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Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The Science of Buzz
At least, until now. Science is catching up with buzz.
The Internet, as many a breathless commentator has told us, is greasing the wheels of the buzz machine like never before. The conversations and blog posts and general idea-spreading afforded by the Internet allows people around the world to instantly satiate society's pressing need for videos of children in a post-anesthesia haze and, or course, cute cats. Like a class of sneezing kindergartners, we are exposing and infecting each other with viral curiosities like never before, and this is allowing previously obscure media to come out of nowhere and catch on in a major way.
The mechanics of how buzz starts, keeps going, and eventually reaches saturation is not merely an object of curiosity for scientists. It's also big business.
Malcolm Gladwell, as is his wont, was at the cusp of addressing our Internet-era curiosity with how exactly this whole social viral process works in his book The Tipping Point. Gladwell identified what he saw as the mavens, the connectors, and salesmen who identified and spread social phenomena.
But while much of The Tipping Point was grounded in science, the process of how exactly an idea spreads from one person to the next was ultimately somewhat mysterious. For most of human history there was no real way of quantifying or tracking one person having a conversation with another person and saying, "OMG, there is this thing called a Slinky and it's seriously blowing my mind."
Now, however, we're having conversations on the Internet that everyone can see, record, and analyze.
During the aughts, as we were in the process of succumbing to a curious social contagion that led us to believe that stock markets reflected purely rational thought, we saw the rise of electronic futures markets to predict everything from presidential elections to whether Buzz Aldrin would win Dancing With the Stars. The theory being that if everyone is betting based on their individual knowledge and economic self-interest they will be able to predict the future better than an individual prognosticator/Nostradamus, an idea explored in James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds.
But wouldn't you know: it turns out that word of mouth can beat the market.
I recently had an opportunity to speak with Bernardo Huberman at HP's Social Computing Labs, who co-authored a fascinating study with Sitaram Asur that suggests the enormous potential in harnessing the power of the Internet to finally quantify word of mouth. Huberman and Asur tracked all the mentions on Twitter of upcoming movies leading up to their release, and they discovered that by measuring the number of times a movie was Tweeted they could predict a movie's opening gross more accurately than the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
Taking things one step further, they devised a method of tracking whether people were speaking positively and negatively about movies on Twitter after it came out. This improves the predictive power somewhat, but it turns out that Tweet-rate is still nearly as important after the movie comes out as before.
Their conclusion:
"While in this study we focused on the problem of predicting box office revenues of movies for the sake of having a clear metric of comparison with other methods, this method can be extended to a large panoply of topics, ranging from the future rating of products to agenda setting and election outcomes. At a deeper level, this work shows how social media expresses a collective wisdom which, when properly tapped, can yield an extremely powerful and accurate indicator of future outcomes."
It seems like a simple idea: of course people talking about a movie are more likely to go see it. But this is merely an initial step in quantifying buzz's power and how it spreads. Surely scientific analysis of stickiness, staying power, influence, advertising effectiveness, and Justin Bieber can't be far behind.
This could also potentially open up a world in which movies, books, music, and other media aren't simply dropped into the culture pond to see if they float, but rather they could be better marketed, and perhaps their eventual success more accurately predicted in advance. This could, at least theoretically, lead to some crucial reduction of uncertainty in businesses that have often been based on everyone's best guesses.
Not only is the Internet allowing us to exchange ideas faster than ever before, it's also allowing us to figure out the science of how word of mouth spreads. Buzz is going scientific.
Originally posted at the Huffington Post
39 comments:
- Elizabeth Flora Ross said...
Great post, Nathan!
- April 20, 2010 at 4:40 PM
buzz kind of reminds of how in sports, even if it's just a pick-up game with friends, your team either has that mysterious, elusive momentum or not. and it makes all the difference in the game
- April 20, 2010 at 4:41 PM
- Bane of Anubis said...
Justin Bieber -- another reason to take over Canada
- April 20, 2010 at 4:45 PM
So now high-profile titles spend more of their big-budget marketing on blogs and internet marketing than on print and broadcast. Sounds about right.
- April 20, 2010 at 4:48 PM
- Margaret Yang said...
If tweet rate=movie's success can be quantified, can it be manipulated? I suppose you could pay people to tweet about a movie, but others are going to tweet about it on their own. So, in a certain sense, word of mouth is still the best advertising that you can't buy.
- April 20, 2010 at 5:15 PM
- Nathan Bransford said...
I think that's the next step - determining which kinds of Tweets are most effective at spreading and then utilizing those to generate actual buzz. Definitely fake buzz doesn't work, but surely there are ways of influencing the extent to which it catches on for real.
- April 20, 2010 at 5:16 PM
- Christine Macdonald said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- April 20, 2010 at 5:23 PM
- Christine Macdonald said...
Great article. It will be insteresting to see where the scientific buzz takes us next. Hopefully more good than evil (marketing tools vs. cyber stalkers).
- April 20, 2010 at 5:24 PM
- Kristin Laughtin said...
Building off the idea that you can pay people to tweet, I imagine certain celebrities will be very effective. It could go either way with a corporate-based Twitter account, depending on how trustworthy the company is and whether their tweets are viewed as annoying or if people actually want to follow them.
- April 20, 2010 at 5:34 PM
- Mira said...
You're so smart, Nathan.
I'm going to have to take awhile to think about what you said here, to absorb and understand it.
I did have a momentary chill though - when you said that obviously fake buzz won't work - are you sure about that(???)
Well, one thing that buzz does allow is the opportunity to fight fire with fire. That's comforting.
But we are entering interesting times. Thanks for having your finger on the pulse - admirable as always - and the implications here are fascinating.
- April 20, 2010 at 6:02 PM
- Marilyn Peake said...
This is a fascinating topic, Nathan! With a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology and a Masters thesis rooted in Social Psychology, this topic completely fascinates me. The research experiment I conducted for my Masters thesis involved writing several versions of a fictional newspaper article about a person confessing to a crime while being tortured. All versions of the newspaper article were identical except for minor characteristics about the person or their situation. Subjects read one version of the article, then answered questions about whether or not the person was most likely guilty of the crime to which they confessed, how "moral" or "immoral" the person probably was, things like that. The results were shocking. People were automatically presumed to be innocent or guilty based on minor variations in the article that had nothing to do with any real facts about the crime. My Masters thesis advisor and I later presented a paper about my research at an annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, and we spoke with members of Amnesty International who stopped by to discuss our results.
Right now, I believe the zeitgeist of our time is to mostly escape bad news. And media corporations with vested interests are more than happy to keep feeding the public what they want: entertainments that allow us to avoid more serious issues. As a result, the most popular TV shows and books are about gossip stuff. At some point, that will probably shift and then movies, TV shows and books that tackle reality will come back into vogue.
Reading piles of research reports on Social Psychology experiments has made it easier for me to step back from popular opinion and ask myself what are the real facts. Here are some fascinating experiments in which a majority of people will change their views even on objective facts (e.g. the length of a line or how far a small point of light appears to move) or moral decisions (whether or not to administer increasing strengths of electric shock to complaining victims) based on the opinion of the group or a strong authority figure:
Solomon Asch's experiment on conformity regarding opinions about the length of a line
Milgram's Experiment on Obedience to Authority
Muzafer Sherif's "A Study of Some Social Factors in Perception", an experiment showing that a person will establish their own norm for how far a point of light appears to move, but will change their opinion based on peer influence.
- April 20, 2010 at 6:02 PM
- mkcbunny said...
And soon you may be able to bet on those movie futures:
- April 20, 2010 at 6:21 PM
- Carl said...
Does the publishing industry currently do any kind of market research? Do they use focus groups, etc.
- April 20, 2010 at 6:31 PM
mkcbunny – Good Lord. Have you seen the movie, Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore? He's controversial, but the factual information in the movie is enough to make you cry. For example, lots of companies take out Dead Peasant life insurance policies on their workers through which the companies collect life insurance money even when the deceased family can't afford to pay their deceased family member's medical or funeral expenses. Is this mentioned prominently in the news? No. Do we know more than we ever need to know about celebrities from the news? Yes. But who wants to hear about depressing stuff like Dead Peasant policies? LaLaLaLaLaLa...Fingers in ears.
- April 20, 2010 at 6:33 PM
- Marilyn Peake said...
I'm happy to see that the movie industry's taking a stand against that, no matter what their reason might be for doing so.
- April 20, 2010 at 6:37 PM
- Dara said...
Great post!
And before today, I had no idea who Justin Bieber was. I just knew he kept trending on Twitter and had no clue why :P
- April 20, 2010 at 6:38 PM
- T. Anne said...
My daughter is in Justin B.'s demographic and it felt even to her that he came out of nowhere. He must have some amazing marketing machine behind him because his buzz preceded his success.
I know there are site's that will try to create a buzz for you, such as author buzz, and create buzz, but they can be expen$ive.
Great article Nathan.
- April 20, 2010 at 6:44 PM
- Moira Young said...
Ah, I was wondering when someone would bring up all the "Beleibers" on Twitter.
It's an interesting phenomenon. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Twitter is a mosaic of photos where only 14% of the photo is visible - but that mosaic still forms quite an image of our collective thoughts.
Nonetheless, there's still netiquitte to be observed. Shameless self-overpromotion can have negative results because it turns people off. Harnessing the power of word-of-mouth is a delicate task.
- April 20, 2010 at 6:57 PM
- Kelly said...
Thanks for posting on this, Nathan. Very interesting, even if I don't completely understand it (I do, however, know who Justin Bieber is).
- April 20, 2010 at 7:22 PM
- Peter Dudley said...
Fake buzz can work initially because people can't tell immediately when it's fake. Look at IPOs in the dot-com boom. I knew a fund manager who said he would buy into the 3DO IPO (3DO was a game console manufacturer with a new idea) for the initial IPO bump even though the company and the product were not very impressive. This guy made a tidy profit for his funds while most of the people he sold the stock to after a few days ended up with worthless shares in a few years. My point is that IPOs during that time were created as much on buzz as on worthiness, and you couldn't always tell them apart until after the event.
Similar thing with premarketing books and movies.
But fake buzz will eventually undermine the credibility of the mechanism. If people can't trust the buzz, they'll start ignoring it, and it will lose its effectiveness. So, fake buzz will work for the lucky few that manage to make it happen now, but it will end up failing in the future.
- April 20, 2010 at 7:30 PM
- Laurel said...
The buzz factor is lightening in a bottle, really. You can analyze the variables after the fact, but what makes it "buzz" instead of "formula" is whatever unquantifiable, unpredictable thing happened along at just the right time. Later you can see what it was. You just can't make it happen again since the freshness is gone.
The best you can do with manufactured hype is up the sales, which isn't bad. But a cultural phenomenon can't be duplicated in a lab because all the factors can never be accounted for.
- April 20, 2010 at 7:40 PM
- Other Lisa said...
Can someone explain to me what a Justin Bieber is?
- April 20, 2010 at 7:43 PM
- ryan field said...
There are a few celebs out there in the social networks who seem to know the trick to creating a buzz. It's interesting to watch and learn from them.
- April 20, 2010 at 7:52 PM
- Renee Miller said...
Great post. Justin Beiber? I have an 11-year-old and a 5-year-old, both girls. I am Biebered out. I know his music and I don't want to. I memorized it under duress.
But he definitely had a machine behind him. Good for him I say. Just stop singing in my house.
- April 20, 2010 at 8:38 PM
- Kairos Books said...
I think analyzing buzz is certainly worth doing, but I'm still not sold on how it can predict future buzz. Hindsight is 20/20, right? Explaining buzz is like explaining the reasons for historical events after they happen. But accurately predicting the future? Whole different ballgame.
- April 20, 2010 at 8:53 PM
Other Lisa - Here ya go ... Justin Bieber, teen pop sensation: Justin Bieber. Yawn...
- April 20, 2010 at 9:20 PM
A prepubescent boy couldn't have became such a sensation so fast 15 years ago. Internet really has opened new doors.
- April 20, 2010 at 9:31 PM
- Mira said...
Okay, I recovered from my momentary fear about how this information might be utilized.
Bottomline, I believe that information should always be sought, regardless of the uses to which it might be put. After all, Darwinism led directly to the Holocaust, and yet would I want the entire theory of evolution to have been covered up?
Information itself is innocent, and knowledge is powerful. That power can be used for good, for evil or, most frequently, for some combination, but that's part of our human journey, right?
That said, I think the implications here for research are truly awesome. Like I said in the forums, not only for studying 'buzz', but other social phenomena - like Marilyn pointed out, group think, obedience to authority and (another) mob mentality. Or peer pressure.
Maybe human interaction will be mapped in mathematical equations, that would be interesting.
Either way, the opportunity for us to understand ourselves better is priceless.
More priceless than a credit card. Ha, ha.
P.S. Wonderful article for the Huffington, Nathan. I'm admiring how smart you are, and if you think I'm sucking up by saying it twice, nope. This article just deserves having it said twice.
- April 20, 2010 at 10:13 PM
- Gavin Brown said...
It's important to keep in mind that the tweets are a reflection of the buzz, not necessarily the cause.
Not only does fake buzz not help,
focusing huge resources on Twitter just because it's measurable may not be that effective either.
- April 20, 2010 at 10:24 PM
- Ink said...
I think a Justin Bieber is when you fast-order a German lager. Right?
- April 20, 2010 at 10:51 PM
- wendy said...
Incredibly well-written post. I thought I had some journalistic skills, but my efforts have been somewhat eclipsed. Sooo, the buzz is the best. I guess if anyone comes up with a commodity that people love then they're going to talk about it. Twitter or no. But I can see why its a good indicator of popular opinion.
I recently started sending out Tweets and am amazed that anyone would follow them. But I suspect these followers are mostly people selling things and are hopeful that I'll follow them and discover their product. They are usually motivational/guru types, perhaps because I pepper my tweets with
inspirational thoughts they see an interest.
- April 20, 2010 at 10:59 PM
- Ishta Mercurio said...
Marilyn Peake, re: "As a result, the most popular TV shows and books are about gossip stuff. At some point, that will probably shift and then movies, TV shows and books that tackle reality will come back into vogue."
Interestingly, there has been an upsurge in recent years in movies based on real stories: Changeling, The Blind Side, Amelia, Flash of Genius, Rendition, Walk the Line... So maybe you're right. I certainly think that people are ready to start thinking about some of the hard questions in regards to the way the world works right now. And "David and Goliath" stories in which lowly citizens uncover the evils in government have always been popular.
Regarding the study of buzz leading to an effort to control it: don't they already do that? I think they call it "spin"...
As for me, I hope people will support my work because they like it and believe in it, and not because they've been convinced by marketing gurus that it's something they "just HAVE to have!" My favorite stories are the ones about indie films and small-press books that start with almost no marketing, but make it big because the people who see or read them just think they are that good and they tell everyone about them; consumer word-of-mouth (real buzz) is preferable to me over industry buzz and marketing (fake buzz, in my opinion).
Word verification: spent. Right on target. I swear, sometimes I think Blogger has an actual brain.
- April 20, 2010 at 11:51 PM
- God and Ponytails said...
Something about me needs to believe the next new thing can make it just because it is awesome! Not because science has discovered the secret to buzz and we are all being manipulated into believing we love something.
I seriously loved the backstreet boys and now I love me some yogurt you get to top yourself. (Yogurt Planet: coming soon to a city near you)
- April 21, 2010 at 12:23 AM
- csmith said...
If it is up your street, and you have time, have a read of "Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson. Deals with what buzz is, what creates buzz, and how buzz can be morally and ethically ambiguous in the extreme, all wrapped up in one of the strangest and most brilliant suspense/sci-fi stories I've ever read. I (heresy, I know) think it even surpasses Neuromancer.
All the best,
- April 21, 2010 at 12:43 AM
- Nathan Bransford said...
Ha. Yeah, cool hunting is kind of a literary agent's job. I read PATTERN RECOGNITION when it came out, though NEUROMANCER is still my favorite.
- April 21, 2010 at 12:59 AM
- Kate Evangelista said...
I never really looked at Buzz that way before. The study was interesting. Actually, I was wondering what Justin Bieber had to do with your post, but now I know. Naughty.
- April 21, 2010 at 4:19 AM
Never for a single second, during the aughties or any other time, did I think the stock markets reflected purely rational thought! The essential delusion of many scientists, social scientists, economists, investors and other soft science 'experts' is that they can somehow predict what people are going to do BEFORE the people in question have themselves DECIDED what to do. I do believe there is a wisdom of crowds, but I don't believe it can be captured or controlled as easily as some 'experts' proclaim.
And no number of cute videos of Iggy the I-Pad Cat will ever persuade me to buy one. Well, maybe just one. I mean the cat of course! I'll NEVER buy an I-Pad! Well maybe just one...But no! I must not weaken!
Now where's Kindle Kat?
- April 21, 2010 at 1:29 PM
- John said...
What's interesting is to run a Google search on a movie, etc. during opening night and watching the Twitter feed on Google.
The day Ricky Martin came out, there must've been a few hundred tweets rolling down the page in real time.
Sometimes you can see a large-scale buzz steamroller in action this way. Ah, the intarweb, my delectable series of pipes, how I love thee.
- April 22, 2010 at 2:23 PM
- Steve said...
Now that these predictive factors are sort of established, how long before twitter-spammers automate feeds of tweets optimized to game the predictive system?
"I'm certain that it happens all the time"
- April 23, 2010 at 3:56 AM


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Well, I'm sorry but that was a bit of an anti-climax. Straining to be generous in my column this morning, I wrote that I was sure that Obama would "blow them away". Actually, I don't think he did.
Of course, it was impossible to live up to the wildly-inflated expectations. The "Daily Show" nicely satirised these by predicting that Obama's oration would be so brilliant that it "makes the Gettysburg address seem like a series of simian grunts." But the actual speech was a bit flat and predictable. Read more


text:
" The Mission m70 series look and sound great, and all for a very reasonable price. Whilst they are reliable, they are slightly flimsy, so extra care should be taken around them. "
This review is for the Mission M74 speakers. I don't know whether this is the correct place or not, but it's the closest I could find!
The Mission M74's are a pair of tall free-standing speakers designed for a sophisticated looking sound system. I'll go through this review systematically, looking at Sound Quality, Features, Price and Value, Durability, and finally a list of official Specifications.
I've been using these speakers for a few years now, and the sound quality is incredible. Wired simply (I'll come to this later) as I have it, these speakers deliver fantastic tone and clarity throughout the entire frequency spectrum.
The bass given out won't shake your walls, but then again these speakers are hardly designed for that kind of use. Bass frequencies are delivered at suitable levels, with immense clarity and no distortion whatsoever (although you might think you should expect this from an expensive pair of speakers, I've had experiences where low bass notes have caused a certain amount of rattling, which if you're a pedantic music lover like me, can cause great annoyance).
High frequencies are not really a problem to consider; all speakers that produce a noise will have fairly good high-frequency performance. However, if you wish me to specify, the high frequency performance is good! I suppose a point to mention, for the sake of those readers who are not used to speakers of this kind, is that these speakers do not produce the horrible 'tinny' sound that can be painful to listen to, when the high-freq EQ is turned up. This I've found can be a problem with everything from large studio/computer speakers down to earphones.
The all-important mid-frequencies are what's worth analysing when it comes to speakers. The M74's produce a beautiful, clean and clear sound throughout the freq spectrum. I myself have a very varied taste in music, so I guess I've given these speakers a good test over time.
In classical music, the quality is most notable in the clarity of each instrument; if you listen you can pick out individual channels that may not be obvious on other speakers, many of which will turn an orchestral piece in a mass of resonant sound, where as much as it stays faithful to the piece of music, it just doesn't capture the imagination of the composer, of the atmosphere intended in the music.
In rock music, unfortunately a lot of the sound quality depends on the actual mixing of the piece, however the speakers still make a difference. I would much prefer dig up a Led Zeppelin vinyl and play it through the M74's, than stick Black Dog on my iPod and click play. (That being said, I've recently re-wired my amplifier so I can play my iPod through these speakers...)
In rap and hip-hop, although I rarely listen to them any more, I used to be a fan and chose again to listen through these speakers, because of the good bass response and clarity of each track, which is useful for fast moving songs.
Even in death metal, my Cannibal Corpse CD's often find themselves playing through my sound system with the M74's, not through my computer which is much more convenient. Good stereo sound, great clarity, and a huge range of high performance frequencies make it an entirely different experience.
As these are just speakers, they are not meant to have many 'features' or changeable attributes, as these are provided by the source of the audio and the pre-amp.
However, there are some things worth mentioning.
First of all, in the instruction manual they give you some options of how to wire the speakers up to your sound system, which apparently can improve the quality of the sound even more. I won't go into the details, because I don't really understand them (!) but it involves doubling or tripling the wired circuits between the amplifier and the speaker.
The wiring options are changeable, because on the back of each speaker theres four options for I/O wires.
Secondly, the two 'added bits' that are both useful, are the floor spikes to attach to underneath; four very sharp spikes that screw onto the bottom of each speaker to hold them firmly in place. These can be adjusted individually as well, in case your floor isn't completely flat. Also there is a front grill to cover the speakers. Although in my opinion, they look much cooler without it, I still keep it on as it offers protection to the speakers.
I can't remember for the life of me how much I bought these for, but I have reason to believe it was well into the hundreds, but you can get them now at high-street shops and online, for various prices between £50 and £100.
I would say this is a fairly reasonable price, as they are fantastic speakers, and this style of product is rarely any cheaper if the product is of similar quality.
The fact that these speakers have lasted me for years shows that they are well built units. They are built far beyond the high standard of quality that you should expect from every speaker made, (which unfortunately is not the case) placing them above many other products in my opinion.
However, they are designed to be left alone, they are not the most durable things if they get knocked around or dropped, etc.
I think I should also mention, that at a party I had them turned up fairly high; probably higher than they are intended to go, as I have a powerful amplifier; and I think I may have slightly damaged one of the speakers, as under normal circumstances they sound fine, but there's a certain frequency that comes up in some songs that sounds quite distorted.
Still, it's lasted enough for me to justify saying that they are very durable!
Key Features
Speakers Function Main / Stereo
Nominal Power 25 Watt RMS
Construction 2-Way
Cabling Cable
Technical Features
Peak Power Handling 150 Watt
Frequency Reponse 44 Hz - 20000 kHz
Sensitivity 91 dB
Impedance 8 ohm
Magnetic Shielding Magnetically Shielded
Bi-amping With Bi-amping
Woofer Material Polymer Composite
Woofer Size 6.3"
Tweeter Size 0.98"
Outdoor/Indoor Indoor
Mounting Floorstanding
Terminal Binding Post
Cabinet Finish Wooden
Exterior Color Black * Brown
Width 7.87 in.
Depth 12.8 in.
Height 37.4 in.
And here I come to the end of my >1100 word review! (I believe this is easily my longest review yet...)
In conclusion, the Mission M74's are definately a pair of speakers I would recommend buying. They look great, they sound great, and they're no longer too expensive!
This opinion is on the Mission M71 Speakers from the Misson M70 Series. These are the smallest stand mounted speakers in the M70 Series with dimensions of 296mm(h)x170mm(w)x275mm(d). Having said this, the sound they produce is fantastic. Deep rich bass and clear treble, that never sounds strained, even at high volumes. These speakers are ideally suited for medium sized rooms, with a power handling of 25 - 75 watt, they are certainly capable of rattling the doors! The frequency response is 65hz to 20khz and the speakers contain a 130mm bass unit and 25mm treble unit. These are housed in an enclosure with an effective volume of 8.75 litres and tuned reflex bass port to ehance the bass range. The port is rear firing, and these speakers sound best about 15cm away from the wall. It is also important that the speakers are placed on stands, so the treble unit is at ear level. The speakers are bi-wireable if bi-amplification is available, and by doing so increases the sound quality even further. I managed to purchase these speakers for £111 although the retail value is £130. In summary, a fantastic pair of budget speakers that are unobtrusive in your listening room, but perform extremely well.
I must admit I've never owned anything but Mission speakers - mainly cos my dad said they were the best back when I was buying my first Hi-Fi - so I'm not in much of a position to give a comparison with other brands. I do use other speakers as a music teacher, but the acoustic at school is completely different, so it would be unfair to pick on the perceived inadequacies of those speakers. I recently decide I would go from a stereo system to a surround one, so I promptly swapped my old stereo amp for an AV amp...then realised I'd bought an amp with 9o watts per channel, whilst my trusty Mission 780SEs were only made to take 75. I was more than a little reluctant to part with them. They had been absolutely superb, and I was worried I wouldn't find another speaker I liked as much. I needn't have worried at all though. I got 3 pairs of the Mission 701s (100watts) and plugged them in (well 5 of them anyway), and I've never looked back. They are absolutely fantastic. OK, as a supposed composer, I ought to be using near-field monitors or some such nonsense, but I'm darned if I can afford that, and, as far as I'm concerned, the Missions are the next best thing. They give a very uncoloured sound, and are equally good at low levels as they are for blowing the roof off the house. Possibly the fact that I got them for £79 a pair (check out Richer Sounds), instead of the RRP of £169, coloured my appreciation of them slightly. But even if I'd had to pay RRP I think I would have done. They really are a superb buy. There are cheaper 100watt speakers around, but you're going to be living with your speakers for a while. Divided up over that time any saving would be negligable, but the difference in sound quality may be enormous. Give these some serious consideration.


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A number of construction projects across the campus will affect roads, parking lots and pedestrian walkways this summer. The three main projects in the campus core are the Wood Center Dining Facility Addition, the Fine Arts Complex vapor barrier project and the new Engineering Building. Tanana Loop road will close April 1, 2013 from the west end of the Bunnell Building to the east side of the Duckering Building, and will remain closed for two years.
In addition, a sewer line replacement will close Tanana Loop road between the Duckering Building and the Fine Arts Complex from June through August. There will also be a number of departments changing locations as a result of the Margaret Murie Building opening and space opening up in the Bunnell and Eielson buildings. A number of campus events that normally take place in the core of campus have been relocated this year.
On West Ridge, the Margaret Murie Building will be completed this summer, and June 10 extensive exterior work at the Butrovich Building will commence. The Butrovich Building will remain open, but pedestrian access will be limited and most of the Butrovich parking lot will be closed. Butrovich Building occupants will need to park across the street until the project is complete in late August. More information on the Butrovich Building project is available in the latest issue of the Statewide Voice.
Facilities Services will place signs around campus containing updated road and parking information. Please allow extra time to get to your destination, and check our website for additional information. We ask for your patience as we work through the multiple challenges of a busy season. The new projects will add more than 150,000 square-feet of new space to the campus. They will significantly change the look and feel of the campus core and help us to better serve our students.
Parking and transportation
Due to construction staging, several other lots will be affected. The map linked here shows some of the work and affected parking lots, but we'll provide regular updates and changes as the construction gets underway.
Construction Parking Map (pdf)
If you'd like more information, please consider attending a forum in person or via live webstream. The purpose of the forum is to help inform the campus about what to expect, but also to identify any issues that staff might have and address them the best we can.
Informational forum:
Wednesday, March 6 in Schaible Auditorium from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. Recording available.
More information and timelines will be available later this month at www.uaf.edu/construction/.


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Offi Zumi Stool
Imagine you are a struggling young product designer living in Tokyo. You know you're talented but you have not yet found an outlet. So to make ends meet you go to work in a retail store that sells exceptionally well-designed furniture, including an American brand called Offi. One day your boss asks what you do outside of work, and you show him one of your designs. It is called the Zumi Stool and your name is Shuichiro Koizumi, and without quite knowing it yet, you've just made your first step towards huge success. Shuichiro's boss took his design to the company he buys his furniture from and asks if they will make it for him. Of course Offi immediately recognizes the brilliance of the design and thinks it would be beautiful in plywood. Not only do they manufacture it for the Tokyo store, but for fifty other independent design shops across the United States. But it was in Shuichiro's hometown of Tokyo where it was the biggest hit. Now all of his friends can buy the three identical interlocking pieces, quickly assemble them, and take a seat. Pretty nifty.


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REVIEWS: 2009 Movie Review Retrospective
This is a retrospective of the movies I saw in theaters this year. I've arranged the movies in the order in which I would recommend them. You might notice that the listing doesn't match up exactly with the ratings I gave them originally, but that's the point in a retrospective.
- Avatar
Yes, I'm going to do it. I'm going to put the last movie I saw at the top of the list. But this movie changes so much about movies in general, that I can't help but put it at the top.
- Star Trek
JJ did the impossible and made a great Star Trek movie that manages to both reboot and continues the series in a worthy manner.
- District 9
Surprisingly good, partly because the ad campaign gave nothing away and partly because it was heartwarming and action filled.
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
I think this movie can finally stand alone as a good movie, not just a good Harry Potter movie.
- Up
It's Pixar. It's funny, heartwarming, doesn't talk down to you or your kids, and looks amazing.
- Drag Me To Hell
A good balance of funny and scary, with a satisfying ending.
- Zombieland
While Zombieland wasn't exactly what I wanted, it was still tons of fun.
- 2012
The world is literally falling apart and they want us to care about individual people?
- The Twilight Saga: New Moon
My least favorite book of the series turns into a dull movie.
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
A movie built on the cliché that bigger is better, which it definitely isn't in this case.
- Terminator Salvation
Skynet reveals their big plan and its a Terminator with free will? All I know is that it could have been worse. A lot worse. It's still pretty bad.
- The Hangover
Funny, but highly inappropriate. Can't really recommend it.
- The Men Who Stare At Goats
Advertised as a slap-stick comedy, its more of a dark comedy, and not very comedic at that.
- Watchmen
So long, so boring, so weird.
- Hannah Montana: The Movie
Yet another "movie" version of a TV show that manages to not be a game changer, even when that's supposed to be the moral of the story!
- Year One
Probably the worst movie I've ever seen. Unfunny comedy, cringe-worth dialog, every scene dragged on and on. First movie we literally talked out loud about walking out of.
REVIEW: Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
Went to Holiday Drive-In last night with some free tickets. This is the second movie we saw. The first movie was much better.
The following review contains SPOILERS, not like you care.
Summary: Miley Stewart has it all, a normal teenage life and a rock star celebrity life. Witness the hijinks as keeping her celebrity life a secret interferes with her personal life!
Thoughts: If you think this sounds familiar, that's because its the plot to Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus' show on The Disney Channel, "Hannah Montana". This is the movie version, so not much changes. For those of you who don't know, let me sum up what the deal is.
Miley Stewart is a normal teenaged girl who (thinks she) can sing really well. Someone (her father, played by her father, I guess) comes up with the idea that she can live a normal life (go to high school, not be mobbed everywhere she goes), but having her create an alter-ego whose ONLY difference is that she wears a blonde wig. Apparently the Hannah Wig's power is only matched by Clark Kent's Glasses in that no one can figure it out unless she tells them. I mean, they're never in the same room together even though they claim to be friends (unless her best friend has the wig on and they only see "Hannah" from the back), they have the same best friend (played by Haley Joel Osment's little sister which is obvious), the same publicist follows them around (played by Vanessa Williams, poor soul), they both hang around Billy Ray Cyrus for some reason. Odd that no one can figure this out. You'd think the movie would be about someone finally figuring it out, but it still takes her taking off her wig and saying who she actually is for anyone to see it, though someone trying to figure it out is part of a really stupid subplot.
So in The Movie, Miley being Hannah ruins her friends birthday party and she misses something about her brother going to college. This apparently pushes her dad over the edge and he kidnaps her and takes her back to their hometown in Tennessee. Meanwhile, her best friend who was mad at her just happens to reveal to a British gossip journalist where "Hannah's" hometown is, which is the same as Miley's, obviously.
Miley is upset at being kidnapped and taken to Tennesse, but her dad says they've had enough "Hannah" and she needs to take two weeks off to find herself, then he might let her continue her dangerous double life. They stay at Miley's grandmother's house (whose mother it is was unclear to me, since she bosses Billy Ray around like her son and tries to hook him up, but she has a room in her house with wallpaper picked out by Miley's dead mother and a necklace belonging to her; guessing she's a controlling mother-in-law?), where Miley meets one of her friends from childhood, a guy who of course has grown up to be screamingly adorable. He almost immediately admits that he had a crush on her when they were young, but he's over it now. She just gives him googely eyes. If you guessed that they're going to start an awkward teenage relationship that supposedly drives the movie, you've guessed right! Miley pretends to enjoy Tennessee, and ends up hanging around her boy crush a lot, but he doesn't know she's Hannah Montana either.
For some reason, half the town is being sold and the guy with enough money to buy it wants to tear it down and build a mall (you can just smell the symbolism!). The town has a benefit concert, and even though they have Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift, and Billy Ray Cyrus (it's unclear if they play themselves though and if they are, why don't they have screaming fans like whenever anyone mentions "Hannah Montana"?). Miley's crush calls her up on stage and she sings some well coregraphed dance song she just made up that the band immediately knows and the entire crowd can dance to after watching her do it twice. The concert isn't making them the money they need, and as the guy who wants to build the mall taunts an entire Tennessee town, Miley's boy crush says that they'll make the money if Miley's friend Hannah Montana comes! Oh no! What will Miley do? If you guessed that she'll have her best friend come disguised as Hannah along with her publist who both immediately forgive her for ruining their lives, you've guessed right!
The (black!) mayor of this small Tennessee town is really excited to have Hannah Montana sing at the benefit, so he invites her to a lobster dinner downtown that night, but oh no! Miley's boy crush asked her out on a date! What will she do? If you guessed that she'll make up excuses to run and change, going back and forth down the street trying to make both parties happy, forgetting to change some parts of her disguise (even leaving on a lobster bib when she changed her clothes underneath it!), and eventually getting both parties upset at her, you've guessed right!
Her boy crush sees her dressed as Hannah without her Wig and finally sees through the disguise. He's upset that she lied to him and they break up! That night, she tries to make it up to him by finishing painting a chicken coop he wanted to use to sell eggs (stupid sub-plot), but then she has to rush off to be Hannah for the benefit concert. She sings some song, then sees that her boy crush showed up the concert because he saw the coop and apparetnly instantly forgave her. This breaks Miley, as she says that she can't do this anymore and takes off her Hannah Wig, revealing the obvious. Everyone in the town and everyone from miles around now knows the truth (including the Britsh gossip journalist). Miley apologizes for lying and living this double life that is ruining everyone's life. She sings a song she wrote based on a phrase her boy crush told her and everyone is sad. What happens next? If you guessed that Miley has learned her lesson and resigns to either being a celebrity everywhere she goes or not being a celebrity at all and stop hurting her friends and family with her every action, you've guessed WRONG!
You see, one little girl (who had witnessed Miley trying to be at the dinner and with her date) asks her to put her Hannah Wig back on, that everyone present will keep her secret. The crowd agrees, and starts chanting for her to do it. But before she can, the British journalist snaps a picture on his cell phone! But before he can push send, Hannah's publisit reveals that she flew in his daughters, who are huge Hannah fans. Faced with destroying his daughters' idol right in front of them, he chooses instead to quit his job. So that plot is wrapped up in a few seconds. So how does the movie end? If you guessed that she puts her Hannah Wig back on and sings another song to her cheering crowd, you've guessed absolutely right! And then it ends. The only closure you get on the mall plot was a guy filling in the illustration of how much money they made. Why it took Hannah Montana revealing herself to be Miley, and then undo it make the residents of the town finally decide to donate money to save it? How can you convince an entire town to keep your secret? I'm sure there was other press besides the British guy if this is supposed to be one of the biggest stars in the world! Questions, questions, never answered. It just ends, undoing the whole plot of the movie.
And I guess that's the problem with almost every movie based on a TV show that's still on the air: a return of the status quo. Miley didn't learn anything from being in Tennessee that she didn't already know. She didn't reveal her secret to the world, or change anything about her character. What was the moral of the story? That lying to the world about who you are is OK as long as they ask you to do it? What are kids supposed to get out of this?
I know this movie wasn't made for me, but still, it was cliched, badly edited, horriblely acted, had songs inserted at random points by random stars just to sell CDs, with an ambigious moral message at the end.
Overall: All kinds of bad.


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Tugboat HANDY-THREE Arrives in San Juan as New Addition to Puerto Rico Towing & Barge Co. Fleet
San Juan, Puerto Rico – Puerto Rico Towing & Barge Co. is expanding the size of its tugboat fleet with the addition of the newly constructed Handy-Three which arrived in San Juan Thursday morning. Puerto Rico Towing & Barge Co., a subsidiary of The Great Lakes Group, is located in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has been providing vessel assistance and towing services to commercial vessels and barges in San Juan Harbor, other Inland Ports, and ports throughout the Caribbean for over 15 years.
Recently constructed at Great Lakes Shipyard, Cleveland, Ohio, the Handy-Three is now the fifth tug in the Company's fleet. The new tug is the third of a class of Handy Size tugboats designed by Jensen Maritime Consultants, Seattle, Washington, built specifically for harbor work and coastal barge towing.
By making this $5.7 million investment in a harbor tug, the Company improves the efficiency of the fleet's round-the-clock towing services and demonstrates the Company's continued commitment to the local economy by creating sustainable career jobs and putting money back into Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico Towing & Barge Co. will be hosting a christening ceremony for the Handy-Three sometime in the next month.
The Great Lakes Group, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, has been in continuous business for over 113 years and is parent company to The Great Lakes Towing Company, Great Lakes Shipyard, Tugz International L.L.C., Puerto Rico Towing & Barge Co., Soo Linehandling Services, Admiral Towing and Barge Company, and Wind Logistics, Inc. Many services are offered through these businesses, including ship assist, barge transportation, icebreaking, chartering, new vessel construction, custom marine fabrication, marine repairs, lock linehandling services, etc. To learn more about Puerto Rico Towing & Barge Co. and other affiliates of The Great Lakes Group, visit www.thegreatlakesgroup.com.


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Digital security firm LastPass on Thursday announced that it had discovered passwords, email addresses and other data linked to Adobe Systems (ADBE) customer accounts on websites used by hackers.
LastPass says was able to identify user data from a staggering 152 million Adobe accounts. That would contradict Adobe's claim — made last week — that only 38 million user accounts were breached by cyber criminals, Reuters reports.
LastPass also says on its blog that "significantly more data was stolen than first thought, including emails, encrypted passwords, password hints, names, credit card numbers, and card expiration dates."
If LastPass' numbers are accurate, the Adobe breach would be the largest reported hacker-caused leak of corporate data.
Responding to the new claims, Adobe conceded that the data did come from its user accounts, but noted that the database that had been accessed was a backup system, which contained 25 million invalid email addresses and 18 million invalid passwords.
Adobe told Reuters it has alerted account holders affected by the hacking attack and is moving to increase its digital security.
An earlier attack compromised data on 2.9 million Adobe users, collecting customer names and encrypted credit card data.
ADBE shares appeared unaffected by the news, up 1% in early Friday trading.


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What's Going On at the Turner Mansion Sunday Afternoons? – [VIDEO]
Subscribe to Mix 97.9 FM on
Have you noticed a large crowd gathering on the lawn of the Turner Mansion Sunday afternoons? Here's the scoop on what' happening.
For the last few years, the Museum of the Southwest has presented its 'Summer Sunday Lawn Concert Series' every Sunday afternoon at 7:00 PM. They feature a number of music styles, so everyone will have a day were their favorite genre will be represented.
The concerts are free of charge, so bring out the lawn chairs, the coolers, even your pets and come to enjoy some great music.


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By Jerry Potter, USA TODAY
GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Tiger Woods wasn't dominant, but he was good enough to win the Buick Open on Sunday in what might be the final staging of the tournament.
Woods shot 69 to finish 20 under at Warwick Hills Country Club to beat Roland Thatcher (64), Greg Chalmers (68) and John Senden (70) by three strokes.
Woods celebrated at the final two holes by tossing a golf ball to fans.
"I never do that, but today was different," said Woods, who recorded his 69th career PGA Tour win. "We're not coming back, and I wanted to thank all the people."
RESULTS: Buick Open
Golfweek magazine and The Associated Press reported last week Buick will drop its sponsorship of the event, ending a relationship with the PGA Tour and Warwick Hills that began in 1958. An announcement by the PGA Tour — officials have not commented on the reports — on the future of the event is expected this week.
Fans thanked Woods throughout the weekend for adding the Buick to his schedule, which began a three-week run that continues this week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, and the PGA Championship next week in Chaska, Minn.
"Today was electric out there," Woods said. "Everyone was so into the round. You could hear the fans on 17 from anywhere you went."
Woods was inconsistent throughout the round — he hit the fairway only 43% of the time Sunday, though he had no bogeys — much as he was throughout the tournament. He opened with a 71 on Thursday, leaving him in a tie for 95th. After a 63 Friday and a 65 Saturday, Woods grabbed the lead after 54 holes and on Sunday completed the largest jump he's made from the first round in a tournament he ended up winning. Woods also improved to 36-1 when he has the outright lead after 54 holes.
"If you look at most tournaments you don't hit the ball great for four straight days," Woods said. "Somehow I made a score. Today I just gutted it out."
It was Woods' fourth win this season. Each has come two weeks before a major, but he tied for sixth in The Masters and U.S. Open and missed the cut in the British Open.
"I feel better," he said. "I know what I'm doing wrong. It's a matter of getting in a few more reps."
Woods broke a tie with Thatcher with a 21-footer at No. 4, then two-putted from 43 feet to birdie the par-5 seventh. After saving par from the trees on 10 and water on 13, he picked up his final birdie with a two-putt on the par-5 16th.
He moved into first place in the FedEx Cup standings and padded his lead on the money list with another $918,000 after tying Vijay Singh's (FSY) record of three Buick Open titles.
With the 69 wins, he trails just Jack Nicklaus (73) and Sam Snead (82).
Woods reached victory No. 69 at the age 33 years, 7 seven months — almost seven years quicker than Nicklaus and eight years sooner than Snead.
Dating to the 2006 British Open, Woods has won 21 of 39 starts on the PGA Tour.
Woods, playing for the first time since missing the cut at the British Open, got off to a brutal start at the Buick Open.
He shot a 71 in the first round and said it was probably the worst putting performance of his career, leading to him skipping his post-round practice session because he was so mad.
It only added to his legacy because he went from a tie for 95th to a victory, the largest jump he's made from the first round in a tournament he ended up winning.
Woods roared back into contention with the best five-hole start of his career — beginning 6 under in the second round — en route to a 9-under 63 for his best score in relation to par in four years.
He hit the ball relatively poor in the third round, but made enough clutch shots to finish with a 65 and take a one-shot lead into Sunday.
The three-shot victory was his most lopsided since winning the 2008 Buick Invitational by eight.
He took advantage of the easy course and weak field as expected. The six players who finished within five shots of Woods have a combined four titles.
"He's just laughing at all of us," Letzig said. "I wish he'd stop coming to the tournaments I'm coming to. Seriously, though, I love it."
Woods, whose previous three wins this year were each by one shot, spent much of Sunday with a two-shot cushion before he took a three-stroke lead with the birdie at No. 16.
His businesslike final round included three birdies and no bogeys and won without trailing in the final round for the first time since Bay Hill in 2008.
Competition and courses are about to get much tougher.
Woods will play at the Bridgestone Invitational next before going to Hazeltine for the PGA Championship, his final chance to win a major this year.
He is set to compete in two straight tournaments going into a major for the first time in his career.
"I feel good," Woods said. "The win helps."
Contributing: Wire reports
Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.


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I am staying @ Sunnyvale and looking for a partner to play tennis during weekdays evening and weekends. My level would be intermediate (3/3.5).
Please drop me a mail, if anyone is interested.
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Lake Wobegon, where, "all the children are above average" has at least one real-life counterpart -- the world of science professors.
In a recent Nature Education survey report, "Time to Decide: The Ambivalence of the World of Science Toward Education", 85% of them judged themselves as above average teachers of the 52% of students (more than half) they saw as poorly taught by other instructors.
"Obviously, they can't all be better-than-average (teachers)," says report co-author Vikram Savkar of Nature Education, the electronic learning division of the Nature Publishing Group, which produces some of the scientific world's most high-impact journals. "It's not a real secret in the world of science that research, not teaching, is what really counts."
The April report, sponsored by Intel, found that 77% of the 450 professors from 30 nations surveyed viewed teaching as important as research. "Yet our respondents hypothetical actions did not agree with their professed values," the report says. Given the choice of hiring either a star researcher and bad teacher, star teacher and bad researcher or decent researcher and teacher, the largest number of them, 48%, went for the star teacher, and split on the other two. "Universities run on research grant money, and professors know this," Savkar says.
In the May 6 edition of Nature, Diane Auer Jones of the Washington Campus, in Washington D.C., a former Education Department official, suggests the current bad economy may have a silver lining by making colleges turn to teaching as research budgets are slashed. "There won't be enough money in the U.S. treasury over the next decade to even maintain the current federal R&D baseline," says Jones. "However, the collective belt-tightening that will soon take place may force a productive refocusing of the research effort among a smaller group of research-intensive institutions. This could improve the efficiency and productivity of U.S. research, while preserving teaching-intensive institutions."
"I find the idea that in the face of shrinking R&D budgets more scientists will return a major part of their focus to teaching intriguing," Savkar says. "But of course there must be positive incentives for teaching, not just a reduction of incentives for research, which, in itself, is actually a bad thing. Positive incentives include funding, prestige, tenure positions, and so on."
For science students, the real way that survey professors feel about them comes clear in a survey report question asking, "What drives student success?" Talent and work ethic was the first answer of the professors, ranked almost 20% higher than the next-closest response, class attendance. "Even though studies show no difference between the talents and abilities of students who stay in science and the 40% who drop out in the first year," Savkar says. "Clearly we are turning away some students needlessly."
The "Time to Decide" report concludes by calling for a "realignment of institutional values" in science education. Rather than pouring more money into research grants, funding agencies should look to support better teaching, especially in an era of concern over inadequate enrollment in science majors. Publishers have a responsibility here too," Savkar says. "That is why we are supporting new learning initiatives."
And advice for students today? Look hard at how seriously your school takes teaching, Savkar says, if education is indeed why you are chasing that degree.
By Dan Vergano
Visit Science Fair for your daily dose of scientific news, from dinosaurs to distant galaxies. Science Fair is written by science reporters Dan Vergano and Elizabeth Weise and weather reporter Doyle Rice. Their subjects are often controversial -- and always fascinating -- be they stem-cell research, slime mold, or underground slush on Mars. More about the team


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Banality, and the Little Man on the Podium
September 17, 2002
By Mike McArdle
"Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of
examining and reflecting upon whatever happens to come to
pass, regardless of specific content and quite independent
of results, could this activity be of such a nature that it
'conditions' men against evildoing?" - Hannah Arendt on Adolph
Eichmann, The Banality of Evil
Eichmann was a bureaucrat whose job it was to move political
prisoners, mostly Jews to the deaths camps of Europe during
World war II. He did his job with cold, detached efficiency.
But what had startled political scientist Hannah Arendt as
she covered his war crimes trial for the New Yorker in 1961
was Eichmann's stunning ordinariness. He had been a file clerk,
a vacuum salesman and a man who had facilitated mass murder.
But he could never understand, even at his trial why he had
been singled out. He had simply followed the established procedures,
everyone had done it. He had never considered - before, during,
or after the fact - the implications of what he had done.
In a different time and a different place he would have still
been selling vacuums.
Another truly ordinary man walked to a podium in New York
this week to address the nations and leaders of the world.
He would have sold sound systems or been a convenience store
manager if his name had been other than what it is. Well,
maybe he would have been an assistant manager. But an accident
of birth dictated higher things for him. He didn't feel the
need to work hard for these things, he expected them. When
he couldn't get things on his own there were always people
there to give them to him. He did what they said and never
asked questions. Dump the stock, take the money, it'll be
okay. We¹ll take care of it.
The people who handle him want to have a war so they needed
him to go in and have a diplomatic temper tantrum at the UN.
He had to show those multilateral globalists who's boss. The
one-worlders were going to find out that we're going to have
our war and there's not a damn thing they can do about it.
He surely hadn't thought about the possible implications.
The rest of the world sees possible tragedy and political
upheaval. But there aren't any shades of gray in the eyes
of this most simplistic of men. It's only right and wrong,
good and evil. There's really nothing else to think about,
is there ?
He quit drinking when he hit forty. Pretty soon after that
he had latched onto Jesus Christ whom he once described in
a debate as his favorite political philosopher. But he didn't
think about Christ any more than he had pondered Jack Daniels.
His religion is as empty as his college degrees, just another
bit of credentialing that he never dwelt much upon. Christ
wasn't a political philosopher but it's clear that he hadn't
thought enough about his middle-aged discovery to discern
that, and of course his demeanor after making the statement
made it clear that he never realized how preposterous his
words were. He just never thought about it. Why should he?
He just needed a stock answer to get him through the quiz.
So there was going to be war. That's what they had told him
and he wasn't going to ask any questions or provide any justifications
. It didn't matter that in his lust to remove an evil he could
murder thousands of innocents or tens of thousands or more.
It's us and them, white hats and black hats. No further concentration
will be required.
Last year they had told him he had to protect stem cells
and frozen embryos and so he did. But, of course it would
never occur to him to look at the obscene contradiction between
the supposed sacredness of cells and the moral depravity of
his role killing Afghan wedding guests and now Iraqi children
and grandmothers and shopkeepers. You have to think to see
the contradiction. And it was all just too much trouble.
The ugly, bullying, blackmailing spectacle at the UN should
have shown the assembled nations of the world something that
Hannah Arendt saw so vividly at Eichmanns trial 40 years ago.
Sometimes the greatest threats to the world can be perpetrated
not by the two-bit dictator in the ill-fitting military suit
who schemed and cheated his way to power. He had to think
to get and stay there and has to know the limits of his power
lest he be destroyed by transgressing them. Sometimes the
far greater evil is the small, simplistic person who has enormous
power land in his lap and will never think about the morality
or implications of its use.


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Written on: 03/01/2012 by Rotabrecords (1 review written)
I found this store online, As most people do, because they do have lower prices than anywhere else. That being said, after placed the order on the webpage. I received an email with 2 phone numbers to call if I had any question on the status of my order. One number was "NO LONGER IN SERVICE" and the other was BUSY.. After a few calls later they said my order would be able to be picked up in a day or two. When I finely was able to pick it up I went to the store and was impressed by what they had in the store. But I agree, the customer service could be better. But I guess that comes with paying a little more.
As rated by our community of reviewers
" Bad business no customer service at all " Read More
" Avoid these people! " Read More
Written by JudithMH
" A Dissapointing Experience, Buying Elsewhere. " Read More
" Big range of Pinatas " Read More
Written by Matthew.Hanson
" AVOID " Read More


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Our medium rick rack comes in 21 beautiful colors and is available in 1/2" width. 2-1/2 yards per package. 3 packages per box.
General Shipment Timing GuidelineThis product takes about 4 weeks before we are ready to ship not including ship time to your area from JKM's facility.
(Product Characteristic: Fabric Trim) / (Fabric Content: 100% Polyester)


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Eighteenth Century Fiction
Related Databases
Eighteenth Century Fiction contains the complete text of 96 works of English prose from the period 1700-1780, by writers from the British Isles. All of the most widely-studied texts are in the database, alongside others long neglected or unavailable. The complete text of each work is included. First editions have been used unless considered unreliable.


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Lesbians Crowned Homecoming King And Queen
Good news! High school doesn't always have to suck! Patrick Henry High School in San Diego crowned a lesbian student named Rebeca Arellano as its first homecoming king during the school pep rally and days later, Rebeca's girlfriend of two years, Haileigh Adams, was crowned homecoming queen. Rebeca was the school's first female homecoming king, which was especially shocking because the couple said they didn't plan to run and just ended up getting a lot of positive support from their classmates. So, suck on that, Westboro Baptist Church.
I love Rebeca's response to bigoted reactions to their crowning achievement. ABC News reports that she wrote on Facebook:
For all the girls who think tradition should be continued, go back to the kitchen, stop having sex before you're married, get out of school and job system, don't have an opinion, don't own any property, give up the right to marry who you love, don't vote, and allow your husband to do whatever he pleases to you. Think about the meaning of tradition when you use it in your argument against us.
Damn straight. Congratulations, Rebeca and Haileigh!
[ABC News]
Contact the author of this post at [email protected] Follow me on Twitter at @JessicaWakeman.
Image via Los Angeles Times.


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Why Does the Home of the Future Look So Retro?
If you've been following our Home of the Future, or if you've visited us here, you've probably noticed that a lot of what we feature here seems to carry a slightly retro tinge. That might seem counterintuitive, but it's not unintentional—in fact, it's often by design.


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It's Really Hard Not To Love Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock is one of those actresses (and human beings, I suppose) that's so endearing, you can't help but love her even if you don't necessarily love all her movies. She does some pretty good movies, though – nothing mind-blowing, but at least really enjoyable. In any case, every time she does an interview, she just comes off as so down-to-earth and charming and I think she's absolutely great. Read her latest quote on Evil Beet Gossip…


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TopMod3d is a free, open source, topological mesh modeling system that allows users to create high genus 2-manifold (watertight) meshes. It runs on Windows and OSX.
To me, topological modeling feels weird, but after playing around with it for a little I managed to get some nice results. As an added bonus most models will be readily printable by Shapeways (after conversion to X3D/Collada, still).
Here are some videos that are interesting to watch:
'Twisted Cube Handles'
(This interface version is outdated, but the way of working is still the same)
'Tetrahedron Spikes'
'Generated models'
Some nice models made in TopMod3D


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The University Record, November 19, 1996
Symposium honors Cantor, urges Americans to expand story repertoire
By Diane Swanbrow
News and Information Services
"When I was a student here," said Mary Frances Berry, "we never imagined there would be a woman dean of anything."
Berry, who teaches history and law at the University of Pennsylvania, was among the featured speakers at a Nov. 8 symposium honoring Nancy Cantor, the new dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies and vice provost for academic affairs-graduate studies.
The current chairperson of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Berry was first appointed to the commission by President Carter in 1980. She was fired by President Reagan for criticizing his policies, then reappointed by President Clinton in 1993.
The title of her speech was "The Stories People Tell: The Rape of the Pig Farmers Daughter and Other Justice Tales."
To ensure justice in America, Berry said, "we must give voice to previously silenced narratives. We must avoid internalizing the masters narrative. And we must expand Americas repertoire of stories."
After Berry finished speaking, Dean Cantor summed up the day. She touched on how the the program and speakers, men and women from disciplines as diverse as history, biochemistry, classics and engineering, embodied one important aspect of the symposiums title---"Graduate Education: New Faces, New Ideas, New Realities." Then she provided some insights into her goals for the Graduate school.
"First and foremost, graduate education depends on the new faces we can provide for at the table," Cantor said. We need to do that, she emphasized, for moral and intellectual reasons. "If we dont engage a wide range of participants, our canons will resonate with fewer and fewer people," she said. "Thats especially true of graduate education. As an institution, we cannot afford to isolate ourselves from our stakeholders."
"We owe it to graduate students to see ourselves as place-holders," she continued, "not the givers of staid dogma."
We should also think about the place of work in family life and the place of family life in work, said Cantor, the mother of a 6-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, who is autistic. "When I went to graduate school, you didnt dare raise any questions about this. If theres one thing having a woman dean should do, it is to raise questions about the proper place of life, work, love and family in graduate education."


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Stress, Coping and Balance
Feel Less Stress
WebMD Feature
Reviewed By Gary Vogin
Most of us know that it's best to keep our stress level in check, but sometimes, like our weight after the holidays, it creeps up on us despite our best efforts. Pamela Edwards, MD, psychiatrist and director of the adult psychiatry clinic at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), recently talked about stress, coping, and balance at the OHSU Women's Health Conference in Portland, Oregon.
"Stress is a mental and physical state resulting from the perception that the demands on oneself are greater than one's ability to meet the demands," Edwards says. Think of your capacity to deal with stress in terms of a bucket, she suggests. There is a limit to how much the bucket can hold. It is impossible to have an empty bucket, or zero stress, but try to limit your bucket's contents to one-half or two-thirds full. That way, if an emergency situation arises, you have some reserve to help you deal with it.
Coping With Daily Life
To cope with day-to-day stress, learn the principles of time management, Edwards suggests. Use calendars and lists. Prioritize important tasks. Be realistic about the time you need to finish jobs. Leave room in your schedule for unexpected demands.
"Come up with 10 ways to say no," Edwards advises. Learning how to say no helps keep your stress bucket from overflowing and protects you from stress overload. "Whenever you're in a situation where you'd really be better off saying no, you can just pull out one of these 10 ways to do it." Once you get the knack of saying no, it gets easier, she says.
Finding Balance
It's essential to get enough sleep. Studies have shown that Americans get about an hour less sleep per night today than they did in the 1950s. Edwards also points out that we work an average of five to eight hours more per week.
"You've probably heard that exercise helps diminish stress," Edwards says, "but that doesn't mean you have to join a gym and do aerobics." You can do that if you want, she says, but just being more active in your day-to-day life can benefit your health almost as much as a regular aerobic workout.
There are other ways to minimize stress:
"Managing stress is an ongoing process,"
Edwards says. "You have to be vigilant about it." Perhaps one of these
approaches will help you feel less tired, less mentally cluttered, and less
stressed overall.
©1996-2005 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
Last Editorial Review: 1/30/2005 10:41:12 PM


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by Mel cross posted from her blog When Cows and Kids CollideI've been learning about the Pearls for the last two years as I've learned more about the Christian Patriarchy movement. I have found Michael and Debi's books to be laughably bad - at best- and horribly abusive at worst. … [Read more...]
Preparing To Be A Help Meet – Background Information
May 28, 2014 by Suzanne Calulu
Filed Under: A Woman's Choice, Accountability, Adding Chores/Must Do, Alienation, Any Criticism or Suggestion, Baseless Conspiracy Theories, Beautiful Girlhood, Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, Big Happy Family Vision, blindly following leader, Botkin Syndrome, Bounded Choice, Christian Culture War, Christian Modesty, Coercive Religious Groups (Cults), cognitive dissonance, Control, Controlling Emotions & being cheerful always, Controlling women, Courtship / Betrothal, Dangerous People, Deciding who is 'saved', Demonic Influences, Demons everywhere, Devaluing Children, Dominionism / Christian Reconstruction, Drinking the Koolaid, Elitism, Emotional Purity, Enmeshment, Father Worship, Fear Based Theology, Fear of Hell, Fear tactics, Feminists, First Kiss at the Altar, Formulaic Religion, Freedom, Fruit of the Spirit, Fundamentalism, Gender Equality, Help Meet, Hope Chest, Hot Topics, Illogical Logic - Word Salad, Isolation, Issues, J.O.Y (Self Denial), Judgementalism, Kobayashi Maru ~ The No-Win Scenario, Learned Helplessness, Legalism, List of Qualities for Future Spouse, Lusting, Maintaining Appearances, Male Headship, Manipulation, Markers of a Cult, Marketing "Biblical Family Values", Men are Visual, Mental / Emotional Health, Michael & Debi Pearl, Mr. Command Man, Must Read! ~ NLQ Readers Choice ..., NLQ Miscellany, NLQ Open Comments, NLQ Quote Worthy, NLQ Stories, No Greater Joy (Michael & Debi Pearl), Non-Evangelical Christians, Non-traditional families, Old Paths, Other Women, Patriarchy, Perfectionism, Personal Autonomy, Preparing To Be A Help Meet - Mel, Preparing To Be A Help Meet by Debi Pearl, Purity, Purity Culture, Quiverfull, Quiverfull Counterculture, Quiverfull Discernment, Quiverfull in the News, Quiverfull Leaders, Quiverfull Resources, Quiverfull Topics, Rape Culture, Recovering from Spiritual Abuse, Recovery, Religious Trauma Syndrome, Self Esteem, Self-Abnegation / Martydom, Self-Righteousness, Sexual Consent, Spiritual Abuse, Spiritual Issues, Submission, The "World", The Godly Woman, The Myth of Teenage Rebellion, True Love Waits, Twisting Word Meanings, Unconditional Respect From Wife, Using Scripture to support narrow worldview Tagged With: Book Review Preparing To Be A Help Meet, Christian Daughters, Debi Pearl Bad Advice, Prepared To Be A Help Meet by Debi Pearl, Preparing for Christian Marriage, Training Wives


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Apr 16, 2007 #061
Contact: Amanda Lepper
(816) 235-1592
UMKC's Dustin Jensen lands prestigious Udall Scholarship for a second timeThe Morris K. Udall Scholarship is one of the most coveted honors sought by the nation's highest achieving college and university students. University of Missouri-Kansas City junior Dustin Jensen not only has the honor of accepting the $5,000 scholarship but the prestige of having accomplished that feat for a second year in a row.
Jensen is among only 80 students nationwide to be named a 2007 Udall Scholar. More than 430 candidates were nominated for the honor by 221 colleges and universities. The students were selected on the basis of their academic achievements, leadership potential and commitment to pursuing careers in the fields of environment or tribal health care and public policy.
At UMKC, Jensen is ambitiously pursuing three degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Sciences, a Bachelor of Science in Geography and a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Affairs. Upon graduation, he plans to seek a master's degree in public administration with the aim of pursuing a career in the non-profit sector promoting energy and waste conservation. Jensen is particularly interested in environmentally friendly residential and commercial building sciences and urban planning. He's already a veteran in the field, having invested thousands of hours in community non-profit agencies including the Metropolitan Energy Center, Habitat Humanity Restore and the Missouri Waste Control Coalition.
The Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation was authorized by Congress in 1992 to honor Congressman Morris K. Udall's legacy of public service. He served in the House of Representatives for three decades, during which his love for the environment resulted in numerous pieces of legislation. Chief among them was the Alaska Lands Act of 1980, which doubled the size of the national park system and tripled the national wilderness. Udall also championed the rights of Native Americans and Alaska Natives, using his leadership in Congress to strengthen tribal self-governance.
Jensen, his fellow scholarships winners and those students receiving honorable mentions will assemble August 1-5 in Tucson to receive their awards and meet policy-makers and community leaders in environmental fields, tribal health care and governance. For a listing of all the 2007 Udall Scholars and Honorable Mentions or for more information about the foundation and related program, go online to www.udall.gov or contact Melissa Millage at (520) 901-8562.
UMKC is one of four University of Missouri campuses. It is a public university serving more than 14,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. UMKC engages with the community and economy based on a three-part mission: visual and performing arts, health and life sciences, and urban affairs.


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- Description
- A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but these Sterling Silver cufflinks will help you look like a million dollars! Each whimsical cufflink features a brushed silver open hand, palm up, with a polished bird inside. Beautifully handcrafted by Deakin & Francis, these unique cuff links showcase the attention to detail and dedication to quality materials that has kept the company so successful since 1786.
Crafted by Deakin & Francis U.K.
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Dimensions: 8" in width by 5" inch in depth by 1-1/2" in height.
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Shop with My Rewards Code: JIZ386
Can't See Any Difference
Not sure what this is other than filtered water. Won't buy again.
Daily Use Keeps Hair Healthy
No doubt body likes this product for Omega 3. I blend with a group of whole foods for a "green" drink each morning. Especially noticed is the healthy looking hair.
vcaps C Complex
Posted by Reviewer2738612 on Jul 12, 2011 | Verified Purchase
I use these or the powder both morning and nightly. especially when fighting cold symptoms or drippy nose. Works. Real lemons are even better than the vcaps, yet can't always get the lemons. Very grateful.
Fast, Simple and Works!
Posted by Reviewer2738612 on Oct 25, 2007 | Verified Purchase
The vegie caps are a big plus for me for any herb. It has been such a simple matter to take one/day and find no urinary tract infections have occured. I used to use cranberry juice, but it is more expensive and bothersome to drink 1/4 cup or more/day. Love this product!
No Serious Bite with This Cayenne Powder
Use 1/4 teaspoon morning and night in "green" drink for vitamin C and for overall health.
I really wanted ascorbic acid, I think. My nose still runs after taking this, therefore it isn't doing what ascorbic acid powder has done, stopped runny nose.
Strength-giving RAW Protein, Beyond Organic
Had lost muscle mass. Need two things to maintain and to build muscle: protein and testosterone. Garden of Life's RAW Protein has been a tremendous help to my vegan diet.
Packaging Not for Me
Won't buy because I don't like the packaging. I trust veggie caps and that it is probiotics.
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