Mimes as traffic cops

I know it's a blogging no-no to just republish stuff if you don't have original commentary to add, but I was so floored by learning about this yesterday that I just have to share it with you:

[Antanas Mockus, the former mayor of Bogotá, used] mimes to improve both traffic and citizens' behavior. Initially 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn't follow crossing rules: A pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes.

NPR story—which is even more compelling than the above article—here, starting at 34:00.

What's a little impending doom among friends?

As you hopefully know, CERN's Large Hadron Collider—one of the most elaborate physics experiments ever built—is finally finished and was first turned on several weeks ago. Leaving aside the fact that it broke down a few days later (!), I've been truly surprised by how many people are worried that it's going to create some sort of time-space anomaly that could destroy the world. The subject came up recently over lunch and (to my surprise) the majority of my PFM sisters were freaked out about our planet's impending Swiss-wrought doom.

And they're clearly not the only ones, since the BBC broadcast an interview the day before the collider was turned on in which they asked a scientist about the possibility of black holes being created during the experiments. His response was to laugh knowingly and say not to worry; even if the experiments do create (tiny) black holes, "there's no chance of them devouring the world. Ha, ha, ha!"

I couldn't find the exact interview, but here's a very similar one. Unfortunately it doesn't quite recreate the awkwardness of that scientist's particular response. I think the definition of 'egghead' somehow fundamentally involves the idea of believing so deeply in science that you'll laugh at another person's fear of death as if they were confusing a Stephen King novel for reality. "Black holes? Ha! Next thing I know, you'll be worried about langoliers!"

Read a banned book

Today is the first day of Banned Books Week 2008. From their website:

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities.

To my surprise, I discovered that a book I just started reading today (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I learned of through NPR) was one of the top 10 most challenged books in 2007. So I'll be celebrating Banned Books Week by curling up on the couch to finish it.

If you too value the freedom to access the literature of your choice—literature that may educate, entertain, shock, or open your mind—then check out this list of most frequently challenged books, visit your local library, and go exercise your First Amendment rights.

You could face certain death. Maybe.

Today the news keeps mentioning how Hurricane Ike is bearing down on the Texas coast. Their repeated quote is that

The National Weather Service warned residents of smaller structures on Galveston they could "face certain death" if they ignored an order to evacuate.

Why is everyone saying "could face certain death"? Shouldn't it be "will face certain death"? If you could face it (but maybe not), then it's not really certain, is it. And if they really do think it's certain death, they should probably be using more unambiguous language.

Dumbledore is gay!

Wow! Did anyone else see this one coming?

Rowling said Dumbledore fell in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindelwald but when Grindelwald turned out to be more interested in the dark arts than good, Dumbledore was "terribly let down" and went on to destroy his rival.

That love, she said, was Dumbledore's "great tragedy".

I can't wait to see the conservative response... now Harry Potter promotes both paganistic devil-worship and homosexuality! As Bush would say, that's a double whammy.

How to have a successful wedding be way too uptight

Remember when we told you that the secret to a successful wedding is to not take yourself too seriously? Well, apparently these folks either didn't read our blog, or forgot to write that one down:

A New York couple sued a florist for $400,000 for using the wrong color flowers at their wedding—a mistake the newlyweds said caused them "extreme disappointment, distress and embarrassment."

Score 2 for Google!

1. Google is the #1 company to work for! (according to Fortune magazine, 2007)
2. Neil Gaiman's son is coming to work for Google!

Ashley the "pillow angel"

The big news item in Seattle lately has been Ashley. To quote the Seattle Times: "Ashley is a 9-year-old girl who has static encephalopathy, a severe brain impairment. She cannot walk or talk... She is fed with a tube." So her parents have decided to stunt her physical growth and sexual development with medical procedures including having "her uterus and breast tissue removed... and [receiving] large doses of hormones to halt her growth" (International Herald Tribune). They say that keeping her around 4'5" / 75 lbs. for the rest of her life will allow them to more easily pick her up, carry her around, and generally care for her and involve her in family activities.

But as you can imagine, news of the procedure has sparked a lot of controversy. Every medical ethicist and their mother has had something to say on the issue. Personally, I find it intriguing, and I'm still not sure what my opinion is. I don't feel I have the authority or the experience to categorically say either "That's outrageous!" or "What a good decision!" I've never had children to care for, let alone a disabled child, so all I'd be judging from would be my gut reaction to the idea of cutting the bits out of a young girl. But it's always so much more complex when you're involved, isn't it.

The parents make a pretty compelling and rational case for it on their blog. "Ashley's smaller and lighter size makes it more possible to include her in the typical family life and activities that provide her with needed comfort, closeness, security and love: meal time, car trips, touch, snuggles, etc." That totally makes sense to me. But they also say "A fundamental... misconception about the treatment is that it is intended to convenience the caregiver; rather, the central purpose is to improve Ashley's quality of life." But... isn't the latter objective achieved only through the former? If she grew to normal size—say 5'6", 125 lbs.—I'm sure they wouldn't just leave her locked in the attic and send up food three times a day. They'd still try to involve her w/ the family as much as possible. It would just be a lot harder for them. Like it or not, her quality of life is inherently determined by how high a quality of life her caregivers are able to provide for her. And if she were 125 lbs., it wouldn't be impossible for them to lift her or bring her along on trips... it would just be significantly more, well, inconvenient.

Which, of course, is part of why the case is so controversial. There's not a black-and-white case to say that it would be impossible to care for her without this treatment, or that she'd die. Yet (in my opinion) it's naïve to think that the parents are doing this lightly, without significant thought or medical and ethical consultation. I have no doubt that they're sincerely doing it because, first and foremost, they want to improve her quality of life. But they also achieve the (slight) simplification of their own lives in the process, thereby making it easy for everyone who doesn't have to care for Ashley themselves to jump in and criticize.

Not to sound too biblical, but judge not, lest ye be judged...

Citing my sources

Gmail (which I highly recommend to anyone who's considering switching their email client; let me know if you need an invite) has a nifty feature called 'Web Clips' that allows you to get RSS headlines above your inbox.

For those of you unfamiliar w/ RSS, it's kind of like a radio station, but for online content. For example, our blog has an RSS feed (well, technically it's an Atom feed, but let's not split hairs) and you can subscribe to that feed and read our posts without having to go to our blog, in much the same way that you can tune in to a radio station and listen to A Prairie Home Companion on your radio without having to go all the way to the Fitzgerald Theater in Minnesota.

Okay, so maybe RSS isn't exactly like radio. But the point is, if you have 10 or 20 or (god forbid) 100 blogs and websites that you like to follow, it's much easier to subscribe to all their RSS feeds and get the information all in one place (your inbox, for example) than to visit each of their websites every day. At first I thought Web Clips was stupid (because I didn't really follow any blogs), but I've come to really like it. I subscribe to about 15 RSS feeds, and all day long while I'm working various posts from these feeds are displayed above my inbox. It looks like this:

I can glance at it while I'm reading email, and if the subject looks interesting, I'll click on it to read the full post; if it doesn't, I just ignore it. It's a great way to keep up on what's going on without spending too much time trolling the internet looking for something interesting. For those looking to set up their own Web Clips (or feed reader), I recommend the following feeds:

• Google Blogoscoped (a fun mix of Google-related news, games, bugs, and discussion)
• Reuters "Oddly Enough" News (weird news stories from around the world)
• digg and Slashdot (popular and/or interesting news stories submitted by readers like you!)
• ...and, for those who absolutely need to know where Brangelina went for Christmas, or why Lindsay Lohan is in the hospital, Yahoo! Entertainment News

My two favourite headlines from today were both from Slashdot:

• DNA So Dangerous It Doesn't Exist (I particularly like the Monty Python reference in the first comment)
• Bush Claims Mail Can Be Opened Without Warrant ("If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heckuva lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.")

Wal-Mart Goes Solar?

If Wal-Mart is going after renewable energy I believe it means one (or both) of two things:

1. Renewable energy is so popular now it's worth the huge investment switching over takes (100 megawatts, 60 times the amount Google is investing in, which has to be hundreds of millions of dollars worth).
2. Non-Renewable energy sources are drying up and will be prohibitively expensive in the near to medium term.

Just my thoughts, but I think it's both encouraging and a little scary.

What are you doing to equip yourself with renewable energy?