Mike's Minutiae

Researchers are saying that caffeine withdrawal should now be classified as a psychiatric disorder.

A new study that analyzes some 170 years' worth of research concludes that caffeine withdrawal is very real -- producing enough physical symptoms and a disruption in daily life to classify it as a psychiatric disorder. Researchers are suggesting that caffeine withdrawal should be included in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), considered the bible of mental disorders.

"I don't think this means anyone should be worried," says study researcher Roland Griffiths, PhD, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "What it means is that the phenomenon of caffeine withdrawal is real and that when people don't get their usual dose, they can suffer a range of withdrawal symptoms."

Scott Muni, one of the legendary voices of New York radio, died Tuesday. He was 74.

The cause of death was not immediately known.

[...]

His reputation rests on his years at WNEW, where he worked from 1967-98. There, he was among the on-air personalities who helped give birth to the progressive rock radio format.

Air personality Dennis Elsas of WFUV-FM in New York served as music director and worked on the air with Muni during the '70s. He recalls, "As both our afternoon guy and program director, he was the guiding force to making us the premier radio station in New York."

Elsas compares Muni to programer-announcer Tom Donahue, whose work in San Francisco during the same period launched the free-form sound on the West Coast. "Scott was the one guy who went from AM to FM and was significant in both," he said.

Muni was a friend to the stars and counted Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen among his associates.

• From the Musicradio WABC tribute site, listen to Muni and Dan Ingram broadcast from Delmonico Hotel, where The Beatles were staying in August of 1964.
• Here's a Scottso and Cousin Brucie contest promo from 1965.

• Here's a clip from an interview with John Lennon from 1975.
• Broadcasting from Live Aid in August 1985.

• A recent interview with John Paul Jones on Q104.3: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

"I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged."

A pregnant woman said she was handcuffed by transit police and forced to lie on her stomach during an arrest that began with her talking too loudly on her cell phone....

Deputy Chief Timothy Gronau said Monday that Officer George Saoutis followed police procedure after Aaron refused to stop cursing loudly during a cell phone conversation and became abusive and uncooperative.

A new $50 bill with touches of red, blue and yellow will be showing up soon at banks, in cash registers and wallets. A new $10 bill also is in the works, the third greenback to get colorized to cut back on counterfeiting.

Government officials used one of the new $50 bills Tuesday morning to buy a $45 U.S. flag, which came in a box, at a shop in Union Station. Old $50 bills will continue to be accepted and recirculated until they wear out.

Jay Leno's takeover as host of NBC's "Tonight" show in 1992 was fraught with drama and bad feelings, but he's assured the next transition will be as smooth as his nightly sign-off: "Stay tuned for Conan."

The comedian and NBC on Monday chose the 50th anniversary of the first "Tonight" show to set a special date for the 55th — when Leno will step down and Conan O'Brien becomes the fifth host of the television institution.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill to ban tobacco products in state prisons.

Inmates and staff in adult and youth prisons will be unable to smoke from next year, the bill says.

Supporters say the move will help improve the health of 160,000 inmates, as well as saving money on healthcare.

New voters are flooding local election offices with paperwork, registering in significantly higher numbers than four years ago as attention to the presidential election runs high and an array of activist groups recruit would-be voters who could prove critical come Nov. 2.

The danger is that new voters may not be as committed to showing up at the polls as longtime voters.

"Turning people out to vote is tougher than getting them to register," said Doug Lewis, who works with local election officials as head of The Election Center, a nonprofit group.

Even in several states where the election isn't as competitive, officials say they are seeing new voters register in higher numbers. Officials in El Paso County, Texas, Maryland's Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and California's Los Angeles County said registration numbers are on pace to be higher than 2000.

From the start, Yoeli had designed it for inner-city police patrols navigating urban canyons. It was precisely because of terrorist threats and the emergence of street-by-street urban warfare that flying cars were now inevitable, Yoeli insisted. He contacted high-ranking American and Israeli military friends and asked if they would be interested in a superfast aircraft with a vertical range from mere inches to 12,000 feet. The response, he says, was a unanimous "How soon can we get it?"

There's a kind of epiphany that a lot of players go through, when in the game, you can buy a computer for your Sim, and on the computer you can have your Sim actually play little games. A lot of players get to the point where it's 2 in the morning for the Sim and the Sim is up playing computer games, and the player is trying to get him to stop playing because the Sim has to get up in the morning. Then they step back and realize it's actually 2 in the morning and that they actually need to go to work. It's almost a creepy model of the real world.

A court decision effectively permitting those over the legal drink-drive limit to ride a horse has been puzzling people in the US state of Pennsylvania.

Local press columnists are musing over the ruling, which concerns an accident between two horsemen and a driver - all of whom had been drinking.

The court said horses cannot be classed as vehicles, so the two horsemen could not be found guilty of drunk driving.

[...]

At the centre of the case is an accident along a dark country lane in April 2002.

Keith Travis and Richard Noel, both on horseback, were charged with drunk driving after one of their horses was hit by a pick-up truck on the highway, whose driver was also over the drink-driving limit.

When the case came to court, the judge rejected the charges against the two men on horseback because, he said, the law did not regard their animals as vehicles.

Oxygen and food will be worrisomely low on the international space station by Christmas, and it's crucial that a Russian supply ship get there by then, a top NASA official said Friday.

Complicating matters is the breakdown of the station's primary oxygen generator. The unit has barely worked this month despite intensive repair efforts by the two astronauts on board, and the men have had to tap into backup oxygen supplies.

The next Russian cargo ship is scheduled to launch on Dec. 23. That's right around the time that supplies — notably oxygen and food — will be getting tight, said space station program manager Bill Gerstenmaier.

Maverick Irish pop star Sinead O'Connor asked the media to leave her alone on Friday -- by taking out a full-page advert in a national newspaper.

The shaven-headed star, who said last year she was retiring from the music business, was responding to an article written earlier this week about her "latest wacky" campaign to rid the country of head lice.

"I have been the whipping post of Ireland's media for 20 years," wrote O'Connor, who once said she was a lesbian, married a man shortly afterwards, and unleashed a flood of criticism when she ripped up a photo of the Pope on television.

"And what have I done to deserve these lashings? I have not behaved the way a woman is supposed to behave," she said in the advert, which runs to more than 2,000 words. "If ye think I am so ridiculous why do ye give me any attention?"

I need support. A lot of gentle loving support. And forgiveness. I grew up in public. Please let me live. And instead of spreading hatred in this desperately spiritually lost world, can ye not try to give a bit of love so someone might not have to feel that they are so awful they don’t even deserve to exist. That’s the real Sinead.

Being real. In the words of Eliza Doolittle, with whom I identify hugely, "I'm a good girl I am". Please stop hurting me and help me to be even better instead.

I realise I risk ye all taking the piss again. But I'm into being real. And not letting that kind of thing make me afraid to be who I am.

I am sorry for any hurt I have ever done anyone in this world by anything I ever did or said or didn’t do or say. Please let me have a second chance at just singing and bringing some love into people's lives with singing, instead of bringing pain into my own. I ask you this before God and in God's name.

Please stop hurting me and maybe I could start being more bloody useful. Ye know if I were really as crazy as ye make out I am I would deserve compassion, not bashing.

A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine on Tuesday when it was discovered passenger Yusuf Islam -- formerly known as singer Cat Stevens -- was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country, two federal officials said.

United Airlines Flight 919 was en route to Dulles International Airport when the match was made between a passenger and a name on the watch list, said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. The plane was met by federal agents at Maine's Bangor International Airport around 3 p.m., Melendez said.

The two federal officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the passenger as Islam. They said Islam was denied entry on national security grounds, but had no details about why the peace activist might be considered a risk to the United States.

Reaction to the mere idea of The Andy Warhol Museum's latest exhibition was as swift and vociferous as the rain that forced the North Side museum to close within hours of the exhibition's opening Friday.

The museum reopens today, with "Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prison Photographs from Abu Ghraib" occupying one corner of the largest room on the second floor.

The heavy e-mail reaction that anticipated the show drew sides as polarized as those of the current political climate. Some praised the Warhol for its courage and took aim at the Bush administration for being in Iraq; others wrote expressing fury at what they interpreted as an anti-patriotic and even subversive decision.

The photos, some of which most Americans have seen, line part of one wall, and a collection of international front pages reporting war news and atrocities by both sides hang nearby as part of the same exhibition.

During one telethon, Crouch, 70, told viewers that if they did their part to advance the Kingdom of God — such as by donating money to TBN — they should not be shy about asking God for a reward.

"If my heart really, honestly desires a nice Cadillac … would there be something terribly wrong with me saying, 'Lord, it is the desire of my heart to have a nice car … and I'll use it for your glory?' " Crouch asked. "I think I could do that and in time, as I walked in obedience with God, I believe I'd have it."

Amateur hurricane-busters have come up with any number of crackpot ideas to spare Florida from ferocious storms. Among them: blowing hurricanes away with giant fans or blowing them up with nuclear warheads.

Even the federal government got into the act, with three decades of ill-fated research called "Project Stormfury" before shelving the idea of weather modification in the 1980s.

But dozens of ideas — part hope, part fantasy — continue to crop up among weather wonks, Internet bloggers and others who think they have come up with a way to spare coastal residents the misery of hurricanes.

Suggestions have included coating the surface of the water with olive oil; towing an iceberg down to Florida to cool down the water temperature; or building large fans on the coast to blow away approaching storms.

"And then there was a guy who called and said he could pray them away," said Hugh Willoughby, a research professor with the International Hurricane Center at Florida International University.

There ought to be a caution sign as you enter the Yakov Smirnoff Theatre in Branson, Missouri. It should read "Warning! Hold on to your seat 'cause this guy is about to blow you away with dynamite comedy!" This 'guy' of course is Branson's Two-Time Comedian of the Year, Yakov Smirnoff, the famous Russian Comedian. He delivers explosive laughter in a show filled with brilliant special effects, dazzling dancing, heartfelt moments, and just plain fun. Yakov's entire show is packed with comedic tall tales and witty perceptions, funny facts and huge laughs....

The action keeps speeding up with the brilliant What A Country Dancers as they spectacularly display their unique styles of dancing. The dancers twist and twirl, daringly leaping across the stage. Yakov even joins them for a spin of his own with a surprising twist!

From the heartland of America, our funny philosopher takes us on a comedic journey and brings us unique insights into life, family, and these United States. As Yakov says, "Only In America can a Russian and a Japanese own a theater in the middle of the Ozarks!"

From the surprise pre-show excitement with comic juggler Slim Chance to the swirling action of the What A Country Dancers to the spectacular closing event, Yakov's show keeps you in side splitting laughter and patriotic wonder. As he embraces his visitors with welcoming smiles Yakov combines his refreshing humor with emotional motivation for all of us.

The journey begins with Yakov's explosive arrival on stage and from that point on Yakov climbs to new heights in the world of comedy. During this quick paced show full of variety you’ll meet Boris The Horse, see the Statue of Liberty, share in Yakov's journey as an United States citizen, watch as an audience member becomes a 'talk' show host, learn all about the romance between Romeo & Juliet, share a visit from St. Peter and...there's more!

Yakov's comedy focuses on the dynamics between men and women, the happiness that can be found inside oneself, and a celebration of the spirit of life. He shares a vision of the world where laughter truly is the best medicine. Yakov's prescription for healthy living includes explosive laughter backed up with the best of human compassion. As Yakov says, "What A Country", you’ll feel like cheering for the red, white & blue. During this inspiring show filled with patriotism and love of family, Yakov delivers humor for the heart over and over again!

There are selected dates for shows in Branson from April through December. Shows are at 9:30 AM and 3:00 PM. Be sure to check out Yakov's Show Schedule for available show dates and times. We suggest you purchase your tickets now, as Yakov's show is often sold out. Call 800-33-NO KGB (800-336-6542) or go to Yakov's On-line Ticket Reservations. Warning! Explosive Laughter awaits you at the Yakov Smirnoff Theatre.

When was the last time you heard about the browser wars? Well, they're back. The reason: For the first time in more than seven years, Microsoft is losing Web browser market share. And it's not just a blip. According to Web analytics company WebSideStory, Microsoft's share of browser users who visited top e-commerce and corporate sites shrank from 95.6 percent in June to 93.7 percent in September. And people using browsers made by the Mozilla open-source software group grew from 3.5 percent to 5.2 percent.

In just under 100 hours, we have smashed through our one million download campaign--with 6 days still to go! This is the fastest adoption rate we have ever experienced, higher than every previous Firefox release.

• "the coalition of the willing"
  
• "the mother of all battles"
  
• "shock and awe"
  
• "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit"

*it may not be nice to make fun of people for whom English is a second language, but if said restaurants are gonna repeatedly stick said menus into my front door handle, I'm gonna feel free to critique same

A number of polls this presidential race show a gap in the preferences of registered voters vs. likely voters. In these models, the president usually does better with likely voters, the figure most news organizations emphasize. To get to likely voters, all polling organizations use what is called a "screen," asking questions to determine who is likely to actually turn out on election day.

These screens differ greatly, as there is no consensus among experts on what works best. "This is an art, not a science," says Peter Hart, the prominent Democratic polltaker who has helped conduct The Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey for 15 years.

Drugs found in James' system at the time of his death included cocaine, methamphetamine and prescription drugs Xanax, Valium, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Vicodin and Digoxin.

What would it take to get someone to turn in one of those spammers who send millions of unwanted e-mails? At least $100,000, the Federal Trade Commission figures.

Six-figure incentives are the only way to persuade people to disclose the identity of co-workers, friends and others they know are responsible for flooding online mailboxes with unsolicited pitches for prescription drugs, weight loss plans and other products, according to an agency report Thursday.

The commission said a government-funded reward system could work if the payoff was between $100,000 and $250,000 — higher than rewards in most high-profile criminal and terrorism cases. For example, the FBI pays $50,000 for tips leading to the arrests of most of its top 10 fugitives.

The largest window built for use in space has been completed, promising to give astronauts a spectacular view from the International Space Station.
The 80cm-wide window is one of seven fitted to an observation dome called Cupola, which will be attached to the ISS in January 2009.

Cupola has six trapezoid-shaped side windows around the large, circular one.

The new dome is designed to allow astronauts to control the robotic arm on the outside of the space station.

Rembrandt, the 17th-century Dutch master known for his skill in using light to carry perspective, may have been wall-eyed, a U.S. researcher proposed on Wednesday.
An analysis of 36 self-portraits of the great painter suggest he had a strabismus -- a misalignment of one eye that caused it to point slightly outward.

This condition, popularly known as wall-eye, may have given Rembrandt van Rijn an advantage in translating three-dimensional scenes into two-dimensional paintings, said Margaret Livingstone, a Harvard Medical School neurobiologist.

"It illustrates that disabilities are not always disabilities. They may be assets in another realm," Livingstone said in an interview.

Madonna was due to arrive in Israel last night on a five-day pilgrimage to practise her new-found faith, Kabbalah, an ancient form of Jewish mysticism. But she has already achieved the rare feat of uniting both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict in opposition....

Palestinians have accused her of ignoring their suffering, while Orthodox Jews have labelled her as religiously insensitive.

The United States Mint is putting a new face on the nickel. The Nation's nickels that the United States Mint issues in 2005 will still feature President Thomas Jefferson, but unlike we've ever seen him before. It will be the first time that the image of Thomas Jefferson will change on the Nation's 5-cent coin.

Myers: No, no, no! He was supposed to have attitude.
Artist: Um... wh-what do you mean, exactly?
Myers: Oh, you know, attitude, attitude! Uh... sunglasses!
Lady: Could we put him in more of a "hip-hop" context?
Krusty: Forget context, he's gotta be a surfer. Give me a nice shmear of surfer.
Lady: I feel we should Rasta-fy him by... 10 percent or so.
[all stare at it w/o any expression]
Myers: Hmm... I think he needs a little more attitude.
[Artist blackens in Poochie's sunglasses]
All Three: Oh, yeah, bingo. Yeah, that's it! There it is, right there! I love it!

The German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) is celebrating 10 years of its online service by adding a new language to the 30 it already publishes - Klingon.

The language was developed for the Star Trek television and film series and is spoken by a warrior race of alien bad-guys from the planet Qo'noS.

In a futuristic leap, the Klingon pages appear on DW's web site under the date "September 2379", and describe Germany and the radio station at the start of the 21st Century.

[...]

Guido Baumhauer, head of DW's Online services, told the BBC that although the pages were initially published as a joke by DW engineers in their spare time, he has been taken aback by their popularity.

Star Trek fans and linguists "have taken it very seriously", he said, "and we have even been complimented on our use of the 'High Klingon' dialect."

The therapeutic power of flowers takes on new meaning with a Japanese gadget that turns plants into audio speakers, making the petals and leaves tremble with good vibrations.

Called Ka-on, which means "flower sound" in Japanese, the machine consists of a donut-shaped magnet and coil at the base of a vase that hooks up to a CD player, stereo or TV.

Place the flowers into the vase, turn on Ka-on and the magnet and coil relay the sound vibrations up the stems through the plant's water tubes.... Unlike regular speakers, which send sound in one direction, Ka-on shoots it in all directions, filling an entire room with music in a more natural ambiance.

The Beatles' company, Apple Corps., is involved in a legal battle with Jobs' Apple Computer, claiming the hardware manufacturer is in breach of a 1991 agreement that that forbids it from using the trademark for any application "whose principle content is music." The two companies have been involved in a number of court battles over the years involving the use of the Apple trademark.

[...]

One lawyer told Daily Variety, "People are expecting this to be the biggest settlement anywhere in legal history, outside of a class action suit. The numbers could be mind boggling."

[...]

Some speculation suggests the settlement could see Apple Corps. becoming a major shareholder in the computer company, with Paul McCartney maybe even becoming a board member.

Pet Shop Boys/Battleship Potemkin
Sunday 12 September 8.30pm
Eisenstein's classic silent film of political dissent on a giant screen, accompanied by a new score, written and performed live by The Pet Shop Boys, with the 26 piece Dresdner Sinfoniker, in association with Contemporary Films. A highlight of this year's Trafalgar Square Summer programme, this event promises to be an extraordinary and memorable collaboration.

The pop duo will perform the soundtrack with the Dresden Sinfoniker orchestra to accompany a screening of the film.

Singer Neil Tennant said: "We liked the idea that we were going to take something made in the 1920s and put contemporary electronic music to it."

He told BBC One's Breakfast that the 73-minute work includes two new songs.... "The ICA approached us because they knew we had a background of using film with our music - our first tour, for example, was directed by Derek Jarman," said Tennant.

TOP rating Melbourne radio station FOX FM has admitted it uses new technology to speed up songs on its playlist.

FOX general manager Gary Pert said the station played some songs faster to create "an up vibe, high energy feel about about the station".

He denied the process allowed the station to squeeze in more commercials.

I worked at several Top 40 stations with "hot" turntables and not once was it being done to play "more music"....The only reason I ever heard for running a turntable fast was to make the music sound more uptempo or brighter than the competition (or your home record-player).

I would be curious to hear how many top-40 stations used to speed up the turntables from 45rpm to 48 rpm. A friend who worked in Louisville, Lexington and Cleveland told me that most of those stations sped up the records. And i heard that WLS and CFL and WABC all sped up records to make them more uptempo and shorter.

NOAA declared today that El Niño is back but this time around in a weaker state. "El Niño conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific and are expected to last through early 2005," said Jim Laver, director of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center....

El Niño is associated with changes in sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean and can have significant impacts on weather around the world. El Niño episodes occur about every four to five years and can last up to 12 to 18 months.

1. Endless Lists. As stated previously in this space, every music publication and pundit has lately been churning out endless lists using the following formula: "The [number] [Top/Best/Greatest] [subject] of [all/chronological limiter/geographical limiter]." Rock critics frequently savage musicians for, oh hello, intentionally squandering talent for forced mass appeal--why is the cheesy list ploy any different creatively?
   
   
2. Being What They Mock. Seely mocks emo songwriters as "essentially intellectually dishonest." Yet he also sneers that Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas is a "flash-in-the-pan pop star." The group, however, has had a string of high charting albums and singles over a seven-year period. Though that represents only three albums, the span matches the active period of The Beatles and hardly qualifies as a "flash-in-the-pan" (consider, say, the public profiles of Right Said Fred or EMF). If someone wants to deride such fertile terrain as Matchbox 20, why assail them for something that's incontrovertibly incorrect?
   
   Further, Seely states that the Goo Goo Dolls' Johnny Rzeznik was included on the list "without ever exhibiting an ounce of artistic talent," yet the Goo Goo Dolls were once a respected alternative rock band (before they got drunk on Power Ballads after that goddamn radio hit "Name"). The band began their career as a sloppy, entertaining group playing early-Replacementsesque hardcore on Metal Blade Records. Even accounting for individual taste, an honest observer would have to grant some exhibition of artistic talent during this period (e.g., see here)--which surely falls within the period "ever."
   
   
3. Inherent Contradictions. Critics always seem to play favorites, tarring one musician's trait as a flaw while labeling that same trait in another as meritorious. For example, Seely calls Bryan Adams' putrid 1985 hit "Summer of '69" a "true-blue gem" and opines about Rick Springfield thusly: "Rick also still rocks -- in a Dirk Diggler 'You Got the Touch, You Got the Power' sort-of way." However, he takes shots at "bubblegum hacks such as Huey Lewis." And despite burnishing the dubious gemstone shine of "Summer of '69," he thumps Paul McCartney's "Band on the Run" as a tune that "could have been written by a third grader."
   
   
4. Writing about the sizzle, not the steak. Rock critics increasingly seem to prefer writing about the gossip and other non-music fluff rather than the music itself (a problem in much journalism today). Like, say, pitting artists against each other in lists. And within those list entries, not even mentioning a single song title from the artist in question in over half of the top ten (Ryan Adams, Johnny Rzeznik, G.E. Smith, Conor Oberst/Chris Carrabba, Fred Durst, and debatably, Carlos Santana). If your beef is with their music, discuss the music. If it's with their hype/P.R./sex partner/what they did on Leno last month, why are you discussing it on the music pages?
   
   
5. Straw Man Arguments. C'mon. Including former Saturday Night Live bandleader G.E. Smith on this list? Was his 1985-1995 run as SNL bandleader really that influential in the music world? His mug WAS annoying at the time (although I always respected his cred for being there--Gilda Radner was his ex-wife), but anyone who thought similarly has had nearly a decade to recover. This inclusion was less a "Hated Man in Rock" entry, and more a "I'm going to toss your way an obscure yet safe name to impress you with my knowledge" entry (unless perhaps Seely's been fulminating on this list for years and Smith is only a holdover).
   
   

Having sex with corpses is now officially illegal in California after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill barring necrophilia.

Could that ancient practice of bleeding patients really have done some good? A scientist says new research on how germs thrive in the body suggests it just may have — for some people.

[...]

The discovery suggests that bloodletting, done early enough, may have slowed staph infections by starving germs of iron, National Institutes of Health iron specialist Tracy Rouault wrote in a review of Skaar's research.

[...]

Searching old medical texts, she found that starting in 18th-century France, certain physicians advised it only at the start of a high-fever illness. Even in 1942, medicine's leading English-language textbook advised early bleeding for high-fever pneumonia.

That can certainly describe a bad staph infection.

• Mission statement of Portals Magazine:

  Portals Magazine provides essential information that will enable executives to successfully implement and maintain portal solutions, creating a competitive advantage for their companies and organizations.

  (In other words, unlike all the other business magazines out there, this magazine promises to tell readers stuff that they can use for stuff. Only about portals.)
  
  
• How they fancy themselves:

  Portals Magazine is written for senior corporate, departmental, and IT executives who are considered the "portal champions" within their companies and organizations.... Portals Magazine addresses business portals that face employees (B2E), customers (B2C) and partners (B2B).

  (What do you suppose is the Breakfast of Portal Champions? Also, please note: always remember to point portals away from one's face before spraying.)
  
  
• Upcoming events focusing "on the portals market": Uh, when last checked the event page was mercifully devoid of thrilling confabs.
  
  
• Didja know? America West Airlines "continues to expand its commitment to the portal concept" but its "approach has been incremental."

The makers of TiVo and ReplayTV digital video recorders have agreed to limit how long consumers can keep pay-for-view movies stored on future versions of the VCR-like devices.

The new technology also will allow Hollywood movie studios and broadcasters to regulate how often movies purchased through pay-for-view services can be watched. Digital video recorders that recognize these new copy restrictions will begin appearing in the spring of 2005. But it could be years before entertainment companies begin to take advantage of the technology, according to ReplayTV President Bernie Sepaniak.

One control would limit recording to 90 minutes -- essentially enough time for a viewer to watch an on-demand movie. Another would allow a movie to be stored for up to seven days but once the film was started it must be viewed within 24 hours. Another would allow unlimited viewing within a seven-day period.

A team of researchers led by Lian Pin Koh of the National University of Singapore studied some 12,200 plants and animals considered threatened or endangered, and calculated that an additional 6,300 dependent insects, mites, fungi and other species could be considered endangered.

"What we found is that with the extinction of a bird, or a mammal or a plant, you aren't just necessarily wiping out just one, single species. We're also allowing all these unsung dependent species to be wiped out as well," one member of the team, Heather Proctor of Canada's University of Alberta, said in a statement.

Link: Years ago, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court was said to have explained, "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it."

Link: As a judge once said, "I can’t explain what pornography is, but I know it when I see it.".

Link: There was a Senator who said "I don't know what pornography is but I know it when I see it."

Link: A Supreme Court justice once defined pornography: I may not know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.

Link: Pornography falls into the area of "I can't precisely define it, but I know it when I see it."

Link: One of our politicians, who, when asked to define "pornography" said: "I don't know how to define pornography but I know it when I see it."

Link: It's like that Meese Report on pornography: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

Link: I cannot explain Fractal Theory, but I know it when I see it.

Link: I can't define bad art, but I know it when I see it.

Link: It's tough to define "street cred," and impossible to earn. But I know it when I see it.

Link: I can't define cheating, but I know it when I see it.

Link: I don’t know a good definition of spirituality but I know it when I see it.

Link: I'm not sure I can nail down exactly what it is that makes a great field camera, but I know it when I see it.

I imply no criticism of the Court, which, in those cases, was faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable. I have reached the conclusion, which I think is confirmed at least by negative implication in the Court's decisions since Roth and Alberts, that, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material...but I know it when I see it.

Do you know there is this old expression that was used in the United States by a Supreme Court Justice where it was said and it doesn't matter with reference to what "I can't define it but I know it when I see it."

Meet the Human Locator. It's a new technology developed by Canadian ad agency Freeset Interactive that purports to detect when humans are near, track their movement, and then broadcast messages directed at them on a nearby screen.

To hear Human Locator mastermind and Freeset President Bastien Beauchamp tell it, the system can even speak to passersby, beckoning them to come closer to a message screen or begging them not to leave.

The Human Locator is essentially a camera and computer that collects data on the number of people walking within a certain target area, the direction they're headed, and their speed.

"CART driver, Bryan Herta knows that safety is the ultimate rush on the track and on the road."

I have a reissue of Elvis Costello's first album, My Aim is True, that includes many of the songs as he first recorded them on a tape recorder in his house. On those songs, he sounds like he's standing in rush-hour traffic with a blanket over his head.

"I think it confirms what a lot of music fans figured out for themselves--they are the architects of what we'd call contemporary pop music." ~~Jam Productions VP of concerts Andy Cirzan on The Pixies

"They [and their entourage of about 25] drank $4,500 dollars worth of drinks — bottles and bottles of vodka," says a club insider. "Then, having been comped all the alcohol, they left a $48 tip. We thought 1 per cent was kind of outrageous, considering they are the president's daughters."

As Hurricane Frances bears down on the United States, weather trackers are sounding the alarm. Yet Frances may only be the first in a series of large, powerful storms to march across the Atlantic in coming years.

Following one of the most active August storm seasons on record - and as Florida braces for the impact of Hurricane Frances - William Gray and Philip Klotzbach of the Colorado State University hurricane forecast team are calling for another active storm month in September and the continuation of a well-above-average hurricane season.

For three-day forecasts, the average margin of error is now about 200 nautical miles, just half of what it was in 1964. Daily predictions are also improving. Today, the average margin of error is just 85 nautical miles, the Center reported. (from the CNN story)

A human ancestor the size of a chimp walked upright six million years ago – about three million years earlier than Lucy, the famous bipedal hominid, researchers say.

Scientists used computer-enhanced X-rays called CAT scans to study a fossil thighbone from the creature, known as Orrorin tugenensis.

The scans suggest the human ancestor walked upright like pre-humans, not like apes.

"We have solid evidence of the earliest upright posture and bipedalism securely dated to six million years," said Robert Eckhardt, a professor of developmental genetics and evolutionary morphology at Pennsylvania State University.

Scientists...have set a new Internet2 land-speed record. The team transferred 859 gigabytes of data in less than 17 minutes at a rate of 6.63 gigabits per second between the CERN facility in Geneva, Switzerland, and Caltech in Pasadena, California, a distance of more than 15,766 kilometers. The speed is equivalent to transferring a full-length DVD movie in just four seconds.

Hard Drive storage is expanding far more quickly than upload or download speeds to our homes. The ability to use that hard drive storage to increase the quality and file size of a movie, makes it practically impossible to distribute it over the net. I have a question I always ask at speeches, and have asked for the last several years. I ask if anyone in the room has ever downloaded or uploaded a movie or TV show in HD quality to or from a P2P network. No one has ever raised their hand.

The bird flu virus that can kill humans has the potential to be spread by cats, scientists have found.

It had been thought that domestic cats were resistant to diseases caused by influenza A viruses - one of which, H5N1, is responsible for avian flu.

[...]

The researchers warn that their findings may mean that cats are a potential source of infection for humans.

The new weapons in the teenage arsenal of social cruelty include stealing each others' screen names and sending inflammatory messages to friends or crush-objects, forwarding private material to people for whom it was never intended and anonymously posting derogatory comments about fellow students on Web journals called blogs.

As we see in the case of post-war Iraq, the fiat history of a currency can serve as the starting point for its post-fiat valuations. The Saddam Dinar doubled its value (measured against the Dollar) in only two weeks, but it couldn't have gotten started without its previous, albeit inflationary and unstable, exchange value. At that point, astonishing as it may seem, no government was necessary to maintain the value of the money. The market can reclaim money from government.

Why did the unbacked paper do better than the US Dollar? Because the quantity of dinars was relatively fixed, while the supply of dollars grew. The law of supply and demand tells us that, all else being equal, a rise in the supply of a thing will lower the price of that thing. The thing, in this case, is the Dollar itself; its "price" is its buying power, which the Iraqis watched erode drastically within days.

This is why the castaways value Thurston Howell's paper dollars: because whatever absurd amount he may have brought with him for "a three-hour tour," that amount is now fixed. Dollars are the most stable currency available on Gilligan's Island, and the government has nothing to do with it. Or rather: the absence of government has everything to do with it. If people are allowed to pick their own preferred money, they will pick whatever holds its value most reliably.

Investors, along with radio executives, may not be facing up to the full extent of the industry's challenges. While radio has always weathered past threats -- video did not kill radio's star, as a group called the Buggles prophesied in 1981 -- things could really be different this time.

Across the country, listeners are changing how they choose to receive music and news and talk radio. They are turning to portable music players like Apple Computer's iPod, streaming audio over the Internet and the emerging field of satellite radio to hear what they want, when they want to hear it.

For decades the radio industry has crushed incipient competitors by wielding raw political muscle and arguments that are at once apocalyptic and apocryphal. Radio station owners, who formed the National Association of Broadcasters in 1923, have won laws and regulations that have banned, crippled or massively delayed every major new competitive technology since the first threat emerged in 1934: FM radio.