Being "always on" is being always off, to something.
The Irony of Fear
Topic: Science
3:29 pm EST, Feb 3, 2007
Marc Siegel is a doctor, so he talks about disease, but the logic is universal.
America has its killer bugs, but Americans don't, as a rule, express great concern about them: Pneumonia, which killed 63,000 Americans in 2000, draws little public comment. Until 2003, when the flu deaths of 20 U.S. children early in the season were widely publicized, Americans didn't worry much about influenza either, despite the tens of thousands of deaths attributed to that disease each year.
In comparison, relatively minor threats are widely feared.
We live temperature-controlled, largely disease-controlled lives.
And yet, we worry more than ever before. The natural dangers are no longer there, but the response mechanisms are turned on much of the time. We implode, turning our adaptive fear mechanism into a maladaptive panicked response.
One wonders if Turner will be sued for the medical expenses of Boston-area residents who suffered traumatic stress at the hands of the Mooninites.
At a time in history when true scourges are quite rare, the population is controlled by fear. Rather than enjoy the safety that our technological advances have provided us, we feel uncertain.
Worry about the wrong things puts us at greater risk of the diseases that should be concerning us in the first place.
In the statute, "hoax device" is defined as an object that someone could "reasonably" believe to be an "infernal machine" intended to cause death, injury, or property damage by "fire or explosion." Assistant Attorney General John Grossman argues that the devices resembled bombs, and that this constitutes intent. The men face up to five years in prison if convicted.
However, Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor at the NYU School of Medicine and author of "False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear," warns that the word "reasonably" may be close to meaningless in this context.
While the "hoax device" argument might not hold up in court, TBS is still open to a civil case ...
"We need to realize that emotion is running amok here. The risk of terrorism is not zero, so it makes sense that we have a system in place for reacting to perceived threats. However, this kind of event makes it necessary to assess if we over-react routinely," Siegel says, "and what it costs us psychologically and financially." For one thing, he adds, "you can put a lot more effort into identifying the risk before you shut down the city."
Why not visualize places mentioned in books on a map?
Now you can.
Our team has begun to animate the static information found in books by organizing a sample of locations from them on an interactive Google Map, with snippets of text from the book, and links to the actual pages where the locations are mentioned. When our automatic techniques determine that there are a good number of quality locations from a book to show you, you'll find a map on the "About this book" page.
Chris Harrison - Visualizing the Royal Society Archive
Topic: Science
11:28 am EST, Feb 3, 2007
The Royal Society recently provided access to an archive of papers published in the scientific academy's prestigious journal. Some 25 thousand scholarly works date from 1665 to the present day. Many notable scientific advancements are included in the archive, including, for example, Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA. This interesting data set was ripe for some visual tinkering. The database I used was put together by Brian Amento and Mike Yang of AT&T Labs.
The Author Distribution visualization displays papers chronologically. Paper titles radiate downward from the vertical midpoint at a 45 degree angle. Within a single year, papers are sorted alphabetically. The year a volume was published is shown, centered among it's respective block of papers. The size varies linearly by the number of number of papers published during that year's volume. Authors are shown radiating upwards from the vertical midpoint at a 45 degree angle. Their positions are computed by calculating the average position of the papers they authored. The size of the author's name reflects how prolific they were (linear relationship). Essentially, author names are "centered" above the time period they were active.
It's really interesting to explore these images! For example, the first section (1665-1710) has Edmond Halley (of Halley Comet fame), Isaac Newton, Antony van Leeuwenhoek (inventor of the microscope) and other famous scholars.
The Word Distribution visualization has the same visual characteristics as the author distribution (above). However, instead of authors, this visualization explores the distribution of words in publication titles. Word size is determined with a square root function, which helps dampen extremely common words (i.e. 'the' and 'of'). Only words used three or more times are shown. It's interesting to see how words evolve and fields like photography and electronics emerge.
View your data, ask questions, and share your discoveries. Harness the collective intelligence of the net for insight and analysis.
Many Eyes is a bet on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns. Our goal is to "democratize" visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis. Jump right to our visualizations now, take a tour, or read on for a leisurely explanation of the project.
Confessions of a Hawkish Hack: The Media and the War on Terror
Topic: War on Terrorism
11:14 am EST, Feb 3, 2007
The nature of terror has changed beyond recognition since Philip Geddes died in an IRA explosion in 1983. That change, and the response of the media class to it, is the theme of this unapologetically personal essay.
This is an edited version of the Philip Geddes Memorial Lecture given in the Examination Schools, University of Oxford, on Friday 27 October 2006.
About the Author: Matthew d’Ancona is editor of The Spectator and political columnist for The Sunday Times and GQ. He was named Political Journalist of the Year in 2006 by the Political Studies Association.
SimplyScripts - Downloadable Movie Scripts, Screenplays and Transcripts
Topic: Arts
11:05 am EST, Feb 3, 2007
Choose from a wide variety ...
El Laberinto del Fauno - undated, unspecified draft script by Guillermo del Toro (in Spanish) Pan's Labyrinth - English translation of undated, unspecified draft script by Guillermo del Toro - hosted by: Pan's Labyrinth - in pdf format
"Pan's Labyrinth" is the story of a young girl who travels with her pregnant mother to live with her mother's new husband in a rural area up North in Spain, 1944, after Franco's victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Post-war Fascist repression is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own.
Miami Vice - September 22, 2004 First Draft script by Michael Mann (based on "Miami Vice" created by Anthony Yerkovich)
See also, from Harper's Index (from the January issue, not yet online):
Annual budget of Miami's police department, expressed as a percentage of the production cost of the film "Miami Vice": 83
Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
... the video "3/1 Marines Siege Fallujah" covers the fight of a single company through the streets of that city in November during Operation Phantom Fury, set to the opulently hostile heavy metal anthem "Out of My Way" by Seether.
Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
A more subtle view of the role of private military firms is shown in one of the most heavily viewed videos from the war, in which Blackwater USA contractors join the fight to defend the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) headquarters in Najaf during the April 2004 Shiite uprising. The video shows a Blackwater sniper firing countless rounds at insurgents, part of an operation that included the use of Blackwater helicopters to deliver supplies, ammunition and close-air support and that is credited with saving the CPA compound from being overrun when U.S. Army helicopters were held back because of heavy enemy ground fire.
The Blackwater sniper video was filmed a week after the mutilation of four Blackwater contractors that forced the Marine Corps into the battle of Fallujah, a strategic debacle that upended months of Marine commanders' planning to gradually build trust with the local population and root out the insurgents with minimal collateral damage or U.S. casualties. It is not apparent that Blackwater's heroism in Najaf did more good than the Fallujah mutilations did harm, but this single video posits the evidence for our consideration.
Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
One topic that has received extensive online treatment is the role of contractors on the battlefield, the subject of a Robert Greenwald documentary, "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," that has been promoted heavily on YouTube and other online forums. As with many critiques of contractors on the battlefield, Greenwald lambastes the extravagant fees paid to contractors in Iraq and the apparent disregard for their lives shown by the companies that send them over.
