Mashable contributor Doriano ‘Paisano’ Carta recently posted a “list of the best tools for researchers today” –

In addition to being able to saves text, audio, video and links during your research online you’ll also be able to share these collections of notes with colleagues, students or anyone else. You can also keep things private for your own research projects. Here are just some of the tools every modern researcher needs ….

• iLeonardo
• Google Notebook
• Zoho Notebook
• UberNote
• EverNote
• ClipMarks
• iLighter
• Twitterlights
• Dappad
• Scrapbook
• WiredMarker
• NetNotes

- Doriano “Paisano” Carta @ Mashable

Over at Total Dick-Head, PKD scholar David Gill reports:

My wife works at the library, and occasionally people will donate books that are too old or in such bad shape that the library gives them away rather than shelving them. Look what I got:

Yep, that’s the screenplay for Burrough’s film Blade Runner, the source for the title of [Ridley] Scott’s adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

- David Gill @ Total Dick-Head: Link.

mySQLgame is a computer game played entirely with SQL queries:

Are you tired of browser-based games that are thinly veiled interfaces for databases? Finally, there’s a game that just is a database!

THRILL as you insert your very own row in the “rows” table!

With careful selection of SQL queries, you will soon have three or even four-digit numbers in some of the fields in your row! Other queries may allow you to use those numbers to subtract numbers from rows entered by other players — all while pushing the numbers in your own row even higher!

As you master the game, you may find that you have inserted not just one row into the game, but several!

- mySqlgame : Link.

Via Hack a Day, via Slashdot.

Thought for today: the Frog –

In Egypt we see the Frog-headed Heket who is an Egyptian goddess of birth(ing).

As a Celtic symbol meaning, the Frog was deemed lord over all the earth, and the Celts believed it represented curative or healing powers because of its connection with water and cleansing rains.

More Western and European views focus on the Frog’s three stages of development (egg, tadpole, fully formed amphibian) to symbolize resurrection and spiritual evolution. For these same reasons it is also a common Christian symbol for the holy trinity and resurrection. It is often seen in Christian art to express this symbolism.

In China the Frog is an emblem of Yin energy and thought of as good luck. Feng Shui practices recommend putting an image of a Frog in the east window of your home to encourage child birth and/or happy family life.

Frog energy is also considered to be a link between the living and the dead. An interesting ancient Asian custom was to place a jade frog in the mouth of the deceased to insure his/her spirit would pass safely into the spirit world. This custom was believed to allow the spirit of the deceased to speak more clearly to loved ones still living.

Frogs are also good luck symbols in Japan - especially for travelers. Images or charms were worn during long voyages to assure safety (particularly across water).

- whatsyoursign.com : Link.

“If it seems wordish, use it. No apologies necessary.”
- Erin McKean

Master lexicographer Erin McKean recently published what Boing Boinger Cory Doctorow calls a “case for a dynamic English language in which speakers are allowed to coin neologisms and new usages without grammar tightasses insisting that language is not a user-modifiable technology.”

Whenever I see “not a real word” used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading “I am not confident about my writing” on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an “unreal” word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police? The revocation (as the joke goes) of your poetic license? A public shaming by William Safire? The irony is that most of these words, without the disclaimer, would pass unnoticed by the majority of readers. (In case you noticed cromulent, that was invented in the 1990s for “The Simpsons.”) Writers who hedge their use of unfamiliar, infrequent, or informal words with “I know that’s not a real word,” hoping to distance themselves from criticism, run the risk of creating doubt where perhaps none would have naturally arisen.

- Erin McKean, “Chillax: If it works like a word, just use it”
@ Boston Globe, Aug. 3, 2008: Link.

Via Boing Boing: Link.

I love Cory’s phrase “English is a user-modifiable technology” — it rings true.

It’s very difficult — perhaps impossible — to know the truth about war. For what it’s worth:

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

- Michael J. Totten: Link.

Via Wired.com: Link.

See Also

Gorbachev on war and peace in the Caucasus

I’ve created a new late-August banner for the blog:

Photography by John Symchych: see Nice Tomatos.

JES Photography @ Flickr.

“Iraq’s Ministry of Defense is considering buying 140 of the United States’ most advanced tanks, at approximately $4 million to $5 million per tank, plus hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of support equipment to go along with the tanks. “
- USA Today: Link.

You can sell a lot of different weapon systems to foreign militaries, but where exactly do we get off in selling the Iraqi army our top military weapon systems? Do they rank with the Saudis now? We just got done beating these guys a few years ago. Do we want to come back some day and stare down the 120mm tubes of our own “used tanks”? And as we’re growing our Army’s end-strength, is there such a situation where we sell “used tanks” instead of refurbing them and using them ourselves?

This isn’t a smart decision. Give the Iraqis some old APCs or let some other countries sell them tanks. Nothing good will come of this other than profits for the military-industrial complex.

- Jason Sigger @ Armchair Generalist: Link.

“Preliminary findings suggest a link between Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making GM crops; has genetic engineering created a new epidemic?”

Vitaly Citovsky is a professor of molecular and cell biology at Stony Brook University in New York (SUNY). He is a world authority on the genetic modification of cells by Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium causing crown gall disease in plants, that has been widely used in creating genetically modified (GM) plants since the 1980s because of its ability to transfer a piece of its genetic material, the T-DNA on its tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid to the plant genome ….

Citovsky’s team took scanning electron microscope pictures of the fibres in or extruding from the skin of patients suffering from Morgellons disease, confirming that they are unlike any ordinary natural or synthetic fibres.

They also analysed patients for Agrobacterium DNA. Skin biopsy samples from Morgellons patients were subjected to high-stringency polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for genes encoded by the Agrobacterium chromosome and also for Agrobacterium virulence (vir) genes and T-DNA on its Ti plasmid. They found that “all Morgellons patients screened to date have tested positive for the presence of Agrobacterium, whereas this microorganism has not been detected in any of the samples derived from the control, healthy individuals.” Their preliminary conclusion is that “Agrobacterium may be involved in the etiology and/or progression” of Morgellons Disease.

… Agrobacterium not only infects human and other animal cells, it also transfers genes into them. It was SUNY professor Citovsky and his team that made the discovery some years ago. Until then, the genetic engineering community had assumed that Agrobacterium did not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them.

Agrobacterium was found to transfer T-DNA into the chromosomes of human cells.

… Since the discovery in the 1970s that Agrobacterium can transfer genes into plants causing crown gall disease, the soil bacterium has been developed into a vector for inserting desirable genes into the plant genome to create transgenic (GM) plants.

… By the late 1990s, the Agrobacterium vector system became very widely used, and many GM crops created were commercially released.

… Transgenic plants with contaminating Agrobacterium “have a ready route for horizontal gene escape, via Agrobacterium, helped by the ordinary conjugative mechanisms of many other bacteria that cause diseases, which are present in the environment.” In the process, new and exotic disease agents could be created.

- Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins @ GlobalResearch.ca: Link.

See Also

Morgellons @ Wikipedia

Morgellons Watch: “Resources for Morgellons investigators. Skeptical analysis and discussion.”

“Small nations of the Caucasus do have a history of living together. It has been demonstrated that a lasting peace is possible, that tolerance and cooperation can create conditions for normal life and development. Nothing is more important than that.”
- Mikhail Gorbachev

What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against “small, defenseless Georgia” is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.

Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a “blitzkrieg” in South Ossetia.

In other words, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position.

- Mikhail Gorbachev @ Washingon Post, 12 August 2008: Link.

2008 South Ossetia War @ Wikipedia

“The brain’s roaring metabolism, possibly stimulated by early man’s invention of cooking, may be the main factor behind our most critical cognitive leap, new research suggests.”

About 2 million years ago, the human brain rapidly increased its mass until it was double the size of other primate brains.

“This happened because we started to eat better food, like eating more meat,” said researcher Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai.

- Robin Nixon @ LiveScience: Link.

Via Slashdot: Link.

“There are no American political parties … because we have none, we have no opposition to those who rule us.”

We don’t have political parties, let’s begin with that. And we’ve never had them since John Adams said “I want a nation of laws, not of men.” Well that’s very lofty, of course, but what he meant was he didn’t want faction. Well, faction is political parties. Now, without faction you don’t have any kind of, well, motion going within the state … we’re suffering from it now.

- Gore Vidal, interview (wmv format) - via The Young Turks

See also:

Wikipedia: What Went Wrong in Ohio by John Conyers.

Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio: Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff (pdf)

Henry Rollins Interviews Gore Vidal @ YouTube

Exploding Heart
2008
Digital image

Full size image

My latest graphic creation. Based on a pen sketch.

Thanks to Terri Allen for the title.

“His deeper tragedy was to perish in the madhouse that his Serbia became, a stricken nation where the poets and criminals cannot tell each other apart.”

I hear with shock that my very close friend, a great Serbian poet, died in a Belgrade clinic haunted by Dragan Dabic, whose “quantum human energy” obviously cannot cure lung cancer. My friend the poet never committed genocide, nor did he ever hide from justice by stealing the identity of an innocent man. He wrote his verse about his beloved city and he published books. He also smoked too much to survive, but his mortality was not his sorest problem, because his verse outlives him. His deeper tragedy was to perish in the madhouse that his Serbia became, a stricken nation where the poets and criminals cannot tell each other apart.

- Jasmina Tešanović @ Boing Boing: Link.