NOV 07
Does Not Compute in Westminster
It’s a year now since the UK Gov. launched its ‘ e-Petitions ‘ website.
Of the 29,000 or so petitions which have so far been suggested
6000 (+) are finished,
8,500 (ish) are currently live and available for signing, and
14,601 have been rejected outright
The very high rejection rate – more than 50% - is justified ( in the Government’s view ) because the e-petitions contained :
• repetition
• legal issues
• offensive language
• party political content
• false premises
• external weblinks
• proposals for personal honours.
• issues ‘ outside the government's remit ‘
• jokes
It seems that there are other, more perplexing reasons too : here’s one from Charles George :
' We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap ' e-Voting ' and ' e-Petitions ' for fear of ' e-Ballot-rigging ' scams. '
which was rejected because :
" e-petition is not the appropriate channel "
e-22
?
30 NOV 07
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Mysteries via mobiles
Japan’s Cyber Educational Institute ( a.k.a. the Cyber University ) has become one of the very few colleges on the planet to offer courses exclusively via mobile phone.
The coursework is presented as a series of Power Point ™ images - and the first one ‘ on the mysteries of the pyramids ‘ was launched yesterday.
For the time being, the e-tutoring is only available for users of Softbank* 3G mobile phones, who pay a fee for each segment which they download.
Next up : dgrees by txt ?
Press-release here ( loosely translated via Google )
* [ Note : Softbank is the controlling shareholder of Japan Cyber Educational Institute, Ltd. ]
29 NOV 07
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A/r/tography – a short introduction.
What is A/r/tography ? Perhaps the question is best answered with a series
of quote/vignettes.
“ A/r/tographical research engages in pedagogical inquiry where the distinctions between researcher and researched become complicated, responsive, and undone. “
“ A/r/tography is a process of opening texts to seek understanding by continuing to move through ideas before flowing back in response “
“ A/r/tography . . . develops the relationship between embodiment and ethics as a being-with. “
The University of British Columbia is the main centre for A/r/tographic research - and they are currently running a course ( Jan – Apr 2008 ) which will examine :
“ . . . the relational ways of knowing inherent in the renderings and reflections found in a/r/tography as an approach to research that is attentive to the sensual, tactile, auditory, performative and unsaid aspects of artist-teacher lives. “
؟ ؟ ؟
28 NOV 07
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TV hermeneutics in Colorado.
For some, perhaps many, the word ‘ Jouissance ‘ might not be the first to spring to mind when thinking about Television.
It has, however, been linked to TV in a two-part series of articles titled, ' Television as Lover ' recently published in :
Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies
In the first article, the author, Dr. Ott , from the Dept. of Speech Communication, at Colorado State University
argues that :
“ . . . traditional hermeneutic and interpretive approaches to television such as artistic or ideological criticism should be accompanied by alternative approaches rooted in erotics. “
and goes on, in part II :
“ … to demonstrate how to engage with television in an ecstatic mode. “
Unfortunately, both articles are pay-per-view ‘ subscribers only ‘
But a flavour can be found here :
“ . . . when television first emerged, it did not readily lend itself to ‘ jouissance.’ TV was really about ‘ plaisir.’ “
But that of course was back in the 1930s, and, since then the technologies have changed significantly, and according to the author, so has the sophistication and ‘ reading ’ (viewing) practices of audiences.
But the central question remains, and is answed by Dr. Ott thus :
“
Can one achieve it [ jouissance ] watching TV? Csikszentmihalyi thinks not;
Brooker thinks so. I think, in the words of Homer Simpson, ‘ You’re
both right.’ “
27 NOV 07
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Exhibit temporarily out of order
The Second Law of Thermodynamics ensures that, given time, things inevitably break. And even Science Museums cannot escape scientific laws. Visitors like interactive exhibits – but they ( the exhibits ) are guaranteed to fail at some stage – causing disappointment.
The latest issue of the newly- released Journal of the Visitor Studies Association attempts to quantify the problem with a study into broken exhibits at the Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts.
Data on visitor reactions to broken exhibits were collected via a variety of methods including comment cards, exit interviews and focus groups.
Subsequent analysis of the data revealed how the visitors report and react to less-than-100%-fully-functioning exhibits :
“ They are most often reported when they are non-functional. Partially functioning exhibits and design issues ( such as poor usability and missing or incorrect information ) are also reported, but less frequently. “
The author goes on to discuss methods of reducing the ( negative ) effects
of broken exhibits with reference to the Field
Guide for the Experience Economy (2005) pamphlet.
Think :
• Real/Fake Matrix of Authenticity
•
Taking Note of the Notable
and
•
"Ing" the Thing
26 NOV 07
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Mirth in Moscow
Many thanks to New Scientist for pointing us in the direction of :
‘ Computer Model of a ” Sense of Humour ”. I. General Algorithm '
by I. M. Suslov, from the Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems , Moscow, Russia,
The new paper explains humour thus :
“ The humorous effect is treated as a specific malfunction in the processing of information, conditioned by the necessity of a quick deletion from consciousness of a false version. “
Or, put another way :
“ a sense of humour is biologically conditioned by the necessity to quicken the transmission of information to consciousness and of a more effective use of brain resources . . .”
The author provides some possible humour-triggering examples :
“ Is this a place where Duke of Wellington said his famous words
? “
“ Yes, it is the same place but he never said such words. “
And :
” My Uncle William has a new cedar chest ”
” So ! Last time I saw him he just had a wooden leg.”
Readers will no doubt have noted that this new explanation is almost diametrically opposed to the one proposed by Sigmund Freud early last century, when he pinpointed :
“ .
. . the pleasure obtained from laughter as the main cause of the existence
of
a sense
of humour “ *
see note
For balance then, here’s what some say is one of Freud’s
best jokes from the 1912 edition of his now famous master work : ‘ Jokes
and their relation to the unconscious ‘
" A man at the dinner table dipped his hands in the mayonnaise and then ran them through his hair. When his neighbor looked astonished, the man apologized: " I'm so sorry. I thought it was spinach."
؟ ؟ ؟
* Note :
Sigmund subsequently changed his mind. In his 1927 essay ‘ Humour ‘ ; by then he’d determined instead that mirth was a way to ward off suffering.
“ The super-ego, like a parent, comforts the frightened childlike ego, repudiating reality by suggesting that however dangerous the world may seem, it is nothing but a game for children. ”
( source : Marvin Minsky 1980 )
[ no, no, please, stop, it's too much ! Ed. ]
24 NOV 07
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Writing from Melbourne.
Unfortunately, Really Magazine missed the recent International Graphonomics Society meeting in Melbourne, Australia.
There were a selection of intriguing presentations on all things related to handwriting.
For example :
‘ Alcohol intoxication and handwriting : spatial characteristics ‘ ( Monash University )
or :
‘ A Mechanism for Filtering Distractors for Doodle Passwords ‘ ( University of Glasgow )
and :
‘ Automatic writer verification for twins and non-twins ‘. ( State University New York - Buffalo )
Analysis of the handwriting of over 1000 pairs of twins showed that their writing tends to be considerably more difficult to discriminate between than for non-twins.
Here’s a link to the paper which will be published in a future issue of The Journal of Forensic Sciences.
23 NOV 07 ( midday edition )
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Uggianaqtuq at the Smithsonian.
The world’s largest museum featured strongly in a Washington Post article last week.
Subject : Global Warming Climate Change.
The focus is on a large-scale 2006 exhibit which was to have been called ‘ Arctic Meltdown ‘ – but ended up instead with the title ‘ The Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely ‘.
The Washington Post asks whether perhaps “ Smithsonian officials acted to avoid criticism from congressional appropriators and global-warming skeptics in the Bush administration. “
If so, it could explain why info-panels at the exhibit which were originally to have read :
" Over the past 50 years, the average temperatures across the Arctic have risen by nearly twice as much as the global average."
ended up as :
“ The Earth's climate is changing -- and it always has."
Read the full article here :
23 NOV 07
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The Internet and the PrinterNet.
The KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, in Stockholm, Sweden, has just published details of their research into the possible environmental benefits of reading a newspaper online ( or on e-paper ) as opposed to a paper copy.
The researchers used Life Cycle Assessment ( LCA ) for all three scenarios - analysing production, distribution, usage costs, through to disposal and/or recycling etc etc.
The LCA evaluation is fiercely complicated - the electronic methods bypass the paper, printing and physical distribution of the traditional newspaper – but the electronic versions rely on high-tech machinery – often transported across continents – and with its own environmental costs.
To sum up, the findings show that – in terms of CO2 impact for example ” a half hour of reading an Internet newspaper per day has about the same environmental effect as reading a paper newspaper. “ ( for 30 mins )
And that reading on E-paper has roughly 60% less impact.
So the e-paper would seem to be the best bet.
But, for the e-paper option, the report ignored :
“ construction of infrastructure and use of infrastructure for electronic distribution and material recycling of parts of the waste e-paper device. “
And of course it’s very early days for e-Paper, with several competing patented technologies, and no agreed international standards . . .
More research is clearly needed, and regrettably, Really Magazine predicts that the success ( or lack of it ) for the e-paper devices will largely depend on whether the public finds them cheap and convenient to use, rather than whether they’re environmentally friendly or not.
Read the full ( paper-free ) report
here : reserve
some time though, the report and its associated appendices runs
to 376 pages.
22 NOV 07
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Today, there is no news.
Only this paper ( Aardvark et al. ) from Stuart Macdonald, Professor of Information and Organisation at the Management School, University of Sheffield, UK, just published in the Journal of Information Science,
beginning :
“ Publication in quality journals has become a major indicator of research performance in UK universities. This paper investigates the notion of 'quality journal' and finds dizzying circularity in its definitions. “
and ending :
“ It concludes that laughter is both the appropriate reaction to such farce, and also, perhaps, the stimulus to reform.”
Really Magazine rests its case ( until tomorrow ).
21 NOV 07
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Inside and outside up North
The University of Bradford’s motto is “ Making Knowledge Work “
To further this aim, their School of Management has just published an ' essai ' in the journal Organization Studies.
It looks at the ` Becoming-ness ' of Organizations and the people who work for them.
“ Its aim is to analyse something of the becoming-ness of organizations/selves, in which the researcher-self is imbricated in this becoming-ness and must therefore be part of that which is studied. “
The ultimate conclusion being “ … that the organization I am `in' is at the same time `in' me: there is no inside and no outside “
In this light, is it possible that an entire poststructuralist re-think of the P45 might be on the cards ?
20 NOV 07
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Too good = bad
Researchers from the Department of Business Administration, at the University of Cologne, have been investigating what to some might seem a slightly counter-intuitive strategy for enhancing strategic change within organisations.
The novel approach may well be of interest to world-class corporations wishing to upwardly lever strategic viability scenarios.
“ It is shown that it may well be optimal in some cases to dismiss managers of higher ability while someone less talented may be kept in office when strategic change has to be enforced. “
( just published in Management Science )
The idea builds on previous work from the same author(s) – explaining when why and how dismissing highly competent managers might increase a firm's performance . . .
“ With a new . . . “ [ but implicitly less competent ] “ . . . manager the ‘ rat race ’ for favorable tasks is restarted leading subordinates to exert higher effort. “
19 NOV 07
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Journal of the week :
Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness
Latest issue here. This is an open-access journal to ' promote cutting edge research and dialogue. ' regarding all things evil and wicked.
With articles, reviews, opinion, art, and practical approaches towards a “ sharper focus in the continual wrestling with all things evil. “
The steering committee also promotes a yearly global conference about ‘ Monsters and the Monstrous ‘ ( think : mutants, The Addams Family, war propaganda, newspaper editors [? Ed.] etc etc ) – the last one was held at Mansfield College, Oxford, in Sept 2007
؟ ؟ ؟
Other items of interest :
( Caution: Not suitable for fashion-victims of a nervous dispostition )
17 NOV 07
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( for officials’ use only )
The recently posted Camp Delta ( formerly Camp X-Ray ) operating procedures manual - ‘ leaked ‘ to the quietly disturbing Wikileaks website - doesn’t seem to have quite the full-on revelatory quality that some might have wished for.
But there is an unusual factoid squirelled away amongst pages 62/63 of the manual – one that seems to have escaped the attention of the mainstream media ( which appear to be largely preoccupied with cavity-searches and soap-bar numbers. )
More intriguing surely is the discovery by Really Magazine’s researchers that the prison detainment facility has ( or at least had ) a ' wine cellar ' . . .
( presumably not normally available for use by prisoners detainees )
But what wines were ( or are ) stocked there ?
Here's a few ideas.
( readers' suggestions welcome )
؟ ؟ ؟
Here’s a copy of the 238 page document courtesy of The Guardian.
16 NOV 07
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Thingness further explored
Regretably, Really Magazine has been unable to find any on-line content for an intriguing article - entitled :
- in the current issue of Rhetoric Review.
However, if any readers would like to further research ' The Thingness of Things ' in general, they could start here via G**gle Scholar. There are currently 113 entries.
15 NOV 07 ( late edition )
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The wrong side of the alphabet
“ Toby is more likely to buy a Toyota, move to
Toronto, and marry Tonya than is Jack, who instead is more likely to buy
a Jaguar, move to Jacksonville,
and marry Jackie “
That’s according to Name-Letter-Effect * ( NLE ) theory.
But can the NLE also have a downside ?
Yes, say researchers from the University of California, and the Yale School of Management.
Their series of five separate experiments showed that having the ‘wrong‘ initials can sabotage one’s chances of success.
e.g. one which found that law students with initials which represented poor grades in exam results did less well than their colleagues whose initials included ‘A’s and ‘ B’s.
To sum up :
“ people perform worse when their initials match objectively undesirable performance outcomes. “
The study is published in the Dec 2007 edition of the journal Psychological
Science -
which is subscribers only, but you can
download a copy of the research here.
؟ ؟ ؟
* Background :
The NLE was first (?) posited back in 1984 by :
Professor J. M. Nuttin Jr.
founder of the Laboratory of Experimental
Social Psychology, at Leuven , Belgium.
Also see :
our coverage of a 2005 study, into whether having an unfortunate set of initials ( like Z.I.T. ) means you are more likely to die young.
15 NOV 07
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Follow the Smoking Parrot
Do wacky wine-labels help to sell wine ?
According to a soon-to-be-published joint-study from the universities of Chicago, Yale and Michigan the answer is yes.
The experimenters asked participants in the study ( 110 students paid $4 each ) to decide whether they had a preference for wine labels with a unusual images on them. Specifically, images that had no connection with wine.
And yes, they did.
“ To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of the beneficial effects of unique visual identifiers that are not meaningfully related to the nature of the product. “
The images which were used in the experiment ( e.g., ship, frog, bicycle, hippo, etc.) were adapted from Peter May’s Wine labels website ( link below ) – he’s been compiling a collection of wine labels on-line since 1998.
Here’s some examples ( perhaps not the actual ones used ) of wine labels whose manufacturers feel that wacky labels work for them.
• Smoking Parrot ( features a parrot, smoking )
• Utter Bastard ( features a rhino )
• Fat Bastard Chardonnay. ( features a ‘ fat bastard ‘ )
• The Italian Job ( features a Mini )
• Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush ( features a cat )
• Goats do Roam ( a goat )
• Bored Doe ( another goat ) [ should be a deer surely ? Ed. ]
• Nero di Predappio ( featuring Benito Mussolini )
• Mad Housewife ( hey, it’s not our idea ok ? )
• What the Dickens ( Charles ? )
and Really Magazine’s favourite :
• Festival of Clowns ( self explanatory )
20 odd pages
of winebottle labels here :
؟ ؟ ؟
The study will feature in a forthcoming pressing of the full bodied and fruity Journal of Consumer Research :
Here’s a snifter :
or you can savour a draught draft copy of the full paper here :
14 NOV 07
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The Emperor’s New $tadium.
In financial-speak it’s called Abnormal Return (AR).
And AR ( a.k.a. a one-off tidy profit ) is what you might expect to get as payback for a $400million corporate PR splurge. Specifically, $400million to have your corporation’s name on a stadium.
Unfortunately though, new research, just published in the Journal of Sports Economics finds that in general it’s ( almost ) a complete waste of money.
The sell-your-stadium-name trend started in the 1970s, and by 2001. ‘ Half the US baseball and football stadiums and more than three fourths of basketball and hockey arenas had sold naming rights to private corporations. ‘
Like, say, this one. ' The Field Formerly Known as Enron ' ( it was to cost them $100 million )
As the authors point out :
“ When firms announce that they have purchased the naming rights to a sports facility, they routinely describe the purchase as a savvy investment. “
The reality though is somewhat different . . .
“ We find little evidence that the purchase of naming rights had a statistically significant impact on the value of the companies that bought them, even less evidence that the impact was positive, and no evidence at all that there was a permanent, positive impact. “
Could it be that the trend for corporatively-named stadia has more to
do with personal psychological profiling ( of the board of directors )
than with savvy financial investment ?
؟ ؟ ؟
Wikipedia list of international corporate $tadia here
13 NOV 07
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Competition #5
has just been won ! . . .
So we've posted a new sample.
( a bit trickier this time . . . )
Some ( surprisingly common ) phobias.
Featuring at Change That's Right Now, Inc ( CTRN )
“ . . . our mission is to help people improve their lives by removing the fears, anxieties and phobias that keep them from reaching their true potential.”
Their 'board-certified team' endeavour to relieve clients from the common phobias – such as fear of flying, spiders, public-speaking & etc – in just 24hrs.
But the CTRN approach is not just restricted to the more well-known phobias – as their website points out :
“ The human nervous system is capable of developing irrational fears of anything at all. “
And some phobias which readers might have thought were highly unusual are, in fact, ( according to CTRN ) surprisingly common - for example :
" a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth "
“ each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress. “
thankfully though, it can be alleviated “ With a success rate close to 100% “
or
" a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of bolsheviks "
“ each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress. “
Luckily, it too can be cured “ With a success rate close to 100% “
Then there’s
• Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
" a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of long words "
“ each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress. “
which, fortuitously, can also be relieved “ With
a success rate close to 100% “
and
" a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of phobias "
“ each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress. “
fortunately this can be corrected as well : “ With a success rate close to 100% “
Even one of the most serious phobias imaginable [
which, logically, must include all of the above ? Ed. ]
" a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of everything "
can also be eradicated “ With a success rate etc etc etc . . .
؟ ؟ ؟
Non-Phobophobics can check out CTRN’s full list of 450 or so close-to-100% curable phobias here :
12 NOV 07
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Elevated and depressed
Futrurama !
. . . not Matt Groening's version – the original one. Created in 1939 by General Motors - their vision of how the world the US would be by the 1960’s.
Reassuringly spooky twenty minute video here :
10 NOV 07
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Reappraising Followership
[ Op. Ed. ]
It’s fair to say that there have been one or two very high-profile examples of ' bad leadership ' surfacing in the media recently.
Some might feel that these unfortunate incidents ( e.g. taking a country to war under false pretences - or accidentally engineering an $11bn banking loss ) may have undermined - besmirched even - the noble position of ‘ Leader ’ in human society.
But it’s all too easy to forget the fact that there can be no Leaders unless there are also Followers. Could it be that too little attention is currently being paid to their rôle in present débâcles ?
Answers may be found in this paper ( from Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2004 )
‘ Dynamic Followership - The Prerequisite for Effective Leadership ‘
which examines Followership research over the past few decades.
Citing, for example, the groundbreaking article ‘ In Praise of
Followers ‘ by " entrepreneur
of the mind “ Robert
E. Kelley (
published by Harvard
Business Review in
1988. )
The article broke down Followers into four distinct groups :
• Effective Followers
• Aleinated Followers
• Yes People, and
• Sheep
And showed how all but the first group fail to combine high levels of Critical
Thinking with Active Participation.
Implicitly then, down at the bottom end of the scale, it’s likely that the Yes People and the Sheep are not only giving Followership a bad name, but should perhaps share some of the burden of blame for the current high-profile leadership failures ?
The underlying danger is that, unattended to, this problem could take a turn for the worst : if the Yes People and Sheep stray from mere ineffectiveness towards Leadership Aversion and Non-Compliance – they could eventually end up as No People - and, present examples considered, maybe even Mutton.
؟ ؟ ؟
It shouldn't be forgotten though that the Yes People and Sheep are necessary for Leadership to take command on a large scale – no-one is suggesting that they should be removed from the societal equation – just that they should urgently retrain to become Effective.
Fortunately, thanks to the www, Yes People and Sheep wishing to upwardly profile-shift now have access to a good deal of online material which may help them hone their Followership skills – e.g.
The Ten Rules of Good Followership ( from the School of Advanced Airpower Studies. )
09 NOV 07
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Gerbils in New Orleans.
This year, the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is holding its 154th annual meeting ( Nov. 27 - Dec. 1 ) in New Orleans.
There will be around 600 talks and poster-sessions on acoustical topics - related to fields as diverse as psychology, physics, sound engineering, marine biology, medicine, meteorology, and music.
Our picks :
• Are types of filled pause discrete classes ?
( poster session, Weds 28th Nov. in Napoleon D2/D3 , Sheraton New Orleans Hotel. )
An acoustic-modelling investigation of the filled pauses - "uh" and "um'' - in English. Building on the Clark and Fox Tree hypothesis that filled pauses ‘ serve the discourse function of alerting the interlocutor of production difficulties. ‘
• Bayesian spectrum estimation of termite signals using laser Doppler vibrometry
( 5.05 , Fri 30th Nov. in Grand Ballroom B , Sheraton New Orleans Hotel. )
Laser Doppler vibrometry measurements are routinely used for landmine detection, automotive testing, production testing, aerospace, and structural testing. But in this case it was employed instead to analyse ' head banging ' signals associated with termite infestations - and was found to have significant advantages over Fourier transform methods.
And Really Magazine’s particular recommendation :
• A vowel identification procedure for gerbils
( 3.45 , Tues 27th Nov. in Napoleon C3 , Sheraton New Orleans Hotel. )
New research, by Dr. Joan Sinnott from the psychology dept. at the University of Alabama ( who has been investigating Mongolian Gerbil psychoacoustics for several years now ) showing that :
“ Gerbils easily learn to differentiate the spectrally-dissimilar vowels /u/ versus /i/, and data will be presented on their ability to differentiate more similar vowels such as /a/ versus /ae/. “
The poster-session will include a video of vowel-discriminating gerbils in action.
Full conference details here :
08 NOV 07
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Personal Electric Transporters - a comparison.
Some may say that the American Chariot doesn't have quite
the modernistic look-and-feel of the Segway
PT - but it does have 50% more wheels.
The American Chariot Company ( ‘ Not your average chariot company ‘ ) manufacture -
“ a personal transport vehicle for enabling a person to be effectively transported thereby. “ ( patent, issued yesterday, here )
Here’s a comparison of the tech-specs.
Segway Chariot
Max speed 12.5 mph 20 mph
Range 24 miles 15 miles
Payload 260
lbs 450
lbs
Charge-time 8-10 hrs 6
hrs
Wheels 2 3
Manufacturer's info here : ( Chariot )
“ The American Chariot's unique, yet recognizable design and non-threatening appearance make it a crowd pleaser. “
and here ( Segway )
“ See more. Accomplish more. Move better. With
the versatile Segway i2, your staff travels with comfort, ease, and unparalleled
flexibility, “
[ they might want to re-write that bit ? Ed. ]
07NOV 07
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Lifting the lid on governmental priorities
It’s late 2007, and five national ( and international ) taxpayer-funded governmental organisations ( US, Russia, Japan, China and the European Space Agency ) have now managed to launch uber-tech packages into orbit around the moon.
Back on earth in 2007 though, there’s still a little room for improvement when it comes to responsible, intelligent and prudent spending of tax-revenue.
As in :
“ Only about 30 % of 1.1 billion people connected to the sewer system have their sewage treated in an environmentally acceptable way (Matsui 2002), which effectively means that the excreta from the remaining, which is 5.7 billion people, are discharged directly into the environment “
The info is provided by the Singapore-based World
Toilet Organization ( WTO )
Safe to say that the WTO ( campaigning to alleviate disease, misery and squalor for the 5.7 billion people who aren’t yet connected to a proper sewage system ) don’t have quite the level of taxpayer-funding enjoyed by the space agencies and their associated military partners.
Nevertheless, to help redress the balance, the WTO is organising World Toilet Day ( Monday the 19th Nov. , 2007 )
( some very limited ) details here :
Also see :
The World
Toilet College ( part of the WTO )
06 NOV 07
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Venturing into the Uncanny Valley - again
“ Anyone reading the book with an open mind will find a wealth of fascinating material on this important new direction of intimate relationships, a direction that, before long, will be regarded as perfectly normal. “
predicts publisher Harper Collins regarding their new book - launching tomorrow . . .
The author quantifies things further ( somewhat cryptically ) in this interview with NetworkWorld :
" By mid-century, I don't think the difference between robots and humans will be any more than the difference between people who live in Maine and people who live in the bayou of Louisiana . . ."
Further reading :
' Über die Psychologie des Unheimlichen ' ( Ernst Jentsch , 1906 ) ( a.k.a. ‘ On the Psychology of the Uncanny ‘ )
Hard-to-find English translation ( uncannily printed half upside down ) here
:
05 NOV 07
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Fragile China MoonShot
Marginally reassuring to note that the China National Space Administration ( responsible for the recent launch of its Chang'e 1 Moon orbiting satellite ) has officially announced that :
“ China's space exploration project is solely for making scientific achievements without involving any military factor “.
Odd then that after 28 years of opportunity, China still hasn’t signed the United Nations 1979 Moon Treaty a.k.a the Moon Agreement ) which unequivocally setout : ( Article 3, para. 1 )
“ The moon shall be used by all States Parties exclusively for peaceful purposes. “
To be fair though, not one of the other nations currently capable of sending manned or unmanned equipment to the Moon has signed it yet either.
Morocco, Peru, Philippines, Guatemala, and Romania all managed to sign and ratify it, but the US, Russia, Japan, China, and the European Space Agency haven’t felt minded to - as yet.
Really Magazine wonders why . . . and wonders also if things are likely to improve in the near future . . . here’s a clue :
( Note: Lockheed Martin is the world’s #1 weapons contractor )
02 NOV 07
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QOL on holiday
Until recently, Quality Of Life (QOL) studies may not have paid sufficient attention to the importance of leisure. A new theoretical model, developed by a tri-university research team, is redressing the balance – positing that :
“ Satisfaction experienced with life events within the leisure domain ' spills over ' upward vertically to the most superordinate domain ( life in general ), thus influencing life satisfaction. “
The new model looks specifically at the particular benefits of travelling ( tourism ) - and, of course, travelling can be seen as part of the ‘ leisure domain ‘.
Where :
“ Satisfaction with aspects of services plays a significant role in determining overall satisfaction with travel/tourism services “.
So, to recap, paraphrase and distil the findings ( if we’ve understood things correctly ) :
' If you get good service whilst on holiday, you’ll appreciate it. '
The study is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Travel Research
01 NOV 07
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