Dave Brubeck - Take Five

Thelonious Monk Quartet - Round Midnig

Modern Jazz Quartet - Django

Theatans Do Not Work That Way

Evolution, From Fins to Wings

Scientists are tracing the steps through which evolution forged its successes. They're finding that the same genetic tool kit can build structures both simple and complex. The father of evolution was a nervous parent. Few things worried Charles Darwin more than the challenge of explaining how nature's most complex structures, such as the eye, came to be. "The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder," he wrote to a friend in 1860. Today biologists are beginning to understand the origins of life's complexity--the exquisite optical mechanism of the eye, the masterly engineering of the arm, the architecture of a flower or a feather, the choreography that allows trillions of cells to cooperate in a single organism. The fundamental answer is clear: In one way or another, all these wonders evolved. "The basic idea of evolution is so elegant, so beautiful, so simple," says Howard Berg, a Harvard researcher who has spent much of the past 40 years studying one of the humbler examples of nature's complexity, the spinning tail of common bacteria. "The idea is simply that you fiddle around and you change something and then you ask, Does it improve my survival or not? And if it doesn't, then those individuals die and that idea goes away. And if it does, then those individuals succeed, and you keep fiddling around, improving. It's an enormously powerful technique."

(Evolution, From Fins to Wings).

Is Ben Stein the new face of Creationism?

The hypothesis, that life is a product of design, is testable. What are the properties of other observed objects that we know are designed? For instance, how do we know that the pyramids were designed and are not the product of natural geologic forces?

We know the pyramids are man-made because of their physical properties. We observe the construction of the pyramids and note that the stones appear to be cut (or poured as some others claim.) We also note that it is highly unlikely that any geologic force could have formed the pyramids. We then calculate the odds that such a noticeable pattern, the pyramids, could occur as a result of random events in nature. We calculate those odds based on the likelihood that all of a pyramid's properties would come together into such a form without being created by a designer. Based on those odds we can then surmise that the pyramids were indeed designed.

The same logical reasoning can be applied to the human cell. We can look at all the various complex processes in the cell, and calculate the odds that such a complex machine could have formed as the result of random events.

(Is Ben Stein the new face of Creationism?).

Renato Gaúcho

Renato Gaúcho, real name Renato Portaluppi (born September 9, 1962 in Guaporé, Rio Grande do Sul) is a former Brazilian football (soccer) forward and a football manager.

Renato started his career in Grêmio, and in 1983 he won the Libertadores Cup, beating Peñarol of Uruguay, and the Intercontinental Cup, beating Hamburger SV of Germany, and scoring twice.

In 1986 he moved to Flamengo and won the National Championship in the following year. Then in 1988 Renato moved abroad, signing with A.S. Roma. However, he failed to settle in Italy and returned to Flamengo after only one disappointing season, in time to win one more trophy, the Brazil Cup, in 1990.

Renato's career in Fluminense is generally associated to his belly goal in the Campeonato Carioca of 1995, against Flamengo, in the year when Flamengo celebrated 100 years. With his goal he was crowned the King of Rio in that year. In the same year, he lead Flu to the semi-finals of the Brazilian Championship.

Renato Gaúcho appeared 41 times for the Brazilian national team, scoring five goals. In 1986 while playing for Brazil, he was thrown out of the squad for being out late.

He has been working as a coach since 2000. He was Madureira's coach in 2000 and 2001. Between September 2, 2002 and July 11, 2003, and between October 1, 2003 and December 28, 2003, he was coach of Fluminense. From July 2005 to April 2007 he was Vasco da Gama's coach. Since April 2007, he is Fluminense's coach again. On June 6, 2007 he won the Brazil Cup as Fluminense's coach, his first title in the new career.

List of famous smokers

This is a [parial] list of famous people, for whom smoking is clearly a recognised part of their public image, or who are known for some unusual aspect of smoking.

(1942), which has the famous scene in which Pat Nixon - Was a closet cigarette smoker, a fact that came out shortly after her death. Lucille Ball - Her image was used to advertise Philip Morris cigarettes from the 1950s until the 1970s. Drew Barrymore of the famous Barrymore family smokes Marlboro Reds, about 2-3 packs a day. She started smoking cigarettes at age 9 1/2. David Bowie - Several photos--both on stage and publicity shots-- depict Bowie smoking. According to the biography Strange Fascination, he smoked both Gitane and Marlboro cigarettes. Quit in early 2000s after a heart attack. Bette Davis - American film actress who was never without a cigarette. She starred in Now, VoyagerPaul Henreid places two cigarettes in his mouth, lights them, and then passes one to Bette Davis. She died in 1989 after a long battle with breast cancer and having suffered several strokes. Sammy Davis, Jr. - American singer/actor. Often seen smoking on stage and in interviews. Died of throat cancer in May 1990 at age 64.

Walt Disney - His years of chain-smoking led to his death of lung cancer at age 65. George Harrison - Member of The Beatles who was famously seen smoking in the movies A Hard Days Night and Help!. His off-screen chain-smoking habit lead to his death from lung cancer in 2001. Peter Jennings - Journalist and former anchor of ABC World News Tonight. Died of lung cancer in 2005. Kate Moss - Model; smokes four packs of Marlboro Lights per day and has been smoking cigarettes since the age of 12.

Are there legal or appropriate forms of hacking?

"One of the common misconceptions is that anyone considered a hacker is doing something illegal. It's a sad commentary on the state of our society when someone who is basically seeking knowledge and the truth is assumed to be up to something nefarious. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hackers, in their idealistic naiveté, reveal the facts that they discover, without regard for money, corporate secrets or government coverups. We have nothing to hide, which is why we're always relatively open with the things we do -- whether it's having meetings in a public place or running a system for everyone to participate in regardless of background. The fact that we don't "play the game" of secrets also makes hackers a tremendous threat in the eyes of many who want to keep things away from the public.

Secrets are all well and good, but if the only thing keeping them a secret is the fact that you say it's a secret, then it's not really a very good secret. We suggest using strong encryption for those really interested in keeping things out of the hands of outsiders. It's interesting also that hackers are the ones who are always pushing strong encryption -- if we were truly interested in getting into everyone's personal affairs, it's unlikely we'd try and show them how to stay secure. There are, however, entities who are trying to weaken encryption. People should look toward them with concern, as they are the true threat to privacy."

(Q&A with Emmanuel Goldstein of 2600: The Hacker Quaterly).

13 things that do not make sense

1 The placebo effect

Don't try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.

So what is going on? Doctors have known about the placebo effect for decades, and the naloxone result seems to show that the placebo effect is somehow biochemical. But apart from that, we simply don't know.

Benedetti has since shown that a saline placebo can also reduce tremors and muscle stiffness in people with Parkinson's disease. He and his team measured the activity of neurons in the patients' brains as they administered the saline. They found that individual neurons in the subthalamic nucleus (a common target for surgical attempts to relieve Parkinson's symptoms) began to fire less often when the saline was given, and with fewer "bursts" of firing - another feature associated with Parkinson's. The neuron activity decreased at the same time as the symptoms improved: the saline was definitely doing something.

We have a lot to learn about what is happening here, Benedetti says, but one thing is clear: the mind can affect the body's biochemistry. "The relationship between expectation and therapeutic outcome is a wonderful model to understand mind-body interaction," he says. Researchers now need to identify when and where placebo works. There may be diseases in which it has no effect. There may be a common mechanism in different illnesses. As yet, we just don't know.

(13 things that do not make sense).

Jew Jitsu

Janet Sternburg

"The book started when I was in Boston, staying at my parents' apartment after one of my mother's surgeries. I was there for noble reasons - an only child helping out - but my feelings were anything but noble. I had thought I was a grown-up, but most of the time I felt like an adolescent. My mother or father would say something mildly irritating and I would want to fly off in a rage. But I didn't. Instead, I drove to the nearest coffee shop and vented my feelings into a notebook. A few of those pieces eventually found their way into the book. I didn't think a grown daughter's difficulties were sufficient material for a book. It was only when I realized the phantom limb metaphor - a true 'Aha!' moment - did I find my way into the material. So, to answer the question as to why it took so long, 1) I was living through the experiences in the book; 2) I was researching the phantom limb phenomenon in order to make sure the metaphor wasn't just a literary idea, but instead was scientifically apt; 3) I was trying to find my story, piecing together bits of old and new writing to see what resonated; 4) I wanted the book to combine the compressed language of poetry, the reflective tone of an essay, and the narrative drive of a novel. That last was a tall order! My revisions were in the three figures."

(Janet Sternburg).

Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race

"I noticed one member of the group sitting slouched over on the grass, dressed in a tank top. This young man had spiked multi-colored hair, full-body tattoos, and multiple piercings in his ears. An obvious slacker, I thought, probably in a band. "So what is your story?" I asked. "Hey man, I just signed on with these guys." In fact, as I would later learn, he was a gifted student who had inked the highest-paying deal of any graduating student in the history of his department, right at that table on the grass, with the recruiters who do not "recruit."

(The Rise of the Creative Class).

An Introduction to Social Influence

"A knowledge of it can help you when you need to move someone to adopt a new attitude, belief, or action. It can also help you resist the influence attempts of others. This web site is designed, in part, to help you become a more persuasive person, but also to help you better recognize and manage the influence attempts of others."

"This portion of the Working Psychology website offers a brief introduction to a big topic: social influence, the modern, scientific study of persuasion, compliance, propaganda, "brainwashing," and the ethics that surround these issues. Although these topics aren't always simple (it is, after all, science), I've done my best to make this introduction interesting."

(An Introduction to Social Influence).

Laura Ingraham versus Whoopi and Joy on the View

the telltale tickle of tapeworms

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

"You look like you're ready for bed!" (Said to the President of Nigeria, who was dressed in traditional robes).

"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?" (Said to a driving instructor in Scotland).

"Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?" (Said to a blind woman with a guide dog. )

"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" (Said to an islander in the Cayman Islands).

(Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh quotes).

Happiness Is Submission To God(zilla)

via Photo Basement.

Haruki Murakami

"Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more. Next is harmony — the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow. Finally comes what may be the most important thing: that high you experience upon completing a work — upon ending your “performance” and feeling you have succeeded in reaching a place that is new and meaningful. And if all goes well, you get to share that sense of elevation with your readers (your audience). That is a marvelous culmination that can be achieved in no other way."

(Jazz Messenger).