Filltering through the murky water to highlight what most people sent to page two.
World Google Images view of Tiananmen
Chinese Google Images view of Tiananmen.
There’s really something going on there, but I just can’t work out what it is! I must say though, the Chinese version looks a lot happier than my version; all those tanks and angry people don’t do anything for the vibe.
If an airplane is on a large conveyor belt and is trying to take off by exerting the thrust needed to move it forward at 100 knots, and the conveyor belt starts moving backwards at 100 knots, will the plane be able to take off, or will it just sit stationary relative to the ground, with the backwards speed of the conveyor belt counteracting the forward thrust of the plane?
There is debate. I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s kind of cool.
The woman who designed the original Macintosh computer icons, the Windows 3.0 solitare cards and numerous other icons for computer operating systems and websites. Susan Kare’s skill in making icons comes from portraying a complex idea with an incredibly simple image that may only be a couple of dozen dots.
You love her work, you know the original ‘sad mac and happy mac‘ icons, now you can wear the merchandise!
Adam just said to me:
Highschool basketball players from Lincoln Nebraska have been suspended from their team over photos on the MySpace.com website that show them apparently drinking alcohol with accompanying references to getting ‘hammered’. Though the events took place off school property and out of school time, administrators believe they are justified because the underage athletes are to be held to a higher standard (of puritanism?).
A spokewoman for Lincoln Public Schools said:
“If we get information that there’s some things there that we may want to know about, certainly, we would go in and look, but we don’t intend to have someone monitoring it on a regular basis,”
This is thought to be the first instance of school punishment over acts found or information provided solely online. MySpace.com is hugely popular with the teenage crowd who use it to host blogs, chat to ‘friends’ with similar claimed interests and to post photos of ‘themselves’. The danger in MySpace is the ease of pinpointing the location and activities of users, the mistaken trust in others online and the opportunity for misuse of information. Limits to user-access of personal information is unusual.
In other news:
After news of the players’ suspensions got out at the school, a lot of students edited their Web pages or deleted them altogether.
I love this photo! It’s so silly that it’s immediately become one of my favorite shots for a long time. I don’t know why I’m instantly grabbed by it but I feel like it should be on postcards and billboards. How cute!
Q: How does an Essex Girl turn off the light after sex?
A: …Throws a brick at the lamppost!
I’m sorry!
The hoi-polloi are out in Switzerland this week with Bono launching a ‘Red’ credit card to benefit aids, Gates announcing he’s tripling his TB-fund and logistics firms declaring that they’re going to mightily piss of aid charities by pitching in ‘for free’ when a major disaster strikes (implying that Oxfam doesn’t know how to deliver its own aid but DHL does). Davos sucks. It seems like the kind of place where nobody with a real grasp of the outside world could penetrate. It seems so truely undemocratic in the way that it’s the rich and powerful only. Why not ‘the top world executives’ and ‘the world’s top academics’. What’s to stop a bit of critical input? Why is it that only those advisors on the payroll of the rich and famous are given the opportunity to speak to anyone who can make a difference?
At the same time, women don’t yet really have much of a position at the forum, more often than not being mistaken for somebody’s secretary or assistant. Women, it seems, just can’t get out of the shadow of those big strong men!
“When I put my card (down) saying I’m going to speak, before they saw my card they said, `Where’s your minister?’ I said, `I am the minister,’” Al Qasimi said. In social circles, even with her colleagues and employees, “there’s always this assumption that I’m somebody’s wife.”
Washington Post: The World Economic Forum is still an elite club
The news that’s been too overlooked to post:
Contra Costa Times: Lawmakers call smoke a pollutant - In California today, state lawmakers have classfied second-hand smoke as a toxic air pollutant that’s a danger to human health that could lead to even stricter regulation on smoking pracitces despite California’s stringent current rules. Amongst the information brought before the panel by the Air Resources Board is informatino on the 31,000 episodes of asthma it causes in Californian children each year.
From Reuters.com:
The designation by California’s Air Resources Board starts a process that could lead to further smoking bans in a state that has often led the nation in health and ecological regulation. “I think there is no question that this puts California way ahead,” said John Froines, chairman of the Air Resources Board Scientific Review Panel.
“To actually have the major air pollution agency in the state of California to list ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) as a toxic air contaminant is going to have immense impact, we think, in terms of public education around other states,” he said. “It will clearly lead to regulatory changes within the state.”
Seattle Times: Punt, pass and plié: Ballet has its Seahawks fans, too - The Seattle Times looks at the worlds of Ballet and NFL Football ahead of Seattles groundbreaking Superbowl game. The Seahawks have never been in the superbowl before so this is a 30 year first for them. At the same time Seattle has an amazing ballet company, the PNB. The two cultures don’t seem to mix, but in a funny way, they sometimes do.
“I wish my art form created the emotional fervor that this thing does,” said [Ballet instructor] Wells, a Tacoma native. “We struggle with our ticket sales for the ballet, and my understanding is that they can’t sell Seahawks T-shirts fast enough.”
The Guardian: ‘I can win this time’ - Having just come out to the party and public through in interview with a UK tabloid paper, Liberal Democrat Party MP Simon Hughes is looking for support from his party to become leader. He gave an interview to the Guardian a couple of days ago saying that he wasn’t gay. Now he’s singing a new show-tune and the paper reviews his position.
The Guardian: Apple Print Ad Top of Tree - An advertisement for the supermarket chain Tesco has won the top prize from the Awards for National Newspaper Advertising. With the simple image of an apple and accompanying text the ad declared:
“What’s the difference between ours and our competitors?”
“Not much really. They’re the same quality as Waitrose. And the same price as Asda.”
The Guardian: ‘Sea power could provide 20% of UK electricity’ - A new report from the Carbon Trust, out prior to a report on the UK’s position with regard to Nuclear energy, says that 20% of the UK’s energy could be produced through the adoption of wave and sea power souces. With investment and greater production of equipment the costs of wave power could be brought down to current levels of carbon-emitting power sources. It’s a challenge the government could meet, but may not like to due to the likelihood of failure.
