Archive for May, 2009
May 30, 2009 at 12:03 am
· Filed under
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Ever have a friend who just doesn't grasp the concept of similes? This school can help them faster than a person who goes to special school can get help, or something.
-
-
-
-
Welcome to the China Dimensions data collection. Over the past decade, China has experienced rapid economic and social change. These changes, in concert with a growing population, are expected to lead to significant regional and global environmental change. This site offers access to a unique data collection that has been designed to facilitate a wide range of natural science and socioeconomic research and educational activities. It enables both researchers and the general public to obtain accurate and timely information on the world's most populous country.
Permalink
May 29, 2009 at 12:03 am
· Filed under
-
Interpeace builds peace that lasts. We work with societies divided by violent conflict to create lasting peace. With local peacebuilders, we help to address the issues that have caused deep divisions. We do this through dialogue with all involved to resolve the root causes of conflict, rebuild trust and create locally owned solutions. In so doing we help build a peaceful future.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Imagine descendants of Jews pursued by the Spanish Inquisition, still tending the dying embers of their faith among peasant Latinos in the American Southwest. The story has obvious resonance, and it has garnered considerable publicity. The truth of the matter may turn out to be vastly different, and nearly as improbable
-
-
-
Not really.
-
Microsoft's new search engine.
-
Permalink
May 28, 2009 at 12:03 am
· Filed under
-
-
-
The notion of automating voting machines goes back to at least Oct. 13, 1868, when 21-year-old Boston telegraph operator Thomas Edison signed a patent application for a battery-operated electrographic vote recorder that instantaneously tallied votes. When patent No. 90,646 was granted, it would be the first of 1,093 U.S. patents for the father of the phonograph and the light bulb. For all of Edison's technical brilliance, the vote counter stymied him in a way that haunts some voting machine makers to this day: He couldn't profit from it. Edison envisioned selling the device to Congress and state legislatures to end tedious roll- call votes. Efficiency, he learned, was the last thing politicians wanted: Roll calls were often designed to stall while one side twisted arms or negotiated compromises. Edison's total vote counter sales: zero.
-
-
One movie - four frames. That's it.
-
-
Permalink
May 27, 2009 at 12:02 am
· Filed under
Permalink
May 26, 2009 at 12:02 am
· Filed under
-
Hit songs, books, and movies are many times more successful than average, suggesting that ‘‘the best’’ alternatives are qualitatively different from ‘‘the rest’’; yet experts routinely fail to predict which products will succeed. We investigated this paradox experimentally, by creating an artificial ‘‘music market’’ in which 14,341 participants downloaded previously unknown songs either with or without knowledge of previous participants’ choices. Increasing the strength of social influence increased both inequality and unpredictability of success. Success was also only partly determined by quality: The best songs rarely did poorly, and the worst rarely did well, but any other result was possible.
Permalink
May 24, 2009 at 12:32 am
· Filed under
Permalink
May 23, 2009 at 12:02 am
· Filed under
-
-
As a student about to begin your MBA program, you are probably both excited and nervous. What will it be like? Are you prepared? You may already have the necessary knowledge and skills; or perhaps you need a refresher in one or more areas; or you may just want to confirm that you're ready to start. These PreMBA courses are designed to help you ass your preparedness and make sure that you start your MBA with the knowledge and skill required for success.
-
-
-
-
Several recent papers have sought to provide theoretical explanations for Zipf’s Law, which states that the size distribution of cities in an urban system can be approximated by a Pareto distribution with shape parameter (Pareto exponent) equal to 1. This paper assesses the empirical validity of Zipf’s Law, using new data on 73 countries and two different estimation methods – standard OLS and the Hill estimator. Using OLS, we find that, for the majority of countries (53 out of 73), Zipf’s Law is rejected. Using the Hill estimator, Zipf’s Law is rejected for the minority of countries (29 out of 73). Non-parametric analysis shows that the Pareto exponent is roughly normally distributed for the OLS estimator, but bimodal for the Hill estimator. Variations in the value of the Pareto exponent are better explained by political economy variables than by economic geography variables.
-
-
-
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The region’s two major rivers, fed from snowmelt and precipitation in far-away mountains, were used to transform the desert into fields for cotton and other crops. Before the project, the two rivers left the mountains, cut northwest through the Kyzylkum Desert—the Syrdar’ya to the north and the Amudar’ya in parallel to the south—and finally pooled together in the lowest part of the desert basin. The lake they made, the Aral Sea, was once the fourth largest lake in the world. Although irrigation made the desert bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea. This series of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite documents the changes in the the Aral Sea throughout the past decade. At the start of the series in 2000, the lake was already a fraction of its 1960 extent (black line).
-
-
-
-
The debate over business schools' culpability in the financial crisis rages on, with no clear end in sight
-
-
-
-
-
Everybody is the Rosa Parks of something—or at least the Michael Phelps, Cap'n Crunch, Dick Cheney, Elmer Fudd, or Paris Hilton of whatever. This blog collects examples of the adaptable idiom "X is the Y of Z", which is a snowclone. Feel free to use these descriptions when discussing your beautiful children, longtime companions, sworn enemies, favorite foods, and elected congressvermin. And if you need even more absurd comparisons, then you're in luck.
Permalink
May 22, 2009 at 12:32 am
· Filed under
-
-
-
In a digitally advancing world, we find ourselves mourning the loss of monthly magazines and dearly departed daily newspapers. Sometimes, paper is preferred. Perhaps it’s homier to stack the magazines in the bathroom and fold the newspaper ever so carefully for the morning commute. Perhaps it’s just nice to see your name printed on an address label from time to time. For those of us who still believe in a paper trail, TMN’s readers and writers present their favorites in the world of print.
-
For more than three decades, the fourth Dragon King of Bhutan steered his people into the modern world, while keeping their traditional culture intact. His recent abdication, at 53, in favor of his 29-year-old, Oxford-educated son, was another stroke of Realpolitik, strengthening the throne even as he moved the country to a parliamentary democracy. In a rare privilege for an outsider, the author joins the royal family at the coronation of Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the new ruler of the world’s last Himalayan kingdom.
-
-
Washington has dismissed the Iraqi resistance as extremists, Saddam loyalists, foreigners, and criminals. But Baghdad is full of ordinary men and women—teachers, shopkeepers, mothers—who are learning a clandestine new trade: armed insurgency. Getting to know a number of fighters, and discovering how organized they have become, the author finds this disparate army shares one belief: that expelling the U.S. is a battle they cannot refuse, or lose.
-
The so-called Sunni Awakening, in which American forces formed tactical alliances with local sheikhs, has been credited with dampening the insurgency in much of Iraq. But new evidence suggests that the Sunnis were offering the same deal as early as 2004—one that was eagerly embraced by commanders on the ground, but rejected out of hand at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
-
-
The latest victim of the Mexican drug wars may turn out to be Union Pacific, the U.S.’s largest railroad operator, which is being sued by the Justice Department for allegedly failing to keep drugs off its freights.
-
-
With the new Star Trek out, it’s long past time (as it were) that we laid out the rules for would-be fictional time-travelers. (Spoiler: Spock travels to the past and gets a sex change and becomes Kirk’s grandfather lover.*) Not that we expect these rules to be obeyed; the dramatic demands of a work of fiction will always trump the desire to get things scientifically accurate, and Star Trek all by itself has foisted half a dozen mutually-inconsistent theories of time travel on us. But time travel isn’t magic; it may or may not be allowed by the laws of physics — we don’t know them well enough to be sure — but we do know enough to say that if time travel were possible, certain rules would have to be obeyed. And sometimes it’s more interesting to play by the rules. So if you wanted to create a fictional world involving travel through time, here are 10+1 rules by which you should try to play.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Henry Shaw gave the citizens of St. Louis the grand pleasure park, known as Tower Grove Park, in 1868. The park is home to softball, soccer, tennis, corkball and frisbee games, as well as to the strollers, joggers, and picnickers who revel in the fanciful Victorian pavilions and sculptures Shaw commissioned. and in the more than 8,000 trees and shrubs he imported from around the world. Select from the links above to find out more information on one of St. Louis best kept secrets, but remember — our photos can't begin to capture the sounds of the Compton Heights Band playing in the Music Pavilion, members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra playing in the Piper Palm House, or the splashing of the kids in the wading pool, the joys of strolling through crisp Autumn leaves or spotting a new bird to add to your list!
-
Permalink
May 21, 2009 at 12:02 am
· Filed under
-
-
-
-
On May 6th, at WNYC’s new Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, we opened up an age old can of worms. Jad and Robert faced off over which medium is superior — television or radio. This American Life’s Ira Glass was the referee. There were stunning jabs, wicked uppercuts, and even the occasional low blow. In TV’s corner, Robert “The Krusher” Krulwich hit hard with stunning video images, but audio-savant Jad “Boom Boom” Abumrad pounded his opponent with the power of sound. The bout went five hard rounds and had to go to the cards for a decision. Tears were shed, and after a short intermission Jad and Robert sat down with Ira to discuss the challenges of working in both TV and Radio.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Research by the BBC Urdu's service into the growing strength of Taliban militants in north western Pakistan shows that only 38% of the area remains under full government control.
-
-
-
-
Scan your PC for viruses, spyware, adware, Tribbles and zero-day threats! Now even Klingon speakers can scan their computers for security threats. Use Sophos's Klingon Anti-Virus to quickly perform an on-demand scan and find viruses, spyware, adware, zero-day threats, Betazoid sub-ether porn diallers and Tribbles that your existing protection might have missed. The software can be run without deactivating your current anti-virus software. Phasers can be left set to stun.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The Philadelphia Research Initiative provides timely, impartial research and analysis that helps Philadelphia’s citizens and leaders understand and address key issues facing the city. The initiative conducts public opinion polling; tracks trends on a wide array of key indicators of the city’s vitality; produces in-depth reports with facts and analysis, often comparing Philadelphia to other cities; and publishes briefs that illuminate front-and-center issues.
-
-
-
-
-
-
The presence of prairie winds and rich soil makes Iowa literally fertile ground for developing alternative energy sources from wind turbines and biofuels.
-
Permalink
May 20, 2009 at 12:02 am
· Filed under
-
-
-
-
-
-
A Private Sector Strategy for Global Digital Opportunity
-
-
-
Contributors to the Infrastructurist will include politicians, academics, representatives of major industry and advocacy groups, and journalists. The site is edited by Jebediah Reed, most recently a senior editor at Radar magazine where he focused on stories about politics and media. During his tenure the publication was nominated for a National Magazine Award in the General Excellence category. Jebediah has also written for Popular Science, Men’s Journal, Worth and Salon.
-
-
Permalink
« Previous entries ·
