those species, report scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and three other institutions. The new estimate, reported in the inaugural issue of Public Library of Science ONE (Dec. 2006), takes into account something other measures of genetic difference do not -- the genes that aren't there. That isn't to say the commonly reported 1.5 percent nucleotide-by-nucleotide difference between humans and chimps is wrong, said IUB computational biologist Matthew Hahn, who led the research. IUB postdoctoral…

Michael Gazzaniga & Tom Wolfe in the Seed Salon

The latest Seed Salon features highlights from an interesting discussion between Tom Wolfe and Michael Gazzaniga, one of the founders of cognitive neuroscience, who is best known for the work he carried out with Roger Sperry on split brain patients. Gazzaniga and Wolfe discuss, among other things, the implications of neuroscience for our concept of free will. The transcript of the whole discussion has just been published in the current issue of Seed, and is now available online. I love this anecdote from the transcript, about how Jose Delgado controlled an angry bull by electrical…

Barriers to Eating Sustainably, Real and Imagined

During the period of my life when I was a professional smart-ass (ie, my adolescence), I used to complain to my mother that even the day after she went grocery shopping, there was never any food in the house, only the component ingredients of food. As I teenager I wanted to eat like my peers who seemed to have an endless supply of chips and soda around. To have to come home from school and actually scramble eggs or make a sandwich seemed horribly unfair. My mother and step-mother expressed little sympathy. It was only later that I realized how central this "buying the ingredients of food…

How computers can make humans like them

More and more human conversations are taking place online. While I don't do instant messaging the way my kids like to, I'm much more likely to contact a friend via e-mail than to pick up the phone. Here at Cognitive Daily and at other online discussion forums, I've built relationships with commenters who I've never seen or even e-mailed. While the next leap in online communications—videoconferencing—is in its infancy, an intermediate form is beginning to show promise. Called a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE), it enables people to have a virtual online conference by creating digital…

You are what you eat

This is pretty common knowledge, but it's nice to see it supported by data: In `food deserts' of city, healthy eating a mirage: For African-Americans who live in "food deserts" on Chicago's South and West Sides, where fast-food restaurants are plentiful and grocery stores are scarce, a lack of choices is more than an inconvenience. A provocative new study concludes that residents are more likely to die prematurely from diabetes, cancer and other ailments. ----------snip----------- Starting with the fundamental premise that the well-being of urban communities is a block-by-block phenomenon,…

My picks from ScienceDaily

'Mafia' Behavior In Cowbirds? Study First To Document Evidence: Cowbirds have long been known to lay eggs in the nests of other birds, which then raise the cowbirds' young as their own. Sneaky, perhaps, but not Scarface. Now, however, a University of Florida study finds that cowbirds actually ransack and destroy the nests of warblers that don't buy into the ruse and raise their young. Man's Best Friend Lends Insight Into Human Evolution: Flexibly drawing inferences about the intentions of other individuals in order to cooperate in complex tasks is a basic part of everyday life that we humans…

Occupational Health News Roundup

The most prominent occupational health news this week is the tragic deaths of 29 workers from New Zealand's Pike River coal mine. Celeste has already written about this, so I'll just add my encourgement to visit the New Zealand Herald's photos and short profiles of the 29 miners: Conrad Adams, Malcolm Campbell, Glen Cruse, Allan Dixon, Zen Drew, Christopher Duggan, Joseph Dunbar, John Hale, Daniel Herk, David Hoggart, Richard Holling, Andrew Hurren, Koos Jonker, William Joynson, Riki Keane, Terry Kitchin, Francis Marden, Samuel Mackie, Michael Monk, Stuart Mudge, Kane Nieper, Peter O'Neill,…

Deep Thoughts from Pop Culture II

Here's the other quote from Chuck Klosterman IV that I mentioned earlier, this one from an essay in Esquire on people who feel betrayed by pop culture: Do you want to be happy? I suspect that you do. Well, here's the first step to happiness: don't get pissed off that people who aren't you happen to think Paris Hilton is interesting and deserves to be on TV every other day; the fame surrounding Paris Hilton is not a reflection on your life (unless you want it to be). Don't get pissed off because the Yeah Yeah Yeahs aren't on the radio enough; you can buy the goddamn album and play "Maps" all…

Launch Pad for Quantum Physics

Over at Jeff Vandemeer's blog, Rachel Swirsky has a series ofm guest posts (start here if you prefer direct post links) about the recently completed Launch Pad workshop. this is a NASA funded workshop bringing a group of writers together for six days of lectures on modern astronomy from working astronomers. From the workshop web site: Launch Pad is a NASA-funded education/public outreach effort supplementing Mike Brotherton's space-based astronomical research. Our budget allows us to provide a workshop that is essentially free to participants. Our primary goal is to teach writers of all…

Hey do you believe in reincarnation? Remember that money you owe me?!

Actually, more appropriately, "Hey do you believe in past lives, aliens or CIA mind control?" "yes!" "Do get the feeling that you owe someone money?" "yes!" "Yeah, you owe me some money" There's an interesting article in the March issue of Consciousness and Cognition about the link between false memories and the totally out there belief of reincarnation. Here's the basic design and results of the study from Live Science/MSNBC Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of 40 non-famous names, and then, after a two-hour wait, told that they were going to see a list consisting of three types of…

How deep is your love for the Caribbean?

You have to respect The Nature Conservancy (TNC) because they put their money where there mouth is. While some other organizations have a tendency to turn "conservation" into "conversation", TNC has a tendency to purchase property and throw up a no trespassing sign. Sure, it gets them into trouble sometimes, but privatizing a resource is a great way to avoid the Tragedy of the Commons. Eventually, these properties are absorbed into state of federal park lands, often in better shape than they would have been otherwise. But what to do about the oceans? In some states, submerged lands in bays…

Extremophiles, Volcanoes and You

Folks have been suggesting that life on Earth started near volcanic vents for a long time now (and of course, some people don't buy it). Whether or not life sprung forth near hydrothermal vents, undersea black smokers or from the head of Zeus, it doesn't really change the fact that we find organisms living in these places today, expanding what we might consider "habitable" by leaps and bounds. Case and point, researchers from CU-Boulder have recently found a community of micro-organisms happily living near the summit of Volcán Socompa (above) in Chile in the hydrothermal vents. Now, having…

Clock Interview: John Hogenesch - genes, clocks, Web and ScienceOnline'09

The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January. This is also the first in what I hope will be a long series of interviews with researchers in my field of Chronobiology. Today, I asked John Hogenesch, my chronobiologist colleague who moderated the 'Community intelligence applied to gene annotation' session at ScienceOnline'09, to answer a few questions. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock.…

Reading Diary: Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It by Marc Goodman

There's kind of two theories of the web. The first theory is that it's the best thing ever, the culmination of human civilization, incapable of being anything negative in anyone's lives. Proponents of this theory can't stand it when anyone says anything mean about the web (or usually any technology) in public or especially online. The other theory is the chicken little theory. According to this theory, the web (and usually any technology) is the reason the world is going to hell in a hand basket. All the bad things in the world are because the web is disrupting science and art and culture.…

Nah, don't believe it

Science (the mag, not the concept) sez: Science is driven by data. New technologies... blah... publishers, including Science, have increasingly assumed more responsibility for ensuring that data are archived and available after publication... blah... Science's policy for some time has been that "all data necessary to understand, assess, and extend the conclusions of the manuscript must be available to any reader of Science" (see www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/)... blah... Science is extending our data access requirement listed above to include computer codes involved in the…