Gulfstream

http://www.google.com/corporate/today.html "10 things Google has found to be true." I think I would personally pay at least US$10/month for Google, and my employer would probably pay more. How much is Google, the company, worth? Why are searches free? Will the free Google one day end? 11:11

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20020224 Everyone's talking about the "weblog revolution." Webloggers, please, you're not changing the world. If you're already a journalist--meaning that you're a great writer, like Sullivan is--a weblog can offer you new opportunities. But to everyone else: settle the fuck down. You're doing something fun and rewarding that couldn't be done even five years ago. This isn't enough for you? Why is it necessary to invest the weblog with qualities of greater significance? Is it because your weblog soaks up hours and hours of your day, and you need some way to account for the time spent? (Note also that this article, like most of Sullivan's longer stuff, was originally published somewhere else.) 10:24

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2062483&entry=2062508 Diary of Avery Brott, navigator of an ultra-deepwater drill ship. 14:34

http://www.whygodwhy.com/cgi/get_entry.pl?entry=306 "10 Things I would say to Paul Ford if he was the receptionist in my office." Huh? What? I don't get it. 09:35

http://kumquat.com/cgi-kumquat/funagain/05511 Reviews of the boardgame "Chess." 15:18

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/international/asia/21KAND.html Another story on pedophilia amongst Afghanistan's Pashtuns. I posted a link to a similar story in The Times a little while back and questioned its accuracy, in part because the story wasn't being reported anywhere else. This article also claims that the pedophilia "played a part in the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan": the Taliban gained support when they freed a young boy over whom two commanders had fought. 12:51

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/23/arts/23DEMO.html "In Failed States, Can Democracy Come Too Soon?" (Why is this in the "Arts" section?) 12:06

http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/story.asp?id={787C26D4-
F7CA-40B7-9202-E96B597223C7} A not-annoying story about the internet romance of Dean Allen and Gail Armstrong. Great URL, guys! 11:58

http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/682836.asp A breathless profile of a Special Forces team and their operations in Afghanistan. (e.g. (first sentence) "They landed in darkness on an early November night, deep in the mountains of northern Afghanistan. ...") Apparently, Special Forces soldiers are typically in their mid 30s and have college degrees. They also know four languages--though I don't know why this particular team tried to communicate in Arabic, French, Chinese then Russian. (Note: 0+ level proficiency is not particularly high.)

I saw Black Hawk Down last night. It was reasonably thrilling, but it's basically a big gun battle, without structure, meaning or narrative. (This is real life, I suppose.) "What Black Hawk Down Leaves Out" covers some of the political background. 11:55

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_
ID=718860 Article by Bjorn Lomborg summarising his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. The book argues that: (1) the threat to the environment isn't as serious as environmentalists have been making out; and (2) that some of the money spent on the environment might be better spent on other things, such as providing clean water to those that don't currently have it.

Of course, not everyone agrees with his conclusions. What's inexplicable, though, is the character of the responses. Scientific American's contribution (a special section in the January 2002 issue) was titled "Science Defends Itself Against the Skeptical Environmentalist"--as if science was one thing, and Lomborg was another. This is very unbecoming. Lomberg may well be wrong, but he's certainly following scientific method. And today, on the Science Show, one anti-Lomborgist asserted that Lomborg must be wrong about the environment, simply because there were 2 billion people in the world in 1950, and 6 billion today... How can 6 billion fit where 2 billion were before?

No-one seems to want to grapple with his statistics, which are in many instances taken from UN publications. One of Lomberg's most surprising claims is that even if the Kyoto Protocol is ratified by the entire world, we'd still, in 2100, get to the same point, in 2094, that we would have had it not been ratified. (In terms of temperature change, at least.) Is anyone disputing this? Because if it's true, it's not worth the money. 12:16

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42643-2002Feb7.html Book review: The Story of How Tobacco Seduced the World. "Without coming to the defense of [Tobacco] companies--they are in all respects indefensible--it needs to be said that smoking is an act of individual volition for which the individual ultimately must accept responsibility. However much pleasure may be derived from watching the companies take it on the chin in court, this evades the larger truth that people smoke mainly because they want to." I smoke for political reasons. 12:16

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?020218ta_talk_paumgarten The Red Cross is giving money to (rich) Tribeca residents. 12:16

http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/
Very beautiful high-resolution images of earth. 15:29

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/DillerScofidio/blur_building/
For Swiss Expo 2002, a building covered in a cloud-like mist will hover over a lake. This is excellent! 09:55

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/international/19PENT.html "Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad" Troubling: the Pentagon is planning to make up news. [Update: this Slate article equates the plan to the spreading of false information about the location of the D-Day landings.] 09:46

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2061787 "Dear Prudence", the last question: is this not a ridiculously overwritten? ("If the measure of love is loss ...") Why does the advice giver, writing in the third person, conclude with, "She also thinks you're a hell of a writer"? 14:53

http://www.philosophers.co.uk/games/god.htm Are your beliefs about the world and God consistent? 13:50

http://www.sylloge.com/personal/2002_01_01_s.html#9205551 16:12

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/07/science/07BOMB.html Fascinating: contrary to his post-war suggestion that he simply wasn't trying very hard, it appears that Heisenberg was working hard on the atomic bomb. (And he thought he would succeed, too.) 12:56

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2061764 Can Muslim kiddies wear a tudung--a traditional headscarf--to school? The Singaporean government says no: to maintain harmony, all kids must dress the same. An editorial in The Straits Times ("Tudung: It has to be") weirdly insists that "nothing is gained by harping on the exception made for Sikhs to wear the turban in school." 12:19

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en real strange countries have an official google server. (Scroll down.) Burundi? Montserrat? Is this a joke? 01:08

http://newyorker.com/THE_TALK_OF_THE_TOWN/CONTENT/?020204ta_
talk_mead ancestralscotland.com hosts a party to celebrate the opening of their website (which encourages Scottish Americans to visit Scotland); the New Yorker attends. (The New Yorker gets excellent stories, improbably, out of the most ordinary events--would you have thought to write about this?) 11:42

http://kimm.no/v5/pop8.html Portrait photographs, taken on NYE. Character captured, effortlessly. Elsa Dorfman also does an incredible job but she also charges about $2000 for a portrait, so she'd better be good. (Her results are also remarkable in that they're the best of only two photographs.) This is Allen Ginsberg, naked, with Peter Orlovsky. 16:53