Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
At 10:20 AM 1/7/04, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Last February, the former chief of staff of the US Army claimed otherwise. He figured an additional 250,000 Americans could go into Iraq. I frankly don't think Shinsecki was write about this, and I don't know anyone else who agrees with that assessment. Even if it was true, though, there's a big difference between putting that number of soldiers in Iraq, and that number of civilians in Baghdad. The CPA is staffed by civilians - guys like me at the lower levels, basically, and diplomats and ex-military officers at the upper ranks. Of course, the amount of work to be done is effectively limitless. That is why management has to be concerned about fatigue and has to take steps to prevent reduction of good judgement. They do, but they have to balance that with getting the job done. A lot of well-run companies put those sorts of demands on their employees. Every consulting company (not just us), every investment bank, every venture capital fund, every hedge fund - and that's just in the financial sector. I've seen our clients in the pharma sector routinely do 80 hour weeks. Pretty much every CEO in America does that. Time and motion study of Congressmen and Senators suggest that 80 hours is a _light_ week for them. Anecdotally Cabinet Members say the same thing - I don't know that a formal study has ever been done, but that's how they describe their lives. In the military I know that junior officers in combat zones routinely work those types of hours for months - or even years - on end. My old boss was a platoon commander in Vietnam, and he worked 100 hour weeks for two years. So the argument that a well-run organization doesn't ask its people to do that is empirically contradicted - any number of well-run (and highly successful) organizations _do_, in fact, run at that sort of tempo. It's true that _pilots_ in particular are prohibited from doing so, but that's because the fine motor skills that pilots require are the first thing affected by fatigue. I can stumble over door sills and still build financial models quite effectively. I don't know about financial models, but I do know that judgement, especially when immediate judgement on critical issues is necessary, is affected by fatigue. For one thing, tired people tend to be grumpy people, and may do things they later regret. What you are saying here is in the 250 days since 2003 May 1, the US administration has not figured out that the Americans, outside the military, in Bagdad are working so many hours they are making, at times, mistakes that they would not make normally. Or else you are saying that the mistakes they are making are not relevant to the cost of the war or to its ultimate outcome. No, I'm saying that I disagree with your cause and effect linkage. Experience and anecdote both tell me that the fact that people are working as hard as they are is not a sign of poor management, because the best managed organizations in the world work that way. If people were working nine-to-five, I'd be concerned. This is not a nine-to-five setting. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A List A List!!!!
Alberto wrote: I imagine that I will have to warn pregnant brazilian women about this, if it comes a time when brazilians can get back to the USA. Right now, it seems that our g*vernments and j*diciary powers and doing whatever they can to prevent tourists from crossing the border :-/ Do you know if this is affecting Brazilian students who go to college in the USA? I had two or three Brazilian friends when I was attending the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Personal notes
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 6:54 PM Subject: Re: Personal notes In a message dated 1/6/2004 1:17:31 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This was a big Christmas for me, I turned 50. To celebrate, my wife is taking me to San Francisco and the Napa Valley. The last time I was there was for my honeymoon, a long long time ago in a galaxie far away. Well youngster welcome to the club. By the way do not under any circumstances allow your wife to sign you up for AARP. Ellen did this to me and I will kill her if my bad back and sore knees let me catch up to her. Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l Hmm... I don't think I actually wrote a single word that was quoted above, other than my name... :-) Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] Quoting Quibble Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Third viewing of Return of the King Review...and PINBALL!!!
William Taylor wrote: The movie theater now has a Lord of the Rings pinball machine. Good design. Plenty of opporunity for multiball Ooh, I'm gonna have to go hunting for this one. Reggie Bautista Pinball Junkie Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Holy Blood Holy Grail
Rob wrote: From Amazon: *snippage* I just finished this book a while back. Anyone else read it? Adam replied: It's a lovely bit of whacknoodlery, but it's utter rot. Incredibly entertaining, and it manages to avoid the more repugnant antisemitic bits most conspiracy whackaloons (David Icke, anyone?) come up with, but it holds together only under the most casual scrutiny, and that only if you've been drinking. Email me offlist, and I can give you a whole raft of references for additional lunacy and krazyness. Oh, come on, it was *loads* of fun, and probably not a bad thing to read before rewatching the second and third Matrix movies. It does a pretty good job of capturing the essence of the Merovingian way of looking at things, which was a metaphor the Wachowski brothers used both blatantly and not-so-blatantly in all three of the Matrix films. Speaking of lovely bits of whacknoodlery, has anyone read _Hidden Stories of the Childhood of Jesus_ or _Hidden Politics of the Crucifixion_, wherein author Glenn Kimball claims, among other things, that Jesus and Pilate attended the same Druid University? Whacknoodlery indeed. Or is it. ;-) I found out about these books four or five years ago when I heard the author on Coast to Coast with Art Bell (on a night Bell was not hosting, as I recall). Make of that what you will. Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
Gautam wrote: That's also the reason why the odds that I'm going to be able to go have dropped - just because they can't support any more personnel over there right now. Well, here's hoping you beat the odds on this one. Reggie Bautista No Second Line Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A List A List!!!!
Alberto wrote: Maybe the easiest way to enter the USA now is going to Cuba, stealing a boat, and entering as a Castro refugee! It didn't work for Elian... Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Stephen King
rob wrote: My favorite of the last few years is Dreamcatcher. Please please *please* tell me the book was much better than the movie. Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Personal notes
Jack Tackett wrote: Congrats - I turn 42 tomorrow (always the answer to everything :-) and for my birthday we adopted a little boy, ah the joys of sleep deprivation! Congrats to you. How old is the little boy? My parents adopted me when I was 3 days old. Mom was 40 at the time and Dad was 41 but only about a month away from turning 42. Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Vijilus
the ur species was developed in part using the system in SeJ's Uplift 2nd ed. Vijilus [note spelling change] ab-Lesh ab-Erbl ab-Kosh ab-Rosh ab-Tothtoon As the Zhuup became productive the Lesh began to look for a second client. As members of the Tothtoon Super-Clan the Lesh had access to many species that made excellent soldiers, commandos, and some that specialized as spies. Unfortunately, none of these specialties were really what the Lesh needed given their emphasis on mercantile trade and diplomacy. The Lesh needed security guards and trustworthy espionage agents. The Lesh, though not great colonizers or explorers, had managed to lay claim to an above-average candidate species. They traded ur-species for ur-species with another Abdicator race for the proto-Vijilus. The proto-Vijilus were not a remarkably promising ur-species. The Lesh were attracted to the proto-Vijilus by the creatures remarkable suite of natural offensive and defensive talents that would serve them well as Lesh security operatives. Proto-Vijilus's survival strategy was a strange cross between a chameleon's and a cat's. Proto-Vijilus were arboreal omnivores somewhat larger than a bobcat or lynx. Life in their native forests was highly competitive and proto-Vijiluses were relatively low on the food chain despite being active hunters themselves. The quadrupedal semi-upright Proto-Vijilus were quite athletic, even acrobatic. Like Earth's chameleons proto-Vijilus hands and feet each had only two digits, resembling oven-mits. Like chameleons, proto-Vijiluses had a prehensile tail. They even had a chameleon's ability to change color. Unlike chameleons, proto-Vijiluses were warm-blooded. To conserve heat they had a fur-like covering. Proto-Vijilus fur is completely transparent and each hair is a natural optic fiber allowing proto-Vijiluses to use their chameleon ability. Proto-Vijilus sense organs were highly developed. They can sense magnetic fields. Most notably proto-Vijiluses had a total of five eye-stalks. On each eye-stalk there were two eyes. Proto-Vijiluses had *excellent* vision, even at night. Their vision was resistant to glare. Proto-Vijiluses could also produce an extraordinary variety of sounds in the normal and ultrasonic ranges, though they were not notable mimics. Proto-Vijiluses were not particularly common. They were hermaphroditic, though the population that provided most of the genetic material for the Vijilus project usually formed pair-bonded social units. What social interaction that occurred was highly ritualized. Proto-Vijilus were born live, in small annual litters. Young developed fast and resembled small adults. The Lesh preserved the proto-Vijilus's natural repertoire, and even enhanced it. Uplifted Vijiluses are excellent mimics. On the down side, Vijiluses still have their original primitive hands and are semi upright. This is not as big a problem as it might seem. A Vijilus at an office workstation often works suspended from a bar or trapeze. Vijilus prefer to hang or perch and many are agoraphobic. A few are still subject to stress atavism that causes them to freeze and camouflage when threatened. Vijilus social behavior is still very tied to ritual. They have difficulty distinguishing between Tradition, Law and ritual so they tend to be legal sticklers and have a reputation for not being very flexible. Unlike other members of the Lesh Clan, Vijilus are not gregarious nor are they empathetic. Indeed, Vijilus very much prefer the company of their own kind, and then in very limited doses. They get along with other members of Clan Lesh, but most avoid any races outside their immediate clan. Terragens who have dealt with Vijilus say that they are socially oblivious and dealing with a typical Vijilus attached to a Lesh or Zhuup diplomatic or trade mission is like dealing with a Terragen with a very serious case of Asperger's Syndrome. Vijilus are well integrated into Clan Lesh, but are not well liked outside their clan. Among members of Clan Tothtoon Vijilus have reputation for being intellectually, and not just socially, slow. Vijilus are patriotic, even jingoistic, members of Clan Lesh. They mainly work as guards and spies--no doubt this contributes to their lack of popularity outside their immediate clan. Nevertheless, the Vijilus are not noted for being strong team players. The conservative Zhuup have many disagreements with the moderate Lesh, but are instinctively loyal and hierarchical. The Lith find the Lesh charismatic and as their heir-apparent share almost completely coincident interests. The Heebi are a servitor race who worship and adore their foster patrons. The Vijilus are none of these things and often fail to tow the party line. Indeed, the Vijilus are arch-conservatives and have refused to join the League of Prudent Neutral Clans per Clan Lesh policy. Vijilus
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One of the things that I think I've learned the last two years (I've written about this on my blog at greater length) is that the basic decisions to be made are not, generally, all that hard. Right. But the question is whether this is true for the administration of the current US occupation of Iraq? Just today, the BBC reports http://212.58.240.35/1/low/world/middle_east/3377781.stm that the US is freeing about 1/20 of its prisoners as a goodwill gesture'. According to a report I read yesterday, the US occupation authorities went to considerable trouble to identify those prisoners who have the least `blood on their hands' and intend to release only those who can obtain a guarantee for good behavior from an Iraqi whom the US respects. This is one of those situations where it is critical to make the right judgements about hundreds of people. Probably, from the US point of view, it does not matter if the authorities make a few mistakes. But if the US authorities make many mistakes, they increase the expense of the war and the risk of ultimate defeat. The question is how should you characterize the situation in Iraq? In his book, The Innovator's Solution, Clayton Christensen (a professor at the Harvard Business School) makes the distinction between `sustaining' innovations and `disruptive' innovations. When a company focuses on sustaining innovations, it establishes the resources, processes, and values that enable it to succeed in its circumstances. Because they have so successfully internalized the culture that tells people their priorities, i.e., the company's values, Initiatives that don't make sense to the middle managers rarely get packaged for the senior people's consideration. and this is good for the company. However, in a business involving disruptive innovations, ... with their ill-defined strategies and demanding profitability targets, make-or-break decisions arise with alarming frequency, [both p. 270] In circumstances involving`sustaining' innovations, a company provides resources, processes, and values such that people who have learned the values and processes can make decisions that are usually right. In these circumstances, it is heroic to work long hours and apply the appropriate learning. Those who work longer hours are more productive. The mistakes they make are not so expensive. However, in other circumstances, decisions are make-or-break. A mistake is expensive. The problem with the US occupation of Iraq is that, to use Christensen's language, its circumstances are more disruptive than sustaining. Indeed, it is clear from the fact that the US changed them (most importantly, in early November 2003), that the strategies planned before the war were either ill-defined or erroneously defined. Right now, the US looks to be winning this portion of its campaign in Iraq, and gaining benefits there from -- primarily, as I wrote a year ago, the benefits of frightening `the other Arab dictatorships into greater efforts into policing against enemies of US.' What if the US had been seen to have succeeded in its conquest of Iraq a great deal sooner -- say by last August? Then the US would not have had to make a deal with Iran on terms as favorable to Iran as it appears to have done; Libya would have accepted UN inspections sooner; Syria would have started its current dance sooner. These are the opportunity costs of the strategy that has been followed. Perhaps, having made the decision to avoid a war mobilization and to invade Iraq in the spring rather than the fall of 2003, the US could not have done better. While it is clearly the case that `no plan ever survives contact with the enemy', the question is whether a different strategy -- one of those talked about a year and more ago -- could have led to better current circumstances for the US? As for whether the US could increase the number of civilian administrators in the Coalition Provisional Authority, I wrote Last February, the former chief of staff of the US Army ... figured an additional 250,000 Americans could go into Iraq. to which Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] responded I frankly don't think Shinsecki was write about this, and I don't know anyone else who agrees with that assessment. Hmm ... no one that I know has ever said that the US Army could not move another 250,000 troops to Iraq in the months since May 1. Prior to the first Gulf war, it took less time to move more troops. Moreover, I have read that it appears the US Army was stretched thin in the 6 months following May 1. In the fall of 2003, for example, Luttwak said that at any one time, the `teeth' of the US forces numbered only about 30,000 troops. The argument against adding troops after May 1 (as far as I know there was no time to bring in more before that date) was that such an action would overly weaken US forces
new years resolution
No more vanity, ever! I've reached that age where, when you check your image in the mirror, you start to notice that you are not quite as young and fresh looking as you'd imagine yourself. Untill now I never spent much on cremes, potions or treatments to keep me looking young, looking good or whatever. I always felt that I am my personality and that my looks are secondary to that. But since it was a present by my farmacist, I thought I'd give it a go. He gave me some very nice anti wrinkle creme in a gift box. It's not that I'm allergy prone so I didn't expect anything bad from it. Well, suits me right. I ended up with my face looking like a bloated scaly red fish. For three days I've nearly been skinning myself to get rid of all the itchyness. Now after the swellings have finally gone down and my skin is starting to settle, and with only a few nasty looking dry skin patches left, I look at least 10 years. well OLDER. grumble curse grumble. It's the last time I'll ever be vain and use expenisive cremes to get rid of my honestly aquired crowes feet. I've decided that from now on I'm as old as I feel no matter the looks. Currently that is about 10. ;o) Sonja :o) GCU _Now_ do I get to play with Tom's LEGO.? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Adopt-a-* (Was: Re: Personal notes)
From: Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jack Tackett wrote: Congrats - I turn 42 tomorrow (always the answer to everything :-) and for my birthday we adopted a little boy, ah the joys of sleep deprivation! Congratulations on your new son, Jack! Congrats to you. How old is the little boy? My parents adopted me when I was 3 days old. Mom was 40 at the time and Dad was 41 but only about a month away from turning 42. Since adoption has come up, I'll throw out a topic I was just thinking about: On my town's mailing list just recently, one parent of two adopted children asked another poster to refrain from further use of the term adopt-a-* after she asked for donations for a Christmas Adopt-A-Family toy donation charity. He felt that using the word adopt applied in ways that were transient, trivial, and/or non-personal (ie: adopt-a-highway, adopt this measure, adopt-a-stray, etc), would confuse his adopted girls and undermine their confidence and security. They might worry that their adoptions were also not a permanent or serious thing. My own take in this is that he would be better to teach the girls the distinction between the usages/meanings of the word adopted, rather than trying to restrict the uasge of the language and potentially making it into a term that makes the girls wince or be offended when they do hear it. But then, I'm not an adopter/adoptee so I may not be properly sensitive to the issue. Does he have a point? Is using the word adopt in these alternate ways offensive? -bryon _ Worried about inbox overload? Get MSN Extra Storage now! http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Adopt-a-* (Was: Re: Personal notes)
bryon wrote: Since adoption has come up, I'll throw out a topic I was just thinking about: On my town's mailing list just recently, one parent of two adopted children asked another poster to refrain from further use of the term adopt-a-* after she asked for donations for a Christmas Adopt-A-Family toy donation charity. He felt that using the word adopt applied in ways that were transient, trivial, and/or non-personal (ie: adopt-a-highway, adopt this measure, adopt-a-stray, etc), would confuse his adopted girls and undermine their confidence and security. They might worry that their adoptions were also not a permanent or serious thing. My own take in this is that he would be better to teach the girls the distinction between the usages/meanings of the word adopted, rather than trying to restrict the uasge of the language and potentially making it into a term that makes the girls wince or be offended when they do hear it. But then, I'm not an adopter/adoptee so I may not be properly sensitive to the issue. Does he have a point? Is using the word adopt in these alternate ways offensive? I'm certainly not offended by adopt-a-* programs. My folks never made a secret of the fact that I was adopted. They just made sure I knew what that really meant. Adoption is about choice. It's about choosing to bring someone into your family, as much as choosing to become pregnant and have a baby. It's about having this person for whom you have no legal or familial responsibility, and deciding, volunteering, to take on those responsibilities. My parents are both hispanic Catholics, and they had both always dreamed about having six kids. After their fifth was born, Mom couldn't have any more kids for medical reasons. So they adopted me. Basically, the way they put it to me when I was very little was that I was a dream come true. Most of the other uses of the adopt that you cite above, Adopt-a-Family, adopt-a-stray, even adopt-a-highway, are about taking something for which there is no responsibility forced on you, and freely accepting that responsibility, choosing to take responsibility that is not otherwise required of you. I happen to think that no matter how transient that responsibility, even if you are only taking responsibility to give a toy to someone you don't know to make their Christmas a little happier for example, what you are doing is admirable, not trivial. But I guess I can understand why the person you are talking about is worried about this undermining the confidence and security of his daughters. He's worried that they don't understand the difference between taking on a transient responsibility and taking permanent responsibility. The way my parents handled this problem was to explain to me the difference between decisions that can be changed and decisions that can't be changed. They told me that they chose me forever, not for just a while. Even if the other people in your community stop using adopt-a-* for various programs, these kinds of permanence issues are bound to come up for this man and his daughters. Some of those questions are inevitable with adoptions. Instead of looking at these programs as a trivialization, as a threat to the confidence and security of his daughters, perhaps he should look at the programs as another opportunity to reiterate and reinforce to his daughters how much he loves them and is committed to them long-term. It sounds like he really does love them, if he's concerned enough to worry about how these programs might affect them. If he just keeps expressing that love to them and reassuring them that his choice to make them part of his family was a permanent choice, I don't think he'll have to worry too much about how confident and secure his daughters will be. Feel free to send part or all of this email to him if you think it's appropriate, and feel free to give him this email address if he'd like to talk to an adoptee more about this. Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: new years resolution
Sonja wrote: GCU _Now_ do I get to play with Tom's LEGO.? I have a friend who is 38 who has more Legos that most store toy aisles. My wife also collects Legos, and so do I to a lesser extent. In fact, all 3 of us got Legos (or Lego-compatible Mega-Bloks) for Christmas. Our friend the film critic always tells us we have the coolest toys. The way I see it, creative play is never a bad thing, no matter what your age. Wasn't there a Star Trek episode about this? :-) Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Personal notes
Thanks Reggie, Michael is 2 months old at this time - and his older brother Matthew is 3 years old. We also adopted Matthew when he was just 4 weeks old. best, --Jack -Original Message- From: Reggie Bautista [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 2:49 AM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Personal notes Jack Tackett wrote: Congrats - I turn 42 tomorrow (always the answer to everything :-) and for my birthday we adopted a little boy, ah the joys of sleep deprivation! Congrats to you. How old is the little boy? My parents adopted me when I was 3 days old. Mom was 40 at the time and Dad was 41 but only about a month away from turning 42. Reggie Bautista ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: new years resolution
Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten wrote: I've decided that from now on I'm as old as I feel no matter the looks. Currently that is about 10. ;o) Sonja :o) GCU _Now_ do I get to play with Tom's LEGO.? You should - I enjoy sitting down with my son and just building stuff, especially the Technics stuff. I actually find it very relaxing to make something that works... As for the vanity - don't forget the need for occasional pampering. Don't do stuff just to make you look good for other people, but sometimes a nice beauty treatment can make a woman of any age feel happier and more relaxed. Cheers Russell C. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The Texas Miracle Fraud and the Secretary of Education [L3]
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/main591676.shtml The Texas Miracle Jan. 7, 2004 Robert Kimball, former assistant principal at Houston's Sharpstown High School, found that his school's low dropout rates were just too good to be true. (Photo: CBS) I had seen many, many students - several hundred a year - go out the door and I knew that they were quitting. They told me they were quitting. Robert Kimball Former Houston School Superintendent Rod Paige was given credit for the school success. (Photo: CBS) (CBS) It was called the Texas Miracle, and you may remember it because President Bush wanted everyone to know about it during his presidential campaign. It was about an approach to education that was showing amazing results, particularly in Houston, where dropout rates plunged and test scores soared. Houston School Superintendent Rod Paige was given credit for the school success, by making principals and administrators accountable for how well their students did. Once he was elected president, Mr. Bush named Paige as secretary of education. And Houston became the model for the president's No Child Left Behind education reform act. Now, as Correspondent Dan Rather reports, it turns out that some of those miraculous claims which Houston made were wrong. And it all came to light when one assistant principal took a close look at his school's phenomenally low dropout rates and found that they were just too good to be true. -- -- I was shocked. I said, How can that be,' says Robert Kimball, an assistant principal at Sharpstown High School, on Houston's West side. His own school claimed that no students not a single one had dropped out in 2001-2002. But that's not what Kimball saw: I had been at the high school for three years, and I had seen many, many students, several hundred a year, go out the door. And I knew that they were quitting. They told me they were quitting. Most of the 1,700 students at Sharpstown High are under-privileged immigrants -- prime candidates for dropping out. One student was Jennys Franco Gomez. She dropped out of Sharpstown in 2001 for all-too-familiar reasons: she had a baby. My baby got sick, and I don't have nobody to take care of my baby and take it to the doctor, she says. The high school reported that Jennys left to get a GED, or equivalency diploma, which doesn't count as a dropout. But Jennys says she never told school officials anything of the sort. All in all, 463 kids left Sharpstown High School that year for a variety of reasons. The school reported zero dropouts, but dozens of the students did just that. School officials hid that fact by classifying, or coding them as leaving for acceptable reasons: transferring to another school, or returning to their native country. That's how you get to zero dropouts. By assigning codes that say, Well, this student, you know, went to another school. He did this or that.' And basically, all 463 students disappeared. And the school reported zero dropouts for the year, says Kimball. They were not counted as dropouts, so the school had an outstanding record. Sharpstown High wasn't the only outstanding school. The Houston school district reported a citywide dropout rate of 1.5 percent. But educators and experts 60 Minutes II checked with put Houston's true dropout rate somewhere between 25 and 50 percent. But the teachers didn't believe it. They knew it was cooking the books. They told me that. Parents told me that, says Kimball. The superintendent of schools would make the public believe it was one school. But it is in the system, it is in all of Houston. Those low dropout rates in Houston and all of Texas - were one of the accomplishments then-Texas Gov. George Bush cited when he campaigned to become the Education President. At that time, Paige was running Houston's schools, and he had instituted a policy of holding principals accountable for how their students did. Principals worked under one-year contracts, and each year, the school district set strict goals in areas like dropout rates and test scores. Principals who met the goals got cash bonuses of up to $5,000, and other perks. Those who fell short were transferred, demoted or forced out. -- -- Kimball took his findings about Sharpstown High School to CBS affiliate KHOU-TV, which first reported the dropout scandal. Then, he went to State Rep. Rick Noriega. In Noriega's largely Hispanic, mostly poor district, many kids start high school, but never finish. In my district in particular, where I have many of my high schools, 1,000 ninth-grade students, yet only approx 300 or so will walk the stage four years later and receive a diploma. A big question should go off in people's heads, where are the other students, says Noriega, who asked the
Shrub Rewards Companies Who Cut off Seniors' Drug Coverage
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df01082004.html Bush Acts to Reward Companies Who Cut off Seniors' Drug Coverage Late last year, President Bush promised retirees that if there's a Medicare reform bill signed by me, corporations have no intention to dump retirees [from their existing drug coverage]...What we're talking about is trust.1 The White House and its congressional allies backed up Bush's assertion by claiming the bill included a special tax subsidy to encourage employers' to retain prescription-drug coverage for their retirees' and not to cut them off.2 But just three months after Bush's pledge, the Wall Street Journal now reports that the White House quietly added a little-noticed provision to the bill that allows companies to severely reduce - or almost completely terminate - their retirees' drug coverage without losing out on the new subsidy.3 In other words, the president did not just break his promise to sign a bill that prevents seniors from losing their existing drug coverage. He actually acted to reward companies who cut off their retirees with a lavish new tax break. The provision was no mere oversight by the president. The major backers of the provision were Lucent Technologies, General Motors, Dow Chemical and SBC Communications - all major campaign contributors to the president. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, executives from those companies have donated almost $140,000 in hard money and $2.5 million in soft money to Bush and his party since 2000. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: new years resolution
Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote [regarding a `very nice anti wrinkle creme in a gift box'] Well, suits me right. I ended up with my face looking like a bloated scaly red fish. Hey! :-( ... The same happened to me a few years ago when I used the aftershave lotion provided by an airline on a 23 hour trip. No other aftershave lotions have done that, so I figure there was something additional in it. Pretty clearly, the aftershave lotion is good for most customers; it only is harmful for some -- and you and I are instances. (I would like to see further information: this airline's customers are primarily from south-east Asia: is the problem mostly associated with people decended with a genetic heritage from the Dutch of north-west Europe?) I look at least 10 years. well OLDER. Me, too. This did not bring me to _feel_ I was older (a more recent illness did that), but I suspect my friends noticed. sigh It is best to avoid vanity. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
SCOUTED: Poincare Conjecture (Really) Solved?
(For those who have forgotten their topology, the Poincare Conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-sphere.) http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/07/math.mystery.ap/index.html http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040107.wmath17/BNStory/International/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/12/30/century_old_math_problem_may_have_been_solved/ http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jan/01082004/nation_w/127178.asp ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
SCOUTED: 20-Mule Team RNA?
Donald Savage Headquarters, Washington January 8, 2004 (Phone: 202/358-1547) Paula Rausch University of Florida, Gainesville (Phone: 352/392-0186) RELEASE: 04-016 BORAX MINERALS MAY HAVE BEEN KEY TO START OF LIFE ON EARTH Astrobiologists, supported by NASA, have announced a major advance in understanding how life may have originated on Earth billions of years ago. A team of scientists report in the January 9 issue of Science that ribose and other simple sugars that are among life's building blocks could have accumulated in the early earth's oceans if simple minerals, such as borax, were present. Ribose is a key component of ribonucleic acid (RNA). It is also a precursor for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). RNA and DNA, together callednucleic acids, are required for all known life, where they enable inheritance, genetics, and evolution. Many building blocks in biology can be formed without life, said Steven Benner, Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and the leader of the team. Fifty years ago, Stanley Miller did a famous experiment that generated amino acids by passing electrical sparks through a primitive atmosphere. This was a key step to understanding how proteins might have originated. But without nucleic acids, proteins appeared to be useless, unable to have children, he said. For those interested in the origin of life, making RNA and DNA has been the key unsolved problem. This is in large part because ribose, needed to form RNA and DNA, is unstable and easily forms brown tars unless kept cold. Ribose and electrical sparks are simply not compatible, Benner said. We knew that ribose and other sugars decompose easily. This happens in your kitchen when you bake a cake for too long. It turns brown as the sugars decompose to give other things. Eventually, the cake becomes asphalt, added Benner. Recognizing ribose had a particular chemical structure that allowed it to bind to borate, Benner added the mineral colemanite. Colemanite is a mineral containing borate found in Death Valley. Without it, ribose turns into a brown tar. With it, ribose and other sugars emerge as clean products, Benner said. He then showed that other borate minerals did the same trick, including ulexite and kernite. The latter is more commonly known as borax. Borax is mined in southern California and used in certain detergents to wash clothing. This is only one of several steps that must be taken to convert simple organic molecules found in the cosmos to life, Benner cautioned. Much work remains to be done. We are just surprised that such a simple idea has gone unexploited for so long, he added. Steve Benner's clever work has taken us closer to revealing the origin of life on Earth and furthered NASA's understanding of the potential for life elsewhere in the universe, said Michael Meyer, Senior Scientist for Astrobiology at NASA Headquarters, Washington. The NASA Astrobiology Institute supports nodes at universities and non-profit organizations around the United States. Its goal is to understand the origin, evolution, distribution and fate of life in the universe. The Benner group has been a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute for five years. Without ongoing, stable support from NASA, this work would not have been possible, Benner said. Also contributing to the research were Alison Olcott, an assistant at the Wrigley Institute on Catalina Island, Calif; Alonso Ricardo, a graduate student at the University of Florida; and Dr. Matthew Carrigan, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Florida. The National Science Foundation and the Agouron Institute in Pasadena, Calif. have supported this research. For information about NASA on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov -end- * * * NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type the words subscribe press-release (no quotes). The system will reply with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. A second automatic message will include additional information on the service. NASA releases also are available via CompuServe using the command GO NASA. To unsubscribe from this mailing list, address an E-mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], leave the subject blank, and type only unsubscribe press-release (no quotes) in the body of the message. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: SCOUTED: Poincare Conjecture (Really) Solved?
At 06:51 PM 1/8/2004, you wrote: (For those who have forgotten their topology, the Poincare Conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-sphere.) http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/07/math.mystery.ap/index.html http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040107.wmath17/BNStory/International/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/12/30/century_old_math_problem_may_have_been_solved/ http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jan/01082004/nation_w/127178.asp Hey! Watch it with the dirty talk. Kevin T. - VRWC Closed mind ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Losing Our IT
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61825,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_9 The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers, said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools. There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore, Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard, said Wednesday. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/34765.html - If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. - Diebold Internal Memos ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Debbi
--- Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: They just showed news footage of Colorado's Polar Bear Club having their annual New Year's Day swim. Were you one of the participants? Brr! Not me, podnah! We've had a spate of sub-zero temps here...I turned my heater down to 58oF to keep the darn furnace from kicking on every 10 minutes...ugh! Debbi 400+ posts to go :o __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Texas Miracle Fraud and the Secretary of Education [L3]
- Original Message - From: The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: xBrin-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 5:22 PM Subject: The Texas Miracle Fraud and the Secretary of Education [L3] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/main591676.shtml Ha! My Step-daughter (or ex-step-daughter if you prefer) goes to Sharpstown high school. After reading this post, I called my Ex and asked her to comment on the story. So I'm sending her the text of the Fools message and she will send me back a reply which I will forward to the list. This should be a bit interesting. The Ex has told me many many horror stories about Sharpstown and her insights as a PTO activist at the school should be a little enlightening. xponent The News Comes Home Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 18:39:13 -0600 You snooze, you lose. :-) Dan M. Indeed. -Travis _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcommpgmarket=en-caRU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A List A List!!!!
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Jim Sharkey wrote: That's you in the purple, right? I figured you were huge, but wow!!! Looked like you were smuggling medcine balls or something. :) Now that's probably an example of something you should not say to a woman . . . unless you are well outside of hitting range and plan on staying there I don't think even Plastic Man could reach me from Texas. :) Jim Although he's almost unkillable, so who knows what his limits are Maru ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction In General
William T Goodall wrote: Lalith Vipulananthan wrote: William T Goodall wrote: Terry Goodkind I used to, but then I read _Faith Of The Fallen_. There is only so much political ranting I can handle in a book, so I didn't bother with _The Pillars Of Creation_. Pillars was a whole lot worse... Pillars was so very, very boring. Naked Empire stunk too; talk about telling the same damn story over and over. But I thought Faith of the Fallen was the best of his books. He should have ended the series right there, but he's not done feasting off of that particular corpse yet I guess. Jim ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A List A List!!!!
Julia Thompson wrote: Jim Sharkey wrote: That's you in the purple, right? More like a blue, but yeah. And that was at 21 weeks If I can find the CD with the pictures taken the night before I was induced, do you want me to e-mail you a copy of one of them? :) Sure, why not? Should I get a bigger monitor for this? :-p Jim DIgging myself in deeper Maru ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Habitable Planets: was Notes on Uplift
Trent Shipley wrote: No. I propose that there are 2M planets _with_ galactic civilization settled on them. But they could be 20M or 200k. Good. So 2M is a _reasonable_ statistical expectiation for planets that could support civilzation across 5 galaxies. As a side note, Asimov's Galactic Empire includes 25M planets in a single Galaxy, all of them terraformed in the past 22,000 years. But Asimov was optimist about the existence of habitable planets, we know for sure that there can't be habitable planets around, for example, Epsilon Eridani, where Asimov placed Baleyworld-Comporellon. Stars come and go, planets come and go. The terraforming of planets should probably just keep the number of planets in a stable number. Lets come back to terraforming. I think that it would be a major (and s-l-o-w-l-y increasing) factor in the total number of habitable planets. The key word here is _slowly_. For practical purposes, we can suppose that the number is more or less constant during the lifecycle of a standard species [1 million years] BTW, I also guess that there are about 10 fallow planets for each settled planet, based on the data that a planet is usually leased for 100ky, and it is let fallow for a minimum of 500ky [usually more]. I am going to assume that a factor of 1:10 is the high end for an inhabited to fallow ratio if planets are leased for an average 100ky and fallow for a minimum of 500ky. What we need is a figure for mean fallow time. Lets pick 700ky. If there are 2M inhabited planets then there are 14M fallow planets. At any given time there must be a total of 16M habitable planets. Ok, 700ky, or 1My, don't change the final numbers very much Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Indenture: was Notes on Uplift
Trent Shipley wrote: Adding a *true* indenture phase would be nice. I think this is in agreement with the Canon. I should be hunting for quotes now, but I'm too busy - ah, the good old times when I had a job and _lots_ of time to spend in my hobbies! Then we would have pre-uplift/claim phase minority (uplift proper, uplift stages 1-5 per GURPS Uplift 2nd ed.) indenture (payoff for minority, new request from DB SeJ, et al) maturity. That's what I think is the correct sequence of events. Would you like me to add an extra-cannonical true indenture to any future fan-fic I might write? Maybe you can keep things a little bit obscured :-) Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: SCOUTED: Poincare Conjecture (Really) Solved?
At 06:14 PM 1/8/04, Kevin Tarr wrote: At 06:51 PM 1/8/2004, you wrote: (For those who have forgotten their topology, the Poincare Conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-sphere.) http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/07/math.mystery.ap/index.html http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040107.wmath17/BNStory/International/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/12/30/century_old_math_problem_may_have_been_solved/ http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jan/01082004/nation_w/127178.asp Hey! Watch it with the dirty talk. It says homeomorphic, not homomorphic. Don't you know the difference? I Left Out Meromorphic Because I Didn't Want The Question To Be Too Complex Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Debbi
At 07:22 PM 1/8/04, Deborah Harrell wrote: --- Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: They just showed news footage of Colorado's Polar Bear Club having their annual New Year's Day swim. Were you one of the participants? Brr! Not me, podnah! We've had a spate of sub-zero temps here...I turned my heater down to 58oF to keep the darn furnace from kicking on every 10 minutes...ugh! It was in the mid-70s here on Sunday. Tonight we have a winter weather advisory: possibly a few snowflakes somewhere to the north or west, but mostly the likelihood that the drizzle of this afternoon which is now light rain will turn to freezing rain soon. I'm happy that none of the classes I have to teach this term start until Monday (classes which meet on Friday and Saturday do meet starting tomorrow, but fortunately I don't have any of those this semester). Don't You Pity Those Poor People Who Live In Places Like Hawaii Where The Weather Never Changes Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review
In a message dated 1/8/2004 6:50:28 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You snooze, you lose. :-) Dan M. Indeed. -Travis Or in Scotland you wake up with a blue ribbon tied to. Vilyehm Teighlore ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Bush to Announce Missions to Mars, Moon
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040109/D7VV0JG00.html President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said Thursday night. Bush won't propose sending Americans to Mars anytime soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade from now, one official said. The president also wants to build a permanent space station on the moon. Three senior officials said Bush wants to aggressively reinvigorate the space program, which has been demoralized by a series of setbacks, including the space shuttle disaster last February that killed seven astronauts. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bush's announcement would come in the middle of next week. Bush has been expected to propose a bold new space mission in an effort to rally Americans around a unifying theme as he campaigns for re-election. Many insiders had speculated he might set forth goals at the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' famed flight last month in North Carolina. Instead, he said only that America would continue to lead the world in aviation. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, among others, has called for an expansion of the U.S. space program, including a return to the moon. The United States put 12 men on the moon between 1969 through 1972. An interagency task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney has been considering options for a space mission since summer. Former Ohio Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, has said that before deciding to race off to the moon or Mars, the nation needs to complete the international space station and provide the taxi service to accommodate a full crew of six or seven. The station currently houses two. At the same time, Glenn has said, NASA could be laying out a long-term plan, setting a loose timetable and investing in the engineering challenges of sending people to Mars. The only sensible reason for going to the moon first, he says, would be to test the technology for a Mars trip. xponent Higher Farther Faster Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: SCOUTED: Poincare Conjecture (Really) Solved?
- Original Message - From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 8:14 PM Subject: Re: SCOUTED: Poincare Conjecture (Really) Solved? At 06:14 PM 1/8/04, Kevin Tarr wrote: At 06:51 PM 1/8/2004, you wrote: (For those who have forgotten their topology, the Poincare Conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-sphere.) http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/07/math.mystery.ap/index.html http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040107.wmath17/B NStory/International/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/12/3 0/century_old_math_problem_may_have_been_solved/ http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jan/01082004/nation_w/127178.asp Hey! Watch it with the dirty talk. It says homeomorphic, not homomorphic. Don't you know the difference? I Left Out Meromorphic Because I Didn't Want The Question To Be Too Complex Maru And homeo is the gay guy who lives in your hood, right? xponent No Bounce, No Play Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: SCOUTED: Poincare Conjecture (Really) Solved?
At 09:14 PM 1/8/2004, you wrote: At 06:14 PM 1/8/04, Kevin Tarr wrote: At 06:51 PM 1/8/2004, you wrote: (For those who have forgotten their topology, the Poincare Conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-sphere.) http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/07/math.mystery.ap/index.html http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040107.wmath17/BNStory/International/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/12/30/century_old_math_problem_may_have_been_solved/ http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jan/01082004/nation_w/127178.asp Hey! Watch it with the dirty talk. It says homeomorphic, not homomorphic. Don't you know the difference? I Left Out Meromorphic Because I Didn't Want The Question To Be Too Complex Maru -- Ronn! :) I'm too sophomoric to bother to read. Seriously, I didn't make this mistake on the e-mail, but lately a lot of things I read, it's like words are dropping out of sentences. Not fun. Kevin T. - VRWC I predict! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Aliens Cause Global Warming
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html A lecture by Michael Crichton Caltech Michelin Lecture January 17, 2003 My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy. I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in preparation for a nuclear attack. It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world might not be avery good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world. Much much more on the site. xponent ET's Ozone Hole Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush to Announce Missions to Mars, Moon
At 08:25 PM 1/8/04, Robert Seeberger wrote: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040109/D7VV0JG00.html President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said Thursday night. Bush won't propose sending Americans to Mars anytime soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade from now, one official said. The president also wants to build a permanent space station on the moon. ...snip... So, do you think Jerry Pournelle will survive another dozen years or so? --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 1/8/2004 6:50:28 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You snooze, you lose. :-) Dan M. Indeed. -Travis Or in Scotland you wake up with a blue ribbon tied to. Ah, thank you for reminding me of one of my favorite songs. I needed a bit of cheer-up Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science Fiction In General
Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert Seeberger wrote: From: Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] [somebody else wrote:] So what other writers or books in science fiction, fantasy, or horror (or heck, any genre) do people on the list like, even though they realize they're not exactly top-notch stuff? snip For me its the Battletech/Mechwarrior novels, which (like the Star Trek SW books have various authors, vary in quality. Since I play the game for well on 20 years I have an intense loyalty to the franchise. It also happens that the universe is one of the most detailed I've yet encountered... Oh! So you are one of those who are responsible for crowding *real* SciFi off the shelves! You oughta be horsewhipped by a really big horse! A Clydesdale at the least!!! Actually, Clydesdales are fairly gentle horses. Maybe try an Arabian? Hay!!! Don't you go dissing my babies! Besides, they're *much* more likely to _gas_ offenders than bite, kick or stomp them. They also have a certain flair for sarcastic sighs (for you purists who hate anthropomorphizing: they have a remarkable propensity to exhale noisily in a manner which, in a human, would be described as sighing, at precisely the correct moment, as if commenting disparagingly on a rider's form, aids, words or some combination thereof) and peculiarly insulting ear-sets. snort! U U Guilty Of Having A Fair Number Of ST And SW Paperbacks Maru __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fwd: Top5 Science Fiction - 1/9/04
== Sir, I think you have a problem with your brain being missing. TOPFIVE.COM'S LITTLE FIVERS -- SCIENCE FICTION http://www.topfive.com/fivers.shtml == January 9, 2004 NOTE FROM GREG: A fan group is going through incredible lengths to ensure that Firefly: The Movie gets made. Because, you know, shows that get cancelled in their first season are the best candidates for feature films. Here's the site: http://www.fireflymovie.com/ The Top 9 Signs That Science Fiction Fans Are Getting Desperate 8 Google searches for Space: 1999 in Lego Vision. 7 Now that all three parts of Return of the King have been released, they're pushing Jackson to do the Thomas Covenant Chronicles. 6 They're bathing, wearing clean clothes, and actually considering engaging in social activities. Oh, that's not the desperate you meant? 5 They're already standing in line for Episode III. 4 Staging a letter campaign to bring back Knight Rider, except the letters are all mailed to Pontiac. 3 The secret project to reanimate Isaac Asimov is well under way. 2 Humming that toe-tapping Star Trek: Enterprise theme. and the Number 1 Sign That Science Fiction Fans Are Getting Desperate... 1 www.petitionsonline.org/battlefield_earth_2 [ Copyright 2004 by Chris White] [ http://www.topfive.com ] == Selected from 24 submissions from 6 contributors. Today's Top 5 List authors are: -- RW Lipp, Lenexa, KS -- 1, 6, 8 (Hat trick!) Martin Bredeck, Hybla Valley, VA -- 2 Jennifer A. Ford, Fort Wayne, IN -- 3 Dave Oberhart, Durham, NC -- 4 Arthur Levesque, Laurel, MD -- 5, 6, 7 (Hat trick!) Mary Ann McDonald, Sacramento, CA -- RU list name Greg Preece, Toronto, Canada -- Dark Lord of the Sith -- Signs That Science Fiction Fans Are Getting Desperate RUNNERS UP list -- Retrofitted Reruns -- They're still watching Enterprise. 'Nuff said. (Arthur Levesque, Laurel, MD) Expecting the next Star Wars movie will be the best one yet. (Martin Bredeck, Hybla Valley, VA) A band of ragtag geeks threatens the Sci-Fi Channel with a denial of service attack if they don't pick up the new version of Battlestar Galactica. (Dave Oberhart, Durham, NC) Their once coolly obscure bumper stickers now include footnotes. (Jennifer A. Ford, Fort Wayne, IN) Most seem to really believe that Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda started out as something more than odd scribbles in Gene Roddenberry's idea notebook. (Jennifer A. Ford, Fort Wayne, IN) Since the proliferation of reality TV shows, fans are busily coming up with reality science fiction series pilots. (Mary Ann McDonald, Sacramento, CA) == [ TOPFIVE.COM'S LITTLE FIVERS ] [Top 10 lists on a variety of subjects ] [ http://www.topfive.com ] == [ Copyright 2004 by Chris White All rights reserved. ] [ Do not forward, publish, broadcast, or use ] [ in any manner without crediting TopFive.com ] == [ To complain to the moderator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] [ Have friends who might like to subscribe to this list? ] [ Refer them to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] == ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Personal notes
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:20:25 -0500, Jack Tackett - Netwharf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks Reggie, Michael is 2 months old at this time - and his older brother Matthew is 3 years old. We also adopted Matthew when he was just 4 weeks old. best, Congatulations on your new family member... and welcome to the list. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Minimal Profits for Halliburton
--- Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip A lot of well-run companies put those sorts of demands on their employees. Every consulting company (not just us), every investment bank, every venture capital fund, every hedge fund - and that's just in the financial sector. I've seen our clients in the pharma sector routinely do 80 hour weeks. Pretty much every CEO in America does that. Time and motion study of Congressmen and Senators suggest that 80 hours is a _light_ week for them. Anecdotally Cabinet Members say the same thing -I don't know that a formal study has ever been done, but that's how they describe their lives. In the military I know that junior officers in combat zones routinely work those types of hours for months - or even years - on end. My old boss was a platoon commander in Vietnam, and he worked 100 hour weeks for two years. So the argument that a well-run organization doesn't ask its people to do that is empirically contradicted - any number of well-run (and highly successful) organizations _do_, in fact, run at that sort of tempo. It's true that _pilots_ in particular are prohibited from doing so, but that's because the fine motor skills that pilots require are the first thing affected by fatigue. I can stumble over door sills and still build financial models quite effectively. I'm just commenting on the work-hours and their potential fall-out: while many individuals can and do 'burn the candle at both ends' for extended periods of time, the vast majority of humans make more mistakes, and more serious mistakes, as stress and fatigue mount. And while maybe financial decisions are OK to make at that point (although I wouldn't want such a person in charge of *my* money), it's dangerous to habitually make decisions that involves life and death under those conditions. That's when the incompletely-hidden tripwire is overlooked, or the wrong body part is amputated, or one assumes that somebody else checked for the proper blood type. That's why laws have been enacted to limit the number of hours an intern or resident works. Having personally put in a few 90-100hr weeks, I can tell you that discrimination and critical thinking are adversely affected to a large degree. I was lucky nothing horrible happened, but I know those who frex dropped babies on their heads because their judgement and reflexes were shot after multiple cycles of 36+hour days. When you had RNs and pharmacists (who were not themselves over-worked) backing you, most errors were caught before they ever involved a patient; tired medical assistants and pharmacy techs, however, provide a poor safety net. I tell all my friends/family/aquaintances who have to go into the hospital that they need to watch out for themselves, question the doc or nurse if a procedure/pill/injection seems at all odd or out-of-place; and that actually applies to medications at home as well as outpatient procedures. I think that operating in a hostile country within a radically different culture requires fine judgement and fast critical thinking, to decide frex whether that enrobed figure is a suicide bomber needing to be shot or just a woman carrying her toddler; those faculties will be impaired in the perpetually fatigued. Debbi __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Habitable Planets: was Notes on Uplift
On Thursday 2004-01-08 06:00, Alberto Monteiro wrote: Trent Shipley wrote: No. I propose that there are 2M planets _with_ galactic civilization settled on them. But they could be 20M or 200k. Good. So 2M is a _reasonable_ statistical expectiation for planets that could support civilzation across 5 galaxies. As a side note, Asimov's Galactic Empire includes 25M planets in a single Galaxy, all of them terraformed in the past 22,000 years. But Asimov was optimist about the existence of habitable planets, we know for sure that there can't be habitable planets around, for example, Epsilon Eridani, where Asimov placed Baleyworld-Comporellon. Stars come and go, planets come and go. The terraforming of planets should probably just keep the number of planets in a stable number. Lets come back to terraforming. I think that it would be a major (and s-l-o-w-l-y increasing) factor in the total number of habitable planets. The key word here is _slowly_. For practical purposes, we can suppose that the number is more or less constant during the lifecycle of a standard species [1 million years] BTW, I also guess that there are about 10 fallow planets for each settled planet, based on the data that a planet is usually leased for 100ky, and it is let fallow for a minimum of 500ky [usually more]. I am going to assume that a factor of 1:10 is the high end for an inhabited to fallow ratio if planets are leased for an average 100ky and fallow for a minimum of 500ky. What we need is a figure for mean fallow time. Lets pick 700ky. If there are 2M inhabited planets then there are 14M fallow planets. At any given time there must be a total of 16M habitable planets. Ok, 700ky, or 1My, don't change the final numbers very much Nope. Look. I want to write about Clan Tothtoon. To do that it would be helpful to pin down some numbers, namely: -Total number of races in O-2 Civilization now. (total number of individuals or biomass would be interesting but not critical) -Average number of clients per patron (obviously slightly more than 1) -- Distribution of access to clients among potential patrons (Members of Clan Tothtoon tend to be priviledged, the question is how priviledged.) -Total O-2 habitable planets now --- leased:fallow --- natural:terraformed --- proportion of A, B, C and homeworld leases. --- Mean number of planets per citizen race --- fairness in distributing leases. With regard to planets I visit: http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL N: communicating life. N*: number of stars, site suggests 100 * 10^9 for Milky Way alone fp: fraction of stars with planets ne: number of planets where life can exist fl: fraction where life evolves fi: fraction were intelligent life evolves fc: fraction that can and do communicate fL: fraction of timewhere communicating civilization exists Galactics will colonize any planet where life evolves. fi, fc, and fL are irrelevant for calculating planets under GIM control. (Alternatively fi=1, all planets with life get infested with intelligent life. fc=1, all inhabited planets participate in Galcatic Civilization. 0.12 fL .1 since inhabitable planets spend most of their existence in fallow.) Ngim = N* fp ne fl N* = 100*10^9 per SETI fp = 0.2 (conservative per SETI) ne = 1 (conservative per SETI) fl = 0.0001 (pretty conservative, but then the GIM is only interested in planets with *complex* life.) That gives us 2M *naturally* existing planets in the Milky Way controled by the GIM and 10M naturally occuring planets under GIM control through five galaxies. If 4/5 of all GIM controlled planets are terrformed then we wind up with 50M GIM planets in five galaxies. But for ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
SCOUTED: Extrasolar Planet's Magnetic Field Heats Star
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/science/08PLAN.html January 8, 2004 New Clues Are Detected About Planets of Other Stars By KENNETH CHANG ATLANTA, Jan. 7 For the first time, astronomers have detected a magnetic field around a planet around a distant star, offering one of the first clues to the properties of any planet outside the solar system. Over the past decade, astronomers have found 119 planets around other stars. But because the planets are detected indirectly by their gravitational tug on the stars almost nothing is known about any of them beyond a lower limit of their masses. Using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Evgenya Shkolnik, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, looked at the star HD179949, 88 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Its planet, nearly the size of Jupiter, falls in the class of roasters, a large planet that orbits very close to its star, in this case 4 million miles. (The Earth, by contrast, is 93 million miles from the Sun.) Ms. Shkolnik detected a spot on HD179949 that was 700 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas and circled the star at the same pace as the planet's orbit, once every three days. First seen in 2001, it also appeared in two sets of observations in 2002. It is probably not an intrinsic feature of the star, which takes nine days to rotate. Instead, the planet appears to possess a magnetic field that interacts with the star's magnetic field. The hot spot is slightly ahead of the planet and appears to be moving across the surface of the star, Ms. Shkolnik said. The best explanation for this is that it's an interaction between the planet of the star. The findings were presented Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society here and have also been published in The Astrophysical Journal. The observations look legitimate to me, said Dr. Gibor B. Basri of the University of California at Berkeley, who was not involved with the research. However, the theoretical understanding is very insufficient to be able to judge whether how such a thing would happen, he said. The presence of a magnetic field implies metal at the core of the planet. Jupiter, which possesses a strong magnetic field, is believed to contain a core of metallic hydrogen. HD179949's planet may be inducing a hot spot on the star similar to how the magnetic fields of Io and Europa, two moons of Jupiter, induce hot spots on Jupiter. Others have suspected that roasters must have strong magnetic fields or that they would have been destroyed by the winds of particles ejected from the star. A magnetic field acts as a shield that diverts electrically charged particles around the planet. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Flight Sim and Witch Hunts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34776.html Flight Sim enquiry raises terror alert By Andrew Orlowski in Las Vegas Posted: 08/01/2004 at 22:39 GMT Get The Reg wherever you are, with The Mobile Register A mother's enquiry about buying Microsoft Flight Simulator for her ten-year-old son prompted a night-time visit to her home from a state trooper. Julie Olearcek, a USAF Reserve pilot made the enquiry at a Staples store in Massachusetts, home to an earlier bout of hysteria, during the Salem witch trials. So alarmed was the Staples clerk at the prospect of the ten year old learning to fly, that he informed the police, the Greenfield Recorder reports. The authorities moved into action, leaving nothing to chance. A few days later, Olearcek was alarmed to discover a state trooper flashing a torch into to her home through a sliding glass door at 8:30 pm on a rainy night. Olearcek is a regular Staples customer and schools her son at home. The Staples manager simply explained that staff were obeying advice. Shortly before Christmas, the FBI issued a terror alert to beware of drivers with maps, or reference books. At one time it was rare to find US citizens, in the safest and most prosperous country in the world, jumping at their own shadows. Now we only note how high. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
SCOUTED: Ice Age Ancestry May Keep Body Warmer and Healthier
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/science/09COLD.html?8br January 9, 2004 Ice Age Ancestry May Keep Body Warmer and Healthier By NICHOLAS WADE A team of California geneticists has found that many of the world's peoples are genetically adapted to the cold because their ancestors lived in northern climates during the Ice Age. The genetic change affects basic body metabolism and may influence susceptibility to disease and to the risks of the calorie-laden modern diet. The finding also breaks ground in showing that the human population has continued to adapt to forces of natural selection since the dispersal from its ancestral homeland in Africa some 50,000 years ago. The genetic adaptation to cold is still carried by many Northern Europeans, East Asians and American Indians, most of whose ancestors once lived in Siberia. But it is absent from peoples native to Africa, a difference that the California team, led by Dr. Douglas C. Wallace of the University of California, Irvine, suggest could contribute to the greater burden of certain diseases in the African-American population. Other experts praised the findings about adaptation to cold but said the role of mitochondria, relics of captured bacteria that serve as the batteries of living cells, in these diseases was less certain. The genetic change affects the mitochondria, which break down glucose and convert it into the chemical energy that drives the muscles and other body processes. But the mitochondria will generate heat as well, and less chemical energy, if certain mutations occur in their DNA that make the process less efficient. Just such a change would have been very helpful to early humans trying to survive in cold climates. Dr. Wallace and his colleagues have now decoded the full mitochondrial DNA from more than 1,000 people around the world and found signs of natural selection. By analyzing the changes in the DNA, they have been able to distinguish positive mutations, those selected because they are good or adaptive, from negative or harmful mutations. In today's issue of the journal Science, they report that several lineages of mitochondrial DNA show signs of positive selection. These lineages are not found at all in Africans but occur in 14 percent of people in temperate zones and in 75 percent of those inhabiting Arctic zones. Dr. Wallace and his colleagues say this correlation is evidence that the lineages were positively selected because they help the body generate more heat. Until now, most genetic change in the human population since it left Africa has been thought to be either random or just the elimination of harmful mutations. The evidence of the new analysis is that positive or adaptive selection played an increasingly important role as people migrated out of Africa into temperate and Arctic Eurasia, the California team writes. One implication is that everyone is adapted to a particular climate zone, and that moving to different zones may cause certain stresses. Mitochondria of the lineages found in Africa, Dr. Wallace suggests, may contribute the extra burden of certain diseases found among African-Americans, like diabetes and prostate cancer. His reasoning is that African lineage mitochondria have never had to develop a mechanism for generating extra heat. So when an African-American and a European-American eat the same high calorie diet, the European's mitochondria burn some calories off as heat but the more efficient African mitochondria are liable to generate more fat deposition and oxidative damage, two results that could underlie the higher disease rates, Dr. Wallace said. Separately, some of the European mitochondrial lineages appear to protect against Alzheimer's and Parkinson diseases and to be associated with greater longevity. Therefore, the California team writes, to understand individual predisposition to modern diseases, we must also understand our genetic past, the goal of the new discipline of evolutionary medicine. While many scientists study the genes of the human cell's nucleus, Dr. Wallace has focused on the tiny mitochondrial genome for 33 years. Along with the late Dr. Allan Wilson, he has pioneered the tracing of the 20 or so mitochondrial lineages found in the human population, all of which link back to a single individual known as the mitochondrial Eve. Several other experts said that Dr. Wallace's ideas were promising but that the role of mitochondria in degenerative diseases had yet to be established. It's a very attractive idea and may well turn out to be right, although the biochemical evidence of uncoupling differences between the mitochondrial lineages has yet to be nailed down, said Dr. Lawrence Grossman, a mitochondria expert at Wayne State University. Dr. Mark Seielstad, a population geneticist at the Genome Institute of Singapore, said the positive selection was likely to have been a major architect in shaping mitochondria and
SCOUTED: New-Found Old Galaxies Upsetting Astronomers' Long-Held Theories on the Big Bang
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/science/08ASTR.html January 8, 2004 New-Found Old Galaxies Upsetting Astronomers' Long-Held Theories on the Big Bang By KENNETH CHANG ATLANTA, Jan. 7 Gazing deep into space and far into the past, astronomers have found that the early universe, a couple of billion years after the Big Bang, looks remarkably like the present-day universe. Astronomers said here on Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society that they had found huge elliptical galaxies that formed within one billion to two billion years after the Big Bang, perhaps a couple of billion years earlier than expected. A few days earlier, researchers had announced that the Hubble Space Telescope had spotted a gathering cloud of perhaps 100 galaxies from the same epoch, an early appearance of such galactic clusters. On Wednesday, astronomers at the meeting said that three billion years after the Big Bang, one of the largest structures in the universe, a string of galaxies 300 million light-years long and 50 million light-years wide, had already formed. A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year, or almost six trillion miles. That means the string is nearly 2,000 billion billion miles long. Some astronomers said the discoveries could challenge a widely accepted picture of the evolution of the universe, that galaxies, clusters and the galactic strings formed in a bottom-up fashion, that the universe's small objects formed first and then clumped together into larger structures over time. The universe is growing up a little faster than we had thought, said Dr. Povilas Palunas of the University of Texas, one of the astronomers who found the string of galaxies. We're seeing a much larger structure than any of the models predict. So that's surprising. In the prevailing understanding of the universe, astronomers believe that slight clumpiness in the distribution of dark matter, the 90 percent of matter that pervades the universe but still has not been identified, drew in clumps of hydrogen gas that then collapsed into stars and galaxies, the first stars forming about a half billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxies then gathered in clusters, and the clusters gathered in long strings with humongous, almost empty, voids in between. The first such string, named the Great Wall, was discovered in 1989 about 250 million light-years away. The newly discovered string lies in a southern constellation, Grus, at 10.8 billion light-years away, and represents what the universe looked like 10.8 billion years ago, or three billion years after the Big Bang. The international team of researchers identified 37 very bright galaxies in that region of space and found that they were not randomly distributed, as would be expected, but instead appeared to line up along the string. Such structures are rarely seen in computer simulations of the early universe, said Dr. Bruce E. Woodgate of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, a member of the team. We think it disagrees with the theoretical predictions in that we see filaments and voids larger than predicted, Dr. Woodgate said. Dr. Robert P. Kirshner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said the findings were interesting, but that it was too early to eliminate any theories. What is probably needed was a better understanding how of a clump of dark matter leads to the formation of stars. What we're seeing here, Dr. Kirshner said, is the beginning of the investigation how structure grows. At the astronomy meeting on Monday, another team of researchers reported finding a large number of large elliptical galaxies. As part of an investigation known as the Gemini Deep Deep Survey, the astronomers explored 300 faint galaxies dating from when the universe was three billion and six billion years old. The large elliptical galaxies are supposedly a merged product of smaller spiral galaxies. Yet not only did they exist that early in the universe, but the stars within these galaxies also appeared a couple of billion years old already, implying that they had formed as early as a billion and a half years after the Big Bang. Massive galaxies seem to be forming surprisingly early after the Big Bang, said Dr. Roberto Abraham of the University of Toronto and a co-principal investigator on the team. It is supposed to take time. It seems to be happening right away. The data actually fit better with the views that astronomers held before the rise of the current dark-matter models, when they theorized that the largest galaxies formed first. If we presented this to astronomers 25 years ago, Dr. Abraham said, they wouldn't have been surprised. A third team of astronomers found two clusters of galaxies that also point to a precocious universe. Using the Hubble telescope, the astronomers spotted a cluster of at least 30 galaxies dating from when the universe was younger than two billion years old and
SCOUTED: Brain May Be Able to Bury Unwanted Memories, Study Shows
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/science/09MEMO.html?8br January 9, 2004 Brain May Be Able to Bury Unwanted Memories, Study Shows By ANAHAD O'CONNOR Unwanted memories can be driven from awareness, according to a team of researchers who say they have identified a brain circuit that springs into action when people deliberately try to forget something. The findings, published today in the journal Science, strengthen the theory that painful memories can be repressed by burying them in the subconscious, the researchers say. In the study, people who had memorized a pair of words were later shown one of them and asked to either recall the second word or to consciously avoid thinking about it. Brain images showed that the hippocampus, an area of the brain that usually lights up when people retrieve memories, was relatively quiet when subjects tried to suppress the words they had learned. But at the same time, another region associated with motor inhibition, called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, showed increased activity. The scientists also found that the more the subjects were told to resist thinking about a word, the more likely they were to have trouble recalling it later. This suggests a neurological basis for how people can actually shove something out of mind, said Dr. Michael C. Anderson, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oregon and lead author of the study. There's no question that we're tapping into something that's relevant to the experiences of people who survive trauma and find the memories become less and less intrusive over time. Dr. Anderson said the burst of activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area that manages higher-order cognitive skills like planning, could represent an overriding mechanism, in which the hippocampus is prevented from dredging up unwanted memories. Over time, continued suppression of those memories by the prefrontal cortex, he said, can push them from awareness. We could predict how effectively people would forget these words just by how much activation they showed in their prefrontal cortex, Dr. Anderson said. I think this explains why the tendency to be reminded of something horrific, for example, eventually diminishes. Dr. Larry Squire, a professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of California at San Diego, who did not participate in the study, said it was difficult to say exactly what the brain images meant. Still, concluding that the activity in the prefrontal cortex points to a brain circuit that can block memories, particularly emotional ones, he said, might be too narrow an interpretation. This is a much debated issue, Dr. Squire said. It's possible the subjects are simply directing their attention elsewhere and using a lot of energy and brain resources to think of something different. I don't think it is necessarily an indication of active repression. But Dr. David Spiegel, professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said diverting thoughts away from something was the first step to forgetting about it completely. And the study, he added, supported the notion that people could suppress traumatic memories and still regain them later. People have to manage vast amounts of information by keeping most of it out of mind, which is true of emotional memories and all others, said Dr. Spiegel, who was not involved with the study. At any given moment you couldn't remember most of what you know or you'd be overwhelmed. But the memories are there, and you can still recover them down the line. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
SCOUTED: First supernova companion star found
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMHGK374OD_FeatureWeek_0.html First supernova companion star found [Image] Supernova 1993J exploding (artists impression) 8 January 2004 A joint European/University of Hawaii team of astronomers has for the first time observed a stellar survivor to emerge from a double star system involving an exploded supernova. Supernovae are some of the most significant sources of chemical elements in the Universe, and they are at the heart of our understanding of the evolution of galaxies. Supernovae are some of the most violent events in the Universe. For many years astronomers have thought that they occur in either solitary massive stars (Type II supernovae) or in a binary system where the companion star plays an important role (Type I supernovae). However no one has been able to observe any such companion star. It has even been speculated that the companion stars might not survive the actual explosion... [Image] The site of the Supernova 1993J explosion The second brightest supernova discovered in modern times, SN 1993J, was found in the beautiful spiral galaxy M81 on 28 March 1993. From archival images of this galaxy taken before the explosion, a red supergiant was identified as the mother star in 1993 - only the second time astronomers have actually seen the progenitor of a supernova explosion (the first was SN 1987A, the supernova that exploded in 1987 in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud). Initially rather ordinary, SN 1993J began to puzzle astronomers as its ejecta seemed too rich in the chemical element helium and instead of fading normally it showed a bizarre sharp increase in brightness. The astronomers realised that a normal red supergiant alone could not have given rise to such a weird supernova. It was suggested that the red supergiant orbited a companion star that had shredded its outer layers just before the explosion. [Image] Close-up of the Supernova 1993J explosion site (ACS/HRC image) Ten years after this cataclysmic event, a European/University of Hawaii team of astronomers has now peered deep into the glowing remnants of SN 1993J using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the giant Keck telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. They have discovered a massive star exactly at the position of the supernova that is the long sought companion to the supernova progenitor. This is the first supernova companion star ever to be detected and it represents a triumph for the theoretical models. In addition, this observation allows a detailed investigation of the stellar physics leading to supernova explosions. It is now clear that during the last 250 years before the explosion 10 solar masses of gas were torn violently from the red supergiant by its partner. By observing the companion closely in the coming years it may even be possible to detect a neutron star or black hole emerge from the remnants of the explosion in real time. Given the paucity of observations of supernova progenitor systems this result, published in Nature on 8 January 2004, is likely to 'be crucial to understanding how very massive stars explode and why we see such peculiar supernovae' according to first author Justyn R. Maund from the University of Cambridge, UK. [Image] Messier 81 spiral arm (WFPC2 image) The team is composed of Stephen J. Smartt and Justyn R. Maund (University of Cambridge, UK), Rolf. P. Kudritzki (University of Hawaii, USA), Philipp Podsiadlowski (University of Oxford, UK) and Gerry F. Gilmore (University of Cambridge, UK). Stephen Smartt, also from the University of Cambridge, says, Supernova explosions are at the heart of our understanding of the evolution of galaxies and the formation of chemical elements in the Universe. It is essential that we know what type of stars produce them. For the last ten years astronomers have believed that they could understand the very peculiar behaviour of 1993J by invoking the existence of a binary companion star and now this picture has proved correct. According to Rolf Kudritzki, from the University of Hawaii, The combination of the outstanding spatial resolution of Hubble and the huge light gathering power of the Keck 10- metre telescope in Hawaii has made this fantastic discovery possible. [Image] Grand Spiral Messier 81 (ground-based) Supernovae occur when a star of more than about eight times the mass of the Sun reaches the end of its nuclear fuel reserves and can no longer produce enough energy to keep the star from collapsing under its own immense weight. The core of the star collapses, and the outer layers are ejected in a fast-moving shock wave. This huge energy release causes the visible supernova we see. While astronomers are convinced that observations will match this theoretical model, they are in the embarrassing position that they have confidently identified only two stars that later exploded as supernovae
