In September 1959, physicists Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison published
an article in the journal Nature with
the provocative title "Searching for Interstellar Communications." Cocconi
and Morrison argued that radio telescopes had
become sensitive enough to pick up transmissions that might be broadcast into
space by civilizations orbiting other stars. Such messages, they suggested, might be
transmitted at a wavelength of 21 centimeters (1,420.4 megahertz).
This is the wavelength of radio emission
by neutral hydrogen, the most common element in the
universe, and they reasoned that other intelligences might see this as a
logical landmark in the radio spectrum. Seven months later, radio astronomer Frank
Drake became the first person to start a systematic search for intelligent
signals from the cosmos. Using the 25
meter dish of the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West
Virginia. Drake listened in
on two nearby Sun-like stars: Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti. In this project, that he called Project Ozma, he slowly scanned frequencies
close to the 21 cm wavelength for six hours per day from April to July
1960. The project was well designed,
cheap, simple by today's standards, and unsuccessful. Soon thereafter, Drake hosted a "search
for extraterrestrial intelligence" meeting on detecting their
radio signals. The meeting was held at
the Green Bank facility in 1961. The equation that bears Drake's name arose out
of his preparations for the meeting. Read much more and learn about the Drake
Equation and the Fermi Paradox at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
Vinton Cerf, widely recognized as one of the
“Fathers of the Internet” for his work on the design of the TCP/IP protocols
and the architecture of the Internet, has served as Vice President and Chief
Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005. He was chairman of the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007. He is currently also President of the
Association for Computing Machinery. Mr.
Cerf is also the former Senior Vice President of Technology Strategy and
Architecture and Technology for MCI. While
working with MCI, Mr. Cerf led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first
commercial email service to be connected to the Internet. He currently serves on several boards and has
received numerous awards for his continuously pioneering work including the
U.S. National Medal of Technology, the ACM Alan M. Turing award, the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Japan Prize and the Queen Elizabeth II Prize
for Engineering. David Brin is a scientist, inventor, and
New York Times bestselling author. With
books translated into 25 languages, he has won multiple Hugo, Nebula, and other
awards. A film directed by Kevin Costner
was based on David’s novel The Postman. Other works have been optioned by Paramount
and Warner Bros. David’s science-fictional Uplift Saga explores genetic
engineering of higher animals, like dolphins, to speak. His new novel
from Tor Books is Existence. As a
scientist/futurist, David is seen frequently on television shows such
as The ArchiTechs, Universe, and Life After People (most popular show ever on
the History Channel) – with many appearances on PBS, BBC and NPR. http://ipnsig.org/2014/01/16/speaer-bios/
In the March 2014 issue of Communications of
the ACM, Vinton Cerf discusses David Brin's speech at a January 2014 conference
organized by the Internet Society's chapter on Interplanetary
Communication. Brin said: What if we
are the ones who are supposed to light
the galaxy? What if our species is destined to spread
outward from Earth to populate the galaxy?
Some of the questions raised by the speaker in Cerf's mind: What technologies do we need to expand beyond
our planet and our solar system? How
should we prepare ourselves for such an ultimate goal? If we encounter a similarly inclined species,
how would we communicate? What Rosetta
stone should we prepare?
Power of the Pen is an interscholastic writing league founded by Lorraine B. Merrill in 1986. It is a non-profit creative
writing program for students
in grades seven and eight in Ohio. Power of the Pen is exclusive to the state of Ohio,
having no competition at a national level.
Over 80 school districts compete, each starting off with teams of twelve
students, six from each grade.
Power of the Pen is also the name of a Public Relations and
Communications agency founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1997. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_the_Pen
No Wizards, no wands In
the 1990s, Duncan Scott, then the New Mexico Senator, became so fed up with
psychological expert witnesses he proposed this amendment to a State Bill: “When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies
during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall
wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with
stars and lightning bolts. Additionally,
a psychologist or psychiatrist shall be required to don a white beard that is
not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his
testimony by stabbing the air with a wand.”
http://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/nlj/content/no-wizards-or-wands Turns out the story is true. Mr. Scott
tacked this amendment onto a Bill in 1995 and, despite its clearly
satirical nature, it passed with a unanimous Senate vote.
The amendment was then removed from the Bill prior to receiving House
approval so it never did become law. http://bc-injury-law.com/blog/making-psychiatrists-dress-wizards
In 2013, the cost of making pennies and
nickels exceeded their face value for the eighth year in a row. The cost of minting a penny stood at 1.8
cents, nearly twice its face value. Nickels
cost twice as much as dimes – 9.4 cents vs. 4.6 cents – despite being worth
only half as much. All told, the Mint (and ultimately, U.S. taxpayers)
lost $105 million on the production of pennies and nickels last year. The least controversial approach would be to
simply change the metal composition of the coins to make them less expensive. Canadian nickels, for example, are 95% steel,
which makes them cheaper to produce than their American cousins. As of last year, Canadian nickels still cost less than
their face value. The other option would
be to discontinue pennies and nickels entirely – Canada ditched its pennies
when their production cost approached 1.6 cents, well below what U.S. pennies
cost now. To be fair, the penny has
plenty of supporters in the general public. A 2012
survey by
penny lobbying firm ‘Americans
for Common Cents’ – funded, not surprisingly, by the zinc industry –
found that 2/3rds of Americans favored keeping the penny. While any poll
conducted by a lobbying outfit should be treated with skepticism, it’s probably
safe to say that the penny and nickel hold special places in many Americans’
hearts – see, for starters, the remarkable number of penny-centric phrases and idioms in
English. Past attempts to discontinue
penny production have been thwarted by the zinc industry (pennies are 97.5%
zinc), and Coinstar, which operates the change-redeeming kiosks that are
ubiquitous in U.S. grocery stores, as David Owen reported in The New Yorker in 2008. Christopher Ingraham http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/10/taxpayers-lost-105-million-on-pennies-and-nickels-last-year/
Texas State Representative Tom Moore, Jr. introduced legislation on April 1, 1971 commending Albert de Salvo—more commonly known as the Boston Strangler—including this wording: This compassionate gentleman's dedication and
devotion to his work has enabled the weak and the lonely throughout the nation
to achieve and maintain a new degree of concern for their future. He has been officially recognized by the state
of Massachusetts for
his noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology.
After it was passed
unanimously by the House, Moore later withdrew the legislation, explaining he
had only offered it to prove an important point that his fellow legislators
didn't read much of the legislation they voted on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Moore,_Jr.
Bookish,
acquired by Zola Books in
January, is an independent book recommendation engine, except it was never
entirely independent. Bookish was
founded by three major publishers with a big announcement and then a fizzling,
much-delayed launch. It claimed
editorial independence from its funders but never found a clear foothold
online, struggling to reach readers. Since
being acquired by Zola, an independent book discovery site and online store,
Bookish has been employed as the recommendation engine for the New York Public
Library, as announced March 24, 2014. Bookish's
recommendations have been added to a service called BiblioCommons, which is or will be implemented
by public libraries that include Seattle, Santa Monica, Chicago, Omaha, Boston
and more. Does it work? Visitors to this section of the New York Public
Library's website see book covers go by in a scroll that
looks not unlike Amazon's more static "people who bought this also bought"
row. Clicking through to any single
title pulls up "Bookish Recommends" along the right-hand side. Zola says it has 780,000 titles in its
database and it has figured out how to classify them so the connections make
sense. But Zola is in the business of
selling books. So why provide tools to
library borrowers? In a model not being
employed by the NYPL, Radosevich explained, "clicks on recommended books
point back to book pages on Zola's Bookish.com and partners earn a revenue
share for any sales." Carolyn
Kellogg http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-zola-bookish-recommendation-engine-for-libraries-20140325,0,101462.story#axzz2x5NR3rur
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1128
March 28, 2014 On this date in
1920, at least 31 tornados crossed the Midwest, and portions of Alabama and
Georgia. It ranks among the deadliest
tornado outbreaks in U.S. history, killing more than 150 and injuring more than
900.
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