Paranoid about paranoia

Click on this link to read a New York Times column (9-8-10, reprinted in the Herald-Tribune) that warns about paranoid thinking by both liberals and conservatives.  What does such thinking do to our political process?

Imagining and Visualizng the different dimensions

This is a cool video Scott sent me about the different dimensions we might live in. Its a bit long but pretty interesting it discusses the theory that we live in a universe with 11 dimensions. They make some pretty interesting points, its worth taking a look at.

Why Is the Anoka-Hennepin School Board Doing Nothing About LGBT Suicide?

Lesbian and gay students in a Minnesota are committing suicides at an alarming rate, and the school district is doing nothing to stop it. Three gay students commited suicide this year due to bullying and feeling uncomfortable in their own skin. The school distrcit is scared to do anything because they're worried about offending some socially conservative religious leaders in the area, who want to keep any mention of homosexuality, even if it relates to anti-bullying, verboten on high school campuses. I personally think this is a horrible tragedy. Students are dying and the school is scared of offending anyone? Do you think it is the school districts job to step in and stop this?

You can read the whole article here http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/why_is_the_anoka-hennepin_school_board_doing_nothing_about_lgbt_suicide

There are a lot of other interesting articles on change.org, you can also sign petitions and find out ways to get involved in helping to resolve some of these problems.

Understanding the Theory of Everything

I recently saw a video describing the way we try to understand multiple dimensions as being similar to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, and I thought it was a really neat comparison between ancient philosophy and quantum physics.

True, we may have trouble grasping the truths behind scientific processes when all we are capable of understanding are the "shadows" of what we can comfortably perceive. But even when addressing a difficult concept, like Garrett Lisi's Theory of Everything illustrated below in an eight-dimensional model, there is the possibility of comprehension.

Cyber-bullying defies traditional school bully stereotype

Click on this link to read a Washington Post (9-2-10) article about how young girls are playing the role boys traditionally played as bullies in the world of social networking.

Corpse-tested cars

From Slate (9-1-10):

Corpses Used As Crash Test Dummies

Virtually every part of your vehicle that affects driver safety, from the steering column to the windshield, was tested by having a human corpse slammed against it, reports Wired. Computer modeling is used to design new safety features, company officials say, but when push comes to shove there's still no substitute for testing new equipment using a genuine human cadaver. "It's still very important," said a Ford safety specialist. "Even though we have very good math modeling of dummies, human modeling hasn't reached that state yet." The bodies are swaddled in stockings to protect their dignity, then used in exactly the same way as a conventional crash-test dummy; after a simulated crash, the cadavers are rushed away for X-rays and autopsies to check for organ damage. Some automakers deny using cadaver testing, but even those who are bashful about using human bodies fund independent research groups that conduct testing on their behalf. "It's always a good idea when you're developing something to do cadaver testing," the Ford safety official says.

Read original story in Wired.com | Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010

Iranian newspaper calls for death of France's first lady

French First Lady Must Die, Says Iranian Newspaper

An Iranian daily newspaper with close ties to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has called for the execution of French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The attack, which came in response to Bruni-Sarkozy's defense of an Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery, began on Saturday when the Kayhan newspaper ran a story headlined: "French prostitutes enter human rights uproar." The newspaper continued its assault today, calling the French first lady a "decadent actress" and "immoral woman ... known for her extramarital relations," and saying that she too deserved capital punishment for adultery. Iran's government sought to distance itself from the comments, and warned the country's media to be more restrained in future. "Insulting the officials of other countries and using inappropriate words … is not approved of by the Islamic Republic of Iran," a foreign-ministry spokesman said. "We don't think using inappropriate words and insulting words is the right thing to do."

Read original story in Reuters | Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010

Diagnosis by cellphone?

Click on this link to read a Washington Post article about how physicians are using cell phone photos of wounds sent by their patients to make initial diagnoses.  There is a large push nationally for doctors to do more of their work from a distance via technology.  Do you think this is a good trend, or only one justified by emergency?

Straddling bus solution to mass transit

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune article (8-26-10) about a new kind of bus in China that drives above cars on the road by straddling them.

A Show of faith, or an act of hate?

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald-Tribune piece about an evangelical Christian pastor in Gainesville who is planning to publicly burn the Quran.  His plan has provoked widespread protest, but also support from some.  Do you believe this is an exercise of religious freedom, or a dangerous idea?  Both?

Tax on bloggers?

Click on this link to read a Washington Post story (8-24-10) about how Philadelphia is taxing bloggers who make money from advertisements running on their blog page.  They regard such bloggers as "running a business" and therefore expect a $300 "privilege fee" for doing so.  Do you think this is a legitimate form of taxation?  The article lists several other web-based, advertisement-laden activities; should these be included too?  How long do you think it will be before the Web becomes the focus of attempts by government to regulate and tax it?

Death threats apparently OK after all

Court Rules Death Threats Against Corporations Are Legal

In a 2-1 decision, the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a conviction against Kurt William Havelock, the 40-year-old Arizona man who plotted a massacre outside of the 2008 Super Bowl in his home state because his death threats were not mailed to any specific targets. "It will be swift and bloody," Havelock wrote in letters sent to media outlets half an hour before he abandoned his plan. (He still made it all the way to the site of the Super Bowl with his new assault rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition.) "I will sacrifice your children upon the altar of your excess." Havelock was arrested after turning himself over the local police and was convicted on six counts of mailing threatening letters, for which he was sentenced to a year in prison. In making the decision Tuesday that overturned those convictions, Judge William Canby wrote that the threatening-letters statute requires that any death threats be addressed to an individual and not an institution or corporation. "The result of the majority's interpretation is that the statute prohibits sending a threatening communication only if the outside of the envelope or package explicitly directs deliverty to a natural person," Judge Susan Graber wrote in her dissent, which argued that the convictions should stand. The law, she noted, was adopted "to protect individuals from mailed threats of kidnapping, ransom demands, threats of bodily injury or death, and certain other serious threats." The court, she said, should have interpreted the word person in the statute to include other entities and should consider the context of the letters.

Read original story in Wired | Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010

Earth Overshoot Day

Click on this link to visit a website that "celebrates" Earth Overshoot Day.  This is the day of the year when we have outspent the earth's annual resources (air, water, etc.) for our human activities.  Here's a link to a video about the overshoot.

Another good story on the NYC proposed mosque

Click on this link to read a Washington Post story (8-20-10) about how New Yorkers are responding to the media debate surrounding the proposed Islamic Center to be built in the neighborhood (but not on the site) of the September 11th destruction.  The article notes that the congregation proposing to build the center is a Sufi congregation--a branch of Islam very different from that espoused by Al Qaeda.

Exploding cell phones

Man Killed Midconversation When Cell Phone Exploded

There were no witnesses to the incident, but it is believed that Gopal Gujjar, a 23-year-old man from from India's Banda village, was killed when his cell phone exploded midconversation, causing serious injuries to his ear. Gujjar's body was found near his farm along with the charred remains of his cell phone and battery Tuesday morning. Gujjar suffered burns on his left ear as well as on parts of his neck and shoulders, according to the police who recovered his body earlier this week.Gujjar was using a Nokia 1209, a model that came out in 2008, according to the New York Daily News. "It is probably the first incident in the country in which a mobile phone exploded while it was not being charged," the Times of India reported. "However, there have been cases when users sustained injuries as phones exploded." Earlier this year, a woman was killed when talking to her husband on a Chinese-made cell phone while it was plugged into the wall. And deaths from mobile phones have been reported in a handful of other countries, including Korea and Nepal.

Read original story in The Times of India | Friday, Aug. 20, 2010

Ear buds causing hearing loss?

From Slate (8-18-10):

Experts Link Headphone Use to Shocking Rise in Hearing Loss

One in every five teenagers in the United States today has slight hearing loss, according to the authors of a new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The proportion of teenagers with slight hearing loss has jumped 30 percent in the past 15 years.While the new report doesn't speculate as to the causes of problem, a similar study done in Australia this year linked hearing loss to the increased use of headphones and many experts have agreed with those findings. "Personal stereos are the most important change in the culture in the last 15 to 20 years," said Dr. Tommie Robinson Jr., president of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. "Everybody has their own little device now, and how many times have you passed somebody and could hear their music?" Reportedly, even slight hearing loss can have a significant impact on speech perception, self-image, social skills development, and learning. "It may seem like they are not in touch," Dr. Gary C. Curhan of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said of teenagers with slight hearing loss among their peers, "and kids are very aware when someone is a little different." Curhan co-authored the report, which found that males are more likely than females to suffer hearing loss, as are teenagers living below the poverty line. "A variety of factors can increase susceptibility to hearing loss, including genetics, certain medicines, head trauma, very loud noises and the existence of hearing loss, which predisposes a person to further loss," the Chicago Tribune reported. Extrapolating the findings of the study, which analyzed data on nearly 3,000 12- to 19-year-olds from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey conducted by a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would mean that nearly 6.5 million teenagers in the U.S. suffer from slight hearing loss.

Read original story in The Chicago Tribune | Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010

Don't send in the clones

Click on this link to read a New York Times column (8-10-10) by Maureen Dowd that argues for the importance of diversity in picking college roommates.  Dowd worries about services that now help incoming students to pick roommates matched exactly like themselves.  Do you agree that living as a roommate with someone very different than oneself is a good preparation for future life and profession, or could such a selection turn out to be disastrous?

Off road vehicle race accident raises safety questions

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune story about spectators were killed at a desert race of off road vehicles.  Should these races be more tightly regulated or is there a place for this kind of dangerous recreation (dangerous to the racers and to spectators)?

Did our ancestors give up easy sex for beer?

Did Humans Give Up Easy Sex for Easy Beer?

Did our ancestors inadvertently sacrifice a smorgasboard of sexual partners for easier access to beer? That's what Gizmodo's Joel Johnson thinks after reading Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha's Sex at Dawn and Patrick McGovern's Uncorking the Past. In Sex at Dawn, Ryan and Jetha argue that "before humans settled down into civilization, we were small bands of hunter-gatherers who had no notion of sexual monogamy." But after humans began cultivating, "it became important to ensure that you weren't wasting your precious grains on someone else's offspring, especially if it meant you own kid was getting short shrift. Hence monogamy." McGovern, who has done the hard work of studying the history of alcohol, thinks it's possible that humans first began tilling the soil to grow grain for beer, not bread. "I'm sure it seemed like a great idea at first," Johnson says. "Who wouldn't want to get drunk whenever they chose?" But those industrious agriculturalists had no idea that "in just a few generations the idyllic, if unpredictable era of lazy browsing, casual sex, and occasional fruit-fueled orgies would give way to the terrible force of civilization—all so we could bring home a six-pack every night."

Read original story in Gizmodo | Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010

Dangerous intersection or stupid drivers?

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune story (8-11-10) about an intersection (pictured) in Sarasota where people keep running into a clearly-marked wall.  If accidents continue to occur there, is this a sign that the intersection is poorly-designed, or must we write it off to idiocy of drivers on Florida roads?

Strippers protest at church

Strippers Protest Church for Protesting Strippers

Dancers from the Foxhole, a gentleman's club in Coschocton County, Ohio, stood outside the New Beginnings Ministries in their bikinis to protest against the church for protesting against them. "For the last four years, the pastor at New Beginnings has led a protest outside the Foxhole every weekend," Consumerist reported. "Beyond just voicing disapproval of the strip joint, the church members also videotape the license plates of the bar's patrons and then post the info online." Fed up, the club's employees decided to turn the tables. And they know how to protest: Churchgoers arrived to find the ladies writing down their license plate numbers, but also cooling themselves off with Super Soakers. When they weren't busy grilling hamburgers, the women held up signs with Bible quotes: "Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing; Revelations 22:11: He that is unjust, let him be unjust still." "When these morons go away, we'll go away," said the strip club's owner, who has tried to sue the church in the past. "The great thing about this country is that everyone has a right to believe what they want. They're just mad because their wives won't let them come to my club." The pastor, who has said he protests not to condemn the dancers, but to offer them an alternative, said that strippers outside of his church would only strengthen his conviction. "These church people say horrible things about us," said one of the dancers, a married mother of six. "They say we're homewreckers and whores. The fact of the matter is, we're working to keep our own homes together, to give our kids what they need."

Read original story in Gawker | Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010

Another recent political ad

Rick Barber ad encourages a new American Revolution

Russian fires choke Russian capital

Click on this link to read a story about Russia's hottest summer ever.

Cutting the arts to balance gov't budgets?

Click on this link to read a Washington Post article (8-4-10) about the radical cuts in government funding of the arts in Britain that are being contemplated to reduce levels of public debt.

Be gay: break the law (in 76 countries)

Study Finds Being Gay Is a Crime in 76 Countries

A comprehensive study of gay rights conducted by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association found that being gay is a crime for which individuals are persecuted in 76 countries worldwide. Seven of those countries punish same-sex acts with death. "On a global scale, the nations doing something positive for gay rights are dwarfed by those behaving negatively," the Independent on Sunday reported after seeing the study. "While 75 countries will imprison you if you are gay, only 53 have anti-discrimination laws that apply to sexuality. Only 26 countries recognize same-sex unions." While Britain, home of the Independent, is considered a relatively progressive nation where gay people can adopt children, can enjoy civil ceremonies, and are protected from discrimination by legislation, Stonewall, a gay rights organization, says there is still work to be done. "We are mindful that however remarkable the progress we might be making in Britain is, there are countries around the world where people still live in fear of their lives just because of the way they were born," said Ben Summerskill, Stonewall's chief executive. Even in Britain, Stonewall says, two-thirds of young lesbian, gay, and bisexual students are subject to homophobic bullying in school. According to Amnesty International, sub-saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East are the areas of greatest concern for gay rights, but the group is quick to also call out "Western nations becoming complacent." Referring to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Widney Brown of the group said: "The U.S. is the only country in NATO with a prohibition of being openly gay in the military."

Read original story in The Independent on Sunday | Monday, Aug. 2, 2010

World population approaches 7 billion

From Slate (7-30-10):

Forecasters Expect World Population to Reach 7 Billion Next Year

The population of the world will climb above 7 billion sometime in 2011, says the Population Reference Bureau, a research group. With 267 people being born every minute and only 108 dying, developing countries are adding more than 80 million people to the world's population every year. Carl Haub, the group's senior demographer, estimated that by 2050 the world's population will be more than 9 billion.While the news can be celebrated because it represents longer life spans, the group is concerned. A closer look at the data shows that the ratio of working-age adults to the elderly that they are called on to support is rapidly declining because of lower birthrates. It also shows that the majority of population growth is happening in the world's poorest countries, "exacerbating poverty and threatening the environment," according to William P. Butz, the president of the Population Reference Bureau. "While the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand will continue to grow because of higher birthrates and immigration, Europe, Japan and South Korea will shrink (although the recession reduced birthrates in the United States and Spain and slowed rising birthrates in Russia and Norway)," the New York Times reported. In the U.S., where people seem constantly worried by the state of Social Security and Medicare, the proportion of the gross domestic product spent on those two entitlement programs will jump from 8.4 percent this year to 14.5 percent by 2050.

Read original story in The New York Times | Friday, July 30, 2010

Warlords as allies in Afghanistan?

Click on this link to read a Washington Post (7-29-10) story about a brutal warlord who has been enlisted as an ally against the Taliban.  Do you think it is a good idea to use such people in Afghanistan?  Do we have any real choice?  Are such dilemmas a sign of a war we shouldn't be in to begin with?  Or does a realistic assessment of our dangerous world suggest that such alliances are inescapable?

Continuing controversy over proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero

Click on this link to read a New York Times column (7-27-10) by Clyde Haberman that complains about the protests regarding a proposed Islamic Center near the site of the 9-11 World Trade Center collapse.  Do you think building such a center near (not "at", as the column notes) is a bad idea?  Should it, even if so, still be permitted?

Dangers of full body radiation scanning?

Click on this link to read a New York Times column (7-27-10) by Joe Sharkey that explores the potential radiation dangers from full body scanning techniques being implemented the next 2 years in airports.

Vast enterprise of "secret" agencies formed since 911

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune/Washington Post (7-18-10) article about the huge network of secretive agencies that have been created since September 11th, 2001.  Collaboration between these many agencies is proving difficult and the amount of intelligence data being generated dwarfs the abilities of leaders to keep up with it.  Is such a vast ediface necessary in the 21st century to sustain the security of a world superpower?

Is synthetic marijuna sold as incense dangerous?

Click on this link to read a New York Times article (7-10-10) about the various forms of K2, a chemical blend of various herbs and synthetic marijuana, that are now being banned by a number of states.  Poison control centers and emergency rooms point to an uptick of distress calls traced to the use of the substances, but others argue that they are harmless.  States such as Missouri have illegalized them, but chemists are quickly inventing new formulas that elude the newly-passed laws.

Is desalinization a solution for water shortages? Australia's experience

Click on this link to read a New York Times story (7-10-10) about the pros and cons of desalinization plants as a response to droughts and over-consumption of fresh water.  Are there better solutions, such as water conservation and population reduction, or is this expensive and energy-consuming technology the most realistic solution?  Attached is a video that was included in the WorldNews site that repeated the NYT article.

Students, meet your new teacher, Mr. Robot

Click on this link to read a New York Times another article (7-11-10) about how robots are taking roles formerly played by people--in this case, providing companionship to autistic children.

Can machines become our companions?

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune (7-5-10) article about the use of robots to provide companionship to elderly people suffering from dementia and moral support for drug addicts seeking to kick the habit.

Young Women Are Addicted to Facebook

From Slate (6-7-10): Even before they go to the bathroom or brush their teeth, one of the first things one-third of women age 18-34 do in the morning when they wake up is check their Facebook account. The results of a two-month study of more than 1,600 adults released by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research on Wednesday show that "young women are becoming more and more dependent on social media and checking on their social networks," Mashable reported. The study's results go further than previous studies on the subject, finding that 57 percent of young women talk to people online more than face-to-face and 39 percent go so far as to declare themselves addicted to Facebook. More than 20 percent even check Facebook in the middle of the night. Other statistics that emerged from the study seemed a bit contradictory: 89 percent of young women advise against loading anything onto Facebook that you wouldn't want your parents to see, yet 42 percent have no problems with posting photographs of themselves drunk. Mashable sumarized the results: "Our habits are changing due to social media technology, particularly Facebook. It's not just a connection tool for many women, but a research tool, a dating network, and a way to keep tabs on both boyfriends and enemies."

Read original story in Mashable | Wednesday, July 7, 2010

New Technology Could Allow Blind To Drive Independently

From Slate (July 2, 2010):

After years of research, the National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech hope to demonstrate by next year a prototype vehicle that would allow a blind person to drive independently. The technology, known as "nonvisual interfaces," is based on Virginia Tech's third-place entry into the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge, a competition funded by the Defense Department for driverless vehicles. It uses sensors to relay information to a blind person about his or her surroundings. "We're exploring areas that have previously been regarded as unexplorable," said Dr. Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, during a press conference in Daytona Beach, Fla. "We're moving away from the theory that blindness ends the capacity of human beings to make contributions to society." Maurer has been talking about building a car for the blind since launching the research institute of his Baltimore-based organization a decade ago. "Some people thought I was crazy and they thought, 'Why do you want us to raise money for something that can't be done?' Others thought it was a great idea," he said. Advocates for the blind, who consider driving a car a goal on par with landing on the moon, acknowledge that years of testing will be required before society accepts blind drivers regardless of how good the technology is. Various options are being considered: One uses a vibrating vest to direct drivers, another uses compressed air to create a map of objects that surround a vehicle. "The results will be demonstrated next January on a modified Ford Escape sport utility vehicle at the Daytona International Speedway before the Rolex 24 race," theAssociated Press reported.

Read original story in The Associated Press | Friday, July 2, 2010

Al-Qaida Launches English-Language Magazine

From Slate (July 1, 2010):

With articles like "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" and "What to Expect in Jihad," al-Qaida is hoping that its new English-language magazine, entitled Inspire, will help to recruit English-speaking Muslims inside of the United States and Europe. Run by the al-Qaida branch in Yemen that has been linked to the failed Chrismas Day bombing, Inspire was sort of distributed online on Wednesday. Only the first few pages, which Marc Ambinder has posted as image files on theAtlantic, came through. (Uncertain that the PDF was without a virus, he refrained from posting the entire file.) The rest of the pages were infected. "AQAP's first effort to post the magazine to jihadist websites failed Wednesday, as many of the pages were contaminated with a virus," Ambinder wrote. "(I half seriously believe that U.S. cyber warriors might have had a hand in that little surprise.)" In the introduction, the magazine's editors, led by Anwar al-Awlaki, ask readers to contribute their own articles and suggestions. Al-Awlaki has inspired several recent terrorist plots through his online sermons, according to the Associated Press. A U.S.-born cleric, al-Awlaki's English language skills are far superior to most of his al-Qaida comrades. But Ambinder suggests that Western intelligence officials, and not al-Awlaki, may be behind Inspire. "It is possible, although not likely, that the magazine is a fabrication, a production of a Western intelligence agency that wants to undermine Al Qaeda by eroding confidence in its production and distribution networks," he wrote. "The U.S. is engaged in direct net-based warfare with jihadis; this sort of operation would not be too difficult to pull off."

Read original story in The Atlantic | Thursday, July 1, 2010

Flying car clears major hurdles

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald-Tribune article (July 2, 2010) about a "flying car" that has been moving to market (for about $175,000).  The car will enable someone to drive to the airport, then take off from the runway.  It may also feature a parachute that would drop safely to earth if difficulties were encountered.

Is the Web redesigning our brains? For the better?

Click on this link to read an excerpt, published in Wired (June, 2010) from The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.  Carr argues that the riot of information currently available to us is shattering our ability to concentrate and is rewiring our brain.  But is it rewiring it for the better?