On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect -- Dijksterhuis et al. 311 (5763): 1005 -- Science

On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect -- Dijksterhuis et al. 311 (5763): 1005 -- Science: "On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-W"

Science magazine publishes a paper supporting the idea that "contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not always advantageous to engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing."

NPR : Podcast Directory

NPR : Podcast Directory

Terrific list of podcasts available from National Public Radio in USA.

Go Lady!

I'll always think of this video clip when I see fancy, expensive cars

The origins of the Great War of 2007 - and how it could have been prevented

The origins of the Great War of 2007 - and how it could have been prevented: "Niall Ferguson"

Niall Ferguson writes about how the "Great War of 2007" was made certain by three causes:

1. increasing reliance on the Middle East as a source of petroleum
2. large increase in a younger population in the Middle East compared to Europe and North America.
3. increase in religious fervour in Middle East compared to Europe

It is also interesting how Ferguson notes that history is repeating itself.

As in the 1930s, an anti-Semitic demagogue broke his country's treaty obligations and armed for war. Having first tried appeasement, offering the Iranians economic incentives to desist, the West appealed to international agencies - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Thanks to China's veto, however, the UN produced nothing but empty resolutions and ineffectual sanctions, like the exclusion of Iran from the 2006 World Cup finals.

A risk of those change demographics are more people with an alternative view of the past. As discussed in "Failing the Stalin Test" by Sarah E. Mendelson and Theodore Gerber in Jan/Feb 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, that most young people in Russia think that Stalin did a good job and about 20% said they would vote for him if he ran for president today.

How, without remembering and understanding the past will be able to avoid the same mistakes?

New Scientist Premium- Editorial: Methane emissions cause red faces all around - Editorial

New Scientist Premium- Editorial: Methane emissions cause red faces all around - Editorial

The New Scientist Magazine (subscription required to see entire article) reports that between 10 and 30 percent of all methane tha is routinely and continuously pumped into the atmosphere is that methane emitted by vegetation. This methane source has never been noticed before, nor is there understanding why plants make methane.

And we thought we understoond global warming.

iTunes Appears to be a "Hog" on my machine

I mentioned before that learned to really find Podcasting useful to me. See http://www.rmschneider.com/blogger/2005/08/podcasting-is-terrific-despite-first.html. However, I've also grown to notice that Apple iTunes, during Podcast update, seems to be the single biggest "hog" of resources on my machine. Why is it such a sluggish program?

Math Will Rock Your World

Math Will Rock Your World

My 13-year old son wonders what learning mathematics will do for him in the future. He's at the point in life where you make choices about the school courses you wish to take. He's required to continue with math which is good--even better is that he wants to continue. This Business Week cover-story will be of interest to him, I hope.

Interesting Places on the Internet

In support of lots of conversations I have with people about interesting places on the "the Net", here is a starter list as discussed at lunch today ...

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.com ... online collaborative encyclopedia
MediaWiki, www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki ... a way for you to make your own Wiki site, e.g. collaborative development of documentation for any type of project.
Newsgator, www.newsgator.com ... RSS Aggregator for Outlook and web access. My hunch this company will be bought by Microsoft within a year or so.
Technorati, www.technorati.com ... to find blogs. Other way to find blogs is via search engine (Google) or by looking at blogger's lists (see mine below right ... although out of date, I see).
iTunes, www.apple.com ... to subscribe and listen to Podcasts (iPod not needed)
Blogger, www.blogger.com ... Blog software provided by Google to individuals to publish blogs.
Writely, www.writely.com ... online word processor and collaboration tool.
Six Apart, www.sixapart.com/ ... publishers of Movable Type, a publishing platform which would probably be the one to implement for use by large organsations and institutions.
Sharepoint, www.microsoft.com/sharepoint ... Microsoft's collaboration software platform which per recent discussion by Microsoft will only get more ubquitious. Can't help but think this will be a bigger part of Office 12.
phpCollab, http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpcollab ... Project management and collaboration over the internet. Features team/client sites, task assignment, document repository/workflow, gantt charts, discussions, calendar, notifications, support requests, weblog newsdesk, invoicing, and many other tools. Open source licensed under GPL.
OpenOffice, www.openoffice.org ... the "free" replacement of Microsoft Office.
SpamAssassin, www.spamassassin.org ... because it works.

NY Times Paid to Reduce their Global Influence

I read a blog somewhere (I can't remember where) the comment that the NY Times Select programme has signed up enough paying customers to generate about $6 million in revenue. The writer went on to ask the question that if a year ago someone came along and offered the $6 million to the NY Times in return for guaranteed reduced numbers of readers and a smaller global influence "footprint" by the NY Times.

Good question. Would that have been worth $6 million? Is that a good offer?

Like or not, they accepted the offer.

Microsoft: ID Cards will Lead to Massive Fraud

My hometown newspaper reports that Microsoft's view about identity cards will lead to massive fraud and that when fraud occurs, it will be nearly impossible to correct the situation for the affected individual. See http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2103982005.

Rita is Speaking to Us

Is there some sort of link between the evacuees from Houston, all fleeing town in their truck or SUV, and the imminent arrival of Rita? See NY Times photo. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/national/22cnd-storm.html?hp.

My NY Times Reading will Slow Down Now

The New York Times has launched "TimesSelect" which is a $50/year service to get parts of what they use to publish on the web for free. If you are a daily subscriber to the paper, you get "TimesSelect" for free.

When I lived in the USA, I was a daily subscriber to The New York Times. I read it every day. When I moved overseas for the first time in the 1980's I missed the paper – especially the Sunday edition – very much. I would pay extortionate costs from London newsagents, or at one point even had the Sunday paper flown over from the USA. I learned to wean myself by reading the International Herald Tribune. The IHT was jointly owned by The Washington Post and would tend to have the best of both papers plus its own original content which would reach the New York Times days or weeks later. During the late 1990's the web version of The New York Times arrived, again being in London, I became a regular reader. In recent years I even started reading (and paying for) a web subscription to The Wall Street Journal.

I'm still in the UK, but there is now so much to read elsewhere on the Internet. Blogs are often more intersting and informative. My recent discovery of the joy of listening to Podcasts while commuting to my centre-city job has caused me to have less time available for the New York Times on the Web. "TimesSelect" will push me away further.

I'm not angry they are charging for what as previously free. Some may be angry. However, I understand that it's inevitable and I support the idea of a free economy. It's just that I won't be buying.

New Orleans Disaster Forseen by Many

Nicholas von Hoffman summarises the article in the Oct 2004 issue of "National Geographic Magazine" which outlines in great detail a "story" of what would happen for real in 2005.

His final comment is:

Never has an unpredictable event been so widely predicted; never has an unforeseen catastrophe been so clearly seen; never has an unanticipatable disaster been so often anticipated.

Blogging via PDA and Blogger's Word Add-in

Blogger recently released a Microsoft Word add-in which connects Word to Blogger's publishing engine. In essense, you can write/edit in Word, then press the "publish" toolbar button and the item is published.

Nice. But I'm not always in Word when the moment strikes to write a blog entry. Often I will have my Palm PDA. The best I could, when the mood struck, was to make a "todo" list entry for the idea. If I rememberd to look at my "todo" list, then something would happen. What I'm trying now is to write the entry on the Palm with DataViz Word to Go product, and then publish to Blogger later when I am sitting own on the Word/Internet equipped computer.

Podcasting is terrific, despite first impressions.

At one time, I felt Podcasting was not for me. No longer.

I "procured" a mini iPod from my son (who, for reasons I still don't understand felt he needed a bigger one). Coinciding with that, Apple released iTunes 4.9 which provided an inventory of podcasts to subscribe to via the iTunes Music Store.

Since then, the little thing has been my main media delivery device. I’ve stopped listening to the radio during my daily bus commutes to my city centre job. I listen to my growing collection of podcast subscriptions. I listen it while walking the streets. I listen to it while on my daily bike ride. It’s become part of my life.

I've even bought Bob Dole’s autobiography as something to listen to since I've not found time yet to read the book.

I now see the value of podcasting.