Simple Science Could Have Saved Thousands

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"Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die." — U2, Crumbs From Your Table

" The astounding tragedy in the Indian Ocean is not just a human disaster of unbearable magnitude. Nor is it a matter of fate. It is the consequence of years of underinvestment in the scientific and technical infrastructure needed to reduce the vulnerability of developing countries to natural and environmental calamity."  From an editorial by Art Lerner-Lam and Leonardo  Seeber, seismologists with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University and Robert Chen, a geographer with the Center for International  Earth Science Information Network. Maxx Dilley, Deborah Balk, and Klaus Jacob also contributed to this essay.  Full editorial at the Los Angeles Times (registration required.)

Give to the Red Cross courtesy of Amazon.

Conscious Little Rocks?

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Kakutani (NYT) panned it, but Begley at the New York Observer said it was "lots of fun."  I thought, heh, I like Wolfe and count Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full among my favorite novels, and so I gave I Am Charlotte Simmons a read.   Sadly, I wish I had waited until this 2 and a half-pound tome was on the remainder shelf.  Be warned, this review is a spoiler, if you’re planning on reading Wolfe’s book you might want to skip this entry. 

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Raise the Minimum Wage?

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The Working Families party called the other night soliciting a contribution for their campaign to raise the minimum wage.  The New York State minimum wage is currently set at $5.15 an hour–a proposal in Albany would raise it by $2 to $7.15 an hour.  I’d given them a contribution for this cause before, but the act sent me back to my microeconomics textbook–wasn’t raising the minimum wage one of those policies that hurt more than it helped? 

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Targeted Website Searches with Firefox

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By now, everyone knows that Mozilla’s Firefox is eating away at Internet Explorer’s market share.  It’s no wonder, innovation of Internet Explorer creeps along with releases of the Windows operating system.  In true open source spirit, Firefox allows for anyone with a little know-how to contribute and improve the product.  Case in point is the Mozilla mycroft project, home to browser search plug-ins, which "allow you to access a search engine right from your browser without having to go to the search engine’s page first." It’s pretty handy–I use it to search Amazon, track Fedex packages, look up entries in the  Wikipedia, etc.  Quite often, I need to google something at Columbia University, so today I wrote a Firefox plug-in that will google those pages.  I’ve submitted the plug-in to the folks at the mycroft project, but in the meantime, you can download the zip file.  To install on the Mac, you’ll need to drop it in: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/searchplugins  On the PC, drop the files in:  C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\  Happy searching. (Thanks to Alan Bramley, who originally developed this plug-in for the University of Virginia.  I modified his work for the Columbia University plug-in.)

 

U2 on Broadway

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Picture10 Unos, dos, tres, catorce [1,2,3,14]

Turn it up loud, captain! – from Vertigo, u2’s new album.
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I’m at my desk like any other day, and I hear a band outside. It’s not uncommon–bands play on the quad at Columbia all the time. I thought I recognized the beat–but I didn’t know the song. Then I looked outside. I put the beat with the image–“that’s U2!!!!” I sprinted down the stairs and into the street. It looks like they’re filming a new video for their how to dismantle an atomic bomb. They’re on a tractor trailer driving down Broadway. I ran with the band (and throngs of other fans, happy-struck by their good fortune) from 116th St. to 110th. See the Photo Album for pictures.

Choose Your News

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Unhappy with the  mainstream media these days?  Having trouble with the fact that the paper of record helped drive the country to war with misleading stories on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?  Disappointed in their coverage of the "issues" in the recent US presidential election?  Choose a different source for your news.  Or, should I say, let let Google choose your news for you.

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So Now What?

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The lead headline on The New York Times website today: “Bush and Republicans Celebrate Victory; Mandate Is Seen for the Next Four Years.” Read further, and it only gets worse. Todd Purdum’s analysis? “It is impossible to read President Bush’s re-election as anything other than a confirmation that this is a center-right county.” Get me to a vomitorium, pronto!

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World Trade Center Station

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Img_1685jpgThough I’ve been to the World Trade Center Site many times, until yesterday, I had not taken the Path train. Past trips to the site flood me with memories from that day. I remember the fear, the burning smell, the plume of dust, and the sirens. I know that this suffering is not unique in the world, but 9/11 was closest that I’ve ever been to it. So coincidentally, on the same day that Osama Bin Laden released his video message to the American people, I visited the site he ordered to be destroyed. Remote control violence–give an order on one continent, bombs drop on another. It’s easier to forget about humanity when one frames the debate in terms of objectives and platitudes. (Jonathan Glover’s Humanity, A Moral History of the 20th Century illuminates this grim topic and offers solutions.) But now the World Trade Center site has been scrubbed clean, turned into a bit of a memorial and an efficient construction site. I still felt the site’s power, but felt it less keenly than on previous visits. I don’t know if I was overwhelmed, numb, or if I’ve grown so used to the sensation that it’s no longer the same. Going down into the station took me closer than I’ve ever been and yet 9/11 never felt further away. Go figure.

Unix Metaphors

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If only people were as transparent as computers.
Top_command

Timothy Wilson, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, in his book, “Strangers to Ourselves,” introduced the idea of the adaptive unconscious. In essence, some 80% of your thinking happens automatically. Think of the adaptive unconscious as that generator in the basement that powers your actions–instead of what you consciously will. Similarly, your computer also has lots going on in the background beyond the few programs you’ve asked it to run, but unlike the adaptive non-conscious, it’s possible to learn exactly what your computer doing.

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