Brownian Motion

Dan's under there somewhere.

E. F. Schumacher Willie Shoemaker Stuart Little

Stop kvetching about the mussels. Mussels make a tasty chowder.

Duncan Hines Fatha Hines Big Mama Thornton Thornton Blue Cat Ballou Frank Bellew

washingtonpost.com What's the Word? We Can Help Feed the Hungry. Sunday, November 4, 2007; N02 What if just knowing what a word meant could help feed hungry people around the world? Well, at FreeRice ( http://www.freerice.com) it does. Go to the site, which launched last month, and you'll see a word and four definitions. Choose the right meaning and the site's advertisers will donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program, a United Nations agency that is the world's largest humanitarian organization. Keep on guessing (the quiz gets progressively more arduous, not to mention vexatious), and for each correct answer 10 more grains of rice will head to people who need it. Now, admittedly, 10 grains is a piddling amount. But the totals have grown exponentially. On Oct. 7, the day the site launched, 830 grains of rice were donated. Barely a bowlful. Eight days later, the total was 6,403,920. And when this article went to press, 537,163,380 grains of rice had been donated. That's more than 14 metric tons. Not bad for a month's worth of people figuring out definitions. Want a sample? Okay, does the word "pettifogger" mean a mine entrance, an unscrupulous lawyer, avoidance or potpourri? The site is the brainchild of John Breen, a 50-year-old computer programmer from Bloomington, Ind., who has tackled hunger online before, first with the Hunger Site ( http://www.thehungersite.com) and, earlier this year, with the launch of Poverty.com, a poverty awareness site that he hopes people will visit to learn about helping to get more funding for international poverty relief. "I wanted to have something fun to do that wasn't just a waste of time and had some vaguely redeeming value," Breen says with a laugh. He decided on the vocabulary quiz -- and entered all 10,000 words and definitions himself -- after watching his son preparing for the SAT. "It's hard to get people to read about hunger and poverty," Breen says. "It's kind of depressing, so I had to think of an entertaining way to draw people in. Hopefully, they'll also click on to Poverty.com and find out what needs to be done." Oh, and if in your clicking you come across "pettifogger," it means unscrupulous lawyer. Yeah, it's sort of cheating to tell you, but it's for a good cause. -- Joe Heim

It sort of reminds me of the late great Jean Shepherd Both Indianananananans!

Dwight Gooden Timothy Dwight Fat Ugly Tim Russert

Bastard Out of Carolina Jesse Helms Richard Helms

The New York Times Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By November 4, 2007 Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal By MATT RICHTEL SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone. “She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal. Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius. “She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.” As cellphone use has skyrocketed, making it hard to avoid hearing half a conversation in many public places, a small but growing band of rebels is turning to a blunt countermeasure: the cellphone jammer, a gadget that renders nearby mobile devices impotent. The technology is not new, but overseas exporters of jammers say demand is rising and they are sending hundreds of them a month into the United States — prompting scrutiny from federal regulators and new concern last week from the cellphone industry. The buyers include owners of cafes and hair salons, hoteliers, public speakers, theater operators, bus drivers and, increasingly, commuters on public transportation. The development is creating a battle for control of the airspace within earshot. And the damage is collateral. Insensitive talkers impose their racket on the defenseless, while jammers punish not just the offender, but also more discreet chatterers. “If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.” The jamming technology works by sending out a radio signal so powerful that phones are overwhelmed and cannot communicate with cell towers. The range varies from several feet to several yards, and the devices cost from $50 to several hundred dollars. Larger models can be left on to create a no-call zone. Using the jammers is illegal in the United States. The radio frequencies used by cellphone carriers are protected, just like those used by television and radio broadcasters. The Federal Communication Commission says people who use cellphone jammers could be fined up to $11,000 for a first offense. Its enforcement bureau has prosecuted a handful of American companies for distributing the gadgets — and it also pursues their users. Investigators from the F.C.C. and Verizon Wireless visited an upscale restaurant in Maryland over the last year, the restaurant owner said. The owner, who declined to be named, said he bought a powerful jammer for $1,000 because he was tired of his employees focusing on their phones rather than customers. “I told them: put away your phones, put away your phones, put away your phones,” he said. They ignored him. The owner said the F.C.C. investigator hung around for a week, using special equipment designed to detect jammers. But the owner had turned his off. The Verizon investigator was similarly unsuccessful. “He went to everyone in town and gave them his number and said if they were having trouble, they should call him right away,” the owner said. He said he has since stopped using the jammer. Of course, it would be harder to detect the use of smaller battery-operated jammers like those used by disgruntled commuters. An F.C.C. spokesman, Clyde Ensslin, declined to comment on the issue or the case in Maryland. Cellphone carriers pay tens of billions of dollars to lease frequencies from the government with an understanding that others will not interfere with their signals. And there are other costs on top of that. Verizon Wireless, for example, spends $6.5 billion a year to build and maintain its network. “It’s counterintuitive that when the demand is clear and strong from wireless consumers for improved cell coverage, that these kinds of devices are finding a market,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon spokesman. The carriers also raise a public safety issue: jammers could be used by criminals to stop people from communicating in an emergency. In evidence of the intensifying debate over the devices, CTIA, the main cellular phone industry association, asked the F.C.C. on Friday to maintain the illegality of jamming and to continue to pursue violators. It said the move was a response to requests by two companies for permission to use jammers in specific situations, like in jails. Individuals using jammers express some guilt about their sabotage, but some clearly have a prankster side, along with some mean-spirited cellphone schadenfreude. “Just watching those dumb teens at the mall get their calls dropped is worth it. Can you hear me now? NO! Good,” the purchaser of a jammer wrote last month in a review on a Web site called DealExtreme. Gary, a therapist in Ohio who also declined to give his last name, citing the illegality of the devices, says jamming is necessary to do his job effectively. He runs group therapy sessions for sufferers of eating disorders. In one session, a woman’s confession was rudely interrupted. “She was talking about sexual abuse,” Gary said. “Someone’s cellphone went off and they carried on a conversation.” “There’s no etiquette,” he said. “It’s a pandemic.” Gary said phone calls interrupted therapy all the time, despite a no-phones policy. Four months ago, he paid $200 for a jammer, which he placed surreptitiously on one side of the room. He tells patients that if they are expecting an emergency call, they should give out the front desk’s number. He has not told them about the jammer. Gary bought his jammer from a Web site based in London called PhoneJammer.com. Victor McCormack, the site’s operator, says he ships roughly 400 jammers a month into the United States, up from 300 a year ago. Orders for holiday gifts, he said, have exceeded 2,000. Kumaar Thakkar, who lives in Mumbai, India, and sells jammers online, said he exported 20 a month to the United States, twice as many as a year ago. Clients, he said, include owners of cafes and hair salons, and a New York school bus driver named Dan. “The kids think they are sneaky by hiding low in the seats and using their phones,” Dan wrote in an e-mail message to Mr. Thakkar thanking him for selling the jammer. “Now the kids can’t figure out why their phones don’t work, but can’t ask because they will get in trouble! It’s fun to watch them try to get a signal.” Andrew, the San Francisco-area architect, said using his jammer was initially fun, and then became a practical way to get some quiet on the train. Now he uses it more judiciously. “At this point, just knowing I have the power to cut somebody off is satisfaction enough,” he said.

Junior Brown Brownie McGhee Howard McGhee Travis McGee Merle Travis Doc Watson

I see that it has been marked-down from 45.00 to 44.99. Such a deep discount! They'll probably sell billions!

Peter S. Beagle Charles Darwin Gwen Raverat

Hilton Kramer Paris Hilton Hilton Schmilton

Scipio Spinks Scorpio Spider Solitaire

I spent 60.00 for Larry Coryell's Le Sacre du Printemps but that was after a year's search for a less expensive copy--in fact 60.00 was the "less expensive" copy. I've sold a few dozen CDs for 30 to 50 bucks a pop, mostly early titles on the Classics label.

Billy Childs Alvin Childress Mark Dresser Marie Dressler Margaret Dumont Irving Thalberg

Newton Minow Nemo Captain Nemo

I think it's hypnotic drugs. Sleep Disorder (Sedative-Hypnotic) Drug Information The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has requested that all manufacturers of sedative-hypnotic drug products, a class of drugs used to induce and/or maintain sleep, strengthen their product labeling to include stronger language concerning potential risks. These risks include severe allergic reactions and complex sleep-related behaviors, which may include sleep-driving. Sleep driving is defined as driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic product, with no memory of the event.

William Castle Boomer Castleman Freddie "Boom Boom" Cannon Pistol Pete The Rifleman Bazooka Joe

Don't worry. Shrubby's on it.

I can't help feeling that the explanation given at the site does not explain everything--that there are academics watching over the results, evaluating, stroking their chins...

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Erno Rubik Will Shortz Shorts McConnell

The New York Times Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By October 22, 2007 Atlanta Shudders at Prospect of Empty Faucets By SHAILA DEWAN and BRENDA GOODMAN ATLANTA, Oct. 22 — For more than five months, the lake that provides drinking water to almost five million people here has been draining away in a withering drought. Sandy beaches have expanded into flats of orange mud. Tree stumps not seen in half a century have resurfaced. Scientists have warned of impending disaster. And life has, for the most part, gone on just as before. The response to the worst drought on record in the Southeast has unfolded in ultra-slow motion. All summer, more than a year after the drought began, fountains blithely sprayed, football fields were watered, prisoners got two showers a day and Coca-Cola’s bottling plants chugged along at full strength. In early October, on an 81-degree day, an outdoor theme park began to manufacture what was intended to be a 1.2-million gallon mountain of snow. In late September, with Lake Lanier forecast to dip into the dregs of “dead storage” in less than four months, the state imposed a ban on outdoor water use. Gov. Sonny Perdue declared October “Take a Shorter Shower Month.” On Saturday, he declared a state of emergency for more than half the state and asked for federal assistance, though the state has not yet restricted indoor water use or cut back on major commercial and industrial users, a step that could cause a significant loss of jobs. These last-minute measures belie a history of inaction in Georgia and across the South when it comes to managing and conserving water, even in the face of rapid growth. Between 1990 and 2000, Georgia’s water use increased by 30 percent. But the state has not yet come up with an estimate of how much water is available during periods of normal rainfall, much less a plan to handle the worst-case scenario of dry faucets. “We have made it clear to the planners and executive management of this state for years that we may very well be on the verge of a system-wide emergency,” said Mark Crisp, a water expert in the Atlanta office of the engineering firm C. H. Guernsey. The sense of urgency has been slow to take hold. Last year, a bill to require low-flow water devices be installed in older houses prior to resale died in the Legislature. Most golf courses are classified as “agricultural.” Water permits are still approved on a first-come, first-served basis. And Georgia is not at the back of the pack; Alabama, where severe drought is more widespread, has not passed legislation calling for a management plan. A realistic statewide plan, experts say, would tell developers that they cannot build if no water is available, and might have restricted some of the enormous growth in the Atlanta area over the last decade. Already, officials have little notion how to provide for a projected doubling of demand over the next 30 years. The ideas that have been floated, including piping water from Tennessee or desalinating ocean water, will require hundreds of billions of dollars and painful decisions the state has been loathe to undertake. “It’s been develop first and ask questions later,” said Gil Rogers, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center. Instead, the state has engaged in interminable squabbles with its neighbors over dam releases and flow rates. The latest attempt at mediation with Alabama fell apart just last month. And Georgia officials insist that Atlanta would have plenty of water were it not for the Army Corps of Engineers, which they say has released more water from Lake Lanier than is necessary to protect three endangered species downstream. Last week, Governor Perdue filed for an injunction against the Corps. “We are not here because we consumed our way into this drought, as some would suggest,” said his director of environmental protection, Carol Couch. But that is exactly what the state’s critics are suggesting, including many people in Florida, the only state in the region to have adopted a water plan. An editorial Friday in The St. Petersburg Times in Florida, the downstream end of the basin that includes Lake Lanier, retorted that the blame lies not with the Corps but “a record drought, unrestrained population growth and poor water-conservation habits.” Bruce A. Karas, vice president of sustainability for the Coca-Cola Company, said that no one from the city of Atlanta or its water planning district had approached company officials to ask them to conserve water, though he said Coke has been making efforts to reduce consumption on its own since 2004. “We’re very concerned,” he said. “Water is our main ingredient. As a company, we look at areas where we expect water abundance and water scarcity, and we know water is scarce in the Southwest. It’s very surprising to us that the Southeast is in a water shortage.” Mary Kay Woodworth, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Landscape and Turf Association, said almost 14,000 workers in landscaping and other businesses that depend on planting and watering had lost their jobs. “This is a precious natural resource and it has not been managed well,” Ms. Woodworth said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re in this situation today. The infrastructure was not in place for the development.” In 2001, the state did establish the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District for 16 counties and dozens of jurisdictions in the Atlanta area. The district has focused on implementing conservation pricing, under which the price of water increases as more is used, and incentives for replacing inefficient plumbing and monitoring for leaks, a major cause of water loss. Some environmentalists criticize the district, saying its requirements are weak and its progress unmeasured. Its projections, they say, are based on outdated estimate of water availability, provided by the state that does not take into account climate change. But Pat Stevens, chief environmental planner for the Atlanta Regional Committee, which provides employees to the water district, said the plan is already under revision and the requirements will tighten over time. “You can’t just do this overnight, otherwise you will close businesses,” Ms. Stevens said. “We will out-conservation California, but you know, it takes time.” In January the Legislature will consider a proposal to expand the planning process statewide. State officials have defended their response, saying the drought got very bad very quickly. And Georgia is not the only state in trouble. The drought has afflicted most of the Southeast, a region that is accustomed to abundant water and tends to view mandatory restrictions as government meddling. Lake Lanier is part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system, which forms much of the border between Georgia and Alabama, and then spills into Florida, where it provides a habitat for two types of mussel and a sturgeon that are endangered. The temptation to blame the Corps of Engineers is strong. Because of years of litigation, the Corps operates the dams under an interim policy driven largely by the need to protect the endangered species of fish and shellfish downstream. Critics say the requirements do not take into account severe dry spells and are not supported by science. Governor Perdue has complained that the water allowed out of the lake is twice what nature would provide under similar circumstances. Two weekends ago, the Corps added to the pain in North Georgia by increasing the flow out of Lake Lanier even as it was shrinking. It is the only lake in the basin that still has water in what is considered the storage pool, usually the top 60 percent of the lake’s capacity. (Using the remaining water, called “dead storage,” could require different intake mechanisms and more treatment.) In response to Governor Perdue’s complaints, the Corps has agreed to consult the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, which protects endangered species, about modifying flow requirements in the Apalachicola. With a public anxious over the possibility of running out of water, the Corps has not been the only entity to shoulder blame. On Oct. 1, Stone Mountain Park began to make snow for a winter mountain, hoping to attract children who had never seen the real thing. The mountain had been planned during the very wet summer of 2005, and the state and county were duly informed, said Christine Parker, a spokeswoman for the park. The state announced the Level 4 drought response on a Friday and, after park officials reviewed the list of exceptions for businesses, snow-blowing began the following Monday, before much of the public had fully grasped the severity of the situation. After the project was ridiculed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it shut down. Only then did the park hear from state environmental authorities. Stone Mountain had never intended to take a cavalier attitude toward the drought, Ms. Parker said, but had not been given any guidance. “A lot of businesses are having to go out and ask the right questions,” she said, “so they can do the right thing.” Home * Site Map