Francis's News Feeds

Futurismic: Arboreal structures: tree benches, streetlamps

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:01:56 +0000

A splendid concept is being pursued to manipulate the roots of trees to create useful structures:

Pilot projects now underway in the United States, Australia and Israel include park benches for hospitals, playground structures, streetlamps and gates. “The approach is a new application of the well-known botanical phenomenon of aerial root development,” says Prof. Eshel. “Instead of using plant branches, this patented approach takes malleable roots and shapes them into useful objects for indoors and out.”

A company called Plantware is developing these, and similar methods, to create a wide variety of tree-based items. In addition researchers from Tel Aviv University are developing other environmentally friendly ideas:

Prof. Eshel’s team is also working on a number of other projects to save the planet’s resources. They are currently investigating a latex-producing shrub, Euphoria tirucalii, which can be grown easily in the desert, as a source for biofuel; they are also genetically engineering plant roots to ensure “more crop per drop,” an innovative approach to irrigation.

[story via Physorg]

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00

Cosmic Variance: Friday Tunes: The Bad Plus

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:56:40 +0000

The addition of The Bad Plus to our blogroll got a positive review. Here they are, recorded by some guy in the back of the room with a hand-held camera, playing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” (Here is the original, and here is Paul Anka.)

Usually I like my jazz a little less adulterated — and the Bad Plus have stirred up considerable controversy by mixing in frequent pop covers along with their straight-ahead tunes. But these guys are playful, intelligent, and infectious, as well as accomplished musicians. The blog is worth reading, too — here’s a thoughtful commentary on Barack Obama and discrimination in jazz. Besides, it’s named “Do the Math”!

Only In It For The Gold: Pielke, Part of the Problem

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:20:00 +0000

(image from http://www.xkcd.com/164/ )

This question of "speaking up" can cut the other way, though.

I received a bit of denialist drivel in email, pointing among other things to the infamous bogus CO2 record, to give you an idea of the quality of the correspondence.

However, I while judging someone by the company they keep may have some value, it is a mistake to judge someone by the company that keeps them. So, in the same message, there is a pointer to a recent article in Prometheus linking to a recent summary in a libertarian blog of the hockey stick story. This item deserves some attention, if not especially on the basis of merit, as it seems that the Bishop Hill article (and its catchy appelation of a "Jesus Paper") will have some resonance among the opponents of timely action on global change issues.

A particularly intransigent comment to Pielke's above-referenced Prometheus article from William Eschenbach reads as follows:

The problem is not the behavior of the few. A few people will always do wrong. The problem is that the behavior of the community as a whole has been just what you said. They have not stood up to oppose the bad science done in their name. They have not clamored for an investigation into the bad science. They have, in large part, done absolutely nothing in response to this abysmal situation. Nothing. No public statements. No behind-the-scenes maneuvers. Nothing. Zip. Zero.

Instead, by and large, they have in your words “stayed out of the limelight” … and now you are claiming that they are the victims in this case?

In my opinion, they have no one but themselves to blame for the fact that they are being tarred with the same brush as the miscreants.

First of all this assumes the existence of "miscreants", which goes far further than even the excessive Wegman report (which in its own excesses raises some uncomfortable questions about the conduct of modern science) does. Second, it places an onus on a "community" to police itself in a way that provides an unrealistic model of the community. The IPCC, even constrained to WGI, provides summaries of the positions of a wide range of loosely connected communities, among whom dendrochronology forms but a tiny corner.

One wonders who is expected to "speak up" and when. And how, in the light of limited resources and competitive funding, one is expected to find the time to work out the details. The concept that some oceanographer or satellite engineer or icthyologist has some obligation to "get into the limelight" about something as narrow as tree rings doesn't ring true to anyone actually working in the field.

There are real issues with the conduct of science, but the question at hand is how important they are. It is absolutely crucial to note that no responsible party, neither Wegman nor McIntyre himself denies that the millenial temperature curve will likely turn out hockey-stick-like once enough data is collected and analyzed. In fact, a contrary result would be quite surprising!

They argue that the statistical methodology for obtaining these results is inadequate, and stake out a position of defending the integrity of science. It is hard for me not to sympathize with these claims. Few close to modern science will deny that the process has important flaws, but fewer still are in much of a position to address them.

The problem of the conduct of science pales in importance to the problem of bringing the human impact global environment into stability, though. The tragedy is that these quibbles are inflated onto accusations of such spectacular dishonesty specifically in order to color the policy debate.

Regarding the hockey stick, I have to line up with Pielke in shrugging and saying I haven't spent the effort to figure out how the science shakes out and I don't really plan to. It seems likely to me that the temperature really did follow a hockey stick pattern (as so many things do nowadays). The scientific question is only the extent to which the data confirms that expectation, not whether in fact the hypothesis has been shown invalid. And in the grand scheme of science this particular question has very modest importance, despite the political weight placed upon it.

The denialists are not especially interested in the question as to whether the hockey stick is real, it turns out. They are mostly interested in what it reveals about the IPCC process. And here, it is hard to say they don't have something.

The accusation, removed of acrimonious ranting, is 1) that IPCC knows in advance what result it is delivering, and 2) that the process for delivering its report is too informal and that papers are rushed into print in order to meet the IPCC deadlines. On the first point, this only amounts to an accusation in the event that there is no consensus. Since, in fact, Pat Michaels notwithstanding, there is one, there is little basis for worry on the first point. It's simply tautological. If you are asked to report on a matter on which you are convinced and your reader is not, obtaining the result you hold to be true is not itself evidence of bias.

On the second point, one can make a case that papers are rushed into print specifically in order to be referenced by IPCC. Since "getting the runs in time for IPCC" is the driving force of climate modeling these days, and this distorts the software engineering process, I can actually state confidently that there is some truth to the complaint.

As usual, the forces of truth and justice are caught between a rock and a hard place, though. In demanding a formal process to justify the nontrivial changes in social structure and international relations required by the state of things, people resisting such changes have a solid point. However, they proceed further by also resisting the massive changes in the scale and scope of earth end environmental sciences that would be required by such a process.

Does it matter, though? That depends on whether the "conspiracy" is drummed up or real. It is usually possible to reinforce ideas of conspiracy when there is a segment of the public inclined to believe in one. Whatever error may or may not be involved in selecting certain trees for inclusion in a dendrochronology may constitute malfeasance if one is in a particularly judgmental frame of mind. What, then, is the moral status of quibbling about tree rings when the radiative balance of the atmosphere is being forced at a rate without remote precedent in the entire history of mammals.

In the end, science is an imperfect instrument, and we must nevertheless make decisions based on what we know. By stressing the former and not the latter fact, by fertilizing the ground where others are happy to plant wild conspiracy theories, McIntyre and now Pielke do an enormous disservice.

As such, they are ironically part of the very problem they identify, placing more attention to the advancement of their own reputations and positions than on the advancement of knowledge and governance.

It's literally tragic that they are recycling this endless quibbling about bristlecone pines rather than stepping back and looking at the balance of evidence. There is simply no way to formalize the process entirely. Human judgment is easily derailed, but we will have to collectively judge this issue and come to difficult and necessarily imperfect decisions of major consequence, soon.

If somebody wants to talk about "malefactors", let's talk about the people who are working so hard to skew this matter away from the big picture. It's not about publication records and tenure cases. It's about survival. It's about whether or not to extract so much value from the world that the world itself becomes valueless.

Bristlecone pines or not, the carbon has to stay in the ground.

Kerry McCarthy MP: School

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:18:12 +0000

OK, time for some serious stuff. Did a fair bit of running around today, so haven't had time to digest the detail of Bristol's GCSE results yet, but just want to congratulate Ray at the City Academy for breaking the 60% barrier (it was 22% in 2001, before they went for academy status) and Armando at Brunel Academy for a stupendous achievement in his first year running the new school (62% getting 5 good GCSEs, compared to 30% at the old school, Speedwell, in 2007). Armando used to be Ray's deputy at the City Academy, and I suspect may be just a teeny bit pleased that his school has done just that little bit better! Of course there's still plenty of room for improvement, and there needs to be a real focus on increasing the number of pupils with 5 GSCEs including English and Maths (although this was up 11% at Brunel and 2% at the City Academy).

Just for the record, 49% of pupils at the City Academy receive free school meals, (I think the Bristol average is around 17%). It's the local school for children living in Lawrence Hill, which is the 19th most economically deprived ward in England/Wales. 38% of the pupils have English as an additional language, and 68% are from ethnic minority groups. I say this because I'm sick of hearing people rubbish what these schools have achieved by accusing them of operating selection by the backdoor. They don't - and from what I know of the two headteachers involved, they wouldn't want to, even if they could.

YouthNet blog: Do-It day

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:03:52 +0000

The TUC have launched a new campaign to have a new bank holiday, and suggested that rather than it just being an excuse to get horribly drunk and regret it the next day; this day should be a Community Day where people would be encouarged to spend a day volunteering and doing something different.

Knowing most of the volunteers that I do, they'd be automatically volunteering on that day anyway (be it formally or just spending an extra day doing paperwork and all that other hidden volunteering that goes on). What we need it a way of encouraging new people to take up volunteering, to "do it" if you will.... perhaps having a really easy website where you could sign up to one million volunteering opportunities.

Therefore, and perhaps this is a bit cheeky---but it is the Friday before a Bank Holiday---I'd like to propose that it's not named Community Day, but Do-It Day.

Oh, and we've already got the website to support it: do-it.org.uk.

Becky Hogge: Milky, milky

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:02:31 +0000

Digging this new theme (Thanks, James!). Because my New Statesman column doesn’t have a dedicated RSS feed, I’m going to do my best to post links to my columns here, so those who wish to can keep updated.

Here’s this week’s column, on touching up your holiday snaps (see one such touched up snap, right):

My youth is captured for posterity by a series of blurred close-ups depicting me and my best friend in various locations in northern France, squinting into the sun as we attempt to point a Boots disposable camera at ourselves in the style of Thelma and Louise.

Inevitably, half of one of our faces is always out of shot. But things have come a long way since then. With digital photography, long gone are the days of walking into people as you left the chemist’s, flicking through the 30 overexposed, or pitch-black, photos in order to locate the six half-decent album candidates.

Read the rest here.

I’m posting this from Brighton today, where I’m enjoying a four day break, most of which I’ll be spending here.

Gastronomy Domine: Chocolate orange fairy cakes

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:47:00 +0000

I eat precisely one Terry's Chocolate Orange every year, at Christmas. Here, for non-festive times of year, is the same thing in cake form. There will be no post here on Monday; it's a Bank Holiday, and I shall be spending the day on a boat. To make 16 little cakes, you'll need: Cake 100g soft butter 100g caster sugar 2 eggs 100g self-raising flour 1 teaspoon baking powder Grated zest of 1

Social Networking Watch: Drivers Of The Digital Habit: Librarian Dreams, Self-Interest Or One-Upmanship?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:46:37 +0000

During a recent conference, I heard Lee Siegel ruminate on the relationship between humans and the digital world. In a discussion on his book “Against the Machine,” he and a moderator covered questions of how and why we engage online and across emergent electronic platforms. The theme of the book, “being human in the age of the electronic mob,” plus the topics of the conference — the onset and optimization of social media, engaging with the blogosphere, reputation management — kept the conversation on a particular tension.

These gentlemen spent a lot of time considering the tricky relationship between a brand or individual building a digital identity and the blogosphere with which they must contend, negotiate — perhaps even game. It was a talk on digital anthropology — on the increasingly intense, sometimes psychotic call-and-response within this relationship. But, as I listened to them, a basic question was triggered that I find fascinating and ultimately open-ended. Why do we engage online in the first place? What drives us as brands, marketers, consumers and humans to even go there and connect in this day and age?

Alone with ourselves — or online?

The vignette that struck me was this one: Siegel told a story about picking up Proust to revisit the text. Shockingly, he found himself agitated and unable to focus or even to understand some of the passages. In his bothered state, itching for comfort, he jumped online to communicate, browse, and connect. The reflex of his own unrest bugged him. The anecdote was a lens into something I’ve thought about a lot over the years. What drives us online from the inside out?

Our inner researcher?

Back in the early ’90s, I worked for a major Western regional magazine. I was very close to a certain travel writer. As a prolific writer who took his craft deeply seriously, research was his world. As the Internet started to proliferate, and people were browsing, looking stuff up, passing fodder, and grabbing bites of information to hurl through email and over one-up cocktail banter, he fumed, “When and why in the WORLD have we become a nation of researchers?!”

This research craze boggled his mind; he saw it as a tendency to channel our inner librarian. That was the first time, too, that I ever thought about the psychology of it all. But, I was an unapologetic part of this phenomenon for certain. Immersed in editorial research, I found that my Thomas Guide, Merck Manual, and other standards of the resident library could only take me so far in my quest for information. Like so many, I was in.

From information to socialization

A few minutes later, as the Internet began to socialize and delivered advanced messaging, sharing, and online chat — a thirst for information was joined by an impulse for connection and community. As we have discussed, these community rumblings were simply the precursors of what we now dub social media. On a very basic level, people were online, communing and conversing. Of course, today the digital galaxy that exists and enables this socialization is even more robust.

Yet, in today’s version of digital media, some argue that it is not an outright desire for “community” that drives us — but a desire to validate our interests. They say it is interests that drive us to connect online today. The distinction is subtle. But to me, ego and reflection are implied here. In a social media sphere where consumer demand and influence are the fuel — it is obvious that self-interest is quite central.

Illustration: self-interest and the culture of the one-up

In a recent essay in the New York Times, “Lord of the Memes,” David Brooks discussed the manner in which habits of cultural, intellectual snobbery and one-upmanhip have been totally changed by the digital:

“On or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.

On that date, media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status.

Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture he enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider he uses to store and transmit it. (In this era, MySpace is the new leisure suit and an AOL e-mail address is a scarlet letter of techno-shame.)”

No matter the weighting of all these drivers, it’s fascinating to think about how they play together, as we’ve gotten more downright digital. Whether a proclivity for research, community, self-interest, cultural facility, or the one-up, it’s the consideration of these that will continue to shed light on the path ahead.

Climate Progress: Who’s advising Obama on energy and climate

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:40:59 +0000

Greenwire (subs. req’d) has published a detailed list of who is advising Obama on energy and environment policies, which I am reprinting below the fold.

Obama, an Illinois Democrat, has a notably deep bench of experts to help him answer key questions on energy prices, oil drilling and global warming

I know most of them well, and they are A-listers with deep experience in and out of government. During the Clinton administration, I had the pleasure to work with both Elgie Holstein and David Sandalow. If they are indicative of the kind of people Obama would appoint, then his administration would get off to a running start.

I would also point out that they left out Obama’s national cochair and energy surrogate, my former boss at the Department of Energy, Federico Pena, who is one of the finest public servants I know.

(more…)

Global Voices (Cuba): Bahamas, Cuba: Inconvenient Truths?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:01:07 +0000

“The Bahamas standard of living reflects the effect of free trade and a relatively limited government. Citizens here are still far better off than in many countries in the region and the world. However, every now and then The Bahama Journal editorialises about the virtues of Cuba. And frankly this turns my stomach”: Rick Lowe at Weblog Bahamas explains.

Copenhagen Cycle Chic: Montage

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:30:23 +0000

The heart of the city we love so much.

A happy marriage of Dutch and Danish. Bike from the Netherlands. Citizens of Denmark.

Business suit on the way to work. Complete with a coffee holder on the handlebars for her latte.

Evening couples using the bicycle as a means of transport and togetherness.

A Cup of Jo: Exercise with John Travolta

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:16:12 +0000

Um, what? This John Travolta work-out book is the coolest thing I've ever seen. He teaches you how to stay fit through modern dance, and I love his super-intense gaze. Of course the copyright is 1984.

DJ Drive's LJ (Georgia): welovetherussiandeputychiefofstuff.ru

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:17:01 +0000

Ноговицын утверждает, что руководство грузинского МВД распорядилось "допросить осетин с применением физического воздействия, а затем ликвидировать их".

Откуда Генштаб РФ получил эту информацию, Ноговицын не объяснил. - lenta.ru

Найдите 10 итличий:

Photoes from lenta.ru and www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com

Intelligent Giving: iT4Communities: what a good idea

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:03:05 +0000

<! -- CONTENT --> Back in February, we got told off for banging on too much about how charities should use the internet more without giving constructive advice about how to improve.

There may be some truth in this. Making the most of cutting-edge technology can be expensive. Charities are under constant pressure to reduce their costs, and mucking about with computers can seem like a frivolity. So what’s to be done?

We think we’ve found the answer: iT4Communities. An initiative of the Worshipful Company of Technologists, it kits out charities with one of its 5,000 professional IT volunteers who can help them get going with all things technological. According to their newsletter, since their launch they’ve given IT help to charities worth £3million.

iT4Communities is not the most glamorous ways to be charitable - HTML training or integrating spreadsheets will hardly make the headlines. But iT4Communities is still a brilliant scheme. So brilliant, we asked for a volunteer to help us overhaul our big charity database.

A couple of weeks later and some (fabulously qualified) volunteers have already expressed interest in working with us. If all goes to plan, we hope to get a database that’s far more sophisticated than anything we could ever produce ourselves, and without diverting our time from our core work.

IG's expectation that charities to adopt new technology and improve their web presence is perfectly legitimate. But it's fair to say that we need to think about how charities, smaller and poorer ones especially, can do this. As Adam wrote recently, investing in computers can all too easily seem like an expensive distraction.

This makes iT4Communities all the more important. It bridges the gap between expectations and what they can realistically achieve.

The Copenhagen Bicycle Culture Blog: Promoting Cycling in Style from Holland

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:40:18 +0000

Thanks to Ted in Seattle for this fantastic link. Nine adverts promoting cycling from Holland.

The films were made by students at the National Film School in Holland and while three of them are a bit lame, if you ask me [the singing girl and the terrorist spring to mind], most are quite brilliant.

As many of you know, there is no helmet usage in Holland. The official statistics are 0,1% of adults using helmets and 5% of children. The Dutch government and the cyclists' union have both declared that they will not promote helmets since it will cause a fall in cyclists. They've done their research. Nice to see.

Dutch is a relative to Danish, so I've tried to translate as best as I can.

01: A cool music video.
Tagline at the end: "If siting on a bicycle is like this... we do we sit in traffic jams?" "Ride your bike to work. It's a good cause."

02: Three Men in an Elevator
I'm guessing the voice is saying something like "The owner of such and such car... your car is being towed" and then the same for the next car with the Lotus.
Tagline: "Don't like inconvienences? Take your bike!"

03: Singing Girl
Whatever. It's probably poignant and fantastic if you understand Dutch.
Tagline: "Everybody on bikes - you'll sit well."

04: The Terrorist
Whatever. It is a little too film schooly for my taste.

05: Men in Suits Racing
This is brilliant. This is Europe. Men in suits racing to work. Funny and cool.
Tagline: Ride to work. Make a sport of it.

06: Carpooling
Funny and relevant. Irritated guy waiting for his friend to give him a lift. He's late. On the phone he says "Now!".
His friend comes out with a CD and says he has a great driving album.
Tagline/speak: No idea. :-)

07: "Car addiction is an underestimated problem"
This is just brilliant. The therapist shows him the ink spots and asks, "What do you see?" The man answers, "Auto".
The therapist talks about the first phase of rehabilition and then the second phase. Then the man is ready to go it alone. "Car addiction is an underestimated problem."
I can't get the last sentence but it's cool that the man has a car and it's not totally preachy.

08: BMX in Traffic
Speaks for itself.

09: Mafia
Another classic one. The mafia guy asks, I believe, "How did you get here today?" The guy in white replies, "By bike". Mafia guy translates into Italian for his friend and they laugh.
Tagline: Cyclists live longer.

Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Copenhagenize.com will be present at the world's largest bike fair - Eurobike - from 4-7 september. Our good friends at Velorbis have offered to let us have a 4 x 2.5 m banner hanging at their stand. And I've whipped up a little flyer, above, for people to take with them when they visit the stand.

I figured that it's an industry event so there will be an ocean of lycra, 'gear' and non-stop sports oriented angles so the text on the flyer merely reads:

"Our cycling legends dress differently than your cycling legends".

It's a cultural reference to the vast number of women who ride bicycles in Copenhagen - roughly 50% of all cyclists - and a historical reference to the iconic figure of the Cycling Girl [cykelpigen] which is such an integral part of Danish culture and which has been since the bicycle first became popular at the end of the 1800's.

We have a tag over at Copenhagen Cycle Chic about The Cycling Girl as Part of Danish Culture.

Cykelhjelm, cykelhjelme, danmark, holland

John Redwood MP: Wokingham Times

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:35:09 +0000

NICE has been in the firing line recently. This body which has the duty to decide which drugs the NHS can buy and which are unsuitable on grounds of efficacy and cost has been caught in the crossfire. On one side the pharmaceutical companies have been running effective campaigns to claim NICE was wrong to reject their latest drug. On the other side patient groups have started to lobby in ever more media friendly ways for spending on the latest drug that they hope will alleviate or cure their symptoms.

It is what you should expect when you have a near monopoly health service provider controlled by this particular group of politicians who live by the media. Because the NHS has such colossal power in its buying decisions drug companies have to throw everything in in England to selling to the single purchaser. They are very disappointed if it does not work.

Similarly, patient groups have come to realise with this government that only media friendly prominent lobbying is likely to get Ministers attention and possibly lead to a change of policy. One of the newer features of an MP’s life is a stream of invitations to attend functions organised by groups whose sole aim is to change the drug purchases and the medical and clinical protocols of the NHS for treating a particular disease. Most diseases now have their action group. They feel forced to behave like this, competing for the attention and money of Ministers in this heavily centralised top down system Labour has devised. Too much rests on the decisions of just a few people at the top, in the Ministry, and in NICE. Sometimes constituents write to me urging a particular treatment that they heard about, so I add my voice to those wanting the drug to be available.

The government has invited people to make the NHS the central concern of modern politics, They have shown them how to lobby and use the media, and they have so centralised the NHS that people conclude the only thing that matters is to get to the Minister. They have ended up fashioning a boomerang that is beginning to hurt the very government that fashioned it as their own political weapon.

Labour believed that if they spent lots more on the NHS most of the problems would go away. If they centralised decisions they could guarantee good standards across the country and claim the credit for all that was going on. Such a strategy means they must also be to blame for things that are not working well, and to blame when people cannot get access to the drugs they think they need or the treatment that would make them better.

I have been meeting GPs during the summer break from Westminster. They complain to me that too many top down targets are making it far more difficult to serve their patients well. They dislike features of the very expensive centralised computer technology being introduced into their lives. They too are unhappy about the endless fiats from the centre and from too many judgements being made by too few people.

Labour had better be careful. Its attempt to play politics with the health issue, showing itself as the beneficent provider of more cash from the centre, is becoming a cause of angst with patient groups, with drug companies and with GPs. That is a very powerful alliance of interests to turn against you. Never has so much money been spent by so few people with such negative effects.

Well done to our Olympians. I recently talked to St Crispin’s School about how you can live your dream if you really really want to. If you put the hard work in and take the reverses in your stride, you too might make it. It is great to see just how many young athletes from the UK have lived their dream so spectacularly in the last few days. We are proud of them all. It is good to see our local area represented on the honours board. May they inspire many more to live their dreams too.

Futurismic: Nostalgia does science fiction a disservice

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:23:55 +0000

Novelist Ian Sales makes an interesting point - a lot of the stories and novels held up as classics of the science fiction genre are actually very bad adverts for the modern form:

I’ve complained before about the undeserving admiration given to many science fiction novels and short stories of earlier decades. Such reverence frequently results in fans recommending these works to people wanting to try the genre. And that’s not a good thing. Readers new to the genre are not served well by recommendations to read Isaac Asimov, EE ‘Doc’ Smith, Robert Heinlein, or the like. Such fiction is no longer relevant, is often written with sensibilities offensive to modern readers, usually has painfully bad prose, and is mostly hard to find because it’s out of print. A better recommendation would be a current author - such as Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, Iain M Banks, Ken MacLeod, Stephen Baxter, and so on.

I think Sales has a good point there. I came to science fiction through the authors publishing in the eighties, and as such I’ve found that a lot of the classics are, while interesting from a historical perspective, pretty unfulfilling reads. And hell knows being made to read some of Dickens’ more tedious works at school gave me a knee-jerk reaction to literary classics, too. [Murray Leinster cover scanned by J Levar]

Which authors would you recommend to a reader wanting to dip their toes into the genre, and why?

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Tags: classics • criticism • literature • nostalgia • science fiction

PingMag: RYOONO: The Tenderness Of Garden Vegetables

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:00:18 +0000

Illustrator RYOONO must love his garden veggies a lot! So much, that he lets blooming petals, slender chilli peppers, legumes, various leaf structures, luscious eggplant or lusty artichokes intertwined with bones into his delicate patterns for walls or sporty apparel. PingMag had a short chat with RYOONO at his current UNDULATION exhibition at hpgrp Gallery [...]

A Cup of Jo: Fashion Inspiration

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:00:02 +0000

I wish I dressed like this every day.
(From Glamour UK, via PunkyB)

The Sartorialist: On the Street.....Hans, Stockholm

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:40:00 +0000

The Sartorialist: On the Street.....Ostermalm, Stockholm

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:38:00 +0000

Futurismic: M.J. Engh to be honoured by SFWA as 2009 Author Emerita

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:34:42 +0000

We just got a press release from Jayme Lynn Blaschke of the SFWA:

Mary Jane Engh, author of Arslan and Wheel of the Winds among other works, will be honored as Author Emerita by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America for the 2009 Nebula Awards® Weekend in Los Angeles, California.

“Well, I hope ‘emerita’ doesn’t mean ‘over the hill,’ but I’m truly honored — blown away, in fact,” Engh said. “It’s nice to know that somebody has noticed me.”

Under the pseudonym Jane Beauclerk, Engh published her first science fiction story, “We Serve the Star of Freedom,” in the July 1964 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Over the next four decades, her short fiction appeared in a wide range of markets including Universe 1, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and Arabesques.

Congratulations, Ms Engh! I’ll be entirely honest and say that I’ve never read anything she’s written, but I figure the SFWA don’t just give honours like that away for peanuts. If anyone knows where some of her fiction can be found on the web, do let us know, and we’ll stick the links up.

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Tags: Author Emerita • Mary Jane Engh • Nebula Awards • science fiction

DJ Drive's LJ (Georgia): ru_vilochka

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:24:41 +0000

Danny O'Brien: living la vida hacker

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:05:42 +0000

We went to Ada's school's -- well, I forget the correct word for it; my subconscious tells me it's "indoctrination", but that can't be right. Maybe something in Spanish? Everything was in Spanish. Her teachers explained (via an interpreter) that they don't speak English when the kids are around, so that they learn to convey their intentions in the second language. This got weird when the tallest most anglo blonde woman from Lake Tahoe introduced herself in I think a Chilean accent. Then you realise that kindergarten teachers all speak the International Language of Caring Emphasis, and it was pretty easy thereafter.

I'm fascinated to see how this plays out. I am terrible at languages. Fortunately, Ada has made me swear that I not learn Spanish with her, so she can have a secret language of her own that I can't understand. Currently she is fairly confident she can speak Spanish fluently anyway, although she really just spouts nonsense that if you don't know Spanish is actually rather convincing. (She can also hold down a whole conversation in fake Tagalog). I do hope the teachers can spot this kind of thing. Maybe Ada will be all like "Well, I'll pretend I don't know you can speak English, if you'll pretend you don't know I can't speak Spanish"

Orientation! Orientación! That was the word. Seriously, the school seems lovely, and we all learnt a song about soy pizza. Or maybe it was "I am pizza". I now know the spanish for "pepperoni".

Seth points out that I got the gender of "kindergarten" wrong in the last post. I am so doomed.

I walked home over Great Big Hill (like Edmund Hilary, because it was there, and unlike him, because I couldn't work out how to get around it). I accidentally phoned Merlin. There's a guy out here recording us both for a documentary about Life Hacks and slowly becoming more disillusioned about how unmotivating we are. I was calling to flake on today's appointment, and found I'd written down the wrong number. Yes, terrifying self-motivating organizing machine, me.

Merlin and I haven't really spoken much since the book fell through, (both of us on long aboriginal treks to rediscover our mojo I think) -- and it was awesome to hear him again. We failed to work out how to meet up soon, created about fifteen hanging "open loops", and giggled far too much.

Went home and looked up URLs. Somebody had come up to me at the end of the orientation with a gleam of geek recognition in her eye and said conspiratorially, "I've started a blog and a mailing list for our class!" Like a spy confirming the secret passphrase, I replied "But what about the wiki?" The spanish-speaking teacher looked at us as though she had caught us speaking fake English. She's probably right.

A Cup of Jo: Summer Postcards.

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:08:00 +0000

Have you seen Mav's summer postcards? She took them on a rainy weekend in Maine.

Daily interesting photos - Flickr: Interesting photos - 21 Aug 2008 - Flickr

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:50:01 +0000

George Orwell (70 years ago): Orwell Diaries

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:30:50 +0000

Warmish day, with showers. Nights are getting colder & more like autumn. A few oaks beginning to yellow very slightly. After the rain enormous slugs crawling about, one measuring about 3” long. Large holes, presumably ear-holes, some distance behind head. They were of two distinct colours, some light fawn & others white, but both have a band of bright orange round the edge of the belly, which makes one think they are of the same species & vary individually in colour. On the tip of their tails they had blobs of gelatinous stuff like the casing of water-snail’s eggs.
A large beetle, about the size of a female stag-beetle but not the same, extruding from her hindquarters a yellow tube about the length of herself. Possibly some sort of tube through which eggs are laid?

[NEWSPAPER CUTTING]

Sloe Gin
The origin of this recipe is buried deep in the traditional lore of the New Forest gypsies. A friend of Lady Muriel wrote it down in the gipsy’s own words. Her people were friends with Romany folk, and a bottle of the liquer was always brought at Christmas as a gift to her mother. The gypsies expected no payment for it, and in addition used to sing some ancient songs which they called carols, but seemed to have no Christian significance.
“Pick your sloes when they be fine and ripe, with dry air, and warm with the sun. Prick each one with a needle three times. Take half a bottle of unsweetened gin and put in a fistful of sugar-candy, firm and strong, the taste of a crushed bitter almond, or the kernels of ripe apricots, crushed. Fill the bottle with the sloes and press them down.
“If you be not on the road, lay beneath the floor of your tent where you be sleeping, for they slags (sloes) dunnot like the cold. Let ‘em bide till Christmas come, when take out the fruit and let ‘em bide till you need ‘em.”

John Redwood MP: Fuel Poverty and Tax Poverty - what Gord gives with one hand he takes with another

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:28:44 +0000

The government’s own “Fuel poverty” adviser has been on TV and radio telling us that we will have more people in fuel poverty this winter than at any time for the last ten years. Well, there’s a surprise! I wonder how much he and his staff get paid to come out with such obvious statements. If energy prices go up by a third or by half, and people’s incomes scarcely keep up with general inflation, of course more will find it difficult to pay the fuel bills. Apparently fuel poverty is when your fuel bill is more than 10% of your net income. They will also find it more difficult to pay the Tax bills, having to pay for all those fuel poverty advisers and civil servants workign out the figures. Fuel poverty should be set alongside food poverty, travel poverty, and TV poverty, when those things rise too high as a proportion of income, or alongside my favourite and the most common, Tax poverty.The truth is there is Poverty, pure and simple, and it’s getting worse thanks to this government’s failed economic strategy.

Of course I think it is worrying that many people this winter will fear both the fuel bills and the food bills. The recent price rises have hit those on low incomes and no incomes harder than those on higher incomes. But if you don’t want to call it simple poverty why not call it Tax poverty, for the 10 p tax band abolition hit many of those people very hard, as does the increased petrol tax and the prospective rise in VED on older cars. If they paid less tax, people on lower incomes would have more to pay for fuel.

We need not wonder why the Government’s Fuel Poverty expert was let loose on TV. It clearly means a benefit package is coming soon. The PM is preparing a benefit pay out to people struggling with fuel bills, to show he is in touch and cares. No worry that the nation cannot afford any more public spending. No surprise if it has to be paid for out of increased borrowing rather than from making savings elsewhere. Do not expect a proper programme to increase energy capacity and to generate more power at home any time soon. The government has been dithering for 10 years without a proper energy policy, waiting for the lights to go out as power stations age and give up. This is the government which has given us more dependence on imported oil and gas and then wonders why it is all so dear.

Clearly the PM still has not learnt anything from recent by election defeats and from the sorry run of Opinion Polls. The more of our money he spends, and the more he borrows, the less popular he becomes. People on low incomes do not want one off winter hand outs to see the government through a political hole. They want an economy with job opportunities to lift them out of low income altogether. They want energy industries that are expanding capacities and putting prices up by less.They want enough money to pay all the bills.

George Osborne produced a very detailed and well researched speech this week demonstrating that people from low income areas and low income backgrounds are doing worse educationally and in terms of job opportunities now than when Labour first came to power. Far from narrowing the gap, they have allowed the gap to grow. The gap has not just grown because the rich have got richer – nothing wrong with that – but the gap has grown because the poor are struggling more and even less likely to get A levels, get a degree or get a decent job - everything wrong with that. It is the failure to lift and boost the poor that matters. A decade of throwing more money into regional aid and into benefits has failed. More fuel poverty, according to the government’s own adviser, is just a small part of the wider truth. There is more poverty. It’s a poverty of achievement and ambition as well as a shortage of money. That’s why we need a new approach to schools, to training and to incentives for work. That’s why we need to tackle tax poverty, for too many people at the bottom end of the income scale are trapped by Labour’s benefit and tax system.

John Redwood MP: Data loss - how much more before they see the need to cancel the ID computer?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:22:19 +0000

You would have thought after all the fuss over data loss so far under this government Ministers would have got a grip by now. The hapless Home Secretary once again has to apologise for the incompetence of her department, after all her lectures and promises to have put it right. This is another serious data loss. It shows Ministers are not in control of their departments.

The more this government takes action to make us “secure” the less secure I feel. I will feel a lot less secure if they carry on with their ghastly 1984 plan to put us all on a central ID computer base, at enormous expense to taxpayers. We might as well publish all our personal data the day it goes live, on their record so far with other people’s data. If The Home Secretary wants to keep her job she shouold cancel the project so we can dance in the streets about that, if nothing else.

This is one reason why Parliament should be allowed to sit - to cross examine her. The war in Georgia is another.

xkcd blag: Pi-Con, Math, Gender, Glaubama

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:10:01 +0000

Pi-Con: This weekend I’ll be at Pi-Con, a convention in West Springfield, MA. It’s run by some old friends of mine, and will feature Cory Doctorow. I’ve never actually met Mr. Doctorow in person, so it should be fun. In my mind’s eye, he still wears a red cape and goggles everywhere he goes. I hope that’s okay with him. Anyway, feel free to stop by! You don’t need to pre-register or anything.

I’ll be spending most of my time there on panels. It still baffles me that sometimes I’m put on panels to talk about serious business. A convention once saw, for example, that I had worked at NASA, and put me on a panel about the future of space exploration. I felt a little out-of-place, given that my main NASA achievement was that I once lassoed a robot with cat-6 cable and had it pull me around the hallways charioteer-style. So I sit, surrounded by Ph. Ds, and look thoughtful while drawing stick figures on convention stationery.

Project Euler: As is my habit lately when I travel, I’ll probably be working on Project Euler. For those unfamiliar, Project Euler is a site with a lot of math-oriented programming problems that you can solve in any language. They start out easy (First problem: Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000.) Then they get harder rather quickly. I think it’s a great way to learn a language; I started picking up Python last year by doing the first couple dozen Project Euler problems in it. Many of the problems lend themselves to clever recursive solutions, and as such I imagine it’d be a great way to learn Lisp.

Book recommendation: Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent. I inhaled this book in practically one sitting, as did my cousin and several other friends. In it, the author passes as a man for a year to try to understand the male world, taking notes the whole way. It’s full of fascinating little stories and avoids getting too preachy — just shows over and over again the surprising ways in which gender influences basic social stuff. Thanks to creature of #xkcd for first sending me a copy.

Notice: Whoever’s been sending me periodic text messages, formatted like official VP announcements, telling me that Obama has selected Summer Glau as his running mate, please stop. You get my hopes up every time.

xkcd: Moving

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:00:00 +0000

ThreatExpert: Beware Good Spyware or "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:35:00 +0000

A new anti-piracy software solution was recently presented in this article.

Marketed as "an intelligence gathering tool", the described software "rather than trying to prevent unauthorized use of software, collects data on how and where it is used, and then stealthily sends it back to the software's maker".

Oh, dear. The old phantoms of AV industry keep coming back over and over again in the form of good worms, good spyware, and "white-listing" panacea against all the bad guys.

To better understand this one, it might help recalling the Magic Lantern key logger, developed by FBI.

At that time, it was reported that "other proposed high-technology responses to the threat of terrorism are coming from industry, Congress and elsewhere ... a controversial system installed on a criminal suspect's computer by the government to capture the encryption passwords of a criminal suspect is nearing its second phase; the F.B.I. has acknowledged that it is developing a similar monitoring system, called Magic Lantern, that could be installed remotely."

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Just a different "good intention".

Indeed, exactly as St. Bernard of Clairvaux (circa 1150) once said "L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés ou désirs".

And yeah, just to recall what was the professional response to the Magic Lantern idea (Graham Cluley, Sophos Anti-Virus Inc.): "We have no way of knowing if it was written by the FBI, and even if we did, we wouldn’t know whether it was being used by the FBI or if it had been commandeered by a third party."

Climate Progress: What is the carbon footprint of McCain’s countless homes?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:00:35 +0000

I’d estimate it’s about 150 tons of carbon dioxide, some 10 times that of the average American. But someone should ask Senator McCain. After all, he says he wants to require all Americans to cut greenhouse gas emissions 60% to 70% by 2050.

As probably the whole country knows by now, John McCain does not know how many homes he owns. But the number seems to be between 7 and 12, depending on whether you count his Sedona ranch as one house or six.

Given how conservatives beat up Vice President Gore for the supposed energy excesses of his one Nashville home, I can’t wait until they start running TV ads attacking McCain’s climate hypocrisy. [Note to self: Don’t hold your breath.] After all, McCain fashions himself as a leader on global warming, just like Gore, but his combined homes have a considerably larger square footage than Gore’s — and thus presumably a much larger energy use. That said, the energy use of McCain’s homes is infinitely less relevant than their greenhouse gas emissions (see “GOP Attack on Gore Makes No Sense At All“).

So what is the carbon footprint of McCain’s countless homes? Here is a rough estimate. (more…)

Dave Pollard (How to Save the World): Why We Watch Sports

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:19:35 +0000

This morning I listened to two fans of the Saskatchewan Roughriders (Canadian Football League) talk about how they had supported their team for forty years despite the fact it had only won the Grey Cup twice in all that time.

It reminded me of my experience as a young child going to football games with my father. He organized a bus that picked up about 30 fans from the area of Winnipeg in which we lived, drove us to the game and then back home again afterwards. I would often fall asleep on the bus on the way home, but I loved every moment of this experience, even though I wasn't much of a football fan. I knew all the players' names by heart, however.

In the winter seasons I would watch all the Montreal Canadiens hockey games, in black and white on TV Saturday nights, since we had no local professional hockey team in Winnipeg. Because of the time difference we would never see the first period, since it would have interfered with the dinnertime CBC news, which was sacrosanct. My walls were covered with black-and-white photos of Les Habitants best players like Boom Boom Geoffrion and Rocket Richard, most of them signed by the stars themselves. My parents were forced to buy hundreds of boxes of teas and dessert mixes so I could get the treasured plastic Hockey Coins inside, each depicting one of the 120 active players in the NHL at that time.

In my adult years I ceased to be a sports fan, preferring to play rather than watch, and while I still partake of hockey playoff pools, I rarely watch sports of any kind. I briefly cheered on the Toronto Blue Jays during their two back-to-back World Series championships, and got to know all the players then, but a year later they were all but forgotten. For all kinds of reasons I am boycotting the corrupt freakshow propaganda circus called the Olympics, this and every year.

I've tried to figure out why I watched sports, and why so many still do, but it's hard to fathom. Although for many Americans (and Chinese) winning seems to be everything, fans in most of the rest of the world seem to enjoy the sport no matter who wins. The endless kitsch of propagandist Hollywood movies where American ("Yoo-Ess-Ay!") team X or individual athlete Y overcomes staggering odds to become the champion (at the last moment, when all seems lost), and in the process he/they find true love, just makes me nauseous. (When the underdog-turned-champ is a Canadian, or a furry animal, it's no better.)

There is something at work here besides insecure nationalistic vicarious competitiveness. Why do we watch sports?

I started paying attention to my own occasional spectator behaviour. I noticed that I was more attentive when "my" team was on offense than when they were on defense. After the game I felt the same no matter which team or individual won, unless there was some cruel injustice served up by cheaters or corrupt or inept officials, in either team's favour, in which case I was sullen. The Hollywood movies play on this relentlessly, of course, since it's a cheap way to stir up audiences. Hollywood does the same in the endless and banal "women as victim" movies, which are essentially identical to the sports propaganda movies except they involve women losers-turned-victors instead of men, and take place in homes and courtrooms instead of arenas.

But when it was just a game, and I somehow got caught up in it, it was a wonderful feeling at the end of the event (barring having to face terrible traffic going home). The more I thought about it, the more I concluded that we love to watch sports for two reasons that have nothing to do with competition:

Shared 'expertise': Real fans know who's playing, and everything about them, and what they're good and bad at. Armchair quarterbacks all, what they love, and love talking about, is what they know about the game, the expertise they share. We all love to be an expert, especially knowledgeable about something, and there is no easier way (with the possible exception of blogging?) to become known and respected as something of an expert than to study and follow a sports team.
Affinity: We all love to belong, and sports teams are not called "clubs" for nothing. We are social animals, and we love to wear insignia that give us instant affinity with others, something to smile and talk about with strangers, and hence become friends. We actually spend more on sports affinity paraphernalia than we spend on tickets.

Alas, in the context of 'professional' sports all of this comes at a major cost. Propagandists (from political thugs to opportunist corporatist advertisers) have exploited sports to the point of ruin, and disgust. Ticket prices for professional teams are obscene, relegating all but the elite who can tax-deduct them to the bleachers and TV screens. Most professional sports are replete with cheaters (drug users -- performance-enhancing and pain-numbing -- and judge bribers), bullies, and arrogant hacks both on the field and in the media. To come second is a disgrace, the media tell us -- heads should roll. And the health and fitness level of sports watchers who would never dream of actually playing a sport is abysmal.

The solution, I think, is to find entertainments that provide us with the opportunity for affinity and to develop an impressive expertise, that are not competitive. That is, entertainments (like ballooning, hiking, and theatre-going -- other than to theatres that show the aforementioned Hollywood schlock) in which there are no winners and losers, only good, enjoyable performances and those that could be improved (and we're all armchair critics) and which, most importantly, are participative, both for our health and for our level of social and intellectual engagement.

I keep saying we need to re-learn to entertain ourselves. We suffer from a dreadful imaginative poverty in our modern world. We are unfit, both physically and in our creative and critical thinking capacity. For all our information sources, we are appallingly ignorant about history, geography, the arts, science, and what is going on in the world. And we are fiercely, unnecessarily and destructively competitive.

From now on, every time I am tempted to watch a "spectator sport", or a mass media information or entertainment production, I am going to stop myself and ask: What could I be doing instead that is more collaborative, and more participative, and take myself off the sidelines and out of the chair and into action, doing something, cooperatively, with others.

I hope you will too. There is a difference between entertainment and fun, and we're buying far too much of the former and taking part far too little in the latter.

Category: Our Culture

Kerry McCarthy MP: Common people

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:43:00 +0000

Introducing Cameron's new policy adviser, Jonty Olliff-Cooper. I would say more, but Recess Monkey has already beaten me to it, as has the Mirror.

Global Voices (Georgia): Georgia, Russia: The Names of the Dead

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:23:52 +0000

An ongoing initiative (RUS) to compile a list of “those who died in the war of 2008, whose names are found on the web” - by LJ user hunu: “The list is incomplete, of course. […] I've placed the names of the dead on the same page - of civilians as well as of the armed participants of the war from all three sides. Some people may not like it, but I don't see any other way of doing it.”

Kerry McCarthy MP: Stop me if you've heard this one before

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:16:23 +0000

Avid readers of the Bristol Blogger (and is there any other type?) will be more than familiar with the work of installation artist Paul McCarthy (no relation). Avid readers of the Daily Mail website (that would be me) have now, belatedly, also had the story brought to their attention. Where the Blogger leads, others follow....

P.S. No relation, but until this morning I did have a sticker attached to the toilet seat in my Bristol flat, which let us just say, portrayed something not entirely disimilar to the subject matter of my namesake's latest work of art. Only steaming. (Put there by a 5 year old nephew on a recent visit, I hasten to add, along with a picture of a toilet with an open mouth saying 'Yum yum, eat it up').

Someone - someone who knows I'm the local MP - came round this morning to do some repairs, so I thought I should remove it. Unfortunately I only got as far as sticking it on the bathroom mirror while I pondered what to do with it - and then left the flat in a hurry. So - right in his line of vision then. I am thinking of explaining it away along the lines of 'when I look in the mirror first thing in the morning and think I look like s**t, it serves as a useful reminder that I don't. Not quite'.

It's Getting Hot in Here: Gates and Buffett Seek to Invest in Oil Sands

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:09:35 +0000

Cross-posted from the Power Vote blog.

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates - the first and third richest men in the world - quietly toured Canadian Natural Resources Ltd’s Horizon oil sands project near Fort McMurray, Alberta, this week. Greg Stringham, vice-president at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, says the two men asked the industry body to give a general overview of the oil sands and Canada’s position in the energy world.

Also of note: The area the men toured is a part of Alberta where a two-headed fish was recently caught.

As reported by Treehugger, Stuart MacMillan of Parks Canada calls the fish “really unusual. The fish has an obvious abnormality. I had never seen anything like that myself before. I can’t speculate on what might have caused it.”

I can’t imagine why such a thing would happen to a fish there either. But that’s an aside.

According to local media reports, Gates and Buffett visited the $8.7 billion (US) project on Monday where Horizon is slated to begin operations later this year.

With reserves of about 173 billion barrels, the oil sands of the regions are the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East. The region’s producers plan to spend more than $120 billion (US) developing the oil sands as a resource (which combined with operating costs adds up to more $215bn) over the next five years, and output is expected to nearly be 2.8 million barrels a day by 2015 and 4.8 million by 2020.

Gates and Buffett were said to be “expressing curiosity” in the tar sands and perhaps considering investment.

Let’s be honest, though. If two men who make >$4000 per minute simply on the interest of their holdings decide to take a field trip to one of the most potentially profitable regions on earth and meet with companies considered to be blue-chip long-term investments …then they are thinking of investment.

Though the stocks of the oil sands companies were hit hard earlier this summer with the brief drop in oil prices, the visit of Buffett and Gates brought the prices surging back up again.

And as the value of the companies increases we all know the parallel increasing difficulty in limiting or ceasing their operations.

That said, there are groups, organizations like Green Peace, and lawsuits out there which have made the last few months particularly tumultuous for the oil sands industry. The industry has also been under siege by foreign governments, including U.S. mayors, who voiced concerns about the industry’s impact on air and water quality due to its level of emissions.

Whether or not the efforts of these organizations and political leaders is enough, however, remains to be seen. Certainly their efforts need support.

The ongoing development of tar sands - an energy source as dirty as coal - will greatly hinder our ability to secure a clean, just energy future.

All of us should keep this issue on our radars, and particularly for those in areas with tar/oil sands, work against this environmentally detrimental development through Pover Vote and other campaigns.

Global Voices (India): India and Olympics

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:05:08 +0000

“Could India host an impressive Olympics?” asks mbjesq in Desicritics blog.

Cosmic Variance: The Atom Smashers

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:59:08 +0000

A while back Sean wrote about the documentary film “The Atom Smashers” by Clayton Brown and Monica Ross, two Chicago-area filmmakers. The film is in final editing now, and in fact will premiere at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago next month, September 19! My wife Robin and I, who appear in the film, and our good friends and colleagues Ben Kilminster and Marcela Carena, will be in a panel discussion following the film.

The fantastic news is that PBS’s Independent Lens has picked up the film, and a shortened version will be broadcast late this year or early next year! I have not seen the film yet, but Ben and Marcela have, and they love it…I hope the 1.5 million people who see it then love it too!

The film has been coming for about four years now. In late 2004 I first connected with Clayton and Monica and they came out to Fermilab, and they took interview footage and started making shots of the lab, the accelerators, the environment etc. I even got them inside the Cockroft-Walton accelerator, the most sci-fi looking thing at the lab, which appears on the poster here.

I think they came out at least ten more times over the next year or so, and gradually I got the idea of what they were all about, and how to talk on camera. (At least I hope I got that idea right.) The story they want to tell centers on the search for the Higgs boson at the Tevatron at Fermilab, but delves into the state of government support for this physics and science funding in general, and what the lives of people like us who do this work are like. They interviewed lots of other people, from Peter Higgs to Leon Lederman to ordinary mortals like us. I can’t wait to see it!

Monica and Clayton managed to catch our field at a rather tumultuous time - could the Tevatron beat the LHC to making a major discovery? Could the field manage to gain support from the government during a time of war, economic downturn, when no major discoveries were emerging from the field? Was hope dwindling that a huge new project, the International Linear Collider, could be built in the US? It will be interesting to see how all this comes out in a 48 minute cut of the film…

Here is the trailer by the way. (Ben is the roller-blader.)

Garry's Programmers Log: The Future Of Monitors?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:08:00 +0000

This + That = Completely Wireless Monitors?

Hey, I can dream, I have a lot of wires on my desk (and I had even more on my desk at DisplayLink because of the amount of monitors I was running). And if all this technology eventually comes to fruition, then how long until completely wireless CODA systems?

DJ Drive's LJ (Georgia): Revoke the Sochi

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:04:43 +0000

Click the image to sign the petition.

via vaxo

Global Voices (Georgia): Russia, Georgia: Oil and War

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:44:08 +0000

Window on Eurasia writes about the oil factor in the Russian-Georgian conflict.

Global Voices (Georgia): Georgia: A War Diary

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:34:52 +0000

Natalia Antonova links to a war diary by George Lashkhi, commentator on Georgia’s Channel 1, published at GlobalComment.com.

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Danny O'Brien: living la vida hacker

A Cup of Jo: Summer Postcards.

Daily interesting photos - Flickr: Interesting photos - 21 Aug 2008 - Flickr

George Orwell (70 years ago): Orwell Diaries

John Redwood MP: Fuel Poverty and Tax Poverty - what Gord gives with one hand he takes with another

John Redwood MP: Data loss - how much more before they see the need to cancel the ID computer?

xkcd blag: Pi-Con, Math, Gender, Glaubama

xkcd: Moving

ThreatExpert: Beware Good Spyware or "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

Climate Progress: What is the carbon footprint of McCain’s countless homes?

Dave Pollard (How to Save the World): Why We Watch Sports

Kerry McCarthy MP: Common people

Global Voices (Georgia): Georgia, Russia: The Names of the Dead

Kerry McCarthy MP: Stop me if you've heard this one before

It's Getting Hot in Here: Gates and Buffett Seek to Invest in Oil Sands

Global Voices (India): India and Olympics

Cosmic Variance: The Atom Smashers

Garry's Programmers Log: The Future Of Monitors?

DJ Drive's LJ (Georgia): Revoke the Sochi

Global Voices (Georgia): Russia, Georgia: Oil and War

Global Voices (Georgia): Georgia: A War Diary