2003.03.28
Nature:
Neanderthals' capable of
fine handiwork. Our primitive cousins didn't lose the evolutionary race for
want of manual dexterity.
"Palaeontologists had previously doubted that Neanderthals had the manual
dexterity to make and use tools such as the shafted axes favoured by early
modern humans. Neanderthals were thought to be unable to form the ‘precision
grip’ that we use today to manipulate delicate items such as pens and
tweezers.
"Not so...."
Scientific American:
Evidence
Mounts for Mysterious New Class of Black Holes.
"Stellar black holes arise from the collapse of massive stars. Supermassive
black holes, on the other hand, are thought to form from enormous gas clouds.
Exactly how midsize holes are born, however, remains in question."
"Next year, how will we feel when China
invades Taiwan because they think they have weapons of mass destruction?"
> My main concern about this war hasn't been the prospect of carnage and
death in Iraq. Things have been pretty bad there for the past dozen years
anyway. (Sorry if that sounds flippant or callous.)
> My main concern is that we are setting a really bad precedent.
2003.03.20
I know this is incredibly shallow and self-centered, but ...
ARRGGG! I cannot BELIEVE they are starting a war during the opening of the
NCAA basketball tournament! Here it is, time for the one sports event that I
look forward to ALL YEAR LONG, and the television coverage is going to be
preempted by a WAR THAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO IGNORE!!!
So anyway, here are
my brackets. My final four is Kentucky, Arizona, Florida and Syracuse, with
UK to take it all.
Let's hope peace returns quickly, and without a lot of bloodshed.
CBS Sportsline:
CBS
plans to televise eight Thursday night games.
"CBS moved its afternoon coverage to ESPN because of the war.... If CBS opts
to switch games later Thursday or Friday night, they would be shown on ESPN2."
2003.03.18
Newsweek:
The Arrogant Empire.
"Watching the tumult around the world, it's evident that what is happening
goes well beyond this particular crisis. Many people, both abroad and in America,
fear that we are at some kind of turning point, where well-established mainstays
of the global order -- the Western Alliance, European unity, the United Nations
-- seem to be cracking under stress. These strains go well beyond the matter of
Iraq, which is not vital enough to wreak such damage. In fact, the debate is not
about Saddam anymore. It is about America and its role in the new world." ...
"... the United States will spend as much next year on defense as the rest of
the world put together (yes, all 191 countries)."
2003.03.16
There must be an application for this in seismic exploration --
Science News:
On the Rebound.
Reversed echoes may fight disease and foster communication.
"... physicists in Europe and the United States have recently been creating
environments in the laboratory and underwater that exhibit reversed echoing.
Instead of actual walls, from which only run-of-the-mill echoes would reflect,
the researchers direct their sounds to computerized microphone-loudspeaker
units that return them in a time-reversed order -- the last sound component to
arrive is the first to be sent back.
"Such setups refocus sound with remarkable precision. When a person sings out
‘hello’ in such an environment, the sound not only comes back
reversed but it also beams specifically to the vocalist's head -- and nowhere else."
Nature:
Earliest human footprints
found? Italian volcano bears tracks of early Europeans.
"The 20-centimetre prints hint that early man was less than 1.5 metres tall
when he walked down the Roccamonfina volcano between 385,000 and 325,000 years ago."
2003.03.10
The Economist:
A
convenient war, perhaps.
"Oil markets will probably remain buoyant even if Mr Bush's war against
Saddam Hussein turns out to be as swift and relatively bloodless as his
father's was in 1991."
> Bloodless? We killed a lot people during, and after, that war.
I guess they meant U.S. casualties.
> I'm not making a political statement, I'm just keeping it honest.
My brother had a good one to add to the "best sf books" list: Heinlein's
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
"There are others I would have included but quit thinking about it when
I saw an Anne Rice title -- Vampires?? Hardly SF or Fantasy."
> Actually, you could probably say the same about Gravity's Rainbow.
2003.03.08
Top
50 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books. Selected by a book club
hoping to sell some more books, of course.
I've read 26 of them, maybe more. Most of those before I turned 16.
I missed a lot of the fantasy titles. In fact, I'm kind of skeptical
about combining fantasy and SF into a single list.
I was surprised by some of the excellent choices of lesser-know books,
like Delany's Dhalgren and Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar.
Books that didn't make their list that I would have included: Niven &
Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye and Le Guin's The Dispossed.
And what about Gravity's Rainbow
by Thomas Pynchon?
Reuters:
Girl baffles teacher with SMS essay.
"The teenager's essay which caused the problem began:
"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kids
FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc."
OUCH! --
The Carnegie Mellon Tartan:
Local collegian
catches piercing on bookshelf.
"Campus Police officers provided a medical escort for a student who reported
that she caught her nipple ring on the corner of a case and ripped it from
her breast."
[via Jill Matrix]
