MemeMachineGo!

Not only were comments broken, but more recently I had a visible broken HTML tag for a blogroll, the blog equivalent of walking around with my fly unzipped.

I really hadn’t updated my templates since Movable Type 2.661; a lot of fundamentals had changed. So I started with the new default templates, and more or less restored my customizations.

The new CSS is mostly Binary Blue, but I’m not entirely satisfied, and I’ll no doubt be tweaking it some more.

Comments work again, and still require typekey registration and login. But now the comment form actually tells you this in advance.

I’ve had plenty to say; it’s good to be back.

Motherhood and mental illness:

First-time mothers are at increased risk for mental disorders while fathers do not share that risk, Danish researchers said on Tuesday. In a 32-year study that included more than 2.3 million Danes, roughly one out of 1,000 first-time mothers were admitted to a psychiatric hospital with a mental illness such as depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder within the following year — most within the first three months.

The Global Orgasm Project (warning: obnoxious flash-only site with acoustic guitar in endless loop) is organizing a global act of sex magick.

The mission of the Global Orgasm is to effect change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy. Now that there are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti- submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW! Read more about the fleet buildup here.

The intent is that the participants concentrate any thoughts during and after orgasm on peace. The combination of high- energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers.

The goal is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world.

It all goes down on the Winter Solstice, December 22; they hope for it to be detectable on the Global Consciousness Project.

So if you won’t do it for peace, won’t you at least do it for science?

I want to quote just about every part of this Paul Krugman article.

In 1969, General Motors was the country’s largest corporation aside from AT&T, which enjoyed a government-guaranteed monopoly on phone service. GM paid its chief executive, James M. Roche, a salary of $795,000 — the equivalent of $4.2 million today, adjusting for inflation. At the time, that was considered very high. But nobody denied that ordinary GM workers were paid pretty well. The average paycheck for production workers in the auto industry was almost $8,000 — more than $45,000 today. GM workers, who also received excellent health and retirement benefits, were considered solidly in the middle class.

Today, Wal-Mart is America’s largest corporation, with 1.3 million employees. H. Lee Scott, its chairman, is paid almost $23 million — more than five times Roche’s inflation-adjusted salary. Yet Scott’s compensation excites relatively little comment, since it’s not exceptional for the CEO of a large corporation these days. The wages paid to Wal-Mart’s workers, on the other hand, do attract attention, because they are low even by current standards. On average, Wal-Mart’s non-supervisory employees are paid $18,000 a year, far less than half what GM workers were paid thirty-five years ago, adjusted for inflation. And Wal-Mart is notorious both for how few of its workers receive health benefits and for the stinginess of those scarce benefits. […]

A generation ago the distribution of income in the United States didn’t look all that different from that of other advanced countries. We had more poverty, largely because of the unresolved legacy of slavery. But the gap between the economic elite and the middle class was no larger in America than it was in Europe.

Today, we’re completely out of line with other advanced countries. The share of income received by the top 0.1 percent of Americans is twice the share received by the corresponding group in Britain, and three times the share in France. These days, to find societies as unequal as the United States you have to look beyond the advanced world, to Latin America. And if that comparison doesn’t frighten you, it should.

Previously: The Gilded Age.

A new synthetic heart can mean life without a pulse.

An interesting feature of the Heartmate II is that the device provides a continuous flow of blood, so the patient has no pulse.

Another reason it’s a good thing recent CPR guidelines don’t call for checking for a pulse.

Some recent research suggests that the secret to Damascus steel’s strength is the presence of carbon nanotubes.

Elements introduced during the forging process gave rise to the earliest carbon nanotubes on record, according to a study in the journal Nature by a team led by Prof Peter Paufler of the Technische Universitat Dresden.

The team used electron microscopy to study a specimen from a Damascus sabre made in the 17th century. Some remnants show evidence of carbon nanotubes. These, in turn, may have helped form iron carbide nanowires, which might explain the strength and beautiful pattern of the coveted Damascus blades.

I recently saw a promo for a reality TV show called “Beauty and the Geek.” Looking it up on Wikipedia, I see this will be its third season. The premise is:

Each season, 8 “beauties” (young women who have relied primarily on their looks thus far in life) and 8 “geeks” (young men who have relied primarily on intellect and are socially awkward) are paired up to compete against the other 7 couples for $250,000 and other prizes. Each beauty lives together in a room with her geek during the course of the competition. There is a competition during each episode, after which one couple is eliminated.

It’s international now — the British version has the same title; the literal translations of the Norwegian, Italian and Estonian versions are “The Princess and the Professor,” “The Doll and the Nerd,” and “The Beauty and the Genius.”

The Wikipedia entry includes a capsule description of the geeks’ geek cred, a lot of which is, frankly, boring. “MIT graduate” “Mensa member.” “Computer programmer.” But then there’s “Rubik’s Cube Record Holder,” “Speed Chess Champion,” and, my favorite, “Tracks Monkeys With Lasers!”

Now that’s a handy skill.