"I'm dreaming of a white christmas,
just like the ones I used to know"
Bing Crosby - White
Christmas (colorized version)
with Marjorie Reynolds dubbed by Martha Mears
Let’s turn back the clock – forget global warming,
banking meltdowns, moronic political goo and remember the
1800s with Dicken’s "A Christmas Carol."
Imagine a goose roasting in the oven, a touch of snow on
the ground, a nip of frost in the air, a time of merriment
with family and friends, of Christmas crackers and carol
singers, sheep huddled in frozen fields below bright stars,
of Channukah lights and piles of wrapped presents around a
cozy fireplace.
May the spirit of the holidays bless you and those you hold
most dear bringing peace and happiness to your household.
And may the New Year be filled with excitement and joy and
wonder.
Twenty-two percent — more than one in five — of
America's kids live in poverty, according to 2010 stats
from the Bureau.
Grouping all Minnesota children together in 2009, the
poverty rate was 14 percent, but among African-American
kids it was 47 percent, among Hispanic children 32 percent
and among Asians 22 percent. White, non-Hispanic youngsters
figured at 8 percent.
Dennis Cauchon and Barbara Hansen
report on the drop in income and increase in poverty.
Michael Stern Hart
passing marks the end of another chapter in the History of
the Internet.
Michael Stern Hart
At a time when "Net Neutrality" and digital access is a
non-given, one is reminded of Hart's use of mainframe time for
free (in *both* meanings of the word) information distribution.
Hart related that after his account was created on July
4, 1971, he had been trying to think of what to do with it
and had seized upon a copy of the United States Declaration
of Independence, which he had been given at a grocery store
on his way home from watching fireworks that evening. He
typed the text into a teletype machine but was unable to
transmit it via e-mail. Thus, to avoid "crashing the
system", it had to be downloaded individually.
Hart's keen intelligence and tenacity are described in a letter
of recommendation by his Assistant Dean at the University of
Illinois posted on The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation website:
I feel strongly that the keenness of his intellect and the
quickness of his mind, his personal stamina and his
fearless determination to pursue avenues of inquiry which
frighten the less vigorous minds are worth of serious
consideration for a position in which innovation and
compelling imagination are essential.
Today
Project Gutenberg, which Hart founded, offers over 36,000
free ebooks to download and use on a variety of digital
devices. Over 100,000 books are distributed by the
organization's affiliates.
The second edition of Fortnight, the new
multimedia online journal assembled quarterly in New York,
features 14 contributors from 14 disciplines. That's 56 young
people annually, their actions today and ideas of tomorrow.
Masthead lists: Adam Whitney Nichols and Samantha
Hinds as Co-Founders, Ian Lewis Campbell, Managing
Editor and Patti Smith, Patron Saint. Fortnight is a
Solo Foundation project.
Dollars and Sense Fighting Poverty - Esther Duflo in 16
minutes
Professor Duflo speaks about using randomized
trials to examine which development efforts are effective
and which are not.
Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty
Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of
Economics at MIT and a founder and director of the Jameel
Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research network specializing in
randomized evaluations of social programs, which won the BBVA
Foundation "Frontier of Knowledge" award in the development
cooperation category. Duflo is an NBER Research Associate,
serves on the board of the Bureau for Research and Economic
Analysis of Development (BREAD), and is Director of the Center
of Economic Policy Research's development economics program.
Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing
countries, including household behavior, education, access to
finance, health and policy evaluation. She was a 2009 MacArthur
Fellow.
We like circus movies and the start time was right, so we took
a chance on Water for Elephants at a flagship AMC cinema
recently. An English Patient or Out of Africa it
is not. In all fairness, Tai (who plays Rosie the
elephant) did give a good performance captured by Austrian
music video director Francis Lawrence.
Tai the elephant
Watching the last third of the movie was plagued by what
appeared to be a loose or failing projector bulb, flickering as
the entire screen went black in annoying flashes. Closing one's
eyes solved the visual annoyance, but it defeated the
filmmakers' purpose of spending tens of millions to make even a
mediocre movie. A couple of patrons went to notify the absent
management.
Technical problems happen, but we did notice how dim the
projection was even without the flashes of black. Ty
Burr reveals
why.
Not so apparent if you use the wrong lens
Some theater owners, the same ones who complain about
Video-On-Demand and the shrinking Theater-to-DVD Window, are
too cheap to change 3-D lenses on Sony digital
projectors (which they got for free) when showing a film
that is not 3-D.
Announcing it wants consistency in how users view
'tweets,' Twitter
has told software developers not to build client new
apps for its 140 character communication platform. A number of
developers see the motivation of this policy not in the
interest of consistency, but rather a grab
for controlling ad sales.
Facebook may have a huge installed base, but it's dead to
me. I can't get there. The platform vendor is too active.
Same with Twitter, same with Apple. Give me a void,
something I can develop for, where I can follow the idea
where ever it leads. Maybe there are only a few thousand
users. Maybe only a few million. Hey, you can't be friends
with everyone.
