Miscellanea: A collection of miscellaneous matters; matters of various kinds (Webster’s 1913). Noteworthy tidbits gleaned from all over.

Book events
Check out LAbrainterrain, a new online literary calendar of author readings and literary happenings in the greater L.A. metropolitan area…. (CaliforniaAuthors.com/CaliforniaWriters.com)

ALA’s Report on Library Funding in the United States
The American Library Association reports that libraries in 41 states report library funding cuts, some as much as 50%. So far, the three Maine libraries (including the state library) report only positive or neutral funding impact…. (h20boro)

Scots universities ‘to disappear’
Higher education principals fear universities ‘as we know them’ will disappear, under controversial proposals from the Scottish Executive. (BBC News | UK)

Earliest fire sheds light on hominids
Ancient hearths unveiled as nearly 800 millennia old. (Nature Science Update)

Hens and Chickens
BayStep has published a Brief History of Utility Cycles for Families & Business with slide show: ‘Believe it or not, the 500 U.S. bicycle manufacturers in the late 1890s created so many new bicycle-related innovations that the U.S. patent office decided to open a second office just for bicycles. It was during this era of creativity and invention that bicycle engineers and manufacturers began to realize the radical potential of their technology….’ (Velorution)

signing your name
Writing the book is the easy part. Then you start signing your name. Over and over, on book after book, again and again and again… (Arts and Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate)

Miscellanea: A collection of miscellaneous matters; matters of various kinds (Webster’s 1913).
Noteworthy tidbits gleaned from all over, sans commentary.

Welcome back, bicycle bell
The ding of a cycle bell as a cheery postman wave across the village green. Something from a bygone era? Not quite. (BBC News | UK)

ring my bell
This article highlights another difference between Canada and the UK. Here, cycle helmets are not compolsory, but bells are! I use my bell a lot when cycling over the high level bridge - the general rule is ring it every time you are about to pass someone so they know you are there…. (Dream Time)

A Day In The Life Of A Baseball Stadium
Check out this time-lapse video of the Anaheim Angels baseball stadium. It shows 16 hours (including a complete game), compressed to less than a minute.(via Off On A Tangent) (J-Walk Blog)

David Stern’s Nightmare
How about the NFL Draft attracting more viewers than the NBA Playoffs?… (Off Wing Opinion)

To The Five Boroughs
Gothamist will have to wait until the Beastie Boys’ new album, To The Five Boroughs, is released on June 15, but we can enjoy this great vista of what Lower Manhattan looked like back in the day…. (Gothamist)

Writer Hubert Selby, Jr.
He died Monday at the age of 75. In 1964, his book Last Exit To Brooklyn, shocked readers with its salty language and explicit portrayal of prostitutes, thugs, ex-cons and striking dock workers along the Brooklyn waterfront in the 1950s. Selby’s other books included The Room, Requiem for a Dream, The Willow Tree and Waiting Period. (This interview was originally broadcast on May 4, 1990.) (Fresh Air)

Smart Breeding and Green Biotech
…Dick Manning has written a provocative piece on the agricultural future of green biotechnology ‘…the quest for a longer-lasting tomato didn’t end there. As the Flavr Savr was stumbling (Monsanto eventually abandoned it), Israeli scientist Nachum Kedar was quietly bringing a natural version to market. By crossbreeding beefsteak tomatoes, Kedar had arrived at a savory, high-yield fruit that would ripen on the vine and remain firm in transit….’ (WorldChanging)

The Irrepressible Shabana
Norwegian-Pakistani humorist Shabana Rehman pulled a stunt during a public debate with Mullah Krekar, the controversial former leader of the militant group Ansar al-Islam that left the religious man fuming and threatening a lawsuit…. (Beyond the Beyond)

Old-timer’s advice for Jeter: Bunt!
Advice is coming from all sides to Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, whose batting slump stands at 0-for-32 heading into Thursday night’s game against Oakland. Harry Schwarzkopf, the manager of the Lynbrook Dodgers, a softball team of senior citizens sponsored by the Bristal Assisted Living Community on Long Island, N.Y., has written a letter to Jeter offering advice…. (ESPN.com - MLB)

Archaeology on High School doorstep
Students from Sacred Heart Catholic High School at McClennan, Calhoun County (USA) have discovered the remains of what may be an ancient Native American hunting camp within a stone’s throw… (Stone Pages Archaeo News)

Diamond Age Approaching?
The CRN (Center for Responsible Nanotechnology) reports that nanofactories (like the ones that were installed in every home in Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age) will arrive ‘almost certainly within 20 years’. In short they claim that molecular nanotechnology manufacturing will solve many of the world’s problems, catalyze a technologic revolution, and start the greatest arms race we’ve ever seen. They conclude the risks are so great that we should discuss how to deal with this technology so that we don’t kill each other when it arrives…. (Slashdot)

Facts in fiction; Fiction in facts
I was browing through this site called Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, and thought again of that delicate balance between fact and fiction…. (On Learning How to Write)

Taxis in Lima, Peru
There is one taxi driver for every man, woman and child in Lima. They range in size from station wagon down to circus clown transport. You can identify a taxi by its propensity to slow down and draw near as you walk down the street, similar to a beggar asking you for change; also, they all have a colorful sticker in their front window in one of several biohazard florescent colors…. (Travis’ Column: Hot Off the Presses)

Miscellanea: A collection of miscellaneous matters; matters of various kinds (Webster’s 1913).
Noteworthy tidbits gleaned from all over, sans commentary.

The tyranny of online learning environments and the seeds of the revolution
From ‘incorported subversion’: There is no such thing as a learning management system. Learning cannot be managed, it’s too complex and if anything, manages itself. However, commercial providers of online teaching and learning solutions have sought to exploit the myth that it can and to pull the wool of content creation and management over eyes unused to and unsure of the concept of online teaching and learning. (Dan Mitchell’s Teachnology Weblog)

Jamaican Mento Music
…a largely unknown Jamaican music that is the grandpappy of reggae. For a ska or reggae fan, mento sounds familiar and exotic and unfamiliar. Mento recordings are difficult to come by, but worth seeking out…. (J-Walk Blog)

The Invisible Adjunct shuts down her popular Weblog and says goodbye to academe
Her advice in a nutshell: Think long and hard before going to grad school in the humanities. Then think some more. (del.icio.us/tag/education)

There Are Books, And Then There Are Books
The April 25 issue of The Boston Globe includes in its ‘Ideas’ section an article by Edward Tenner entitled ‘Rebound.’ It offers a fairly useful accounting of where the ‘book industry’ now stands in terms both of sales and of its encounter with the technologies of the electronic age. It seems to bring good news about the ability of books to withstand the challenge of these technologies, but there are also plenty of reasons, as the article itself reveals, to wonder what the future of serious writing, as opposed to the fate of ‘the book’ as itself a technological device, will really look like…. (The Reading Experience)

Chelsea line up Beckham and Ronaldo
Football: Chelsea could complete the ultimate double swoop this summer, luring David Beckham and Ronaldo from Real Madrid, according to Claudio Ranieri. (Guardian Unlimited)

Armstrong considers future
Lance Armstrong says he could retire in 2005 if his team do not find a new sponsor. (BBC Sport | Other Sports | Cycling | World Edition)

The Truth about Convenience Foods
From Reveries — Cool News of the Day — Laura Shapiro is a food historian who thinks American food companies have succeeded by making women feel like failures, as reported by Dinitia Smith in The New York Times. Laura’s out with a new book, in fact, called Something From the Oven, in which she documents ‘how in the 1940s and ’50s, the food industry tried to convince American women that cooking was difficult in order to persuade them that they needed newly developed packaged and frozen foods and cake mixes….’ (Food Basics)

Frozen Dinners
You can make your own frozen dinners, and have more control over the choices and combinations. Save the plastic nukeable trays the store-bought ones come in, (not the carboard ones, since they aren’t washable) or buy microwave-safe containers…. (Food Basics)

(Miscellanea: A collection of miscellaneous matters; matters of various kinds (Webster’s 1913). Noteworthy tidbits gleaned from all over, sans commentary.)

Publish and be Damned
Today’s Globe and Mail has an informative article, Will Publishers Perish? on various forms of self-publishing available to frustrated writers…. (Writing Fiction)

Slowing down with origami
A couple of weeks ago I was visiting a friend and noticed a bowl of origami cranes sitting on his table. I asked him about them and he told me he’d done them to ease the stress of a difficult stretch of job searching. I loved the delightful little burst of colour and texture. The pleasure of sculpture and flowers at once! I also liked it that my friend had something in his place that wasn’t part of some home decor trend or out of the pages of the Ikea catalogue. So I decided then and there that I’d get myself a pack of origami paper and get folding…. (c h a n d r a s u t r a)

PHP and SQL Security
PHP and SQL Security are being proven more weak every day. Uberhacker.Com is running a PHP and SQL security research project to raise awareness of secure scripting…. (Slashdot)

Christian critics write rebuttals to ‘The Da Vinci Code’
Fearing that the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code may be sowing doubt about basic Christian beliefs, a host of Christian churches, clergy members and Bible scholars are rushing to rebut it. (Seattle P-I: Books)

Dodger History and Its Keeper
According to Mark Langill, what saved Dodger Stadium, what made it complete in its incompleteness, was the rain. When you look at photos of the ballpark (construction) in early 1962, there were no pavilions, Langill said in an interview with Dodger Thoughts on Monday. Torrential rains had really put a crimp on construction in terms of the timetable. Originally they were thinking they would enclose the ballpark, (but) they decided the view was so nice…. (Dodger Thoughts)

Best Images Yet Of Saturn’s Moon Titan
During recent commissioning observations of a new instrument designed for a completely different purpose, the European Southern Observatory managed to grab the best imagery yet of Saturn’s largest moon…. (Slashdot)

British libraries could shut by 2020
Books: Report urges cuts in backroom staff, more late-night opening, and treble spending on books to reverse falling membership and lending. (Guardian Unlimited)

The Jiroft Civilization
In Iran, an archaeologist is racing to uncover a literate Bronze Age society he believes predates ancient Mesopotamia. Critics say he may be overreaching, but they concede his dig will likely change our view of the dawn of civilization (ɔɅɓɃÉ√É«ÉÀ)

BBEdit: Its Unix Support Doesn’t Suck Either, Part 1
In this first article of a two-part series, Kevin O’Malley introduces you to BBEdit’s Unix support features. He also includes a nifty hack for listing the songs on your iPod, copying songs from your iPod to iTunes, and playing a song in iTunes — all from within BBEdit. (O’Reilly MacDevCenter.com)

Spitz raises Olympic fear
Olympic legend Mark Spitz believes security concerns could see the US team withdraw from Athens. (BBC News | WORLD)

Mayor’s pledge for Mandela statue
London’s mayor says he will fight for a statue of Nelson Mandela in Trafalgar Square as hundreds celebrate 10 years of South Africa’s democracy. (BBC News | UK)

What Happened to Sports?
I find it rather depressing that four of the top five headlines on ESPN’s home page are about legal issues rather than sports…. (Baseball Musings)

On Pastrami
There are two types of people in this world: those that love pastrami and those that have no soul…. (The Amateur Gourmet)

Suburban Organics
Recently I have discovered the joys of having organic produce delivered to me at work on a weekly basis. My friend Jackie had always raved about her 20lbs of produce and I read about Clotilde’s produce basket… well, I wanted one too! So I asked Jackie for some information about Suburban Organics…. (StellaBites)

(Miscellanea: A collection of miscellaneous matters; matters of various kinds (Webster’s 1913). Noteworthy tidbits gleaned from all over, sans commentary.)

Condors!
So I finally managed to see the condors in the San Gabriels. After a 1/2 hr wait during which time I seriously doubted that I was in the right place, 2 birds appeared above the ridge and sailed around one of the radio towers before landing…. (LA Birding)

US Postal drops cycling team
The Postal Service announced that it will end its sponsorship of the US Postal Service cycling team at the end of the 2004 season. Despite 5 consecutive Tour de France wins, the USPS has decided to go “in another direction.” (Tour de France 2004)

Basic Pasta Dough
And so the weekend, along with The Great Pasta Experiment of 2004 has come and gone. After the initial mishap with the flour wall breaching and the eggs slithering their way onto the floor, and my near breakdown over the mess, the rest of the weekends pasta project went relatively trouble and accident free…. (In My kitchen)

Study shows ancient coastal life in California
Rubbish dug a generation ago from an oceanside archaeological site first occupied around 8,000 BCE in California (USA) is being re-examined for clues that could bolster the theory some of the first Americans to stream into the New World hugged the Pacific coast, reaping the bounty of the land and the sea…. (Stone Pages Archaeo News)

Whatever happened to Dungeons and Dragons?
In the 1980s millions of teenagers would battle dragons armed with just dice, paper and pens. D&D became part of youth sub-culture but as the game celebrates its 30th birthday - is anyone still playing? (BBC News | UK)

ID card £2,500 penalty threat
People who refuse to register for the government’s planned ID card scheme could face a “civil financial penalty”. (BBC News | UK)

Setting Priorities
This weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about my personal priorities and goals. After listing the top five, I thought about the steps that would be necessary to accomplish these goals. After surveying the list time seems so short - not nearly enough hours in the day…. (Him, Them and Me)

The road to inspiration
Although he came from the ‘Brideshead generation’, Robert Byron’s political instincts were sharp. William Dalrymple acclaims James Knox’s biography of the man who wrote the greatest pre-war travel book…. (The Charlock’s Shade)

London greets Tour chiefs
Tour de France chiefs will meet Mayor of London Ken Livingstone to discuss the possibility of London hosting the race. (BBC Sport | Other Sports | Cycling | World Edition)

The Amazing Spider-Van-Der-Waals Forces
How does a spider stick to the ceiling? According to scientists at the Institute for Technical Zoology and Bionics in Germany, along with a colleague in Switzerland, the spider’s secret is all about the van der Waals force, a kind of interaction between individual molecules within a nanometer of each other…. (WorldChanging)

Rink Notes
One item I missed over the weekend was the news that we might not see NHL players in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy if a labor crisis eats up too much of the 2004-05 regular season. As far as I’m concerned, I’d be happier if the NHL never sent another player to the Olympics ever again….Another news item that leaked concerned the proposal to trim 10 games from the regular season schedule beginning next year…. (Off Wing Opinion)