Do something bold everyday

clipped from marcusvorwaller.com 3. Make it a point to do something bold every day. Step out of your comfort zone, leave the routine even if for only a second. This might mean talking to someone that you generally wouldn’t talk to or starting a project that you feel intimidated by. There is no need to plan it in advance–though that might help at times, usually though you’ll find a point during the day when ‘two paths diverge in the woods’ and you have the change to take the one less travelled by. Take it. When there is something that we aren’t accustomed to doing we naturally set up mental barriers against it to protect ourselves from the thought of doing it. It takes a bold move to act and break those barriers.

The importance of valid disagreement

This is a great clip and certainly one that needs to be shared.

clipped from ravimohan.blogspot.com Paul Graham says, in one of his essays (emphasis mine) "....Why do you need other people? Can't you just think of new ideas yourself? The empirical answer is: no. Even Einstein needed people to bounce ideas off. Ideas get developed in the process of explaining them to the right kind of person. You need that resistance, just as a carver needs the resistance of the wood. In my experience, this need for "friendly resistance" extends to far more than creating startups. Every time you have a new idea, you need people you can bounce it off. To get any real benefit out of this process you need people with a complex combination of characteristics. They should have firm (but not rigid) opinions on their own have logical reasons for those beliefs and be able to articulate them clearly are driven by ideas and not ideology not attach their egos to their opinions. be willing to concede a valid argument even if it forces them to possibly re-examine their beliefs know how to listen

D.C.'s Ban On Handguns In Homes Is Thrown Out

This should be an interesting experiment (that is if the ruling isn't reversed). Will having guns be legal decrease or increase gun violence? (Or maybe no change) There are lots of variables to account for such as the current prevalence of handguns (will changing the law increase the number of handguns?) etc.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the District's longtime ban on keeping handguns in homes is unconstitutional. The 2 to 1 decision by an appellate panel outraged D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and other city leaders, who said that they will appeal and that gun-related crimes could rise if the ruling takes effect. The outcome elated opponents of strict gun controls because it knocked down one of the toughest laws in the country and vindicated their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's language on the right to bear arms.

Grasslands as Alternative Energy

Alternative energy can be made from grasslands with yields up to 238% higher than using farmed biofuels (e.g. corn). Grasslands are "carbon negative" meaning that, considering the full cycle of growth and burning, they remove carbon dioxide form the atmosphere. Lastly grasslands can be grown on marginal and degraded lands and thus do not need to displace food production.

clipped from www.sciencemag.org Biofuels derived from low-input high-diversity (LIHD) mixtures of native grassland perennials can provide more usable energy, greater greenhouse gas reductions, and less agrichemical pollution per hectare than can corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel. High-diversity grasslands had increasingly higher bioenergy yields that were 238% greater than monoculture yields after a decade. LIHD biofuels are carbon negative because net ecosystem carbon dioxide sequestration (4.4 megagram hectare–1 year–1 of carbon dioxide in soil and roots) exceeds fossil carbon dioxide release during biofuel production (0.32 megagram hectare–1 year–1). Moreover, LIHD biofuels can be produced on agriculturally degraded lands and thus need to neither displace food production nor cause loss of biodiversity via habitat destruction.

China's Environmental Blame Game

The rapidly approaching Olympic Games have brought an unwelcome spotlight on China’s environmental situation.Beijingwon its Olympics bid with the promise of the world’s first “green” games. Five years later, there is no talk of a green Olympics, only of how extensive a shutdown of industry and transportation will be needed in Beijing and surrounding provinces just to ensure that the athletes can breathe.

clipped from www.cfr.org Last month the International Energy Agency announced that China would probably surpass the United States as the world’s largest contributor of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2009, more than a full decade earlier than anticipated. This forecast could spur China to adopt tough new energy and environmental standards, but it probably won’t. China has already embarked on a very different strategy to manage its environmental reputation: launching a political campaign that lays much of the blame for the country’s mounting environmental problems squarely on the shoulders of foreigners and, in particular, multinational companies. China’s leaders are tapping into anti-foreign and nationalist sentiments to deflect attention from their own failures. When a Chinese nongovernmental organization released a list of 2,700 companies cited for violations of China’s water regulations in late October, the ensuing media frenzy focused exclusively on the 33 multinationals

Dodging a Warming Bullet

Some positive side effects of the Montreal protocol and the banning of CFCs.

clipped from sciencenow.sciencemag.org Double benefit. Earth has experienced far less radiative forcing, or atmospheric warming, thanks to a ban on CFCs, which so far has prevented the release of far more greenhouse gases (green and blue lines) than have the CO2 reduction targets imposed by the Kyoto Protocol (red line). a 20-year-old ban on ozone-depleting chemicals has been extremely effective at curbing greenhouse gases as well. In fact, it has already had more impact than a fully implemented Kyoto Protocol would have accomplished the class of compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) traps 5000 to 14,000 times more heat, pound for pound, than carbon dioxide One group, hydrochlorofluorocarbons or HCFCs, is easier on the ozone layer, but its members are also powerful greenhouse gases. A third category, hydrofluorocarbons, are even worse atmospheric heat collectors than CFCs, but because they don't affect ozone, Sarma says, the Kyoto partners must address them.

Video: Fighting Global Warming...

Here is a link to a video on Washingtonpost.com about how to reduce one's carbon footprint.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

'Fighting Global Warming One House at a Time'

March 2, 2007

washingtonpost.com Video by: Chesapeake Climate Action Network

Chesapeake Climate Action Network's Mike Tidwell describes how he and his wife save energy by using solar power and heating their home with a corn stove.

Sports Injuries: The Ankle

Ankle injuries are the second most common sports injuries worldwide (after knee injuries.)

(Tangent: Have you noticed how funny a word 'ankle' is? It sounds and looks funny)

clipped from pt.wkhealth.com

Abstract:

Results show that the ankle was the most common injured body site in 24 of 70 included sports, especially in aeroball, wall climbing, indoor volleyball, mountaineering, netball and field events in track and field.

In sports injuries throughout the countries studied, the ankle was the second most common injured body site after the knee, and ankle sprain was the most common type of ankle injury. The incidence of ankle injury and ankle sprain was high in court games and team sports, such as rugby, soccer, volleyball, handball and basketball.

Funniest Videos: The Atheist's Nightmare

Really, you just can't make this stuff up. This is hands down the winner of the funniest video of the week.

The Atheist's nightmare is....a banana!

Dollar Crisis?

How will the enormous indebtedness of not only the U.S. government (Thanks Bush) but the American people start to be addressed? People do not change their habits/addictions with ease. Sadly, it is usually through some crisis that people come to terms with reality, then they get down to business. May we have a real president when/if the crisis hits.

clipped from hussmanfunds.com

Longer term, however, the risk of U.S. dollar crisis (essentially a sharp depreciation of the dollar against other currencies) should not be overlooked. We've fed a habit in recent years whereby the U.S. has run enormous trade deficits with China and Japan, and these countries, in turn, have lent us back the money (by accumulating U.S. debt securities) so that we can maintain our standard of consumption through increased indebtedness. This is not an equilibrium, and disequilibrium situations have a tendency to produce painful adjustments.

Is Israel Falling Apart?

This passes for analysis? That a nation has political corruption is hardly the basis on which to come to the conclusion that it is falling apart. Take a closer look and you see at the problems are being policed, prosecuted, and rooted out by the system. Now take a look at what is happening in the U.S. (U.S. attorney scandal, Iraq war, New Orleans) and you can begin to worry about us.

clipped from hnn.us

Foreign observers of Israel tend to focus so intently on the dangers the country faces from its Arab neighbours that they have largely missed an astonishing story that has been accelerating over the past few months: that of the Jewish state’s possible move toward internal collapse.

There certainly has never been such a deep crisis of leadership in the country that touts itself as the only democracy in the Middle East.

Snow job: An a-ha! moment

This piece on Tony Snow goes a long way to explaining the moral decay on the right and what now passes for debate amongst the "facts don't matter" crowd. It is all about "winning the half hour" which is based not on demonstrable facts but on bluster, momentum, and impression. If this passes for discourse for long our nation's future is in jeopardy.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

Snow seems to treat his encounters with the press more like a cable show than as an opportunity to provide the public with a fuller picture

His prime goal seems to be to "win the half hour" -- which generally entails out-talking and mocking your opponent, rather than mustering facts and actually staking out a persuasive position.

Football: Skins free agency picks

"decide between the Redskins and Cowboys"? Like deciding whether to join good or evil.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

The Washington Redskins introduced newly signed middle linebacker London Fletcher yesterday and agreed to a contract with cornerback Fred Smoot, securing their two top free agent targets. But Coach Joe Gibbs doused any expectations of a repeat of the heavy-spending free agent periods of past years by characterizing the team's approach to the rest of the signing period as measured and reserved.

Davis, 28, who said he would go home to Texas to decide between the Redskins and Cowboys

Putin is a thug?

Maybe I should be afraid that I might get shot or something for saying this but Putin is a major thug.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

In some ways, the shooting of Paul Joyal last week in a quiet, middle-class enclave of Prince George's County would seem like nothing more than a random act of violence.

But for those who know the 53-year-old expert on Russian intelligence and former staff member of the U.S. Senate's intelligence committee, the shooting has raised suspicions that his background might be behind the incident.

The shooting occurred four days after Joyal alleged in a television broadcast that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the fatal poisoning of a former KGB agent in London.

FDA to Ignore Cow Drug Warnings

This is a serious breach of the public good, all for short term profit.

This drug is one of the last lines of defense against antibiotic resistant bacteria (super-bugs). It is the overuse of antibiotics that has led to the evolution of super-bugs and the largest abuse of these drugs is in the livestock industry. Thisapproval process should be put to a halt as soon as possible.

At a minimum, antibiotics approved for use in the livestock industry should not be ones that are presently our last lines of defense.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people.

In the mid-1990s, overriding the objections of public health experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the drug agency approved the marketing of two drugs, Baytril and SaraFlox, for use in poultry

Before long, doctors began finding fluoroquinolone-resistant strains of campylobacter in patients hospitalized with severe diarrhea. When studies showed a link to poultry, the FDA sought a ban. But while Abbott Laboratories, which made SaraFlox, pulled its product, Baytril's manufacturer, Bayer Corp., pushed back.

Afghanistan: Bomber Attack

It is odd that photos and video shot at the scene were deleted. The statement that special forces might have been involved brings these actions into some clarity since they likely would have not wanted evidence of their being there.

The caption for the above photo underlies the problems we face, even when being an invading force for good. That man, after a suicide bomber attacked a us convoy, is shouting anti-American slogans (though it was left unclear who killed the 8 afghans.)

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide car bomber attacked an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, and up to eight Afghans were killed and 22 injured in the blast or by subsequent gunfire from militants or U.S. soldiers, officials said.

U.S. soldiers at the scene deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire.

Of Cherokees & Former Slaves: Other reactions

Here are some links to some interesting reactions in the blogosphere to the story that the Cherokee Nation may expel its former slaves.

clipped from africanamericanopinion.com

Cherokee voters may remove descendents of freed slaves off of their blue Cherokee citizenship cards

What we’re gonna do right here is go back…WAY back…back into time…

Cherokees, along with Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles, were long known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” because they adopted many of the ways of their white neighbors in the South, including the holding of black slaves.

clipped from www.brunchma.com

How Whites Shape Black-Indian Relations

What I found interesting about the Washington Post article on the vote was the way that it showed how the stage for the present situation was set in significant part by the actions of white people and their governments. And this stage-setting happened in complex ways that can't be reduced to seeing the wrong outcome of today's vote as a simple transferrence of white racism.

RIAA wanted to shut down the Internet back in 1994

Telling. This organization is truly dinosaur-ish. Their tactics are detrimental not only to the innovative power of the United States but I would argue detrimental to their own future. I think history has shown us over and over again that attempts to stop the impact technical evolution on one's industry backfire and lead to industry decline.

clipped from forum.cheapbooks.com

Question: What online service did the RIAA claim should be shut down because it has no legal use, and is primarily used to share illegal files?

Answer: The World Wide Web (circa 1994)

Few people remember this, but in the early days of the web, the RIAA proposed shutting down the web. That's right; if the RIAA had its way in the early 1990's, the web as we know it would cease to exist.

The RIAA claimed in the early 1990's that the primary purpose of the web was for students to pirate music.

RIAA started complaining about how the web was used for sharing illegal files, and they argued that since the web had no legal commercial use, it should be shut down.

Great Quote

Just a kind little ribbing.

clipped from www.marginalrevolution.com

"New Zealanders who emigrate to Australia raise the IQ of both countries." - Sir Robert Muldoon, former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Job Interview Question of the week

INTERVIEW QUESTION OF THE WEEK
03/03/2007 “Would you rather be in charge of a project or work as part of the team?”

Stretching

Interesting

clipped from pt.wkhealth.com

Two randomized studies[2,3] investigating the effect of stretching before the main exercise session concluded that this did not decrease injury risks. Regarding the reduction of delayed onset muscular soreness (DOMS), only one study observed reduction in soreness;[4] however, this occurred 72 hours after maximum eccentric knee flexion. Results from this study should be interpreted with caution because, not only did it take a long time for the beneficial effects to be noticed, but the sample size was also very small (ten females). Recent reviews[5-9] have suggested that stretching exercises do not protect against injury, nor do they diminish DOMS or enhance performance.

Various studies, with total stimuli duration varying from 120 to 3600 seconds, found that stretching exercises preceding the main strength activity significantly decreased performance.[10-30]

Decreases in strength ranged from 4.5% to 28%, irrespective of the testing mode

In contrast to these results, other authors[35-40] did not observe any detrimental effects of stretching on strength. The total stimuli duration in these studies was shorter, ranging from 30 to 480 seconds.

Flexibility and strength are fitness components that are fundamental in many sports modalities and even for common daily motor tasks. Training for flexibility and strength is widely recommended for those who wish to attain good fitness levels and a better quality of life. Many activities rely heavily on strength, but strength performance may be diminished by a preceding stretching routine; therefore, it is important to understand this phenomenon when prescribing physical exercise programmes. There appears to be substantial evidence suggesting a decrease in strength following stretching. Studies used different stretching techniques, duration and targeted different muscle groups, and were tested with isotonic, isometric or isokinetic devices. However, the number of exercises, duration of each exercise and number of sets (i.e. the total duration of stretching) was much longer than the ranges normally used in practice and what is recommended in the literature. This makes evident the need for further studies with designs that do not threaten their external validity. Training studies should also be conducted in order to assess whether the decreases in strength observed during the training session will have long-term consequences (i.e. suboptimal gains in strength when compared with training without prior stretching).

Furthermore, the safety of the participants should be taken into consideration in the recommendation of stretching exercises. When the possible effects of these exercises are analysed, it seems that many of the mechanisms responsible for maintaining the myo-osteo-articular integrity, such as muscle, tendon and joint receptors, are inhibited following stretching. Tolerance to pain also seems to be increased, allowing range of motion to be greater and closer to the maximal limit of the stretched structures, and consequently, closer to injury risk. The hypothesis that flexibility exercises preceding other physical activities may lead to greater injury risks should be considered and investigated in future studies.

Many mechanisms underlying stretching exercises still demand investigation so that links between the observed effects, their causes and consequences may be constructed.

2002 Barack Obama Interview: Against Iraq

Obama in an 2002 interview comes out against the Iraq war.

Though I would say his thinking is not exceptional (no insult, just that any educated person can think on the fly and sound cogent) he stands in such contrast to the current resident of the White House as to sound like a savior.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Cherokee Nation to Vote on Cherokeeness of their former slaves descendants

I didn't realize that any Native American's had slaves. Sad to see that racism is alive and well in the Cherokee nation.

From the Washington Post:

VINITA, Okla. -- J.D. Baldridge, 73, has official government documents showing him to be a descendant of a full-blood Cherokee. He has memories of a youth spent among Cherokee neighbors and kin, at tribal stomp dances and hog fries. He holds on to a fair amount of Cherokee vocabulary. " Salali," Baldridge says, his face creasing into a smile at the word. "Squirrel stew. Oh, that was good."

---

What Baldridge, a retired Oklahoma county sheriff, also has is at least one black ancestor, a former slave of a Cherokee family. That could get Baldridge cast out of the tribe, along with thousands of others.

---

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The 250,000-member Cherokee Nation will vote in a special election today whether to override a 141-year-old treaty and change the tribal constitution to bar "freedmen," the descendants of former tribal slaves, from being members of the sovereign nation.

Former Trotskyists within Neoconservativism

Some of the founders of the neocon movement were 'former' Trotsky communists. Considering the state that they have left the nation in one wonders about the 'former' part.

clipped from en.wikipedia.org

The neoconservative or "neocon" movement has been associated with Trotskyism by independent Australian Internet author Peter Myers, paleoconservative Justin Raimondo, and others because of the Trotskyist background of some key neoconservatives, such as Irving Kristol. [4], [5], [6]

The Bush administration's plan to support alternative energy

My take on the clipped article:
A mandated cut in gasoline consumption is a mistake. What should be policy is implementation of a carbon tax. That way, the more fossil carbon you release the more you pay (pay as you go). The income can be earmarked for research/development/ and subsidy of alternative fuels. The higher cost coupled with the reduced out of pocket cost of the alternatives will limit gasoline consumption on its own.

clipped from www.businessweek.com

Karsner's job is to implement the Advanced Energy Initiative, announced by President Bush in his State of the Union address. The proposal calls for both the mandated cut in gasoline use and a 22% increase in clean-energy research to make clean energies competitive with those from fossil fuels. Karsner says his approach is "the opposite of what the legacy has been." He believes that since the 1970s the government has focused only on research and development, and needs to now shift more resources to commercialization and deployment. "It's time for a mass diffusion of new energy and technology into the American economy," he said in a Feb. 21 speech to alternative energy industry leaders and investors in New York. "Free-enterprise capitalism is the most effective route to bring clean energy into the economy."

Antioxidants Kill?

I'd be wary of drawing major conclusions from one or even a few studies. Probably the best recommendation for health is to have a balanced diet, try to get all your vitamins and minerals from your diet (there is some evidence that you cannot always do that), avoid eating out (do you know what they put in that food?), and get plenty of rest. Not that I follow that last recommendation all that well.

clipped from www.cosmosmagazine.com

"By eliminating free radicals from our [body], we interfere with some essential defensive mechanisms," read the study. The antioxidant supplements are synthetic and not subject to the same toxicity studies as other pharmaceutical agents.

"Beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E given singly or combined with other antioxidant supplements significantly increase mortality," wrote the authors, led by Goran Bjelakovic of the Centre for Clinical Intervention Research at Copenhagen University Hospital. "Our findings contradict the findings of observational studies, claiming that antioxodiants improve health."

Wow, cool video of desktop of the future?

Let the OS wars 2.0 begin. This is a really cool video of yet another OS GUI that must have helped Bill Gates to his retirement.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Data sharing: the next generation

This is what I love about science and what, I feel, many of the anti-science people don't like about it. It is at its core, fundamentally democratic and non-hierarchical. Now I know that sounds funny to some (in fact it is hard for me to believe sometimes) since science is associated almost in lockstep with academe which is (at it core) hierarchical in nature (and thus suffers from lack of democratic principals I feel). This is true, and sites like these may well break some of the strangle hold that academe has had on the process of science. That last assertion needs follow-up so I should write more about that in the future.

What do others think about the influence of academe on science?

clipped from www.nature.com

The Internet has already become a place for people to share knowledge, opinions, music and videos. Now, in a slightly geekier aspect of the same trend, social software is allowing people to share data too. More than 1 million data sets have been uploaded to the data-sharing site Swivel since its launch in December. And on 23 January, IBM labs launched Many Eyes, which allows users to visualize their data with tools previously available only to experts.

The idea is to make data analysis more democratic, as tools such as Google Earth have done for geographic visualization

Making such tools available will not only empower individuals, Viégas predicts, the collective intelligence and expertise of users will result in new insights.

Links
Swivel
IBM's Many Eyes