Archive for September 13th, 2003

Isabel Ringing Somewhere…

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glasscastle - September 13, 2003 @ 7:08 pm · ESL Links

Great business model over there on the Weather
Channel.  They scare the bejeezus out of everyone up and down the
East Coast a week before a storm even approaches, when it could still
hit "anywhere". Panicked people rush to stock up on water and batteries.
99% of them end up unaffected by the storm, if and when it finally hits.

No wonder 3M, Duracell, Pacific Plywood, and Poland Springs
are advertisers

from
the Voice of America

Ecuador is in the House

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glasscastle - September 13, 2003 @ 6:31 pm · ESL Links

Many
of my wife’s Ecuadorian relative are in the house for a visit this weekend.
One brother, one sister, one aunt, one uncle. The kitchen is full
of strange, familiar smells (I lived three years in Ecuador and love
the cuisine) and delicacies like cheese-filled yucca rolls, empa

Space Elevator Serious Science

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glasscastle - September 13, 2003 @ 5:03 pm · ESL Links


This illustration for a space elevator was created by Pat Rawlings, Science
Applications International Corporation.

Space elevators. Arthur C.
Clarke first envisioned them in his 1979 novel Fountains of Paradise.
Of all
of the
far-out sci-fi
ideas floating around it always seemed the most obvious and realizable.

It may be time to stop smiling.  As reported by the
Guardian, scientists,
including NASA, are taking this seriously.

"Engineers say that recent advances in materials science – particularly
in the development of carbon nanotubes – mean that such a system is no
longer pure science fiction.

Nasa is no longer laughing. It is putting several million
dollars into the project under its advanced concepts programme.”

Just do it, and do it , and do it, and do it……

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glasscastle - September 13, 2003 @ 10:33 am · ESL Links

NEW YORK (AFP) – Sports equipment giant Nike Inc. agreed
to pay 1.5 million dollars to settle a lawsuit alleging it lied about
conditions at its low-cost Asian suppliers.

The US Supreme Court case paved the way for San Francisco based consumer
activist Marc Kasky to press his claims against Nike in the California
courts.

from AFP

Handhelds Replacing Upheld Hands

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glasscastle - September 13, 2003 @ 10:24 am · ESL Links

The latest innovation on college campuses is the use of small handheld Personal Response System transmitters. Especially popular at State schools with large-enrollment classes – where it is hard for a professor or TA to keep track of hundreds of undergraduates – the devices can take attendance electronically, allow students to request the floor for questions or comments, and measure audience interest. Especially useful, according to professors – sprinkling their lectures with multiple-choice questions students must answer via PRS. The results appear instantly on the professors laptop, telling her what percentage of the class “gets it”

from the Boston Globe

Dalai Lama Blog Proposed (by me)

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glasscastle - September 13, 2003 @ 10:13 am · ESL Links

Note to the Thrusday Night Berkman crowd
– best way to push the world-wide blogging movement closer to Critical
Mass – get the Dalai Lama to start a Blog!. Given his wisdom,
wit and wide-ranging interests, he would  be a Natural Born Blogger.  He
could call it Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso’s
Delicacies from the Dalai. Or something even catchier.  Imagine
what a help the Blog would be in the search for the next Incarnation!

The Dalai Lama is in Boston this weekend as part of a three-week
US tour. He will be in Cambridge, at Harvard and MIT Saturday and Sunday.

from
the Boston Globe