News

Anyone seen Michael Crichton’s new “State of Fear”? The man who brought dinosaurs back to life now disputes the commonly held belief that global warming is a consequence of increased carbon dioxide emissions produced by the industrialized world.

I’ve never really looked at the evidence supporting the anthropocentric theory of global warming, so I took a look around and found what I hope are a few unbiased sources:

Exploratorium’s Climate Change Page
Environmental Protection Agency

And a couple of clearly biased sources:
Fact, Hypothesis, or Myth
National Defence Research Council

My take away?

1) There is a definite warming trend in global surface measurements observable
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With the surge in ‘reality’ shows and the radical change of MTV (from Music TV to eMpTy V), America’s millions of tv viewers have asserted their power to change the situation for smaller TV networks who produce most of the reality shows. The production cost of a reality show is a small fraction of what the big networks spend on their big productions like HBO’s Band of Brothers, which is really chapping the big networks’ collective butt.

Anyway, eBay is another medium that has changed the way the internet is being used. Most of the postings you see on eBay now are organized “Power Sellers” that run entire businesses off eBay, but a large number of posts are from your typical casual seller that just wants to auction something off. This post, as the title suggests is a post on eBay for an auction that closed on April 28, 2004 (so, I don’t know how long they are going to keep it up) for a wedding dress… Normally, I wouldn’t give it another look, but the pictures woke my appetite and the reading afterwards of the item description settled my appetite for a good laugh.

Enjoy: After the wedding…

* Front row seats to Game 6 of the Cubs – Marlins Series: $400
* Cubs baseball hat: $25
* 4 Beers: $24
* Reaching out to catch a flyball, causing Alou not to catch it and initiating the 8 run inning for the Marlins…then to have your picture on every sports website and name revealed…forever to be cursed by Cubs fans: priceless

Witness Protection Program: Anything less would be dangerous.

I was browsing trough the New York Times today when I came across an article that seemed consistent with recent events: “Onstage Attack Casts Pall Over Las Vegas Strip”. My morbid curiosity got the best of me, expecting to hear a tale of terroristic homicidal rage. Instead, I learned that Siegfried and Roy have been indefinitely shut down due to a tiger mauling during a performance. Epic.

In other news, did you know that Fight Club shares many parallels with the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? Read more.

The paomnnehil pweor of the hmuan mnid.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

So, what are our collective thoughts on this? I received an email via inCircle (the email distribution parameters look pretty promiscuous and I can guess this is a repeat for some of you) from a ’98 grad who works at the company in question (see the extended entry for the full text of the email).

$15 a barrel on the first deployment with the production cost dropping to $10 in three to five years? Sam, do you call BS?

From a business perspective, it seems like they have some momentum – government support, investor support, protection of their intellectual assets, and a well-stocked pipeline.

As a total aside, maybe I’ll cancel that lunch order for a turkey sandwich ….
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