BROOKLIN (Canada): Free, authoritative and online: 1.8 million species.
That is the ultimate goal of the Encyclopedia of Life project, which put its first 30,000 species on the Internet this week. This ambitious global project will provide the details of every known species — habitat, range, lifecycle, pictures and more — and archive everything online so anyone can access this important information about life on Earth.
From sharks to mushrooms to bacteria, the Encyclopedia of Life will provide scientifically verified information that will satisfy both a grade school child’s curiosity or enable a university researcher — or amateur naturalist — to make a scientific breakthrough, says James Edward, new executive director of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) project headquartered in Washington at the Smithsonian Institution.
Each species page has a built in content slider that allows you to select how much information you want to see on the page. And there is plenty of detail, including links to at least one million pages of digitised scientific information that is normally only available in the big 10 natural history museums located in the developed world.
“Anyone can access this for free no matter where they are,” Edward said.
Anyone who can read English, that is. “We’re hoping to get translations into other languages,” he added.
In the near future, there will be regional editions of the EOL: EOL Columbia or EOL Netherlands, with all information in Spanish and Dutch and provided by local experts.
Unlike traditional encyclopaedias, EOL will be interactive and continually updated. Indeed, it has the potential to become a powerful investigative tool on its own. If the public participates, the EOL could become a global species monitoring system to track responses to climate change.
Around the world, species’ habitats are altering dramatically, forcing birds to migrate sooner, or becoming to dry or too hot to support certain plants. There is no chance the scientific community can keep pace with the speed and breadth of these changes. The only possible way is through observations by non-scientists who can check the EOL to see if that frog they saw this morning is in its normal habitat or has shifted its range.
“If someone in Ecuador sees a frog they’ve never seen before, they can quickly check the EOL to see if it’s endemic or from neighbouring countries. If not, then it may be a new species,” said James Hanken, director of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, and chair of the EOL Steering Committee.
So many species are going extinct before they can even be identified, but the EOL will make it much easier to identify them, Hanken said.
“We can’t protect things (species/habitat) without knowing what is there,” he said.
In a few months’ time, species experts will be happy to receive information — pictures, videos, text — from the public about their observations. The EOL will have a form to complete which will be reviewed, checked and if warranted, incorporated into the EOL.
Right now Edward, Hanken and others would like people to tell them what they think about the EOL as it currently stands. Suggestions and ideas are welcome about anything from the page structure to the font colours, said Edwards.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the EOL is the notion that it is a macroscope — the opposite of the common microscope. As such, the EOL will offer the biggest picture yet of the Earth’s amazing biodiversity. It will make visible patterns previously unseen, illuminate relationships, and identify knowledge gaps.
It could map the distribution of human disease vectors, such as crows, mosquitoes and the West Nile virus. Life spans of related species could be compared to understand what truly governs longevity. With the mysterious, ongoing loss of honey bee populations, the EOL could point the way to alternative pollinators.
It will hopefully revolutionise teaching and learning of the life sciences. And such a revolution is urgently needed.
Better understanding of biodiversity — the sum total of living, interacting species — is critical to the survival of humans, who too often ignore the vital services that other species provide. There is no oxygen for us to breathe without plants. No plants also means no food. Trees clean water and air, regulate temperature and prevent flooding and much more. However, the world is in the midst of an extinction crisis with one species vanishing every three hours. And the rate is accelerating.
It will take a decade to complete the EOL and perhaps 40,000 to 50,000 existing species will have gone extinct before it’s complete. Up to 30 per cent of all species on Earth are likely to vanish by 2050 due to unsustainable human activities, according to the 2006 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
Scientists do not know how many species are “enough” to keep ecosystems that we depend on functioning. Recent research reported last November, shows that if a forest loses too many unique species, it can reduce the total number of plants in that forest by half.
It’s a sobering finding: some species are irreplaceable, but we don’t know what they are.
“We hope the EOL will spark a new generation of budding biologists and will help people develop a better appreciation of the natural world,” said Hanken.
Friday 29 February 2008
New encyclopaedia to bring life under a ‘macroscope’
Pop Tarts: Win a 'Special' Night With Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson may only have eyes for Ryan Reynolds, but for one night only, the "Other Boleyn Girl" star is prepared to party with a different date.
The humanitarian hottie is taking her philanthropic passions a step further and has put herself up for auction to raise funds for Oxfam America giving the average American the chance to accompany her to the highly anticipated June premiere of "He's Just Not That Into You." The book-based flick also stars Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Long and Ben Affleck.
But before the winner starts rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty, he or she will have to be treated to extensive services before a chauffeured car comes by with Johansson waiting inside. Sigh. (Well, would you want to be seen with Scarlett without a little "assistance"?)
Also in the name of charity, you and a guest can get your "Sex and the City" fix by attending the movie premiere and meeting the reportedly single Kristin Davis or hang out with "Bridget Jones" star Colin Firth at the "Mamma Mia" premiere in London.
"If you are the kind of person that always wanted to see middle-aged men in tight spandex trying to sing, then this is the film for you," Firth said.
Kate Hudson a Home Wrecker?
Rumors have been running rampant in recent weeks that Kate Hudson has been romancing the already-taken Justin Timberlake and her former flame Owen Wilson. But who is she really in love with?
"Herself, totally herself," laughed an insider close to the Hudson camp. "Kate is focusing on herself, her son and her career."
But that doesn't mean she would turn away the right man, and that doesn't count out Wilson…
"Kate is a true romantic and, of course, would love to have somebody special in her life," the source added. "But she is definitely not a home wrecker and would never go out pursuing somebody who is clearly in a serious relationship."
Ashlee Simpson Can't Party Without Daddy?
Joe Simpson may be the father and manager of the Simpson sisters, but it seems as though Ashlee can't even hit a party without her protective parent.
Pop Tarts recently spotted the 23-year-old performer at one of Hollywood's biggest affairs (aka the Clive Davis pre-Grammy gig) alongside her boyfriend, Pete Wentz, and, of course, Joe.
But the threesome was back in business over the weekend in Sin City. On Friday they hit up PURE (and drank water only) until the wee hours. We are pleased to say, however, that the young lovers actually got a little time alone together as Tarts spotted Joe having dinner with people his own age at Company American Bistro.
But Ash and her two dates were back together on Saturday night at PURE's sister property, LAX. Simpson sang several of her hit songs (yes, no lip-synching) and her new single, "Outta My Head," for the packed party place. We're told she then got cuddly and cozy with Wentz while sipping champagne at the lounge as her dad sat beside them.
Perhaps Pete is working overtime to butter up big-wig Joe, as Ash has been busted sporting a giant diamond ring. The pop princess told Fuse TV this week that it is a "promise ring" only, meaning all Wentz has to do is ask Mr. Simpson for his daughter's hand in marriage…
Robert Evans' 'Full House' of Former Flames
John Stamos made his way to legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans' exquisite Beverly Hills home (once owned by Greta Garbo) for a lavish luncheon last week to launch Evans' latest collaboration with vintage eyewear entrepreneur Oliver Peoples; however, that wasn't the only vintage relationship rekindled.
The former "Full House" hottie arrived on the arm of Lori Loughlin (who played his longtime lover on the long-running sitcom and was his real-life girlfriend in the mid-'80s).
Although Loughlin has been married for several years, the former flames looked lovely as old friends moving through the social circles. But we did bust Stamos breaking away to make a closer observation of the bikini-clad, Olympic synchronized swimmers performing in the pool.
Teacher E-Mailed Topless Photos to Student
Barat Academy has been charged this week after the parents of one of her students exposed topless photos sent by the instructor on their son’s email address.
Melissa R. Moss was immediately removed from her classroom by the school’s administration. The student’s parents reported the situation to the police. English teacher Melissa Moss, 27, was fired from her job at the Barat Academy in November after school officials said the teen’s parents, Robert and Kelly Pfeiffer, found the controversial pictures while monitoring his Internet use.
"It is very disturbing and you know it's kind of a sign of the times the way we live with a lot of Internet access and Face book and things like that.
According to a Barat Academy policy, teachers are not allowed to send emails to students that are not related to school. Authorities say that Moss sent the photos in November from her private email account. Lt. Craig McGuire of the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department said that there has not been any physical contact between Moss and the 15-year-old student, Suburban Journal reports.
Melissa R. Moss, of Chesterfield, was in her first year as an English teacher. She was hired last year at Barat, after she submitted very good references. She holds a bachelor’s degree issued by Lindenwood University in St. Charles.
”She's a graduate of Lindenwood University and her letters of recommendation were of highest regard,” said Debby Watson, the President of Barat Academy.
Moss’ attorney Michael Kielty told Newschannel Five’s Mike Bush that “The portrayal of a woman's bare breasts in and of themselves as being pornographic seems to be a bit strong. We don't know the context and I haven't seen the evidence but what I am saying is that bare breasts in and of themselves are not pornography.”
The 15-year-old student, whose identity was no revealed by the police, is receiving counseling. He is still a student at Barat. Moss has not made any comments.
Thursday 28 February 2008
CELEBRITY RIDES: TV shows all, most importantly the fantastic cars he builds
In 1966, Boyd Coddington left his home state of Idaho, lured to Southern California by the music of the Beach Boys.
He wasn’t interested in chasing big waves or going on surfin’ safaris. Instead, he wanted to build “little deuce coupes” powered by big hotrod engines.
One of his first stops was at Disneyland, not as a tourist, but to apply for a job as a machinist. He told Celebrity Car Magazine that the plan was to work all night maintaining and repairing rides so he could spend his days building hotrods. The plan paid off.
Ironically, years later, one of his celebrity clients would be Beach Boy Al Jardine, who wanted cars built that matched the lyrics of the old songs: a deuce coupe; a 409 Chev; and a “woodie.” And, thanks to the worldwide appeal of Discovery Channel’s American Hot Rod TV show that gives viewers a behind-the-garage-doors lowdown on the interaction of people and parts in building a custom car, Boyd Coddington’s Hot Rod Shop, like his former employer, has become a tourist destination.
“It’s true,” he chuckles, as he looks out over the showroom (in La Habra, not too far from Mickey Mouse’s place) filled with cars he built as well as muscle cars, motorcycles and other custom cars on consignment.
“The TV show is huge in Canada and in England, [and] Australia. We get people in here from all over the world. The show’s also been good for the sport overall.”
Of course, the celebrity that gave Coddington’s reputation a huge boost was Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top for whom he created one of his most highly regarded automobiles, the long, low, and zoomy makeover of a 1946 Cadillac called “Cadzilla.”
Coddington estimates that he has been involved in building more than 250 custom cars since beginning at about age 15, when he took a 1940 Ford coupe and, on the advice of his buddies, replaced the “flat-head” V8 with a Studebaker V8.
“The new Studebaker V8 was supposed to be the hot setup,” he recalls. “It took me three or four weeks to get done, and I found out the Ford flat head was faster.”
His first car was a 1934 Chevy pickup he acquired when he was 13. He traded a shotgun for it. He never finished it, much to his father’s dismay.
“That’s why I preach today, if you start something you finish it,” he says.
A philosophy that along with the pressure to meet TV deadlines to build what Coddington calls “eight-week cars” creates the tension and melodrama that keeps American Hot Rod viewers tuning in for each week’s installment.
“Every car’s got a story and has to be finished by a certain date,” he explains. “Plus we have our regular customer cars to build.”
So wires do get crossed, people make mistakes and tempers flare.
In case you were wondering, having Coddington build a car for you would cost about $200,000. The first step is a small deposit for drawings. The next step is proving you can pay for everything. Then the work begins. Coddington explains that some cars take longer to build than others, mainly because the owners call “time-out” until they can come up with the next installment of cash.
If you watch the show, then the antifreeze green 1959 Chevy, pictured here, is no stranger. The car was built for a customer who wanted a 1950s car reminiscent of the boat-tail roadsters of the ’30s. Coddington’s idea was to cut the top off a two-door hardtop coupe and install a cover over the backseat. Power comes from a 495-horsepower big-block Chevrolet V8 with an electric-shift four-speed automatic transmission. By the way, the hardtop and rear seat weren’t the only bits of ’59 Chevy removed. The chassis has been completely upgraded to modern specs.
A bit more subtle is the 1954 Corvette that features a late-model Corvette motor and five-speed manual transmission.
So what does Coddington drive to work? Well, he just bought a 1941 Ford pickup, but his daily driver is a Mercedes-Benz CLS four-door coupe with all the Coddington upgrades, from “shaved” (removed) door handles, big wheels and an aggressive stance.
“I’ve always preferred owning a Mercedes.”
What else is he up to?
Coddington has a new coffee-table book, American Hot Rod: The Fine Art of the Custom Hot Rod, which depicts his cars along with many more.
He’s also excited about a new project car based on a 1960 Mercury four-door hardtop station wagon. He predicts that cars of the 1960s and ’70s will be the hot trend in the custom-car business for the foreseeable future. Down the road, he sees ethanol-powered hot rods-and even some form of hybrid gas/electric power for custom cars once the engineering issues are worked out.
Does that mean 20 years from now the Toyota Prius will be the hot-rodder’s dream machine?
Coddington just rolls his eyes, shakes his head and heads for the shop to see what his crew is up to.
How to solve global warming conflict?
The only word that can be applied to a recently-revealed military report is “depressing”: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
How depressing? The article opens with: “Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.” Here are the reasons why:
1) “European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020.”
2) “As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.”
3) “The planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 ‘catastrophic’ shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.”
Strangely, the same thing came out last year about this time: Military: Global Warming may Cause War
From the article:
The military report’s co-author, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, also pointed to sea-level rise floods as potentially destabilizing South Asia countries of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Lack of water and food in places already the most volatile will make those regions even more unstable with global warming and “foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,” states the 63-page military report, issued by the CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Va.-based national security think tank.
Wouldn’t it be nice if, when faced with a crisis, people instinctively worked together to solve the problem rather than blowing each other up? How could we get to that point? It might seem strange when you look at the title, but this article may hold some of the answers: Why We Banned Legos
The situation described in the article is a little like a modern day “Lord of the Flies.” The article looks at the behavior of people around a scarce resource - in this case Legos. From the article:
Occasionally, Legotown leaders explicitly rebuffed children, telling them that they couldn’t play. Typically the exclusion was more subtle, growing from a climate in which Legotown was seen as the turf of particular kids. The other children didn’t complain much about this; when asked about Legos, they’d often comment vaguely that they just weren’t interested in playing with Legos anymore. As they closed doors to other children, the Legotown builders turned their attention to complex negotiations among themselves about what sorts of structures to build, whether these ought to be primarily privately owned or collectively used, and how “cool pieces” would be distributed and protected. These negotiations gave rise to heated conflict and to insightful conversation. Into their coffee shops and houses, the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys…
Whether you agree with the point of the article or not, it offers an interesting window into the world of human behavior - something that starts with the thinking of little kids. Perhaps by understanding the behavior, we can change the outcome predicted in the military report.
How to solve global warming conflict
The only word that can be applied to a recently-revealed military report is “depressing”: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
How depressing? The article opens with: “Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.” Here are the reasons why:
1) “European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020.”
2) “As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.”
3) “The planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 ‘catastrophic’ shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.”
Strangely, the same thing came out last year about this time: Military: Global Warming may Cause War
From the article:
The military report’s co-author, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, also pointed to sea-level rise floods as potentially destabilizing South Asia countries of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Lack of water and food in places already the most volatile will make those regions even more unstable with global warming and “foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,” states the 63-page military report, issued by the CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Va.-based national security think tank.
Wouldn’t it be nice if, when faced with a crisis, people instinctively worked together to solve the problem rather than blowing each other up? How could we get to that point? It might seem strange when you look at the title, but this article may hold some of the answers: Why We Banned Legos
The situation described in the article is a little like a modern day “Lord of the Flies.” The article looks at the behavior of people around a scarce resource - in this case Legos. From the article:
Occasionally, Legotown leaders explicitly rebuffed children, telling them that they couldn’t play. Typically the exclusion was more subtle, growing from a climate in which Legotown was seen as the turf of particular kids. The other children didn’t complain much about this; when asked about Legos, they’d often comment vaguely that they just weren’t interested in playing with Legos anymore. As they closed doors to other children, the Legotown builders turned their attention to complex negotiations among themselves about what sorts of structures to build, whether these ought to be primarily privately owned or collectively used, and how “cool pieces” would be distributed and protected. These negotiations gave rise to heated conflict and to insightful conversation. Into their coffee shops and houses, the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys…
Whether you agree with the point of the article or not, it offers an interesting window into the world of human behavior - something that starts with the thinking of little kids. Perhaps by understanding the behavior, we can change the outcome predicted in the military report.
Facing the Quasi-Autonomous Robot Monsters under the bed
What If My Toaster Burns My Bagels Because It Hates Me?
Given the subjects I tend to focus on in my writing, I’m often asked a lot of questions regarding issues of autonomy, will, cognition, perception, robots, and personhood. These questions tend to be filled with fuzzy, difficult-to-define terms, and what’s more, they’re commonly asked by people with a clear agenda (whether it be making a case for the existence of “souls” and supernatural superbeings, or asserting that nothing matters because no choice is actually real because individuals aren’t really real). And, like the proverbial monsters under the bed, they sometimes keep me up at night trying to hash through all the various contingencies and semantic gymnastics even beginning to address them would require.
But at a certain point, thinking about the monsters (quasi-autonomous robot sort or otherwise) that might be under the bed (and how to avoid them) starts to become more exhausting and annoying than just switching on the light and proving that either there aren’t any monsters at all, or just getting to know them a little better if there are. So while this writing will by no means address these questions with “airtight” answers, it should at least give a sense of what goes on in my head when I approach them.
Decisions and Autonomy
Most dictionaries (see here for an example of this) seem to define “autonomy” in terms like independence, freedom, self-direction, and self-governance. I don’t have any argument with the dictionary in that regard, however, in this discussion, the “autonomy” I have most in mind is that which describes a discrete and independently-operating locus of consciousness, awareness, and thought.
In this sense, humans and cats and even mice can be said to be “autonomous”. Every human, cat, and mouse has some level of wholly private experience that no other entity can directly access. That is the usual sense in which I think about autonomy. There are, of course, other complicating layers and definitions on top of that one—some involving decision-making ability and legal sorts of independence from external coercion and control—but the basic unit of “autonomy” for me is the individual mind.
As far as what it means for an entity to be capable of making decisions for itself, that’s another question entirely. It’s also a question that depends on what you’d consider a “decision” to be, and whether you automatically require explanations of agency in addressing that concept. I would definitely allow that in some respects, entities (we can assume to be) wholly lacking in minds are, in fact, capable of “making decisions”.
Say you write a function in C that will output one string if a variable has a value of less than five and a different string if a variable has a value of five or more. Many of us would, at least colloquially, say that the function decides which string to output based on what its input value is. And if this function existed in the context of a program where any of multiple functions might be called in response to higher-level inputs, we might say that the program decides which functions it is going to call.
But if we dig a little deeper, it’s clear that the colloquial conventions in which program behavior is commonly discussed do not reflect the (arguably) “ultimate” sources of the program’s behavior. The software engineer writing the program in fact decides in advance what the program’s outputs are going to be. She decides what inputs will prompt which functions to be called, and she also decides what criteria will determine the outputs of each function.
But say we dig even deeper than that! Say the software engineer is writing her program according to a set of requirements handed to her by her boss. Her boss may not even know the C language himself; all he knows is what he wants the program to do. So he provides “inputs” to the software engineer in the form of requirements, which are probably written in “natural language” as opposed to code or pseudocode. The engineer then takes the requirements and processes them into a C program.
But let’s not stop there! Say the boss got the requirements from the customer over the phone. Furthermore, say that the customer speaks only Chinese, whereas the boss speaks both Chinese and English. The boss, in this case, has to translate the customer’s requirements into English so that the software engineer (who doesn’t know a word of Chinese) can understand them. This entails the boss having to make a lot of decisions regarding what the customer likely meant by certain turns of phrase, and it also entails the boss having to think about what points to emphasize most strongly so that the engineer gets a sense of the customer’s priorities.
Now, lest anyone think I’m veering into the realm of cybernetic totalism, let’s pause a moment. While one could indeed condense the software engineer herself into a code-producing box into which you put requirements and out of which you get a software package, and while one could reduce the boss into a Chinese-English requirements translation machine, surely it is apparent that there are discontinuities in this instructional chain. That is, as you move further away from any individual program output (let’s say, a string printed on the screen that reads either “X is less than five” or “X is greater than or equal to five"), things become less and less easy to determine, and far more subject to uncontrollable variables.
When writing a C program, the kinds of inputs the computer gets are constrained to a relatively narrow set—the programmer generally uses a keyboard interface to type the code in, and very specific rules of syntax must be followed in order for the program to do anything at all when it is compiled (much less the precise thing the programmer wants it to do). What’s more, as far as any of us knows, present-day desktop PCs don’t have anything like the “internal life” that we humans do, or like chimps or cats or mice do, even. Neither the computer nor the individual program being written is “autonomous” in the basic sense of having a private vista of self-aware reflection embedded in a larger reality—notions of the computer and program “making decisions” are found only in a kind of linguistic folklore rather than in literal points of fact.
Certainly one might suggest that “random quantum events” or short circuits or power surges might result in the program being written behaving differently than the programmer specifies it to behave, but essentially, the program’s outputs are severely and rigorously constrained by the programmer’s textual inputs.
The programmer, on the other hand, is autonomous in the sense defined at the beginning of this writing. She has a mind that nobody else can experience the way she experiences it. She can have thoughts that aren’t detectable by any other people or by any measuring instruments. And she can, in the most general folk sense of the word “choice” (the one that ignores the vast and convoluted and seemingly never-ending Free Will Debate), choose:
(a) whether or not to write the program at all
(b) whether or not to come to work in the morning
(c) whether to keep this job or seek another
(d) whether to make one function perform a particular task (or split the task across two functions, one of which calls the other)
...or any number of other options that will affect the nature of the program, up to and including whether or not it comes into being at all.
Similarly, the engineer’s boss can make a whole slew of decisions (from the vantage point of his autonomous perspective) that will also affect the fate of the program, albeit not as directly and obviously as the decisions made by the engineer will. He can, like the programmer, make decisions that result in the program not being written at all—e.g., he might decide not to give her the requirements because he wants her to focus on a different task for the rest of the afternoon.
He might decide to second-guess something the customer said on the basis of a perception that he knows slightly more about programming than the customer does (whether or not this is a wise move is beside the point for now). Etc. And by extension, the customer can choose to describe the requirements in one way rather than another based on how important he or she believes this particular project to be—e.g., s/he might be more thorough and concerned about making sure the engineer’s boss really understands the requirements, or s/he might just rattle off the requirements vaguely and carelessly due to feeling that the project is inadequately funded to begin with.
So far, I’ve described the program’s pseudo-decision-making process—e.g., the fact that the program branches at certain points, but not due to any kind of internally conscious self-reflection on the program’s or the PC’s part. I’ve also described the “volitional-feeling” choices made by the engineer, her boss, and the customer.
But there are other factors that can indirectly affect the program as well that come from the human agents in the instructional chain without necessarily “feeling like” choices.
For instance, if the engineer is tired or hungry, she might not consciously decide to make the program sloppier and less modular, but it might come out that way anyway because she’s not performing at her best. Similarly, if the engineer is well-rested and cheerfully sipping away at her Mountain Dew (provided generously by the company), the program might come out in a much slicker and more efficient form—again, without any conscious feeling on the engineer’s part that she’s choosing for the program to come out that way as a result of sentient and deliberate decision-making.
And if the boss is distracted by other projects when he’s taking the customer call, he might inadvertently write down the requirements sloppily. He might make typographical errors by mistake. He might hear the customer say a Chinese phrase he doesn’t recognize, at which point he’ll look it up in his Chinese-English dictionary, and in doing so discover that there’s another phrase he got wrong earlier in the conversation.
In any case, the program is going to be affected by things the boss does and various inputs he might receive and consider on a non-volitional-feeling level. The same goes for the customer—their instructions might seem to say one thing rather than another based on whether or not the customer has a scratchy throat, or based on background noise in the customer’s or boss’s office. And so on, and so forth.
Will, Free And Otherwise
Someone once asserted in response to something I wrote: It seems to me that if everything is contingent upon determining material processes, then everything is determined and true decisions don’t exist.
Here we encounter the can of worms that is the Free Will Debate. What is a “true decision” seems quite subjective, and I certainly cannot hope to put forth a definition of “true decision” that everyone will necessarily relate to or agree with. The best I can do is describe what things seem most like “true decisions” based on my own interpretation of what it means to make a decision as a conscious, autonomous entity.
In my example above involving the programmer, I’d be plenty satisfied to classify the “volitional-feeling” choices made by the engineer, the boss, and the customer as about as close to “true decisions” as humans can assert the existence of. Certainly, one can try and claim that everything about that person’s life up to the moment they made the decision about this program actually “determined” its final state, and that there was nothing truly “volitional” about their decision, but one cannot deny that in everyday life, things we do on purpose feel qualitatively different than things we don’t do on purpose.
Usually, that is. People can, after all, be coerced (by other people, by physiological inputs registered subconsciously, etc.), and in some cases people might “feel like” they are acting volitionally even when they’re mainly responding to deep, low-level impulses like fear and reward. But at the same time, people are also capable of emerging from coercion and being able to look back and identify when they were actually being coerced (or compelled) and when they weren’t.
In light of all that, even if you’re a “hard determinist” in the “we’re all just objects going through the unconsciously-programmed motions that could have been extrapolated at the moment of the Big Bang if only someone had had a big enough computer, and nobody really makes any kind of meaningful choices at all because of this” sense (I’m not one of those, by the way), I don’t see why you’d want to ignore the many and various levels of “feelings of volition” and emergence from/descent into coercion that humans and presumably other entities seem to experience.
Clearly, there’s something interesting going on in the brain across all these experiences. And there are plenty of philosophical and ethical implications here: personally, I think that an “ideal” ethical state with regard to personal autonomy is the one in which coercion is minimized, and in which the individual is has access to whatever information she might need to make maximally-informed decisions.
Tools and Toys, Bodies and Minds
Tools are a particular class of objects not normally considered autonomous individually, but which are used by agency-possessing individuals in the fulfillment of particular goals. While tools can certainly be anthropomorphized (I know of several people that have named their cars, and most people who use computers regularly can’t seem to help but project humanlike emotional maps onto their machines, particularly when said machines seem “cranky").
Still, thinking of tools as a particular class of objects that can serve as extensions of self (or extensions of will, perhaps)—is very useful, particularly when viewing the “person” as embedded in and part of the environment, as opposed to somehow distant from it.
My notion of personhood, or at least one formulation of it, can be stated thusly: I am a small piece of the universe observing itself.
If I had to sculpt a geometric model of reality (a daunting task if there ever was one!), one possible model might resemble a big rubber sheet pulled to tiny points in some areas, stretched thin in others, pushed to a smooth roundness in still others, etc.
Basically, while parts of the sheet would certainly have their own identities and local characteristics, and while each part would consequently be an entity in its own right, all parts and the interconnections between them would still comprise a larger entity.
Sticking with that model for now, let’s say a person is initially represented by a point on the sheet pulled sharply upward. As this person grows, develops, learns, and interacts with the other local surface irregularities, relationships will be established with those irregularities. Depending on the type and nature of each irregularity, the relationship between it and the person will effectively change the shape of the person in some way. Some irregularities might make the person-representing point poke out further from the plane of the sheet, whereas others might smooth it out and draw it closer. Yet all the while, the person maintains a sense of continuity, and certain aspects of his trajectory through time will always show the influence of his initial conditions.
And just as the sheet itself provides fertile ground for a tremendous diversity of individual forms, each person-point is simultaneously capable of evolving in any of a fantastic array of directions and of maintaining a distinct sense of continuous personhood.
Additionally, every person, generally speaking, sees “ownership” and control of his or her body as a precious and deeply-held right. Given the manner in which tools are employed as extensions of will, they are also in many respects extensions of the body—and most people would be hard-pressed to truly define where “they” end and where their tools begin. It’s rather strange to think about it in this way, but honestly, I would feel as if I’d undergone some sort of amputation if my computer’s hard drive were suddenly and irrevocably wiped!
But if tools are a special class of object, do they differ from “machines” in general? If they can be considered parts of beings, and subject to the decision-making processes of those beings, what does this in turn suggest about the nature of object-boundaries and agency?
Invoking the “sheet model” again, perhaps tools would represent those irregularities that can be effectively “absorbed” by the person-points to the point of becoming part of them. Similarly, tools can also be discarded and/or removed when the person no longer finds them useful, or when they begin to pose some problem. The “body” over time cannot be said to be a static clod of matter—rather, the body is a dynamic process that winds its way through spacetime, memory and sensation incrementally bridging the piecewise generations of cellular turnover. In some respects, cells and eyeglasses and hair and prosthetic limbs and tattoos and iPods and lungs are all of the same ilk: things that individually are not persons, but that can be aspects of persons that in turn define those persons—at least on a moment to moment basis.
Did I Say Overlords? I Meant Protectors...
My earliest concept of what a “robot” was came, unsurprisingly, from science fiction. I basically saw robots as “metal people”, and that’s often how they were presented on-screen. It didn’t even occur to me as a child to question whether or not “robots” had consciousness or agency (but then again, I also tended to see pretty much everything as “potentially alive”, so that isn’t too surprising). I also had some robot-themed toys growing up; one of them was an educational machine called Alphie II, and I had a number of robotic Star Wars action figures. My brother also had a really neat little gizmo labeled “Robot Factory” that consisted of one large robot with a built-in mechanism that sent several tiny robots on an endless roller-coaster ride along a track that snaked around its body. So basically, I can’t remember ever not being around what I’d term the “robot phenotype”.
But I didn’t learn about “real robots” until I was quite a bit older, and honestly, I was rather surprised at how “primitive” they seemed, as well as at how they were used. I think the first “real robot” I saw was on a TV show about automobile manufacturing (or something along those lines), and it just looked like a multi-jointed yellow mechanical arm-thing that moved according to the motives of whoever had programmed it to build cars.
So basically, every robot I’ve ever made the acquaintance of in real life has been either an industrial robot, a toy, or an experimental “kit” bot equipped with a few sensors and/or actuators. And even the more impressive robots I’ve heard of (such as the DARPA Grand Challenge cars) haven’t been autonomous in the sense that humans, many animals, and fictional robots (like R2D2) are—at best, they can do one thing quite well, but they aren’t capable of deciding they’d rather do something else, and it seems to me unlikely that they’ve experienced existential despair over this fact.
Clearly, robots are commonplace today—just not autonomous robots. And yet, there seems to be a kind of background assumption that not only would autonomous robots be desirable in some contexts, but autonomous robots would somehow represent a more “advanced” robot in some significant way. But would humans actually want to build truly autonomous machines?
Humans tend strongly to use technology prosthetically—that is, as the collective pool of knowledge about How Stuff Works (and How To Make Stuff Do Other Stuff) grows over time and is communicated more effectively to more and more people, the trend has been toward applications that allow people to assert their ideas, desires, and will over a greater distance, or with greater strength, or with greater precision, than was feasible before the adoption of the application. The trend has not (at least from what I’ve observed) been toward trying to—forgive the terminology—“ensoul” machines, except perhaps in the context of university lab projects, none of which have exactly panned out in that direction so far.
The world is already pretty well populated by autonomous agents (animals), and half the time it seems like humans are more concerned with trying to decrease the autonomy of these agents than with increasing it. Hence, the idea of large groups of humans deciding to create autonomous robots and “release them into the wild” for the sake of allowing new life to flourish seems a mite farfetched.
Plus, there’s the ethical problem with creating an autonomous entity in a lab—as far as I’m concerned, once you’ve established that an entity is autonomous, you have no right to keep it confined (in a lab or otherwise), nor is it acceptable to subject it to non-consensual or coerced experimentation.
This fact alone makes it seem unlikely to me that truly autonomous robots are going to be a major human goal anytime in the foreseeable future—right now, robots outside the movies are pretty much thought of as being “tools” (extensions of human will), and people don’t want their tools to talk back or say “No!”.
Progress, Rights, and Personhood
Part of what is meant by some uses of the word “progress” is a kind of ongoing emancipatory process that involves seeking to recognize more and varied forms of personhood, to develop and provide tools that assist with individual flourishing, and to ensure that new technological developments (or proposed developments) benefit more than a few privileged folks.
So while I certainly enjoy talking and thinking about robots, and while I would be overjoyed to someday wander through bright jungles populated by colorful mechanical fauna who have been set free to flourish as beings in their own right (rather than as means to some “end"), I think it’s important to stay grounded in the present when considering what actions would likely lead to the greatest progress in the sense described above.
“Real” autonomous robots would, after all, be non-tools—and non-tools (people, other autonomous entities, etc.) cannot be used, absorbed, and/or discarded by others in the sense that tools can. One reason I find myself intrigued by “roboethics” discussions these days is actually tied into the very real civil rights struggles faced by already-existing persons. And again with the disclaimer that this is a science fiction scenario, I can’t help but wonder whether humans are at the point of being able to recognize very atypical persons (such as sentient robots would be) as non-tools. My guess is “not quite”, and I see a potential (if not exactly immanent) danger of people creating entities that are autonomous and sentient, but that are not acknowledged as such. It’s not as if there isn’t a precedent for this.
Some of the worst abuses in history have been perpetuated as a result of people trying to use, absorb, and ignore or deny the personhood and autonomy of other people. Ethnic minorities, women, children, disabled persons, and individuals of any configuration in positions of disadvantage for whatever reason have all had to deal with being treated like tools (in the sense of being considered non-autonomous, and only worth what they can “produce”, whether it be slave labor, sons to carry on the family lineage, or in the case of disabled persons, “proof” of full personhood in the first place).
And this isn’t something we’re exactly past as a species yet. Regardless of the general sense I still have that all things in reality have a kind of “character” to them, I’m well aware that some things are tools, and that people are not tools, though tools can be extensions of people. Robots, perhaps, are interesting because they stand in a strange area where they have the potential to be considered either non-autonomous things or people (or both, context permitting!), depending on what direction the research goes in.
And given this, I think that anyone who finds himself or herself obsessing over “robot rights” would do very well to learn a bit more about general civil rights. Not only is a much greater consciousness of civil rights gravely needed in the present, but it is going to be vital to broaden the common concept of what a full person is if anyone really wants to see the kind of wide-ranging prosthetically-enabled vibrant diversity that may at least become physically feasible within the lifetimes of many alive today.
Tooth relocate restores dream
A man has had his view incompletely restored after doctors inserted his son's tooth in his eye.
Doctors at University College Hospital Galway said there was nothing more they could do for Robert McNichol, 57, from County Sligo after he lost his sight in an explosion two years ago.
However, he found out about a cutting-edge operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed by Dr Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton, east Sussex.
Mr McNichol's son Robert Jr, 23, donated a tooth, its root and part of the jaw when he heard about the ground-breaking procedure.
The tooth was removed, chiselled through and a lens placed in its core.
It was then inserted into Mr Nichol's right eye after a series of operations.
OOKP is usually used for patients deemed unsuitable for a corneal transplant and involves a tooth (usually a canine) being reshaped to grip a tiny lens.
The whole unit is then stitched into place behind a skin graft over the eye.
A tooth is used because the eye would reject a plastic equivalent.
The technique was pioneered in Italy in the 1960s and involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient's own tooth and the surrounding bone.
After months of operations at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton, Mr McNichol's sight was finally restored in his right eye.
However, doctors said they could not replicate the procedure on his left eye as it was too badly damaged.
‘I do believe I look like the Terminator but I'm just over the moon that I can see again,' said Mr NcNichol.
Kate Beckinsale: 'My Best Feature Is My Tw*t'!
They say a woman becomes more sexual with age, and if that’s the case Kate Beckinsale must have reached adult maturity. When interviewed recently, she couldn’t stop talking about her vagina!
Speaking to Allure magazine, the Underworld actress reveals: “I've only ever had about three boyfriends. Only a handful of people have seen into the Pharaoh's Tomb!"
Kate sinks to lower depths when asked about her best feature. She gushes: “My best feature is unfortunately a private matter, although I'm told it is spectacular. But you can't really walk it down the red carpet. What can I say?"
After a giggling fit, Kate then enlighten the interviewer, by silently mouthing the magical words: “My twat.”
If it really is her best feature, perhaps she should expose it in a short dress while getting out of a car surrounded by paparazzi. Leave your pants at home next time Kate.
Tom Cruise Buying a gift for Jennifer Lopez
A source tell the Daily Star: “Jennifer and Marc have been bowled over with so many congratulations messages, cards, flowers, balloons, you name it.
“They have also been sent many gifts from family, friends and fans.”
However, there was one particular present that really proved unique: “Tom and Katie wanted to get them something different and special so they thought a giant fish tank would be great.”
Considering recent reports that the babies’ nursery is ocean themed, the aquarium should fit right in!
Let’s hope someone bought J-Lo’s twins a set of lifejackets.
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Pete Seeger Power
You met Bob Dylan right at the beginning of his career. Were you surprised just how far he went?He's an absolute fantastic songwriter and thinker. He put out that John Wesley Harding record, and I used to put it on the outdoor speaker and play it over and over while I was skating in the backyard.
What's your first memory of Dylan?
What comes to mind when you think about your time with Lead Belly?
What do you think of Obama?
So you'd vote first for someone like Dennis Kucinich first?
Do you think America is on the verge of leaving these dark times with the impending election?I'm absolutely convinced that the extraordinary tradition in America of speaking your mind has saved us decade after decade after decade. Right now I'm more optimistic than I was after Hiroshima. I felt then that surely it would only be 20 or 30 years until another of those bombs would be dropped and if we weren't killed, we'd be poisoned by the fallout.
So you think the pendulum is going to shift back after eight years of Bush?
Tuesday 26 February 2008
Too Pretty to Fly bring up to date
Southwest says performance, not prettiness caused the trouble
Previous week we roofed Nisreen Swedberg and Sarah Williams' run-in with the extended arm of Southwest's security. Were the girls being profiled? Does being youthful and beautiful equal hassle to Southwest?
"The girls claim they're being discriminated against because they're young and beautiful, which they are. They're sure their current situation has nothing to do with the obscenities they were swapping with another passenger after a bathroom incident."
"It is significant to elucidate a little points:
- The two ladies are not "barred" from ever traveling on Southwest in the future.
- Our Crews' choice had nothing to do with the ladies' appearance, but quite their performance and communication with another Customer onboard.
- Our staff have an obligation to uphold a safe environment onboard.
Clearly, we would have gone out of business a long time ago if we discriminated against beautiful women - or anyone for that matter. We carry 96 million Customers a year, and they're all beautiful in our eyes!"
But if the girls acted less like Britney (or Paris or Lindsay) they would have missed their big break into star dumb.
Saturday 23 February 2008
Iran says 'no legal basis' for new UN nuclear resolution
Iran sees no legal basis for a new UN resolution against Tehran over its nuclear activities, a top security official said on Saturday. “If the Security Council wants to issue a resolution it will be legally and technically baseless,” Javad Vaidi, deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying. Government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham called it “illegal and unjustifiable to keep Iran's nuclear case at the Security Council,” vowing “it will not affect the country's will” to pursue its nuclear programme, the state news agency IRNA reported. He said the issue has to go back to the IAEA which reported on Friday that it had made “quite good progress” in its long-running probe into Iran's disputed nuclear drive
U.S. to pursue ties with Pakistan, credits Musharraf on holding fair polls
Hormone governs caterpillar’s disguise
CHICAGO: A hormone is the secret behind the unusual ability of young swallowtail caterpillars to disguise themselves as bird droppings and then copies of the leaves they live on before becoming butterflies, Japanese researchers found.
Writing on Thursday in the journal Science, the researchers said a special hormone juvenile hormone keeps larvae of the butterfly Papilio xuthus, which is commonly found in Japan, in their black and white bird-excrement camouflage.
As they reach the last stage of caterpillar development, levels of this hormone drop, triggering a transformation into the green leaf phase.
“We found that juvenile hormone works as a switch for the camouflage pattern. That is a novel aspect of this hormone,” Haruhiko Fujiwara of the National Institute of Agrobiological
Sciences in Japan, who worked on the study, said in an e-mail.
Juvenile hormones are known to regulate many aspects of insect development including molt when an insect sheds its outer shell and metamorphosis as when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, he said.
What Fujiwara and colleagues discovered, however, was that juvenile hormone also appears to govern this camouflage process. He said the hormone may regulate genes involved in colour, pattern and surface formation.
Courtesy - Reuters
Troops in Afghanistan to stay, says Australia
CANBERRA, Feb 22: Australia pledged on Friday to keep its troops in Afghanistan for the long haul despite Canada’s decision to set a timetable for the withdrawal of its forces from the volatile south of the country.
“We’ve made it very, very clear that our commitment in Afghanistan is a longstanding one,” Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon told reporters.
“I said in the parliament just this week what a tragedy it would be if all that we’d done in Afghanistan so far was in the end all for nought. So our commitment is a long-term one.” Fitzgibbon said however that he understood Canada’s decision, announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday, to pull its 2,500 troops out of the south by 2011.
“I’m not surprised Canada has set a date and I’m not surprised they’ve started to put some conditions upon their contribution,” he told reporters.
“They’ve lost more than 70 people in Afghanistan, so the domestic concern is understandable. They have been and will continue to make a magnificent contribution.
“It just underscores again the need for us to make a collective effort to ensure that those underperforming countries, NATO countries, do more, and do more with less caveats.” Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called Thursday for more international commitment to the fight against the Taliban, saying extremists were intent on destabilising the West as well as Afghanistan.
Scheffer visited Afghanistan with 26 Nato ambassadors and other alliance officials amid tensions over contributions to the 50,000-strong Nato-led force fighting Taliban, with some countries hinting at pulling out.—AFP
UN has very strong case for new Iran sanctions: Rice
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the U.N. has a "very strong case" for imposing more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
Rice was of the view a new report saying Tehran has failed to fully cooperate with U.N. atomic investigators is good reason for the Security Council to consider a third round of sanctions. The report said that Iran also failed to answer key questions about its nuclear past.
Rice said that the U.S. wants quick action to punish Iran in light of the findings of the report.
Rice said this before senior diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany meet in Washington to discuss a new resolution. All have agreed on a draft.
The U.N. body has demanded that Iran freeze its enrichment program, which can generate both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Iran claims its program is peaceful.
Rihanna Purchased Todd Goldman's Paintings
It's official, we're fanatical with Rihanna! Unless she starts celebrations with Britney and Paris without panties, the girl can do no wrong in our eyes.
Rihanna, who turned 20 yesterday (Pisces Rock!), treated herself to seven Todd Goldman paintings at Jack Gallery in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
“Half of the paintings are going to her house in L.A. and half to her apartment in NYC,” according to Just Jared.
What else did the R&B princess pick up? “Goodbye Kitty in a Microwave,” “Gold Digger Like a Hooker Just Smarter,” “My Mom Says Not to Run Scissors,” “Barbie is a Slut,” “A Salt with a Deadly Weapon,” and “Smurf Blue Balls.”
www.jackassworld.com
To mark the hard launch of JACKASSWORLD.com, MTV is willingly, albeit apprehensively, handing over the reins of the network to the cast of Jackass for the "JACKASSWORLD: 24 Hour Takeover" -- 24 continuous hours of programming starting noon ET, Saturday, February 23rd through noon ET, Sunday, February 24th. No one really knows what exactly the Jackass cast plans on doing once it has taken over the studio, but whatever it is will be going out in a live broadcast featuring new stunts, pranks and unbridled silliness with the added benefit of sleep deprivation.
"This thing is going to be a train wreck and I can't wait to be there," said Jeff Tremaine, Executive Producer of Dickhouse Productions, while Johnny Knoxville chimed in, "Who at MTV thought this was going to be a good idea?! Haven't they ever heard the saying, 'Be careful what you wish for?' "
Tony DiSanto, EVP, Series Development and Programming, MTV, admits to being nervous. "I just heard they are bringing a 'box of stuff that sucks.' Who knows what else they will bring...I'm not going to ask, but it will definitely be can't miss TV since literally anything can and will happen."
In addition to the in-studio antics, Johnny Knoxville, working in conjunction with BMX legend Mat Hoffman and some of the best stunt riders in the world, hosts a super stunt spectacular in homage to the late, great Evel Knievel. A few of the guys who go for broke in the spirit of the world famous daredevil including Travis Pastrana, Scott Palmer, Allen Cooke, Davin "Psycho" Halford, Trigger Gumm, Jeff "Harley" Schneider, and Midget Mike.
During the 24-hour stunt, behind-the-scenes footage and highlights will be posted in real-time to the site. Viewers can also get in on all the action by submitting video questions to the Jackass cast and crew and potentially dictate what happens on-air -- all by going to JACKASSWORLD.com. You can use your mobile phone to send text messages to the cast and crew. The best of the worst will make it on-air.
David Gale, Executive Vice President of MTV's New Media division, said the early enthusiastic response to the movie has proven the model for JACKASSWORLD.com. "Fans are consuming Jackass content in ways that didn't exist when the show started," he said. "JACKASSWORLD dimensionalizes the brand for old and new fans alike and reflects our strategy of creating very deep experiences around cool content that gives fans unprecedented access to the cast and the creative process behind the show."
www.jackassworld.com
To mark the hard launch of JACKASSWORLD.com, MTV is willingly, albeit apprehensively, handing over the reins of the network to the cast of Jackass for the "JACKASSWORLD: 24 Hour Takeover" -- 24 continuous hours of programming starting noon ET, Saturday, February 23rd through noon ET, Sunday, February 24th. No one really knows what exactly the Jackass cast plans on doing once it has taken over the studio, but whatever it is will be going out in a live broadcast featuring new stunts, pranks and unbridled silliness with the added benefit of sleep deprivation.
"This thing is going to be a train wreck and I can't wait to be there," said Jeff Tremaine, Executive Producer of Dickhouse Productions, while Johnny Knoxville chimed in, "Who at MTV thought this was going to be a good idea?! Haven't they ever heard the saying, 'Be careful what you wish for?' "
Tony DiSanto, EVP, Series Development and Programming, MTV, admits to being nervous. "I just heard they are bringing a 'box of stuff that sucks.' Who knows what else they will bring...I'm not going to ask, but it will definitely be can't miss TV since literally anything can and will happen."
In addition to the in-studio antics, Johnny Knoxville, working in conjunction with BMX legend Mat Hoffman and some of the best stunt riders in the world, hosts a super stunt spectacular in homage to the late, great Evel Knievel. A few of the guys who go for broke in the spirit of the world famous daredevil including Travis Pastrana, Scott Palmer, Allen Cooke, Davin "Psycho" Halford, Trigger Gumm, Jeff "Harley" Schneider, and Midget Mike.
During the 24-hour stunt, behind-the-scenes footage and highlights will be posted in real-time to the site. Viewers can also get in on all the action by submitting video questions to the Jackass cast and crew and potentially dictate what happens on-air -- all by going to JACKASSWORLD.com. You can use your mobile phone to send text messages to the cast and crew. The best of the worst will make it on-air.
David Gale, Executive Vice President of MTV's New Media division, said the early enthusiastic response to the movie has proven the model for JACKASSWORLD.com. "Fans are consuming Jackass content in ways that didn't exist when the show started," he said. "JACKASSWORLD dimensionalizes the brand for old and new fans alike and reflects our strategy of creating very deep experiences around cool content that gives fans unprecedented access to the cast and the creative process behind the show."
Obama Draws censure Within Black Community For Refusal to Address Black Union Forum
(AHN) - Barrack Obama's nonattendance at the 'State of the Black Union'' conference prompted both argument and a reaction from the black community.
Presidential candidates Obama and Republicans John McCain and Mike Huckabee refused to attend the forum, leaving Hilary Clinton as the only candidate to address a largely black crowd of thousands in New Orleans' Ernest M. Morial Convention Center - where thousands of the city's poorest residents sought shelter after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Obama chose to focus his campaign in Texas and Ohio in hopes of delivering a knockout blow to Clinton in those states' presidential primaries on March 4.
Obama received criticism from Tavis Smiley, the organizer of the event, saying the Presidential candidate missed an opportunity.
Courtesy AHN
