My latest offering just went up at 3QuarksDaily; the title is Competition in science: too much of a good thing.

As always, I don't want to dilute the conversation I hope to spark, so comments are off here.

Go read this. Seriously, go now, you can thank me later. It's the blog of an MSF doctor in the field and it's everything you might expect, with the added benefit that James can really write.

Glyn Moody is re-tagging all his old posts, so subscribers to his RSS feed are getting a quick run through his blogging history. If you have any interest in Open Source or Open Science, check him out.

To whet your appetite: today he re-tagged a post pointing to a story that was posted to LWN.net in March, on Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart (wikipedia, Poynder interview, PG about: page, blog of sorts). Hart is quite a character (as seems common among visionaries), and the linked resources make interesting reading (especially Hart's own writing). What really grabbed my attention was this detail from Glyn's article:

Even 20 years after Project Gutenberg had begun, Hart had only created 10 ebooks..

That was my "holy crap" moment for the day. Think about it: it's 1971, what will become the Internet consists of 15 nodes and about 100 people, Sir Tim won't invent the Web for another 20 years, and you are given an account on one of those nodes. What will you do with it? Well, if you're Michael Hart, you will see forward more than a quarter of a century and begin Project Gutenberg, and then for well over twenty years you will be virtually its sole proponent and defender. In 1997, PG had 313 ebooks. In 1998, collaboration with the University of Illinois PC User Group finally set the wheels in motion for the creation of the PG we all know and love today; by the end of that year there were 1600 ebooks in the collection, and today there are 20,000. The clarity of that original vision and the tenacity with which Hart made it a reality are simply breathtaking.

Remember this? The first blog carnival is up.

...this project is selfish. I need help. But later, I thought, while this plea that would otherwise be considered blegging began to take shape, maybe other people could use the advice. And hey, maybe people who would otherwise consider themselves apart from this sort of daily worry could help too. Some of us need some help finding those bootstraps, hell, finding boots.

So here we are. These are ways to pinch a life that is already pinched, to beat the system, to get by when getting by is what you're doing already.

It's a damn good start: children's entertainment, clothing, education, money management, food and more.

Heh. Me too, for the most part. Richard Akerman, talking about Flickr groups and other very, very special interest online groups ("narrowcasting"):

"There are of course huge Flickr groups devoted to topics of typical photographic interest, like Sunrises and Sunsets (12,453 members).  But there is also the "I didn't think anyone else was interested in that" sort of groups.  For example, I like to take photos that are empty of people.  I consider humans to be noise that messes up the framing of my shots.  As luck would have it, I can submit my photos to the Flickr group The Last Person on Earth (1,036 members) (or see just my contributions). This isn't even the only "no people in the photo" group, there's also No people. Beyond that, in Lonely City, you can't even have animals in the photos."

I usually like to keep people out of my photos, for two good reasons: 1. they are really hard to photograph; seriously, people are some of the most difficult subjects there are; and 2. privacy concerns. I never publish photos with identifiable humans in them, unless I have explicit permission to do so (and since I almost never have the gumption to ask, that means I almost never post people shots). I know that one has a diminished expectation of privacy in a public space, but I am not making a living as a photographer or journalist. I can afford to go a bit further in my consideration of other people's privacy than the law strictly requires.

I wanted to use Richard's photos, but he reserves all rights and I'm lazy, so I hunted around the LPOE pool until I found Zioluc, who releases his shots under a Creative Commons licence (attribution/noncommercial/noderivs) that lets me use them. Grazie, signore! Top left: isoletta aspettami; bottom right: welcome.

See, that's why I read Steve, and you should too. If I've learned anything worth knowing in my decade and a half of trying to be a scientist, it's exactly this: I might be wrong.

No matter how sure I am, no matter how careful I've been, no matter how smart I like to think I am, no matter how intellectually and emotionally satisfying I find my position, I might be wrong. And the corollary: if I am in fact wrong, I will be better off knowing about it, and preferably sooner rather than later so that I don't waste effort on mistakes that will later be pulled down around my ears.

That's why, when I read that former House majority leader Dick Armey recently said in an interview:

Dialogues are what Democrats do, not what Republicans do. Only liberals think that if you've had a dialogue about something, you've done something.

it literally makes me want to puke. I feel physically sick at the thought of someone so arrogant, callow and ignorant being in a position of real power.

So my blogroll, that list of links over there on the right, is Pepto-Bismol for the brain. Try it, you'll like it.

Here's the full quote from Steve; go read the whole entry, too.

Those who believe in dialogue do so for the simple reason that they understand that they might be wrong. They don't think they are, but understand that they might be and so seek to test out their ideas against the strongest objections that can be leveled against them. Like a belt holding boxer who refuses to take on legitimate challengers in defense of his title, the only people who run from dialogue are those who are afraid they will lose.

Via Amp, Lauren at Faux Real has had a great idea, and is looking for input and help:

This compilation of how-tos, written by you and me, aims to help people with little in the way of resources and expertise get through unfortunate situations relating to money, finances, and bureaucracy.

It will be an open-source document, likely a Word doc wiki?, that can be edited and added to as the contributors see fit. Not only do I want it to include our stories, but I want it to include details, specifics, the steps in the process, what one can expect, what hurdles one may come against, and suggestions for how to get around them. This should be a pragmatic resource that takes a person in need through all the steps and details of the situation at hand. If you know of websites or other resources that include excellent step-by-step instructions, send them along as well. [...]

This thought came to me while reading through the comments on my posts bitching about my lack of insurance and inability to deal with student loans. People were all too willing to share advice that I have actually put into motion. I'm a person with few monetary resources, but women I barely know approach me to ask about legal custody issues and sexual health issues all the time -- and I love to share. Wouldn't it be great if we could offer this kind of help to one another, and to people outside of the blogosphere?

I think a wiki is the perfect format, and a regular blog carnival is the ideal way to keep the resource growing. Lauren is calling now for posts for the first HUHO blog carnival; trackback to the linked post or email Lauren by Tuesday Nov 27.

(Special note: JD, I think you could contribute a lot of content to this.)

In lieu of real content, a pointer to excellent things you'd already know about if you were sensible and had picked up my blogroll.

As if directorship of the North Country Academy for the Excruciatingly Fine Arts were not enough, Rob Helpy-Chalk has been on fire lately. Here's a backgrounder on the Military Commissions Act (aka the We'll Torture Anyone We Damn Well Please" Act), followed up with lists of the traitorous swine who voted for it (so you can avoid voting for them) and two posts on absentee voting throughout the country (viz, how to vote the way you want to, instead of the way Diebold wants you to). Here's another backgrounder, this time on torture methods interrogation techniques, with a particular focus on waterboarding, the adoption of which technique our honorable, humanitarian Puppeteer-in-Chief Vice President calls a "no brainer".

All of this is part of Rob's activities with Save Our Constitution, an SLU campus organization devoted to pushing back against the Bush Junta's efforts to gut the US Constitution, the model and gold standard for representative democracy everywhere and one of the principal reasons I still intend to become a US citizen. Next week they are sponsoring a "teach-in", a four-hour seminar on The Constitution, Human Rights, and the War on Terrorism:

Schedule of Events

Welcome Remarks
Noon: Natalia Singer (Department of English)

The Military Commissions Act
12:10: Eve Stoddard (Department of Global Studies)

12:25 - 1:10 -- Panel 1 -- Erosion of the Constitution, Moderator: Eve Stoddard

1:15 - 2:15 -- Panel 2 -- Torture and International Law, Moderator: Rob Loftis

2:20 - 3:15 -- Panel 3 -- Language, Rhetoric, Politics of Fear, Moderator: Gus diZerega

3:20 - 4:00 -- Wrap-up -- What You Can Do, Moderators: Natalia Singer and Jon Cardinal

Damn, people, this is what universities are for! This is what "public intellectual" means -- or should mean.

Rob Helpy-Chalk said that (last line of this post, which, like his whole blog, you should read), and I think he's right. Furthermore, I just love rummaging about in other people's attics! In lieu of actual content (I'm writing a fellowship application), here are some of the amazing and wonderful things you can find in other people's virtual attics:

The right-on righteous indignation of Zuska: start anywhere, here is good, and read forward. If you only have time for a taste, read happy jerk-off (especially you, spousal unit) and links therein. Mind she doesn't barf on your shoes.

(Update: you can still read the linked archive entries, but Zuska has moved to ScienceBlogs.)

Zuska's latest entries will bring you into contact with the Tonegawa dustup at MIT; read Zuska, but also read Janet's series of posts: one, two, three. Of course, you should be reading Janet regularly anyway if you are at all interested in philosophy and sociology of science. Here is another good post in the same vein.

What happens when an enquiring young mind finds a dead bug? What if the enquiring young mind in question happens to have access to an atomic force microscope? This is the kind of thing that keeps me excited about science. Speaking of Biocurious, here's a good example of the sort of science blogging that leads me to believe that the web has a much greater role to play in day-to-day research than it is yet filling.

Speaking of blogs and science, check out Pedro's work-in-progress showing that the likelihood that two proteins interact might depend on the proteins' age. (Also, note to self: add my Connotea bookmarks to the front page here, as Pedro has done.)

And for something a bit different, if you like to think you should be reading Philosopher's Playground. To whet your appetite, try a clear, concise background to the conflict surrounding Israel, or an exploration of the moral implications of being friends with an asshole.

Last push! Blogathon is this Saturday; if you haven't signed up to blog it's too late for this year, but you can still sponsor a blogger from now until at least 48 hours after the event.

If you sort by funds pledged and scroll down, you'll find (as I write this) 80-some bloggers who don't yet have sponsors. If you've got a few bucks that ain't working right now, how about helping one of them out?

Tell you what: if you do that, come back here and give me the name of another blogger with no sponsors, and I'll sponsor them. Probably only five bucks, because I'm skint -- but the little donations add up, that's how grassroots works. That's the beauty of the Blogathon, too -- a few hundred bloggers you never heard of raising a dollar here and a dollar there, and pretty soon you have a bona fide international community premised on giving a helping hand wherever it's needed.

Try it, you'll like it.

As my online pal, A-lister and Cabalista TheBrad reminds me, it's time for our scheduled Blogathon reminder: it's on, it's fun, you should take part.

Go here for information, here to blog, and/or here to sponsor a blogger.

Do it, or I'll kill a kitten.

(Where "kill a kitten" actually means, you know, "make myself a sandwich".)

• Your Daily Art: Blue Heaven II
  What is art? Can you invent a colour?
• Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Can an animal rights activist accept medical treatment invented through animal testing?
  Not, if I understand "animal rights activist" correctly, without hypocrisy.
• Luxuria / Jose
  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! My eyes!! (Explanation here.)
• Philosophers' Playground: A Gender Puzzle
  

  I noticed that in place of the usual international symbols or linguistic indicators to let you know which was the men's and which was the ladies' room, they decided to use photographs. One image was of men in drag and the other was of women with fake moustaches in men's clothing...

  So, where did Steve pee? And where should he have peed?
• Sense About Science | "I don't know what to believe..."
  "Our short guide, written with input from patients, pharmacists and medical practitioners, among others, lets the public in on the arbiter of scientific quality: the peer review process."
• Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals
  Note to Chandos: this is how it's done, you gits. Author Charles W. Bailey, Jr. notes that while "most scholarly publishers would be delighted to sell 500 copies of a specialized bibliography", the OAB has had far wider distribution: "over 44,500 copies of the complete book, over 29,500 chapters (or other book sections), and over 6,100 author or title indexes have been distributed to users worldwide". Via Peter Suber.
• 2006 Lavender Festival in Sequim Washington
  This looks kinda neat.
• one red paperclip
  "The house was built in the 1920s and has been recently renovated. It is locate at 503 Main Street Kipling, SK Canada. It is approximately 1100 square feet on two floors. There are three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, kitchen, living room and dinning room. It has white vinyl siding, a new roof and eaves troughs that have been put on in the last few years." And Kyle got it in a series of direct swaps, starting with one red paperclip.
• The Origami Page
  Collection of origami galleries, including Satoshi Kamiya and Robert Lang. Truly extraordinary.
• Dufttunnel
  "From April through to September, the Autostadt presents the Dufttunnel (scent tunnel) by Danish-Islandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The tube of the tunnel forms its own room and turns slowly along the longitudinal axis around the visitor. The scent pours from the flower pots attached to the tube." That all makes sense once you see the picture. Way cool.

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The 2006 Blogathon is up and running! Signups for bloggers close July 21, sponsorship stays open through the event itself (July 29). This post is for the Wednesday Publicity Push: if you have a blog, please consider posting about the Blogathon today, next Wednesday, and the Wednesday after, to help inflate our daypop/technorati/etc ratings. And of course, please consider taking part and/or sponsoring a blogger!

For those who don't know what the Blogathon is, here's the press release:

On July 29th, hundreds of bloggers from all around the world will stay up late and make a difference. That's the slogan and the raison d'être of the Blogathon, an online fundraising event that began in 2000 with a case of insomnia and a case of Mountain Dew. Faced with certain sleeplessness, Portland, OR blogger Cat Connor¹ decided, on a whim, to blog every 15 minutes for 24 hours. She made it, and the next year she invited others to join her -- this time, with sponsorships. Hence "blogathon", by analogy with "walkathon", "telethon" and so on. Says Connor: "I've always felt the best thing about the web was its ability to affect the real world. The web can be a major force for good."

The mechanics of the Blogathon are simple: bloggers sign up to blog for their chosen charity, and sponsors pledge either a lump sum or an amount per hour blogged. The goal is 24 hours, with one post every 30 minutes. Sponsors make their donations directly to their bloggers' chosen charities. The Blogathon sends reminder emails but does not collect money, although Connor says that future plans do include registration as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and a system for collecting and disbursing donations.

The 2001 Blogathon saw about a hundred bloggers raise more than $20,000 (more than double their initial modest goal) for 77 different charities. The numbers roughly doubled in 2002, and again in 2003 when well over 500 participants raised more than $100,000 for charities ranging from the World Wildlife Fund to Heifer International, from local outreach centers to Médecins Sans Frontières. Project Blog substituted for the Blogathon in 2004, and in 2005 Connor continued her hiatus and Sheana Director of seeworthy.org ran the Blogathon, raising almost $60,000.

It's not all about the money, though. "What really makes Blogathon work," says Connor, "is the sense of community that's grown up around it." Chat rooms, online forums and Radio Blogathon online broadcasts keep bloggers in touch during the event. This year's front page will itself be a blog, continually updated by Connor and a volunteer team of "monitors" with games, contests and news and fun from around the event. Also new this year is a surfing frame which will allow onlookers to surf from blog to blog, and as always there will be a variety of prizes for most money raised, best writing, best visuals, and so on.

Previous projects are even more diverse than the chosen charities. Participants have written entire novels, translated ancient epic poems, recorded albums of original music, and spent 24 hours cooking all their favourite dishes. Others have written 48 posts about chocolate, shoes, toilets or outsider art, shaved their heads live on webcam, solicited panels for a virtual quilt, ridden a stationary bike for 24 hours or blogged by mobile phone live from a road trip.

This year's Blogathon is now open for signups and pledges at www.blogathon.org; the event itself will take place Saturday July 29 at 06:00 Pacific Time, with an alternative Sabbath-observant schedule beginning at 21:00 the same day. Everyone starts at one of those two times, no matter where they are. As founder Connor puts it: "Creating an international community over the course of 24 hours -- one with a single purpose -- is something that can only happen on the web. It makes the web magical."

¹Aka spousal unit mine. (In case anyone was wondering, that's why I won't be blogging: I'll be fetching and carrying behind the scenes.)

Blogging will continue to be a bit light around here as I'm actually doing some work, but here (in no particular order) are three articles you shouldn't miss:

1. Rejecting Vaccine "Choice"

Focus on the Family's position statement [PDF] - "Focus on the Family supports widespread (universal) availability of HPV vaccines but opposes mandatory HPV vaccinations for entry to public school." - looks, at first glance, like a reasonable compromise.

But "choice" is a red herring. Focus on the Family has religious objections to the HPV vaccine? Religious exemptions to mandatory vaccines are already available in every state but West Virginia and Mississippi. (Anyone think that Focus on the Family would have trouble convincing the Mississippi or West Virginia state legislature to add in a religious exemption for the HPV vaccine? Me neither.) They will have the right to opt their daughters out of this health-, fertility-, and potentially life-saving vaccine, mandatory or not. What they're really angling for is a way to deny it to other people's daughters.

If it's easy to opt out, why the battle over mandatory? Because mandatory = affordable. States cannot make a vaccine mandatory for school entry unless they are willing to provide it to those who cannot pay. And thus, through the CDC's Vaccines For Children program, every state supplies children with required vaccines free of cost. But optional vaccines are a different story.

Dr Rivka is back and in fine form. I've elided her links and there's more to the whole entry, so go read it.


2. The Federal Marriage Amendment and the New One Drop of Blood Rule

The Federal Marriage Amendment, like many of the proposed state laws and amendments, says "marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." Simple, right? No. Sex, like race, turns out to be a lot more biologically complicated than it first appears.

Here's a view of gay-vs-straight marriage that simply hadn't ever occurred to me. Fascinating stuff from Dr Alice Dreger, a serious expert in the fascinating field of intersex identity. Do yourself a favour and read it. If you like that, you'll also like her blog; check out the essays in the linked entry.

Obaddedvalue: I'll make a small prediction. Just as homosexuality will eventually be normalized, that is, accepted as an ordinary part of the human condition, so too intersex will one day be seen as normal. We -- humans -- tend to react to physiologies and behaviours that stand at a significant distance from the mean by treating them as disorders, but if those conditions are not harmful we do eventually realise that and come to accept them. The "normal" part of the spectrum slowly expands, and it's my hope and my belief that eventually nothing but true pathology will lie outside it.


3. Answering the AAP critique of FRPAA

The latest AAP/PSP critique of the latest US Public Access Bill (FRPAA) makes the same points (already rebutted two years ago) that they made in their prior critique of the NIH Public Access Proposal. [...]

There is zero evidence that mandating self-archiving reduces subscription revenue....But even if self-archiving were ever to reduce subscription revenue, surely what is in the best interests of publishers' current revenue streams should not over-ride what is in the best interests of research and of the public that funds it....

AAP provides no evidence of how making research findings accessible for free to would-be users who cannot afford access would "seriously jeopardize the integrity of the scientific publishing process." AAP merely stipulate that it would....

[M]any researchers cannot afford access to much needed research, and the proof of this is the fact that when subscription access is supplemented by author self-archiving, research usage and impact increase dramatically....Researchers do not now have nearly as much access as they need, because no research institution can afford all or most of the journals in which the research appears. The demonstrated impact advantage of self-archived research is the direct evidence of the substantial access shortfall there is for research that is not self-archived....

[R]esearch is not funded, conducted and published in order to generate revenue for publishers, let alone in order to guarantee their current revenue streams and insulate them from any risk. [...]

Surely it is not the business of American Association of Publishers to concern itself with the cost to tax payers of providing open access to government-funded research. But studies have indeed been done, across disciplines, and they have found that self-archived research has substantially higher research impact (25% - 250+%), and this translates into substantially higher return on the tax payers' investment in research than what they are getting for their research money today....[I]t is a self-serving red herring for publishers (in reality fretting about their own current revenue streams) to portray this as a "tax payer" issue....

If you already know what AAP and FRPAA stand for, this one's for you. Please consider writing your Senators to ask them to co-sponsor. If you have a blog or some other way to publicise the issue, please use it. If you don't recognise the acronyms, I have all kinds of good intentions of writing introductions to open access/open science and why it is the last best hope of the free world, kind to puppies and good with ketchup -- but, um, don't hold your breath. I'm really busy.

I don't sit around all day websurfing, honest.

• Cool Tool: Peopleware
  Might be useful if I make it up the foodchain a bit.
• eBay Guides - . How To Win Something In A Claw Machine .
  The internets really do contain Everything.
• Portico: An Electronic Archiving Service
  "The mission of Portico is to preserve scholarly literature published in electronic form and to ensure that these materials remain accessible to future scholars, researchers, and students." A non-profit ally in the quest for OA/OS?
• HST's obituary for Nixon: "He was a crook."
  "... hubris-crazed monster from the bowels of the American dream with a heart full of hate and an overweening lust to be President", snork. More where that came from as the High Priest of Gonzo beats the Worst President Ever (until W) like a red-headed step-mule.
• Small stinky whitish balls coming out of my throat. | Ask MetaFilter
  Spouse, do not read this. Other readers, beware: if you click through, you may never eat again. I created a new tag, "foulandhorrible", just for this. The biologist's lament: why O why must I love things that squick me out? Gaaaa, erg, I can't look, I gotta look.
• MaxSpeak, You Listen!: CARBON OFFSETS - OFFSIDES by Gar W. Lipow
  "Mommy, where do carbon offsets come from?" "Well, you see honey, when a major polluter and a consultant love money very much they express that love together in a very special way. And nine months later the consultant produces an extremely long piece of paper." *snort* Followed up here with links to several resources. Note to self: read and think, also ask carbonfund.org to respond.
• Alicublog: movie review, Walk The Line
  Why is no one paying Roy to write movie reviews? (Or, if they are, someone please point me there.) This is what reviewing should be: sharp and clear, informed and reinforced by a wide background of experience and critical thought. Also, funny and spoiler-free.
• arc90 lab : tools : Unobtrusive Sidenotes
  It's all about tangents. No, not those kinds of tangents. We're talking about the kind where you'll be sharing a thought and you sort of, umm, go off elsewhere. Some people call them asides, digressions, departures...you get the idea. We are of the belief that footnotes -- at least the ones worth reading -- suck. They suck because they are elsewhere, usually far away from the line-of-sight we're focused on when we read. It would be nice to be able to optionally just glance over and take that brief little detour if we so choose. It's footnotes on steroids: sidenotes. Via jd.

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• Crooked Timber » » Introduction: The Wealth of Networks seminar
  CT seminar on Benkler's book.
• Matthew_Wheeler
  "Matthew Wheeler took his first picture through an ice lens in response to a challenge by Scientific American and CBC calling on listeners to light a fire with a lens made entirely of ice. Too easy by far - Matthew took it one step farther and started photographing the natural beauty of his surroundings through the ice lenses he made."
• Rhosgobel: Deducing adjunct salaries
  Very useful examination of adjunct teaching salaries. "Radagast Responds" could be a mine of useful info! (Bottom line, though: avoid adjunct appointments, for they are teh suck.)

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• Open_Access_Journals : Open Access Journals
  I wish they wouldn't use Yahoo for this. Is there no open source alternative?
• 3QD: Why We Do Not Eat Our Dead
  Why shouldn't we eat people?
• bootstrap analysis: what to do if you find a baby bird
  ""I found a baby bird and it couldn't fly. What should I do?" The short answer is -- Nothing. Leave it alone! The long answer is here in the Bootstrap Public Service Announcement #2: What to do if you Find a Baby Bird."



• Testosterone Nation - The Most Hated Man in Bodybuilding
  "...who is it that the professional bodybuilders call a freak? Who is the freak's freak? Answer: Greg Valentino." This is the freakiest physique I have ever seen, bar none. 3500mg/wk of steroids at his peak; 5'6", 235 pounds and 27" guns on-cycle. Kids, do not try this yourselves, at home or anywhere else. Update: note the disparity between forearms and upper arms; consensus seems to be that much of the apparent bulk is due to injecting an inert oil directly into the tissue. Kids, don't do that either.
• METRONOME ONLINE - free!
  Just what it says: an online metronome.
• One thousand paintings ( 1000 numbers = 1000 paintings )
  "One number, one painting - the number is the art is the limit is the price. Each of the one thousand paintings is unique, showing a number between 1 and 1000." Sorta goofy, but I might have bought a cool number if any were left.
• michael regnier photography | gallery archive
  Processed photos, not sure whether I like the trick or not. Via Chromasia.
• Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | The mythmaker
  I haven't read enough Heaney to have an opinion, but this interview is a good read and I liked this: "My favourite poem in this area is a two-line dedicatory verse at the front of it: 'The riverbed, dried-up, half-full of leaves. / Us, listening to a river in the trees.' That settles it. You know? Obligation, earnest attention, documentary responsibility - fine. But what about the river in the trees, boy? Poetry has to be that, and it's very hard to get there."
• Media Matters - "Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser
  Right:

  The dominant political force of our time is not Karl Rove or the Christian Right or Bill Clinton. It is not the ruthlessness or the tactical and strategic superiority of the Republicans, and it is not your favorite theory about what is wrong with the Democrats. The dominant political force of our time is the media.

  Wrong:

  ... it can't go on.

• Eschaton
  Quoth Atrios: "My short reading list, in rough chronological order (of relevance not publication), to have a good sense of what's going on in the media (and its intersection with politics) in this country would be: On Bended Knee Backlash Sound and Fury Queer in America Fools for Scandal Hunting of the President Blinded by the Right A Vast Conspiracy One Scandalous Story What Liberal Media Republican Noise Machine Attack Poodles Lapdogs"
• Judith Shklar: putting cruelty first.
  "...although intuitively, most of us might agree about right and wrong, we also, and of far more significance, differ enormously in a way we rank the virtues and vices. Those who put cruelty first, as he guessed, do not condemn it as a sin. They have all but forgotten the Seven Deadly Sins, especially those that do not involve cruelty. Sins are transgressions of a divine rule and offenses against God; pride, as the rejection of God, must always be the worst one, which gives rise to all the others. Cruelty, as the willful inflicting of physical pain on a weaker being in order to cause anguish and fear, however, is a wrong done entirely to another creature. When it is marked as a supreme evil, it is judged so in and of itself, and not because it signifies a rejection of God or any other higher norm. It is a judgement made from within a world where cruelty occurs as part both of our normal private life and our daily public practice. By putting it irrevocably first--with nothing above it, and with nothing to excuse or forgive acts of cruelty--one closes off any appeal to any order other than that of actuality."
• Merchant's Encyclopedia of HTML
  Nice summary; includes a scribble page.
• Iris Tour - a photoset on Flickr
  Don't just look at the thumbnails, click through. There are some really good photos in this set. Makes me wonder about the Digital Rebel vs the G6.

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• TrueMajority Oreos
  One-eighth of the Pentagon budget could more than pay for health insurance for every US child who needs it, fully fund the Head Start program, restructure US K-12 education, make a serious dent in world hunger and begin to cure the US addiction to fossil fuels. This would reduce US defense spending to a level just under four times its nearest world rival, Russia -- which happens to be an ally.
• Index of Science Tracer Bullets Online. Listed by title (Science Tracer Bullet - Science Reference Services, Library of Congress)
  The Library of Congress SCIENCE TRACER BULLET SERIES contains research guides that help you locate information on science and technology subjects. With brief introductions to the topics, lists of resources and strategies for finding more, they help you to stay "on target."
• Life's harsh lessons 'make you more gullible'-study
  Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich -- schwächer: "A six-month study in the University's School of Psychology found that rather than 'toughening up' individuals, adverse experiences in childhood and adolescence meant that these people were vulnerable to being mislead. [...] The study found that while some people may indeed become more 'hard-nosed' through adversity, the majority become less trusting of their own judgement."
• Cool Tool: X-treme Tape
  Electrical tape simply does not work in a marine environment. Even duct tape won't stick to something wet. Try getting any tape to stick to a rope or line on a boat. Or try to get a waterproof seal on a hose leak. X-treme tape can do all these chores with flying colors because it is a non-adhesive, self-bonding wrap. It's not really tape since it's not sticky. This stuff is sort of magical. You stretch it on and it self-fuses tight under tension. It works in cold and wet, and won't melt on hot surfaces, so you can use it on engines. It is easy to apply even when it is below freezing. The tape doesn't stick on itself until you want it to. Once tightened this silicone based wrap forms a reliable bond even in water. I use it as an insulator around wires, like electrical tape. I wrap the end of ropes with it. X-treme tape bears up for many seasons under constant UV and sunlight and the extreme cold, heat, and wet of harsh weather.
• eBay: Art Director--INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS to my work (item 6626642598 end time May-09-06 08:45:49 PDT)
  Am I missing something? Is this not fraud -- or rather, enabling and encouraging fraud? How are the ads in question going to benefit anyone unless they pass the work off as their own?
• Ave Maria Grotto, Cullman, Alabama
  The spousal unit just *loves* this stuff. OK, OK, %so do I%.

  The Ave Maria Grotto, known throughout the world as "Jerusalem in Miniature", is a beautifully landscaped, four-acre park designed to provide a natural setting for the 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous historic buildings and shrines of the world. The masterpieces of stone and concrete are the lifetime work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of St. Bernard Abbey.

• Bulletin of the World Health Organization - A clearing house for diagnostic testing: the solution to ensure access to and use of patented genetic inventions?
  In genetic diagnostics, the emergence of a so-called "patent thicket" is imminent. Such an overlapping set of patent rights may have restrictive effects on further research and development of diagnostic tests, and the provision of clinical diagnostic services. Currently, two models that may facilitate access to and use of patented genetic inventions are attracting much debate in various national and international fora: patent pools and clearing houses. In this article, we explore the concept of clearing houses.
• Waxy.org: Daily Log: Star Wars Kid, Redux
  Matt actually looks pretty badass in this. That look on his face says "don't fuck with me". Of course, it also says "I'm a giant dork and I know it".
• Hullabaloo
  Digby's right, it almost feels like a threat: "If Democrats gain power we'll have to do actual reporting again, and we're not going to stand for that." Push back. Demand that the grownups be put back in charge.
• Are you a defensive Pessimist? Take this quiz to find out!
  As it happens, according to this quiz I am a dp. Maybe I should read the book. Via Dr Shellie.
• SEATURTLE.ORG - Satellite Tracking
  "Welcome to Satellite Tracking at SEATURTLE.ORG. The goal of this program is to provide marine animal researchers with an easy-to-use tool for collecting, managing and sharing their satellite tracking data in near real-time." Cool. Wonder how much actual data you can get your hands on?
• Larry Beinhart: With All This Horseshit | The Huffington Post
  Fuckin' A: "Get on the stand and regale with tales of success. Of plots thwarted. Of desperate measures intercepted. Of terrorists captured or killed. Tell us how you've located Osama bin Laden. It's been over four and a half years. Unlimited budget. Unlimited military might. No visible moral constraints. Tell us how you've tracked him down, hung him high and busted up his ring!"

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• Welcome to the Blog Carnival Index
  Blog Carnival Index: 3838 editions of 313 carnivals as I link this. It feels like too many already, but with literally millions of blogs I guess there's plenty of room for more carnivals. One more facet of the Intarweb Big Question: what to do with all this information?
• Bitch PhD: custom bras
  This link is for the spouse. The spouse!!! (Marked this blog post not the Julianna Rae site because several other options are mentioned in comments.)
• Caveat Lector » Random thought
  "Unlike many open-access advocates, I admit openly to being anti-for-profit-journal-publisher. I worked for a service bureau. I saw those folks at their stupidest and worst. I want no part of 'em. Don't trust 'em. I'm glad when they do the right thing, because I'm glad when anybody does the right thing, but if what I do hurts 'em, there will be no crocodile tears from me on their account."
• Hunter S. Thompson and the Myth of Objectivity - frassle
  Damn, jd doesn't write much, but when he does it's worth reading.
• Great-Grandmother gets "do not resuscitate" tattoo.
  This is great:

  Eighty-year-old Mary Wohlford has informed family members of her wishes should she ever become incapacitated. She also has signed a living will that hangs on the side of her refrigerator. But the retired nurse and great-grandmother now believes she has removed all potential for confusion. She had the words "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" tattooed on her chest. [...] Said Wohlford: "I don't believe in lawyers too much."

  Now that's a tough old lady -- and she may not have solved the problem but she has certainly focused some attention on it. Kudos. (via)

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• HousingZone.com - A Zero Energy Home - 5/1/2006 - CA6332828
  Good news: "Ideal Homes built the first zero energy home in the country priced under $200,000. The modest one-story, three-bedroom, two bathroom home produces as much energy as it consumes in a year, achieving net zero energy consumption." It's 1650 sq ft, plus (?) a 2-car garage. I wonder what they could do with 1200 sq ft, no garage? (via rebecca blood)
• The Observer | Magazine | Give me a shelter
  Profile/interview: WorldChanging/AfH's Cameron Sinclair.
• Creek Running North: Fuck your civility
  Fuckin' amen. Chris Clarke: "I have decided I no longer trust anyone who insists on others being civil. The bumper sticker from ten years ago said "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." That needs updating. If you're not outraged, then you've decided that the suffering that exists in the world is just fine with you, as long as you don't feel it. And if you've decided that, you don't deserve civility."
• Model purge on anorexics makes weight vital statistic - World - Times Online
  Some sense at last. "LEADING figures in Israel's fashion industry, alarmed by the number of young women suffering from bulimia or anorexia, are supporting a move to ensure models have "normal", healthy figures."
• BBC - Radio 3 - Discovering Music Archive
  Shame about the rm format.
• stardust holiday :: the NASA bedrest project (v5 stripey goodness)
  What else would you do during 3 months' enforced bed rest, except blog? Via Matt.
• we*heart*prints
  "a compilation of beautiful, affordable art prints"
• Majikthise : Polanski, the Academy, and rape
  Great thread on art and ethics, taking off from the example of acknowledged great director and convicted child rapist Roman Polanski, and the question of whether we ought morally to refuse to watch his movies.
• Prozac's target revealed
  Prozac treatment specifically stimulates the generation of "amplifying neural progenitors" -- the second step in the neurogenesis pathway from stem cells to mature neurons.
• Alas, a blog: the Chris Bliss Diss
  Amp liked Garfield's routine; I think it's kinda boring. Mad props for skill, but boring to watch -- and Garfield is kind of an ass.
• Robert J Lang: Origami
  Amazing origami. I particularly like the bronzes as a way of rendering the paper art permanent.
• photo-eye | Explore Art Photography
  More galleries from photo-eye.
• Don Hong-Oai: 2 portfolios at photo-eye
  These are extraordinary: toned silver gelatin prints made with multiple negatives in the style of classical Chinese painting.
• White Hat
  "dude, sorry to put this here but i felt the need to warn you that sharing the root of your C drive is a bit silly."

A bunch of links about open access/open science/collaboration:
• Peter Suber: 6 things every scholar should know about OA
  
• Peter Suber: What you can do to promote open access
  
• Effect of open access on citation impact: a bibliography of studies
  From the Open Citation Project. Via Stevan Harnad.
• Caveat Lector » Open Access
  Self-described "repository-rat" Dorothea Salo's "open access" blog category. An eye-opener for someone like me, coming to OA from a researcher's point of view.
• Caveat Lector » How are we doing?
  "...I'm probably the wrong person to ask whether open access will fly. Still--I think the world will change in our direction. Utopia, certainly not. An entirely open-access landscape, certainly not. A world where many more people have unfettered access to much more research and scholarship--yes. I think we'll get there. Here's why I think that." Via Suber.
• E-LIS - Taking Stock of Open Access: Progress and Issues
  Abstract: Purpose -- Aims to provide a broad overview of some of the issues emerging from the growth in Open Access publishing, with specific reference to the use of repositories and Open Access journals. Design/methodology/approach -- A viewpoint paper largely based on specific experience with institutional repositories and the internationally run E-LIS archive. Findings -- The Open Access Initiative is dramatically transforming the process of scholarly communication bringing great benefits to the academic world with an, as yet, uncertain outcome for commercial publishers. Practical implications -- Outlines the benefits of the Open Access movement with reference to repositories and Open Access journals, to authors and readers alike, and gives some food for thought on potential barriers to the complete permeation of the Open Access model, such as copyright restrictions and version control issues. Some illustrative examples of country-specific initiatives and the international E-LIS venture are given. Originality/value -- An attempt to introduce general theories and practical implications of the Open Access movement to those largely unfamiliar with the movement. Via Suber, of course.
• Mark Elliott on Stigmergic Collaboration -- CooperationCommons
  "As stigmergy is a method of communication in which individuals communicate with one another by modifying their local environment, it is a logical extension to apply the term to many types (if not all) of Web-based communication, especially media such as the wiki. The concept of stigmergy therefore provides an intuitive and easy-to-grasp theory for helping understand how disparate, distributed, ad hoc contributions could lead to the emergence of the largest collaborative enterprises the world has seen."
• Public Knowledge Project
  "The Public Knowledge Project is a federally funded research initiative located at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University on the west coast of Canada. It seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research through innovative online environments."

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• Did DNA Come From Viruses?
  Do viruses predate cells, and was the first DNA viral?
• Adventures in Ethics and Science: Plagiarism and Podcasts.
  Call me a Luddite, but I hate podcasts. If I wanted my computer to make noise, I'd lick my finger and rub the monitor.
• Roddick Targets Nestlé after Corporate 'Sell-Out'
  To put it in the idiom Roddick so consciously adopts: lying slag.
• 3QD: brains and computers.
  A very readable introduction to computer hardware architecture, its relationship to actual computing, and some ideas about brain function that arise from computer methodologies. This is the third of three parts, Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.
• Cool Tool: Forearm Forklift
  I want a set of these for next time we have to move that bloody cabinet.
• How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off
  I really should give this a try.
• Hanzi Smatter 一知半解
  Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture.
• The Conservative Nanny State
  "In his new book, economist Dean Baker debunks the myth that conservatives favor the market over government intervention. In fact, conservatives rely on a range of "nanny state" policies that ensure the rich get richer while leaving most Americans worse off. It's time for the rules to change. Sound economic policy should harness the market in ways that produce desirable social outcomes -- decent wages, good jobs and affordable health care." Baker also runs the blog Beat The Press, and came up with interesting ideas about how best to divide govt spending between Big Pharma subsidies and NIH research support. The book is available as a free download; see chapter 5 for the reasoning.
• one red paperclip
  "My name is Kyle MacDonald and I am trying to trade one red paperclip for a house. I started with one red paperclip on July 12th, 2005 and I am making a series of trades for bigger or better things. My current item up for trade is one afternoon with Alice Cooper." On Kyle's site, you can trace the trade history from one red paperclip to an afternoon with the King of Shock Rock. Brilliant. (Via rebecca blood.)
• The Open Knowledge Foundation - The Open Knowledge Foundation - Home Page
  "A technological revolution has created immense opportunities for increased and more equitable access to knowledge, as well as for its collaborative development. But we are yet to realize much of this potential, and in order to do so two main challengges must be met. First, we must to develop the tools and the institutions to take advantage of these new possibilities for the creation and distribution of knowledge. Second, we must ensure that these opportunities are not eliminated by the ever increasing proprietization of knowledge as individuals and corporations seek to fence off knowledge for the sake of short term profit. The Open Knowledge Foundation exists to address these challenges by promoting the openness of knowledge in all its forms, in the belief that greater access to information will have far-reaching social and commercial benefits."
• Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog » Blog Archive » The Four Principles of (Open) Knowledge Development
  "Open knowledge means porting much more of the open source stack than just the idea of open licensing. It is about porting many of the processes and tools that attach to the open development process -- the process enabled by the use of an open approach to knowledge production and distribution."
• The Argument For Computational Open Access | Science Commons
  "As the scholarly literature moves to digital form, what is actually needed to move beyond a system that just replicates all of our assumptions that this literature is only read, and read only by human beings, one article at a time? What is needed to permit the creation of digital libraries hosting these materials that moves beyond the "incunabular" view of the literature, to use Greg Crane's very provocative recent characterization. What is needed to allow the application of computational technologies to extract new knowledge, correlations and hypotheses from collections of scholarly literature?"
• Paper Sculpture - a photoset on Flickr
  No scissors. No kidding.
• TheStar.com - The plight of the orphan space
  Orphan space rejuvenation, what a great idea. I've seen some neighborhoods in Portland do this sort of thing.

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• Uncommon Places
  From Dana Doyle's review:

  In the late 1960's William Eggleston subverted photographic tradition by embracing color film and irregular compositions reminiscent of snapshots. The prints I have seen by Eggleston (which include many of his iconic images now traveling in an exhibit titled "Los Alamos"), lose their resolution when you get within a few feet.2 The fuzziness of the print echoes the implication of amateur work already knowingly signified, at the time, by color film and the snapshot aesthetic. Shore's prints, less than half the size of Eggleston's, are meticulously crisp in comparison. In his Uncommon Places, Shore tweaks Eggleston's subversion: he similarly embraces color film and vernacular subject matter, however he brings the full arsenal of traditional photographic craft to bear on what was popularly considered unworthy subject matter for the art photographer.

  There's more than nostalgia to Shore's photos; it's not just that he's taking photos that you (feel you) could have taken. Look at "Merced River", for instance: is that not every afternoon anyone ever spent by any river? The very ordinariness of the scenes combines with the high-quality images and sneaky formal underpinnings of the compositions to create both immediacy and timelessness. Or something. This shit is hard to write about.
• | SPARC | SPARC Resources |
  Yet another "I have no excuse" link: SPARC has collected everything I need to start writing about open access.
• Airline Pilot Central - FedEx arrivals during Thunderstorms
  I like the way the little dots -- they're planes, but I was thinking of ants with a parasol in one hand and a package under the other arm -- make