the pod bay door

:: I’m in Calgary, to attend two days of the Blues and Roots Festival, and visit a few old friends. Have a nice weekend.

:: I absolutely love it! I mentioned earlier that Fox News is suing Al Franken, one of my favorite comedians and political satirists, for using the phrase “Fair and Balanced” in the subtitle of his new book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look At The Right.” Now Paul Newman has joined in the discussion, with a short but brilliant op-ed piece in the NYTimes. Paul Newman is still HUD! (ID and PW: podbay) Full text of the editorial is below:
Read more »

:: Some interesting NYC bits from the recent Blackout of 2003.

Amy Langfield describes being “On the last car of the Q Train between DeKalb and Atlantic” when the power went down last Thursday. Read as people fuss over a seven-month pregnant woman, who is eventually helped off the car by the NYPD as a couple of men yell, “I’m pregnant”, and “Me, too!”, in hopes of being helped off the subway car in advance of the other passengers.

Farai Chideya, founder of Pop and Politics, initially thought she was responsible for bringing down the power grid in NYC by turning on her AC, and describes the “Top Ten Things to Do in a Blackout”

NYC bloggers Jenny and Fiona describe their lives at 4:11 pm on Thursday, Aug 14, in NYC, and what happened to them later that day.

:: Astrology has been debunked, according to a study published in the v10, n6-7, June-July 2003 issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies, a peer-reviewed journal published by Imprint Academic in the UK. The authors of “Is Astrology Relevant to Consciousness and Psi? “, Geoffrey Dean and Ivan W Kelly, concluded the following:

Our concern in this article has been to measure the performance of astrology and astrologers. A large-scale test of time twins involving more than one hundred cognitive, behavioural, physical and other variables found no hint of support for the claims of astrology. Consequently, if astrologers could perform better than chance, this might support their claim that reading specifics from birth charts depends on psychic ability and a transcendent reality related to consciousness. But tests incomparably more powerful than those available to the ancients have failed to find effect sizes beyond those due to non-astrological factors such as statistical artifacts and inferential biases. The possibility that astrology might be relevant to consciousness and psi is not denied, but if psychic or spirit influences exist in astrology, they would seem to be very weak or very rare. Support for psychic claims seems unlikely.

Well, duh. The only astrologer who knows what he’s talking about is Lloyd Schumner Sr., anyway. Right? I would, however, like to experience some transcendent reality from time to time.

:: I have subscribed to Time Out New York since Feb 1999. Although it consistently arrives 3-6 weeks late in my mailbox, there are always articles and news of interest to me within each issue. Its late arrival would prevent me from using it as a guide to NYC for that week of publication, but I don’t live there, so it doesn’t matter.

TONY has created an online archive of their past issues, and begun posting the contents of each issue one month after publication – a brilliant move, and one that supports the concept of open access, to some degree anyway. In TONY’s case, it makes sense: consider that the “current event info” in each issue of TONY is good for that week only. Once the week is over, the events are in the past, and the need to refer to and use that particular issue of the magazine as as such is over. However, the articles do not (necessarily) outdate themselves.

Issue 406, 10-17 July, has (at least) three fascinating pieces.

1) What’s eating Sean Penn? is a fascinating interview with this brilliant actor. To answer the question: “Plenty. The “heartbroken and angry” father talks about fear, terrorism and what fueled his segment of the film September 11.”

2) Weapons of Mass Communication details the frightening grip of Clear Channel, a media conglomerate based in San Antonio TX that, within its growing empire, owns or operates 1,248 US radio stations, and promotes ~25,000 concerts, sporting events and stage shows, many of them in 41 amphitheaters it owns (not The Gorge, however – that belongs to the House of Blues.) Clear Channel’s presence in NYC is strong, although not everyone on the street knows about the long reach of CC.

3) Friendster or foe? Friendster is an online social network that allows people to meet each other via their friends and contacts who are already in Friendster. To join you need to be invited. A friend in NYC invited me to join, then another in Edmonton as well. Through three friends, I’m “connected” to 124,938 people as of today. No, I haven’t met any of them. The article notes that Friendster began as a more discriminating alternative to online dating sites, but has grown to over 750,000 users in 200 countries, with 50,000 users in NYC alone. The idea of the site is that you meet new people on the word of a friend, who might almost function as a virtual chaparone. A feature on Friendster appeared in July 2003 in Wired.

:: Next weekend I hope to be in Calgary to attend The Blues and Roots Festival, and see, among others, Los Lobos and Solomon Burke.

:: The document described in the entry below, from the current issue of The Scout Report, details the destructive power of Spam. We all hate spam.

Spam by Numbers [pdf]

Facts about the disturbing trend of spam exceeding valid email have appeared regularly in a variety of news sources, but this document goes one step further to demonstrate the seriousness of the problem. Published by the ePrivacy Group in June 2003, it shows that spam is not simply a nuisance; it is a surprisingly expensive problem that can reduce Internet bandwidth and adversely affect people’s productivity. After perusing the five pages of remarkable percentages, dollar amounts, and other figures, readers can find much more information about spam at the ePrivacy Group’s homepage.

:: The power failure on the eastern seaboard, through to Detroit and Toronto, is incredible. How could this happen in 2003? Check out the photos on The Gothamist for a peek at life in NYC this afternoon.

A moblog (mobile blog) is up already, with photos from various blacked out areas. See my NYC page for links to other NYC media.

Nine months after the Great Blackout on November 9-10, 1965, in the same area (NE USA and Ontario), the number of babies born in the region was higher than normal. Was the blackout the cause?