The media matters: keeping the army slighly less dishonest

Army Faltered in Investigating Detainee Abuse - New York Times

The armies investigations of torture and misconduct have been very lethargic, except when the mainstream media intervenes:

...While the proposal to close the case was ultimately rejected by senior officials, documents show that the inquiry was at a virtual standstill when an article in The New York Times on March 4, 2003, reported that at least one of the prisoner's deaths had been ruled a homicide, contradicting the military's earlier assertions that both had died of natural causes. Activity in the case quickly resumed.

The news media, battered and in disrepute, still matters.

The spouses view of a terminal disease

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | After Ivan

Ivan Noble died undefeated. His BBC diaries became a book, and now his wife Almut, a cancer researcher, has spoken to the BBC about her experiences:

After Ivan

In Ivan Noble's tumour diaries, published on this site until his death earlier this year, one woman was often mentioned but never identified. As a book of his columns comes out, and a bursary remembering him is launched, his wife Almut has decided it's time to talk...

... One of the things Ivan and I used to talk a lot about was time. In 2002, about two months after Ivan's diagnosis and just after he'd started writing his diary, we heard a psychologist say something very striking. He said people see their lives like an arch - going up and then stretching on some time into the future.

He said that when you face a potentially terminal illness, this whole view into the future breaks off, and people don't know how to deal with that - they're terrified.

That's exactly how we felt, there was no certainty any more. You lose the concept of yourself as a person because you have no idea what's going to happen in a few months or years.

Then you try to live with this uncertainty and really focus on living in the present, on what's happening now. This is tough work, though, because you have to watch what you say and even watch what you think.

Every day, you find you can't just think "We'll do this some time" - if you plan for anything ahead, you have to catch yourself. I would find myself saying things - "maybe in a couple of years we'll do such and such" - and then wishing I hadn't said it. Having to watch your every thought is one of the things that makes it really physically exhausting to live in this way.

You also lose all sense of restraint - you don't see the point. It was very tough but it enabled us to do things we wouldn't have done otherwise.

It was a time of extreme emotions in both directions - it was extremely sad and terrifying, but at times we were extremely happy. I know the past two-and-a-half years were quite exceptional; I also know it wasn't all bad...

... for me the real irony was that it happened at this particular point in our lives; that was the really tough part. We were just at the top of what we'd been hoping for ever. We had found the jobs we always wanted to do. We had just started our family. It was all going wonderfully well and then this happened.

It's dangerous to think about "why?" There are really no causes known for these types of cancer, so there's no point agonising about whether he could have prevented it by doing something differently. At the end of the day it's just bad luck.

Humans probably just have to accept that people get cancer - but I don't think we have to accept that people will die from cancer. We can do something about that - there have been incredible advances in treatment, and a lot of cancers can be cured.

Our bodies are so incredibly complex that you just have to accept that there is a possibility of something going wrong. That's just what it is. Something goes wrong. It's your own body, it's nothing from outside...

Like A Hole In The Head: Living With A Brain Tumour is published by Hodder on 23 May. The BBC's proceeds will go to Medecins Sans Frontieres UK, the charity chosen by Ivan.

Next from Google: higher resolution satellite images

The New York Times > Technology > Google Moves to Challenge Web Portals

In addition to Fusion, the company showed off Google Earth, a global database of satellite images of higher resolution than previously available. It will be added to Google's offerings within a few weeks.

Another result of the Keyhole acquisition? I'm very much looking forward to seeing these.

The inevitable arrives: the Google Portal

Google Personal

Via Jacob Reider -- Google's personal home page.

There are the usual news summary links (including all of my favorites, remarkably. Maybe I should work for Google), but the key links arise from connecting automatically to one's Google profie:

• Gmail: recent messages
• Search history link

Once again, repeat after me, "My privacy died in 1996. I am fine without it, in any case there's nothing I can do to bring it back."

I love to see Amazon, Yahoo and Google slugging it out like brawling sailors; this is another right hook from Google. Good thing Microsoft has passed out in the corner. I am surprised, by the way, how badly Apple has blown their (subscriber-only) .Mac advantage.

PS. I've had one home page for all my machines for about 7 years. Today I switched to this Google Portal (talk about a strong impact!). When I went to do so, however, I discovered a new Firefox feature (I'm on the latest release). In the home page setting, Firefox will now allow one to specify multiple home pages, each of which opens in its own tab. I set the tabs up to Google first and my old home page second, then had Firefox save both as my 'home page(s)'. Ahhhh.

It's very important that girls study engineering ...

1998 IEEE-USA UNEMPLOYMENT SURVEY: THE RESULTS

From a report on unemployment performed by the main professional society for electrical engineers:

Respondents were asked to describe their current employment status.

Modal respondents (42%) responded that they were involuntarily unemployed. About 26% had been re-employed full-time as a technical professional; the rest were employed in a nontechnical profession (4%), employed part-time (8%), or self-employed (9%). Some 4% reported voluntary unemployment; while 2% said they were retired voluntarily; and 5% said they were retired involuntarily.

These are old numbers, but they were quoted this month in Fortune magazine as though they were current and was true of all electrical engineers. I couldn't believe the quote, so I googled and found te PDF (link is to HTML extract). The Fortune quote was very misleading.

Even so, there's a lot of unemployment among electrical engineers. Some of our best and our brightest. This occurs even as very, very wealthy CEOs demand increases in immigration visas for young engineers willing to work for 1/4 the cost.

Hmm. Anyone notice any analogies to how we staff our nursing homes and how we obtain child care? For that matter, how we staff rural hospitals?

In any case, tell me again why it's important to encourage girls to study science and engineering? Is this some misogynistic conspiracy?

Interactive Preventive Services Selector Search

Interactive Preventive Services Selector Search

This Web application and online guide identifies clinical preventive services for screening, counseling, and preventive medication based on a patient's age, sex, and pregnancy status. It reflects current recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and can be used as a clinical tool for delivering appropriate services.

Consumers Union: Public Site for telecomm service issues

hearusnow.org: Share Your Story

It took CU many years to even admit the web existed. Eventually, after much pain, they did put up a quite good web site. Now they're setting up a complaint community focusing on telecommunications issues.

Consumers across the country are dealing with phone bills, cell phone contracts, cable packages and Internet scams. If you are experiencing problems, you are not alone. Choose a section below and search the stories to find one that most closely matches the situation in which you find yourself. We don't have all the answers to every problem consumers may face, but some consumers have shared solutions and suggestions. If you have a story, please share it, consumes across the country are waiting to hear from you!

(via Slashdot)

Dark days for PBS: Bill Moyers' speech to the National Conference for Media Reform

Free Press News : Bill Moyers' speech to the National Conference for Media Reform

I was naive, I guess. I simply never imagined that any CPB chairman, Democrat or Republican, would cross the line from resisting White House pressure to carrying it out for the White House. But that’s what Kenneth Tomlinson has done.

On Fox News this week he denied that he’s carrying out a White House mandate or that he’s ever had any conversations with any Bush administration official about PBS. But the New York Times reported that he enlisted Karl Rove to help kill a proposal that would have put on the CPB board people with experience in local radio and television. The Times also reported that “on the recommendation of administration officials” Tomlinson hired a White House flack (I know the genre) named Mary Catherine Andrews as a senior CPB staff member. While she was still reporting to Karl Rove at the White House, Andrews set up CPB’s new ombudsman’s office and had a hand in hiring the two people who will fill it, one of whom once worked for … you guessed it … Kenneth Tomlinson.

I would like to give Mr. Tomlinson the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t. According to a book written about the Reader’s Digest when he was its Editor-in-Chief, he surrounded himself with other right-wingers — a pattern he’s now following at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Propaganda of the Enlightenment

Contrary Brin: The Propaganda of Enlightenment

Tolerance. Suspicion of authority. Acceptance of diversity. Reasoned discussion.

All reinforced by the insidious propaganda of the enlightenment. David Brin, a Guardian of the Englightenment (ok, so that phrase didn't work), points to our sustaining propaganda. A good read.

The cost of computer viruses

Backup speed with Symantec Norton Antivirusbackground scan enabled: 200 Mb/sec.
Backup speed with Norton Antivirus background scan disabled: 300 Mb/sec.

That's one heck of a performance penalty. My Mac doesn't pay this penalty -- that's an enormous real-world performance advantage.

New resolution: when working on PC check latest backup

I've been messing with my XP machine lately, dealing with some drive issues (see link, above). Things were pretty much sorted out, but the machine's been running hot and a fan is noisy, so I did some quick fan swaps. In the process an IDE cable seemed to loosen from one drive, so I pushed it back in.

Then, a few minutes later, I noticed it was popping out a bit again. Darn thing -- it seemed looser than it ought to be. I pushed it in, a little harder.

With airflow reconfigured and fans in place I rebooted... Of course I got the friendly message telling me I needed a boot drive. Darn cable must have popped out. I popped the cover off and looked -- yes, it seemed loose. I went to push it in again, which was when my frontal lobes engaged and I began to sweat. I very carefully and gently pulled the IDE cable out.

I'd flattened one of the IDE pins. Which is when I remembered my last backup for this machine was 5 days old (due to a backup reconfiguration process) and was offsite. If the pin couldn't be fixed I was in trouble.

I turned the cooling fan on me and I very carefully used a variety of old surgical instruments to more or less straighten the pin. It didn't break and I was able to reinsert the cable and restart.

Lesson learned. The next time I pop the case for a non-emergent repair, I'll make sure I have a current backup in place.

The metaverse cometh

Open Source Metaverse Project

It helps if you remember Snow Crash and Neuromancer.

Who are at the Iraqi insurgents, and why are they fighting?

The Mystery of the Insurgency - New York Times

The insurgents in Iraq are showing little interest in winning hearts and minds among the majority of Iraqis, in building international legitimacy, or in articulating a governing program or even a unified ideology or cause beyond expelling the Americans. They have put forward no single charismatic leader, developed no alternative government or political wing, displayed no intention of amassing territory to govern now.

The best guesses seem to be that the anti-occupation and anti-government forces are a mixture of millenialist terrorists, straight out simple criminals, Baathist loyalists, Sunni racists, and, maybe, a nationalist agenda.

Compared to other insurgencies, the nationalist theme seems the weakest.

The 'incoherence' doesn't mean the Iraqi goverment and people, and the US, will win. It may be that the insurgents are quite willing to destroy Iraq in order to further their own agenda. Destroying Iraq seems doable.

A retrospective view of Microsoft's Hailstorm

Markl's Thoughts: Don Box and HailStorm

I never had a good sense of what Microsoft's Hailstorm was, except for the central role for identity management. Here a former Hailstorm developer describes it from an engineering perspective. Stripped of all the Microsoft marketing gibberish it sounds like it was quite interesting. Alas, it also sounds anathema to Microsoft's business model, which is entirely based on controlling key data structures.

Bogus science: television and video games improve IQ

baltimoresun.com - Getting enough TV, video games in your diet?

Steven Johnson wants to do for popular culture what the Atkins diet did for red meat - make it OK to enjoy something that's supposed to be bad for you.

It's the "Don't eat your vegetables" approach to life: Watch The Sopranos and 24 on TV, play video games like "Grand Theft Auto," go see the new Star Wars movie and surf the Internet. Then watch your IQ rise!

Johnson is dead serious, however. His new book, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (Riverhead, $23.95), boasts not only a long title but also a provocative premise. Johnson argues that the complexity of modern culture provides a rigorous cognitive workout and develops skills that are useful in personal and professional settings.

This is ridiculous, but it gets so much press that I feel obliged to kvetch.

Even if IQ is indeed rising over the past 50 years in the nations monitored, let me introduce one equation: correction != causation.

If IQ were rising for whatever reason, one would expect a "smarter" audience to expect more sophisticated entertainment and play more complex games.

Grrr.

As to what might cause such an IQ rise (if is real), I can think easily of one far more persuasive explanation. Consider this sequence.

1. Nothing.
2. Mail.
3. Mail + phone.
4. Mail + phone + fax.
5. Mail + phone + fax + email.
6. Mail + phone + fax + email + cell phone.
7. Mail + phone + fax + email + cell phone + multiple email accounts.
8. Mail + phone + fax + email + cell phone + multiple email accounts + instant messaging.
9. 8. Mail + phone + fax + email + cell phone + multiple email accounts + instant messaging + VOIP/media phones.

And that's just person-person communication. Life is getting exponentially more complex for everyone in every way -- all the time. Just to get through the average day we're pushing old brains into overdrive, starting from birth onwards.

We live in a very high intensity environment. If we're looking for an explanation of why IQ is increasing, forget about the tube. Think about all the rest of life.