Discovery of ‘tidal giant’–a new Egyptian dinosaur–reported in Science. ‘The partial skeleton of a massive sauropod dinosaur, unearthed at an Egyptian site that its discoverers call “dinosaur heaven,” makes its
debut in the 1 June issue of the international journal Science. Dubbed Paralititan stromeri, the dinosaur is one of the largest ever discovered
from the Cretaceous period (about 146 to 65 million years ago) in Africa, and may be the second most massive dinosaur ever found.’ EurekAlert!
Day: June 3, 2001
The Irony Scare: “how did a literary device become a public enemy?” The New Republic
The left should love globalisation: ‘Opponents of globalisation may have finally met their
match. The challenge comes not from the sharp suits of the
World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary
Fund, the World Bank, or even from Clare Short, but from a
middle-aged academic who is no stranger to direct-action
techniques. He is the man accused of leading the Italian
revolutionary left in the 1970s: Antonio Negri. Thirty-odd
years after he achieved notoriety in the student revolts of
1968, his new book, Empire (published by Harvard
University Press), has been hailed as “a communist manifesto
for our times”. It is a riposte both to the Jeremiahs on the
left who see globalisation as an unalloyed evil and to the
fatalists of the right who see it as a fait accompli that we
are powerless to change.’ New Statesman
A dermatologist writes: “(The skin disease) Tinea imbricata has an ornate appearance, but its precise distribution has been poorly defined
Clinical diagnosis based on appearance of their diseased skin is that Gungan inhabitants of the planet Naboo are infected with tinea
imbricata.
Indirect evidence suggests that Gungans have had contact with human populations who have this fungal infection
The occurrence of tinea imbricata in Gungans may help answer questions about extraterrestrial interventions in human affairs. ” British Medical Journal
A banner day for neo-Nazis: “Hatewatch, the website that monitored the proliferation
of hate sites on the internet, closed last month claiming that it
had outlived its usefulness. … (But) hate groups are increasingly turning to
newsgroups and email.” Salon
“Maybe what depresses human beings is not the great roar and thrust of history, but the very opposite: its absence.” A generation without a cause: “This week, I’ve come across at least three references in the news to increased levels of depression and anxiety in young
adults. To wit: It is being reported the level of depression and other psychiatric disorders has risen in every group of 18- to
24-year-old Americans — one generation to the next — since the Second World War.
I expect you’ll be hearing more about this as two new books make the rounds. Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life
in Your Twenties by New York journalists Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, describes the aimlessness and anxiety of this
generation of college graduates. The Myth of Maturity, an excellent book by Cambridge sociologist Terri Apter, approaches the
same subject from a more scholarly vantage point, arguing on the basis of careful study that young adults are remaining caught
in a twilight of adolescence, unable to transform their relationships into marriages and their jobs into careers.” The National Post
The sizzling sleepers of summer: “As the mainstream press promotes The Mummy Returns, Pearl Harbor and the other vacuous, shrieking offspring from its
news-tainment corporate parents, a more skeptical part of the audience has quietly been taking in more adventurous sorts of films. Below, Salon’s
critics take a look (in some cases a second look) at the season’s most compelling, if less hyped, films…”
The Pursuit of Happiness: “Lithium helped Fiona Campbell cope with her
childhood traumas, but she says, the drug brings its
own problems.” The problems are worse, or at least the price less worth paying, if as with this author the lithium recipient does not have frank bipolar (manic depressive) illness. The Guardian
Review of Warrior Lovers: erotic fiction, evolution and female sexuality: “Did Starsky have a thing for Hutch? Was Kirk in love with Spock? What if Bodie got it on with Doyle? These
unlikely plots are standard in a cult literary phenomenon known as ‘slash literature’: a genre of romance fiction
that pairs heterosexual characters from television and film in fantasy romantic relationships. (The term ‘slash’
refers to the punctuation mark — Starsky/Hutch — that unites the lovers.)
In Warrior Lovers, Catherine Salmon, an evolutionary psychologist and slash author, and Donald Symons, a
world expert on the evolution of sexuality, place ‘slash’ in the context of our evolved sexual psychology… Sticking close to the science, Catherine and Donald argue that slash provides a unique insight into human
sexuality. By comparing slash with mainstream romance, they reveal the essential ingredients of women’s
sexual fantasies. The ideal is a relationship in which the man does not lose interest as the woman’s looks
fade. Instead the relationship is a lifelong, shared adventure with a committed equal, based not on ephemeral
lust, but on enduring loyalty and trust.” AlphaGalileo
Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day points to a mind-boggling cosmological event clear across the universe. “Last March, telescopic instruments in Earth and space tracked a tremendous explosion that occurred across the universe. A nearly
unprecedented symphony of international observations began abruptly on 2000 March 1 when Earth-orbiting RXTE, Sun-orbiting Ulysses, and
asteroid-orbiting NEAR all detected a 10-second burst of high-frequency gamma radiation. … Major telescopes across the globe soon began playing along as GRB 000301C came into view, detailing unusual behavior. The Hubble
Space Telescope captured the above image and was the first to obtain an accurate distance to the explosion, placing it near redshift 2, most of the way
across the visible universe… Even today, no one is sure what type of explosion
this was. Unusual features of the light curve are still being studied, and no host galaxy appears near the position of this explosion.”
David Anderson at Metaforage wrote me that a source of his at NASA says the explosion has finally been identified. It was Trent Lott’s reaction to the news that Jim Jeffords was leaving the G.O.P.
The NPR show Marketplace has generated a simple weekly rating of our collective, subjective economic experience by polling “people-components” in various regions and endeavors. This week’s R.E.A.L. Index is 7 on a scale of 1-10.
The Boston Globe resident hi-tech weblogger DC Denison writes about the hippest hangout in my hometown; I’d never heard of it:
“The Rack, that upscale pool hall/celebrity jock hang-out next to Faneuil
Hall Marketplace, is not where I’d normally look for the latest in wireless
technology. But now that I’m here, at 7 p.m. on a weeknight, the idea is
starting to make more sense.This place is an epicenter of electronic cacophony and techno tack (stuff
that you can do technologically, but probably shouldn’t). Sports highlights
are looping on video screens, a closed-circuit TV is pumping out an
in-house channel, a Fox TV sports kiosk is waiting to capture “fan
comments,” an Internet web cam is scanning the premises, and off in a
corner a band is covering Jimmy Buffett tunes. Oh yeah, and many of the
black-clad denizens have cellphones pressed very tightly to their heads,
trying to communicate over the din. This place is electro-diversion,
short-attention-span heaven (or hell depending on your view on info
overload.)
His point in blinking to The Rack is to talk about its innovative use of handhelds:
But wait, there’s more! Last week the club shoe-horned in a fleet of small
electronic gadgets: Touchpak hand-held wireless entertainment units,
which are intended to divert and entertain customers while they are waiting
for tables: pool or dining. I picked one up from a hostess just inside the
door.A Touchpak turns out to be a standard PDA, a Compaq iPaq, customized
and loaded up with news, sports, movie clips, shopping sites, and tiny
little ads. Here’s where it intersects with Rack-land: it alerts you when
your table is ready. So it’s a beefier version of the pagers many
restaurants use.And here’s the tech angle: Touchpak uses wireless LAN technology,
which means there’s now an antenna on the roof of The Rack that allows
the restaurant to communicate with the devices in a confined area
(basically the restaurant and the outdoor patio). Because it’s a closed
system, the bandwidth can be much higher, allowing the streaming of
movie trailers, for example.For ten minutes or so, I impersonated an anxious patron waiting for a table
and used my unit to navigated between Reuters news, sports, and The
Rack’s menu (eventually The Rack hopes to allow patrons to order from
these units). It was mildly diverting, another option piled on to The Rack’s
squawking collection of electronic boxes.Note to the criminally minded: The Rack feels reasonably protected from
your larcenous inclinations. First, patrons are asked to leave a credit card
or driver’s license as a kind of deposit. Second, a tracking device sounds
an alarm, and notifies security, when a device gets too close to an exit.
Third, Touchpak is working on a system that will permanently disable
these devices when they are outside the network.”
The Rack’s site has a webcam where the curious can remotely check out the ambience during open hours. [The closest I’m ever likely to get to such a with-it place…]
How do you stack up against Nielsen’s stats on average activity by a web user in April 2001?
Popular Thyroid Drug Faces Deadline. In bizarre FDA news, the manufacturer of the drug Synthroid, which has been used for at least 35 years to treat hypothyroidism, has to file a new drug application and provide proof of efficacy and safety because its active ingredient levothyroxine has never been formally approved for use. AP
New Study Sees U.S. AIDS Rates Jump. On the twentieth anniversary of the Centers for Disease Control’s recognition of the new epidemic, a new government survey suggests that a new generation of gay men numbed by incessant AIDS warnings are contracting it “at alarming rates”. AP
Turn Buried Bodies Into Organic Soil – Scientist. “A Swedish scientist investigating the most
environmentally friendly form of burial has found a way of quickly
recycling corpses into soil enricher, the Swedish daily Svenska
Dagbladet reported on Friday.
The new green method, approved by the Church of Sweden, turns
the human body into organic matter in a few weeks compared with
coffin burial, in which the body takes between 50 and 60 years to
decompose.
It was developed by biologist Susanne Wiigh-Masak, who found that
cremation emits poisonous gases with unknown effects, making it even
less eco-friendly than conventional burial.
In the new green method, the body is immersed in a bath of liquid
nitrogen, producing up to 65 pounds of pure organic matter, which is
put into a thin, easily degradable coffin.
This is then buried near the ground surface and enriches the soil in the
same way as autumn leaves.”
“I bequeathed myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles….”
– Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
Is Astrology Sociology? 63-year-old French astrology columnist and astrologer to French president Mitterrand has just earned a PhD in sociology at the Sorbonne after successfully defending her controversial 900-page dissertation “The Epistemological Situation of Astrology in
Relation to the Ambivalent Fascination/Rejection of Postmodern Societies”. The news has set off a front-page storm of protest in France between academics concerned about shoddy scholarship and those who feel a maverick discipline is being scapegoated, “… between the followers of Émile Durkheim and followers of Weber. Or, to put it
another way, between positivists who rely on quantitative techniques and
objective measures when assessing social life and phenomenologists who attach
greater importance to subjective experience and emotion. ” New York Times
Scientists View New Wave of Cancer Drugs; “long-awaited payoff from decades of research into the molecular biology of cancer.” New York Times
Happy birthday, Johnny Weissmuller (06/02/04-01/22/84)
Bizarre Versions of How Nepal Royals Died: “Though the streets of Kathmandu were mostly calm, there were
occasional protests against official explanations for the massacre, first
blamed on the crown prince himself and then on an automatic
weapon exploding by accident.
‘According to the information received by us, they were injured
when an automatic weapon suddenly exploded,’ state radio
announced Sunday…. The radio announcement replaced an earlier explanation given by
officials that Crown Prince Dipendra had shot his parents and then
himself in what media reports described as a row over his choice of
bride.
The 29-year-old prince, declared king by the Himalayan country’s
privy council Saturday, was still critically ill on Sunday, the radio said.
His uncle, Prince Gyandendra, named regent since the new king was
in a coma, also issued a statement suggesting the massacre was the
result of an automatic weapon going off by accident. He was out of
town at the time of the killings.” Reuters
To the citizens of the United States:
In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Then look up “aluminium” . Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary”.
Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up “interspersed” .2. There is no such thing as “US English” . We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game.Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.
7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. Merde is French for “shit”.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.
Thank you for your cooperation.
To the citizens of the United States:
In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Then look up “aluminium” . Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary”.
Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up “interspersed” .2. There is no such thing as “US English” . We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game.Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.
7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. Merde is French for “shit”.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.
Thank you for your cooperation.
To the citizens of the United States:
In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Then look up “aluminium” . Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary”.
Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up “interspersed” .2. There is no such thing as “US English” . We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game.Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.
7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. Merde is French for “shit”.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.
Thank you for your cooperation.
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