forsv: potpourri of thoughts

time to move

Good friends and interested readers,

Good news! I am moving this blog – and my others – to my VERY OWN DOMAIN!

If you will replace your http://sv.typepad.com/ URLs with the beautiful new http://www.forsv.com

Then we’ll meet there in one month (hey, I do get a little time off to refresh my roots in Mother India!)

I hope I’ll see you there. Meanwhile, I hope November is a lucky, surprisingly good month for all of you.

All the best,

Hi-tech workers make 'curry rock'

Hundreds of thousands of hi-tech workers from India have come to the US in the past decade.

Many of them arrived on the H-1B visa programme, which allows American companies to hire highly-skilled foreign workers.

For many Indians, getting a visa is a dream come true. But living and working in the US can be harder than expected and a group of Indian-born engineers has put the H-1B experience to music.

It all started, as these things often do, at a party. It was a house-warming party in the Washington DC area to be precise.

An Indian computer engineer with a yen for Jethro Tull was throwing the shindig. Among the guests were a couple of other Indian hi-tech workers with musical backgrounds.

Continue reading...

PSA: Canon and other digicam users, camera recalls...

(thanks to a good friend who sent this information)

In the past week, four major camera makers have quietly published service advisories admitting their digital cameras are affected. In each case, the flaw appears to involve CCD sensors using epoxy packaging that eventually lets in moisture.

Canon URL

Fuji URL

Minolta URL

SONY URL

European school takes top spot in the Economist Intelligence Unit's MBA rankings

For the first time, a European school-Spain's IESE-has topped the list in the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2005 ranking of full-time MBA programmes.

One of the main reasons that IESE does so well is the quality of its careers placement. IESE graduates can expect an average salary of around US$142,000 when they leave the programme, with 96% of graduates finding a job within three months.

Despite this European success, the ranking once again underlines the dominance of US schools. Eight of the top ten schools are American. Kellogg, which had topped the ranking for three consecutive years, drops to second, with Dartmouth, Stanford and Chicago all featuring prominently.

Bill Ridgers, the editor of Which MBA?, commented: "The main things that set these schools apart are a robust programme and excellent faculty. They often also possess a strong collegiate sense, meaning that students are keen to evangelise about their schools."

The highest ranked school in Asia and Australasia (excluding INSEAD, which has campuses in both France and Singapore) is the University of Hong Kong, in 45th place.

Read

Psychopaths could be best financial traders?

LONDON (Reuters) - "Wanted: psychopaths to make a killing in the markets."
Such an advert will not be appearing in the world's newspapers any time soon, but it may have a ring of truth after research revealed the best wheeler-dealers could well be "functional psychopaths."

A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions, the Times newspaper reported Monday.

In a study of investors' behavior 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.

The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.

Continue reading.

6 views of the Islamic world

6 views of the Islamic world What is at the the root of the clash between Islam and the West? And what do your answers say about your own beliefs? (via the Guardian)

Comparison New Orleans vs. Mumbai (Bombay)

New Orleans vs. Mumbai (Bombay)

inches of rain in new orleans due to hurricane katrina... 18
inches of rain in mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1

population of new orleans... 484,674
population of mumbai.... 12,622,500

deaths in new orleans within 48 hours of katrina...100
deaths in mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 37.

number of people to be evacuated in new orleans... entire city..wohh
number of people evacuated in mumbai...10,000

Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE

Time taken for US army to reach new orleans...48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai...12hours

status 48hours later...new orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricty
status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and its business is as usual

USA...world's most developed nation
India...third world country..

oopss...did i get the last fact wrong???

JohnAugust.com

​​​​If you're writing a screenplay (and let's face it, who isn't?), get thee to this blog. Subtitled "a ton of useful information about screenwriting," the site shares, well, a ton of useful information about screenwriting. John August, whose credits include "Big Fish," "Go," and "Charlie's Angels," walks us through the trials and tribulations of wielding the pen in Hollywood. Along the way, he addresses such topics as...

• How he got his agent
• What format you should send your script in
• Moving to Hollywood
• Is film school necessary? (Answer: No)

Even if you don't indulge in fantasies of writing your own screenplay but just love movies (and let's face it, who doesn't?), you'll enjoy this glimpse into the inner workings of La-La Land.

UK bans 'magic mushrooms'

UK bans 'magic mushrooms' (except the poisonous ones), rendering them class A like heroin and crack. Shroomers fight back. Mushroom have been used for a while and we have a lot of information about their effects and safety, just as we do with alcohol - but facts schmacts, right? You can't be too careful.

Britain's true National Dish - Chicken Tikka Masala

Believe it or not, UK has around 8,000 curry houses which employ 70,000 people - more than steel, coal and shipbuilding put together.

Do you know how much British spend on Indian food? Almost 2.5 million pound!!!!!!!!!!!.

Anyway, Chicken Tikka Masala is the most ordered Indian dish in UK. That's why, it has been hailed the British's true National Dish :-)

The popularity of Indian dish led to choose Vindaloo as the unofficial anthem of England's 1998 football World Cup.

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Books online

For all Alistair Maclean fans you can read his books online here.

Robots run amok at hospital

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Waldo, a robot that delivers medicines at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, went berserk.

"Waldo shot past the pharmacy and barged uninvited into the examination room in the radiation oncology department, where -- according to an anonymous caller -- a doctor was examining a cancer patient," the paper's columnists wrote. "According to the caller, Waldo wouldn't leave, and the startled doctor and patient felt obliged to flee the room."

Many believe that robots will be used to perform dangerous or menial tasks in the future. But that's what people thought in the "Planet of the Apes" movies and look what happened there.

CIA war game simulates major Internet attack

The CIA is conducting a cyber-war game this week geared to simulate a major Internet attack by enemy computer hackers, an intelligence official said Thursday.

Dubbed "Silent Horizon," the three-day unclassified exercise is based on a scenario set five years in the future and involves participants from government and the private sector.

"These are people who could likely be affected or enlisted in a real situation," the intelligence official said.

"Its goal is to help the United States recognize indicators of a large-scale cyber attack."

Continue reading ...

New Award (attempts to) challenge the Nobel Prize

$1 million science awards created
Kavli Prizes for astrophysics, neuroscience, nanotech

OSLO, Norway - Nobel science prizes will face a "more daring" rival beginning in 2008, with $1 million awards for research into everything from the Big Bang to the brain, a Norwegian-born philanthropist says.

Fred Kavli, a physicist who left Norway in 1955 with $300 and turned it into a $340 million fortune in California, said he was setting up three prizes for astrophysics, neuroscience and nanotechnology, the use of molecule-sized devices.

Kavli already funds 10 science institutes — nine at U.S. universities including Stanford, Yale and Cornell, and one at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Three scientists linked to the institutes won Nobel prizes last year.

"We want to spread the word of science and get more students interested. ... In many parts of the world that's a problem, from Norway to the United States," Kavli told Reuters on Monday.

"I think we'll be more daring," than the Nobel awards, he said, because they would seek to reward scientific breakthroughs more quickly than the conservative Nobel system.

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radical torrents

Chomskytorrents.org provides a gathering place for torrents with progressive and radical content. As for now, it preserves a special place for the work of American dissident Noam Chomsky.

Tree with Jurassic roots unveiled

A rare species of tree dating back millions of years has been planted at Kew's Royal Botanical Gardens by wildlife expert Sir David Attenborough.

The Wollemi pine, once thought to have been extinct for 200 million years, was recently discovered in Australia, sparking a major conservation project.

It is thought the pines populated the ancient supercontinent Gondwana when dinosaurs walked the Earth.

The tree will also be displayed at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London.

Secret location

Planting the rare tree Sir David said: "How marvellous and exciting that we should have discovered this rare survivor from such an ancient past.

"It is romantic, I think, that something has survived 200 million years unchanged.

continue reading ...

Art of Living Foundation

"Living is a fact
But HOW to fully live is an art." - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Art of Living Foundation presents 1ST TIME EVER:
LIVE MAHAKRIYA WEEKEND IN THE US New York May 20-22, 2005

For more information click here.

Innovation of the Week

Coffee can that heats itself.

American Garden Museum

Some of us just love the smell of fresh compost and the feel of soil beneath our nails. And some of us don't. Regardless of which side of the fence you're on, you'll be inspired by the American Garden Museum. Take a virtual stroll through some of the country's most beautiful gardens. Swing open the gate and follow the path to gardens large and small, public and private. And when you're ready to create your own bit of paradise, the guide to the botanicals offers descriptions of 100 common and heritage species from African daisies to woodland ferns. You're even welcome to submit pictures of your Eden for inclusion in the "growing" archives.

Town with sign language as official language

Architects and town planners yesterday began drawing up blueprints for the first town built entirely for deaf people in the US.

Almost 100 families, from London to Australia, have reserved space in the South Dakota village, where all business will be conducted in sign language.

Future residents hope to become fully integrated in the day-to-day life, with every element designed specifically for deaf or hard of hearing people.

Buildings will incorporate glass for increased visibility, emergency services will rely on lights as opposed to sirens, while shops, restaurants, petrol stations, hotels and schools will be required to use sign language.

Marvin Miller, 33, who conceived the plan, hopes the building work will begin later this year. "Society isn't doing that great a job of 'integrating' us," Mr Miller, who is deaf, told the New York Times.

"My children don't see role models in their lives - mayors, factory managers, postal workers, business owners. So we're setting up a place to show our unique culture, our unique society."

The creators insist that the town, which will have a population of 2,500, will not be the sole reserve of deaf people. The only commitment asked by those intending to move there is that they live in an environment based on sight and American sign language. Opponents fear that the town will only serve to further isolate deaf people.

The town will be called Laurent after Laurent Clerc, a French educator of deaf people from the 1800s. The 92 families who have already reserved spaces will be expected to put down deposits for property within the next few months.

Google intros Q&A service

Google Inc. began delivering factual answers for some queries at the top of its results page, to save users from having to navigate over to other sites and look for the information.

For example, if a user enters the query "Portugal population," Google returns the answer -- 10.5 million -- along with a link to the Web page where the information came from, which in this case is the population page of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Factbook.

Continue reading...

ITSY-BITSY DRONE

There are now dozens of different types of drones in the Pentagon's arsenal. But you'd be hard-pressed to find one smaller than this Wasp Micro Air Vehicle (MAV), now being tested aboard the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group off Southern California.

"The Wasp has two cameras — one forward and one aft — that collect and feed live video or other information. It’s designed to follow a programmed or relayed route using Global Positioning System waypoints or other navigational systems," C4ISR Journal says.

Last month, researchers on the Nimitz's ships "launched several of the 7-ounce, 13-inch planes." Sailors there will be taking "the Wasp along on its upcoming deployment, used it for several missions, including maritime interdiction and force protection. Micro UAVs might help in situations in which ships do not have helicopters available... 'It has the potential to save lives during boardings,' said Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Roth, the Nimitz group’s communications officer."

Meanwhile, Darpa and Honeywell are teaming up for a second, slightly larger MAV program. Weighing in at about 12 pounds, the gallon-of-apple-juice-sized drone is meant to fit inside a soldier's (already overstuffed) backpack. The idea is that the MAV will give a small infantry unit the ability to see over the next hill, or around the next corner. That's pretty much what the hand-launched Raven and Dragon Eye drones do today. But this MAV uses ducted fan propulsion, giving it a helicopter-like ability to hover over a valley or alleyway -- or even land on a nearby rooftop, and watch a battle unfold.

Sony aims to beam sights, sounds into brain

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- If you think video games are engrossing now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp. has been granted a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.

The technique could one day be used to create video games in which you can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.

The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images.

"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex," the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person, such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear sounds."

According to New Scientist magazine, the first to report on the patent, Sony's technique could be an improvement over an existing non-surgical method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. This activates nerves using rapidly changing magnetic fields, but cannot be focused on small groups of brain cells.

Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.

A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."

Driving directions on your cellphone... from...

Who else? but Google

You can use Google SMS to get detailed driving directions, including total number of steps, estimated distance and travel time. Just send your start and end address to 46645 ('GOOGL' on most phones), and we'll return step-by-step directions.

Global Voices, Atanu Dey and BBC-NPR program "The World"

Global bloggers report (5:45)
Many websites have a section called a "blog" or web log. The log is a way for people to participate in online discussions. While these blogs are becoming more well-known in western countries, there are plenty of active bloggers all over the world. The World's technology reporter Clark Boyd has the story.

Related Links:
Global Voices Site
Ethan Zuckerman's Blog
Rebecca MacKinnon's Blog
Hossein Derakhshan's Blog
Atanu Dey's Blog
Ory Okolloh's Blog

Elephants do impressions

They say that elephants never forget. Now the creatures have shown that, when it comes to the fine art of vocal mimicry, they're not averse to learning new tricks either.

Researchers have recorded two African elephants (Loxodonta africana) that are adept mimics. One does a decent impression of an Asian elephant, and another is, remarkably, a dead ringer for a passing truck. The skilful impressions are far from the traditional grunts of an average African elephant.

The discovery adds elephants to a notably short roll call of animal mimics, which includes little more than humans, sea mammals, bats and birds. "The surprising thing is how few mammals show an ability to modulate their sounds," says Peter Tyack of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who led the study.

Copycat time

The two elephants in question are Mlaika, an adolescent female living in a semi-captive group in Kenya, and Calimero, an adult male who lived for 18 years with two Asian elephants at a Swiss zoo. Calimero, perhaps unsurprisingly, mimics the typical chirp noises of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). "But Mlaika seemed to be making noises like a truck, of all things," Tyack recalls.

Click here to hear a recording of Mlaika's truck-like calls.

Continue reading...

Protect Yourself from Tom DeLay With a Living Will

There are many lessons to learn from the unprecedented intervention by Congress (as led by Rep. Tom DeLay) into the tragic situation of Terri Schiavo.

The first is that the current Congress will intervene in the most private of family matters if it sees political advantage in doing so.

As a result, the only way to ensure that your own views are respected in similar settings is to have an advanced healthcare directive or living will. Working Assets does not provide legal advice. However, many have found helpful the information on these subjects provided by The American Bar Association. and the Living Will Registry

The second lesson is that there is no limit to the sheer audacity and hypocrisy of Rep. DeLay and his followers in this unprecedented intervention, only days after voting to slash billions of dollars from the health program which provides for millions of Americans and which itself saves thousands of lives.

We urge you to demand that your representative save lives by restoring cuts to the critical Medicaid program.

Click here to take action!

**Please forward this to your friends and help spread the word about this important campaign!

Thank you for working to build a better world,

Jennifer Willis
Director
ActForChange.com

Glassblowing galore

Fascinated by glassblowing? More video and info than you can shake a stick at. See also: Glassblowing in Antiquity as well as today. View the process via a mpeg video (or step through the pictures). See some old glass recipes and learn about what the individual ingredients do. Ever seen a Chihuly exhibition? (or via QuickTime (now in several locations). Wow. There is also a process for fusing, slumping and kiln-forming glass called "Warm Glass". Gallery here. If you are into this you may need to save this one for the weekend, but I couldn't wait.

Fairfax county school text books

Petition open to Fairfax County Residents Fairfax County is in the process of selecting social studies textbooks for 5th, 9th, and 10th grades. These textbooks cover world history and culture. India and Hinduism are part of the curriculum in 5th, 9th, and 10th grades.

As you all know that the textbooks give a very negative picture of India and Hinduism. In the textbooks, Hinduism starts with caste system and end with sautee. In between somewhere buried is child marriage. The treatment of Hinduism and India emphasizes clichés, and the textbooks focus on material that is not important or illuminating. The treatment of Hinduism is oversimplified and often lacks context. Hinduism is examined from a cultural and anthropological perspective, often emphasizing the exotic, while other religions are examined from the perspective of followers. The books do not adequately present the fundamental belief systems of the religion or explore the core values of the culture.

This is an effort to get the School Board change the textbooks and adopt only those textbooks which give a balanced portrayal. The final selection of the textbooks will be made on March 31st. Please sign the petition to make your voice heard.

Go to the URL (http://www.indiapetitions.com/) and clicked on our subject "Corrections facts about Hinduism and India in Fairfax county, VA school text books" (http://www.indiapetitions.com/pms/showpetition.php?p_am=141&)

memory champion

Once again Ram Kolli has won the National Memory Championship!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Need milk? Study says no

A new medical review suggests there is little evidence that current calcium recommendations help protect bones in children. Instead, experts recommend both exercise and calcium-rich foods.

Children who drink more milk do not necessarily develop healthier bones, researchers said Monday in a report that stresses exercise and modest consumption of calcium-rich foods such as tofu.

Other ways to obtain the absorbable calcium found in one cup of cow’s milk include a cup of fortified orange juice, a cup of cooked kale or turnip greens, two packages of instant oats, two-thirds cup of tofu, or 1-2/3 cups of broccoli, the report said.

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Great Advertising

3M advertises for it's "Security Glass".

3M puts its money where its mouth is. Yes, that *is* real money ...

The profits of freedom

Iran gets bombed June 2005. "George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons"

The Orchid Show

February 26 to March 27, 2005

Imagine this: You are a conservationist rushing down the Amazon River in a dugout canoe, surrounded by dense, almost impenetrable jungle. You paddle over to the muddy riverbank and begin making your way through the trees and vines. And suddenly you see it: the rare orchid you've been hunting for months, ready and waiting for you to uncover its secrets.

Want to continue the journey? Then visit The Orchid Show at The New York Botanical Garden. This year's show will transport you to exotic, orchid-packed places on two continents. You'll wander through the jungles and cloud forests of Asia and the Americas, where thousands of brilliant orchids—delicate, elegant, fascinating, bizarre—drip from the vines and nestle among the ferns. Visit the camp of a botanist who’s tracing the orchid family tree, and learn how one particular variety ends up in your ice cream. You’ll not only discover the sensual allure of orchids, you'll learn what's being done to protect these precious plants and their natural environments.

The Orchid Show experience includes tours, gardening demonstrations, lectures, family fun, and a vast array of orchids for sale at the Shop in the Garden.

Orchid Collection

Some are no bigger than your thumbnail, while others are the size of your hand. Some mimic bees and butterflies, while others resemble a lady's slipper. And some simply defy description. Throughout the year, you can see the seductive stars of the Garden's tropical plant collections—orchids from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Americas—in changing displays in the Conservatory and the Orchid Terrarium in the Library Building. Marvel at rare orchids growing as they would in nature in the Conservatory's rain forest galleries. In March, celebrate their spectacular beauty and diversity with the annual Orchid Show, where thousands of orchids, from miniatures named 'Pinhead' to giant violet vandas, fill a luxuriant tropical landscape.

Fireman use snowballs to quench flames

Romanian firefighters managed to put out a fire in an apartment by throwing snowballs through the window.

They used snowballs because they could not got their fire engines close enough to the building in Sibiu.

Fire crews arrived within minutes of the alarm being raised by neighbours of the elderly woman who lived in the apartment.

But icy roads prevented them from getting close enough to the building to use their hoses so they resorted to desperate measures.

Chief firefighter Florian Chioar told National newspaper: "We had to do something because our cars couldn't get near that building. So we used the snow and put out the fire in about 30 minutes."

Monkeys pay per view

In a study titled "Monkeys Pay Per View," neuroscientists at Duke University discovered that rhesus monkeys will give up a portion of hard-earned perks for a peek at pictures of the dominant leaders and nubile females in their troop. But they won't pony up to look at faces of subordinate simians.

"People are willing to pay money to look at pictures of high-ranking human primates. When you fork out $3" for a celebrity magazine, [said one researcher], "you're doing exactly what the monkeys are doing."

Einstein, the brainy bird

Einstein proves why she's a bird brain. Watch her winning moment.

WMD on Google Maps

Google finds what neither the US nor the UN inspectors couldn’t: Weapons of Mass Destruction:

Find more goodies for yourself. How about Osama Bin Ladin?

India’s growing younger

Aging population and India. According to a story in BusinessWeek, while the rest of the world frets about the economic effects of an aging population, one country that will grow increasingly younger is India. India’s census bureau has pointed out that “40% of the populace is below the age of 18, and by 2015, 55% will be under 20”. The magazine adds that the trend would help fulfill the promise of making India a service and manufacturing power over the next two decades. But, the situation is not gung-ho all along. “The bad news is that India could easily squander its demographic edge. Despite the success of a few world-class schools such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, India’s education system is in a dismal state overall,” it argues. This is part of the cover story of BusinessWeek on Global Aging.

Disappearing Languages

Of the 6,000-odd languages in the world, one is said to disappear every fortnight. Should the English-speaking world care?

Somewhere on the remote Timor Sea coast of north Australia lives Patrick Nudjulu, one of three remaining speakers of Mati Ke.

It is problem enough that one of the other speakers doesn't live nearby and speaks a slightly different dialect. But the 60-year-old Aborigine also has to cope with the fact the other speaker is his sister - who traditional culture has forbidden him from speaking to since puberty.

Patrick's language then, is almost certainly going to die out. It's not the only one.

Continue reading...

Do you want to be a writer?

Do you want to be a writer? "Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon?... Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles. The problem is structural; it is insoluble; it is why no one can ever write this book. Complex stories, essays and poems have this problem, too -- the prohibitive structural defect the writer wishes he had never noticed. He writes it in spite of that." Luminous and wise writing advice from Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, one of the most beautiful books written in the last hundred years (published when Dillard was 29).

Write Till You Drop
By ANNIE DILLARD (as published in The New York Times)

People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all. Strange seizures beset us. Frank Conroy loves his yo-yo tricks, Emily Dickinson her slant of light; Richard Selzer loves the glistening peritoneum, Faulkner the muddy bottom of a little girl's drawers visible when she's up a pear tree. ''Each student of the ferns,'' I once read, ''will have his own list of plants that for some reason or another stir his emotions.''

Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

Write about winter in the summer. Describe Norway as Ibsen did, from a desk in Italy; describe Dublin as James Joyce did, from a desk in Paris. Willa Cather wrote her prairie novels in New York City; Mark Twain wrote ''Huckleberry Finn'' in Hartford. Recently scholars learned that Walt Whitman rarely left his room.

The writer studies literature, not the world. She lives in the world; she cannot miss it. If she has ever bought a hamburger, or taken a commercial airplane flight, she spares her readers a report of her experience. She is careful of what she reads, for that is what she will write. She is careful of what she learns, because that is what she will know.

The writer knows her field - what has been done, what could be done, the limits - the way a tennis player knows the court. And like that expert, she, too, plays the edges. That is where the exhilaration is. She hits up the line. In writing, she can push the edges. Beyond this limit, here, the reader must recoil. Reason balks, poetry snaps; some madness enters, or strain. Now gingerly, can she enlarge it, can she nudge the bounds? And enclose what wild power?

A well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, ''Do you think I could be a writer?''

''Well,'' the writer said, ''I don't know. . . . Do you like sentences?''

The writer could see the student's amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am 20 years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, of course, he could begin, like a joyful painter I knew. I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, ''I liked the smell of the paint.''

Hemingway studied, as models, the novels of Knut Hamsun and Ivan Turgenev. Isaac Bashevis Singer, as it happened, also chose Hamsun and Turgenev as models. Ralph Ellison studied Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Thoreau loved Homer; Eudora Welty loved Chekhov. Faulkner described his debt to Sherwood Anderson and Joyce; E. M. Forster, his debt to Jane Austen and Proust. By contrast, if you ask a 21-year-old poet whose poetry he likes, he might say, unblushing, ''Nobody's.'' He has not yet understood that poets like poetry, and novelists like novels; he himself likes only the role, the thought of himself in a hat. Rembrandt and Shakespeare, Bohr and Gauguin, possessed powerful hearts, not powerful wills. They loved the range of materials they used. The work's possibilities excited them; the field's complexities fired their imaginations. The caring suggested the tasks; the tasks suggested the schedules. They learned their fields and then loved them. They worked, respectfully, out of their love and knowledge, and they produced complex bodies of work that endure. Then, and only then, the world harassed them with some sort of wretched hat, which, if they were still living, they knocked away as well as they could, to keep at their tasks.

It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or essays. Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour all you possess and learn. A project that takes five years will accumulate those years' inventions and richnesses. Much of those years' reading will feed the work. Further, writing sentences is difficult whatever their subject. It is no less difficult to write sentences in a recipe than sentences in ''Moby-Dick.'' So you might as well write ''Moby-Dick.'' Similarly, since every original work requires a unique form, it is more prudent to struggle with the outcome of only one form - that of a long work - than to struggle with the many forms of a collection.

Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles. The problem is structural; it is insoluble; it is why no one can ever write this book. Complex stories, essays and poems have this problem, too - the prohibitive structural defect the writer wishes he had never noticed. He writes it in spite of that. He finds ways to minimize the difficulty; he strengthens other virtues; he cantilevers the whole narrative out into thin air and it holds. Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hopes for literary forms? Why are we reading, if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage and the hope of meaningfulness, and press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and which reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking. If we are reading for these things, why would anyone read books with advertising slogans and brand names in them? Why would anyone write such books? We should mass half-dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other, to wake up; instead we watch television and miss the show.

No manipulation is possible in a work of art, but every miracle is. Those artists who dabble in eternity, or who aim never to manipulate but only to lay out hard truths, grow accustomed to miracles. Their sureness is hard won. ''Given a large canvas,'' said Veronese, ''I enriched it as I saw fit.''

The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a stunt pilot's turning barrel rolls, or an inchworm's blind rearing from a stem in search of a route. At its worst, it feels like alligator wrestling, at the level of the sentence.

At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your fists, your back, your brain, and then - and only then -it is handed to you. From the corner of your eye you see motion. Something is moving through the air and headed your way. It is a parcel bound in ribbons and bows; it has two white wings. It flies directly at you; you can read your name on it. If it were a baseball, you would hit it out of the park. It is that one pitch in a thousand you see in slow motion; its wings beat slowly as a hawk's.

One line of a poem, the poet said - only one line, but thank God for that one line - drops from the ceiling. Thornton Wilder cited this unnamed writer of sonnets: one line of a sonnet falls from the ceiling, and you tap in the others around it with a jeweler's hammer. Nobody whispers it in your ear. It is like something you memorized once and forgot. Now it comes back and rips away your breath. You find and finger a phrase at a time; you lay it down as if with tongs, restraining your strength, and wait suspended and fierce until the next one finds you: yes, this; and yes, praise be, then this.

Einstein likened the generation of a new idea to a chicken's laying an egg: ''Kieks - auf einmal ist es da.'' Cheep - and all at once there it is. Of course, Einstein was not above playing to the crowd.

Push it. Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and search each object in a piece of art; do not leave it, do not course over it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength. Giacometti's drawings and paintings show his bewilderment and persistence. If he had not acknowledged his bewilderment, he would not have persisted. A master of drawing, Rico Lebrun, discovered that ''the draftsman must aggress; only by persistent assault will the live image capitulate and give up its secret to an unrelenting line.'' Who but an artist fierce to know - not fierce to seem to know - would suppose that a live image possessed a secret? The artist is willing to give all his or her strength and life to probing with blunt instruments those same secrets no one can describe any way but with the instruments' faint tracks.

Admire the world for never ending on you as you would admire an opponent, without taking your eyes off him, or walking away.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

After Michelangelo died, someone found in his studio a piece of paper on which he had written a note to his apprentice, in the handwriting of his old age: ''Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and do not waste time.''

Annie Dillard's most recent book is ''An American Childhood.'' Her narrative, ''Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,'' won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975.

Pure Entrepreneurs

Boston Globe has an article by Scott Kirsner:

Pure entrepreneurs are loopy and obsessed. They have a vision of the future, and while others are casting their lines into the water to see what will bite, pure entrepreneurs are jumping over the gunwales and swimming after the white whale.

Pure entrepreneurship, by my definition, is often driven by a belief that a major shift is coming -- and thus it's hard to find customers who already understand that they need the product a pure entrepreneur is developing.

Pure entrepreneurship is often a solo enterprise, funded by credit cards, consulting projects, and second mortgages. It sparks revolutions and spawns big companies.

''Something just clicks, and you say, 'This is worth doing, and I think other people will be interested,' " Dan Bricklin says. ''It hits you that there's a need, and that pursuing it is worth the risk."

Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth

Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, research shows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior.

People intuitively recognize the importance of self-esteem to their psychological health, so it isn't particularly remarkable that most of us try to protect and enhance it in ourselves whenever possible. What is remarkable is that attention to self-esteem has become a communal concern, at least for Americans, who see a favorable opinion of oneself as the central psychological source from which all manner of positive outcomes spring. The corollary, that low self-esteem lies at the root of individual and thus societal problems and dysfunctions, has sustained an ambitious social agenda for decades. Indeed, campaigns to raise people's sense of self-worth abound.

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Some findings even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem may lower subsequent academic performance.

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Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind, and Spirit

From exuberantly flavored pho noodles to flowing ao dai dresses and festive New Year celebrations, the colorful culture of Vietnam has slowly become part of mainstream America. This American Museum of Natural History exhibit travels to the ancestral land of Vietnamese Americans to focus on journeys that embody their rich heritage. Start at the bustling marketplace where zesty, effortless cuisine reigns supreme. Walk along dusty village streets and see how the global demand for exotic ceramics, Hmong textiles, and intricate baskets affect the pace of villagers' lives. Local gods and heroes are revered -- the Gia festival honors a hero, while the Chuy Thay festival commemorates the water puppet tradition. Marriage and death rites vary by region, and mystical shamans are still active today. With more than 80 million residents and 50 ethnic groups, the country proudly faces the future while remembering the past.

Human Ad Space!

Read eBay at it's best.

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Snafu University

​​​​​If you feel that there's a special circle of hell reserved for the people responsible for creating the lengthy college admissions process, Snafu University is the school for you. It's got all the essential elements of an ideal college experience, with none of the lofty standards. Emphasis on higher learning? Check. Dean Dean and the diverse faculty at Snafu pride themselves on believing that academics come first. Sports teams for the athletically inclined? Naturally. Join the varsity marbles squad or the intramural wheelbarrow-racing club. A totally hoppin' social scene? But of course. The list of extracurricular activities offers something for everyone from Tetris enthusiasts to Vegans for Violence. So go ahead and download their pre-approved online application. Not a single personal statement essay in sight.

More than one way to help...

Global aid organisations have launched urgent appeals for donations to help survivors of Sunday's Indian Ocean earthquake disaster.

Check the complete list.

FraudFrond.com

​ ​​​​With more than 130,000 cell towers in the United States, you'd think we'd be spotting one every time we hit the road. They sure can be a blight on the landscape. So why aren't we noticing more of them? Actually, you may be seeing them without even realizing it. Those technological eyesores that keep your cell phone ringing are cropping up across the country as pines and palms. Can you spot the faux fir? The "Danger. Keep Off" sign may be your first clue that you're not gazing at an ordinary conifer. Still unsure? Just look for the cables and chain link fence for confirmation. Then take a photo of the fraud frond and send it in to this "growing" collection.

U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students

U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students
By SAM DILLON (New York Times)

Published: December 21, 2004

American universities, which for half a century have attracted the world's best and brightest students with little effort, are suddenly facing intense competition as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.

The European Union, moving methodically to compete with American universities, is streamlining the continent's higher education system and offering American-style degree programs taught in English. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are aggressively recruiting foreign students, as are Asian centers like Taiwan and Hong Kong. And China, which has declared that transforming 100 universities into world-class research institutions is a national priority, is persuading top Chinese scholars to return home from American universities.

"What we're starting to see in terms of international students now having options outside the U.S. for high-quality education is just the tip of the iceberg," said David G. Payne, an executive director of the Educational Testing Service, which administers several tests taken by foreign students to gain admission to American universities. "Other countries are just starting to expand their capacity for offering graduate education. In the future, foreign students will have far greater opportunities."

Foreign students cont