from the Gapminder FAQ…

What is Gapminder?

Gapminder is a non-profit venture that develops information technology for provision of free statistics in new visual and animated ways. In short, it enables you to make sense of the world by having fun with statistics. Our method is to turn boring data into enjoyable interactive animations using Flash technology. Gapminder is a Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. Funding has been mainly by grants from Swedish International Development co-operation Agency, Sida. In collaboration with United Nations Statistic Division we promote free access to searchable public data and our animations of different types of data are freely available at www.gapminder.org.

Where did you get the data?

Right now the application shows data from World Development Indicators 2006. Data from other sources will be added later.

What does the line dividing some of the bubbles mean?

The line suggests that there is no measured data for one or more of the indicators for the country at that point in time. Instead, the position and data values have been estimated using data points from previous and later measurements through interpolation. The years used for estimation are shown below when moving the mouse over the bubble.

[...]

link

While it’s surely worthwhile and fascinating to uncover yet another Roman ruin, the sort of archeology that keeps all of us panting for more (like a strange breed of archeology loving dog…one that pants when there’s a new find) is the unearthing of the ruins of our past selves.

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Do I mention this because I’m drunk? Yes, drunk on love, love of the insane things I wrote as a nebula-eyed teenage boy (I drank heartily from the cup of sensitivity and ate the meat of tenderness with the abandonment of a Viking – which is a paradox, or at least, a bad metaphor).

Here’s what I found in a decaying notebook:

“I want to make sexy maneuvers leading to astounding outcomes.”

What an ambitious pup. Why have I failed to conquer this globe?

For many years I’ve depended upon the uber-geek site, slashdot.org for my (mostly Linux focused) information fix.

Slashdot.org accepts entries from users but there’s a strong editorial filtering process – call it a council of gurus – performing quality control.

More recently, Digg.com has made a large splash, grabbing some attention away from slashdot.org.

Digg is built upon the community participation model – the hive – for its content. A friend refers to this type of content portfolio building (which services such as YouTube also depend upon) as a bake your own bread and circuses business model.

I still see tremendous value in the hierarchical, guru approach but I wonder for how long? The hive-mind technique appears to be growing in strength with each passing day.

In the not really distant tomorrow, will even corporate-created, top-down television, movies and music be, if not replaced, heavily subsidized by the hive-mind?

Oh, here’s a thought.

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I must type fast. I’m in a meeting.

Wikipedia tells us:

The doctrine of Pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit) or Paṭiccasamuppāda (Pāli; Tibetan: rten.cing.’brel.bar.’byung.ba) is Buddhism’s primary contribution to metaphysics. Common to all Schools of Buddhism, it states that phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. It is variously rendered into English as “dependent origination,” “conditioned genesis,” “dependent co-arising,” “interdependent arising,” etc.

link

Which is how blogging seems to me. But, more at another time.

Headphones on. Listening to Sonic Youth’s Reena from their new CD, Rather Ripped. And also, selections from The Duke Spirit’s Cuts Across the Land.

This leads, somehow, to an approximate approximation of an altered state.

But never mind that.

…

more at mark ryden.com

When I came home yesterday, there was another intriguing message left on the answering machine. It’s in Russian; you can listen to it here.

But never mind that.

…

In 2004, at SIGGRAPH, Bruce Sterling said:

“Today, most consumers know little or nothing about their possessions. They might know the brand, because brand awareness has been forced on them for years, at great expense, by massive product advertising. A Spime, by contrast, is an object that can link to and swiftly reveal most everything about itself. It might as well do this, since Google is perfectly capable of telling you everything anyway.”

[...]

“A Spime is today’s entire industrial process, made explicit. That is the whole shebang, explicitly tied to the object itself. A Spime is an object that ate and internalized the previous industrial order.”

link

Which inspired me to go to my bathroom’s medicine cabinet and retrieve a bottle of eye drops. What would this object be, how would it behave if, instead of being only a textually communicative thing it electronically advertised its properties?

The eye drops have the following ingredients:

• Naphazoline HCI

• Pheniramine maleate

Would I, say, place the bottle next to a spime-reading PDA and see, among other information (the bottle’s history and disposal procedures, for ex.) this:

Napthazoline (in the hydrochloride form) is the common name for 2-(1-Naphthylmethyl)-2-imidazoline hydrochloride, an α-adrenergic agonist that functions as a decongestant and vasoconstrictor. It’s commonly used in over-the-counter and prescription eye drops, to eliminate redness and inflammation.

It has the molecular formula C14H14N2.HCl and a molecular weight of 246.73 g/mol.

Wikipedia link

Pheniramine maleate is an antihistamine used to treat allergic conditions such as hay fever or urticaria. It is generally sold in combination with other medications, rather than as a stand-alone drug.

Wikipedia link

more at Mark Ryden.com

Oh, how my head pounds, how my eyes, heavy with sleep from last night’s bacchanal (and by “bacchanal” I mean sitting in a room, observing the walls succumb to entropy), vex me.

Come, let us curl up under the comforter though here it’s summer, and read an excerpt from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – yes, just us two. Later, the Omega3 will do its work and sharper thoughts will return.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversation?’

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies†1, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—’ (she was rather glad there WAS no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) ‘—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) ‘And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.’

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, ‘Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

link to Proj. Guttenberg page for Alice downloads

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Wikipedia tells us…

99942 Apophis (previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a Near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a relatively large probability that it would strike the Earth in 2029. However, additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. An impact is still possible on April 13, 2036, keeping the asteroid at level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale. As of June 2006, this corresponds to an impact probability of 1 in 38,000.

What happens when this…

Dr. Morbius was lonely.

The other colonists were dead; mysterious circumstances. Of course, there was his lovely daughter and Robby, the helpful robot he built with available materials. Still…

Despite his loneliness, and nagging worries about his daughter’s prospects, stranded on a far flung outpost, living amidst the ruins of a long-disappeared civilization, there was his work.

And his work was nothing less than the expansion of his mind – at almost any cost.

is plugged into the Sternest Meanings engine?

Subnormally. Rowdies.

Desolated toothier wrenches. Mesmeric, crass unctuosity.

Hollow-eyed, feverous anarchists. To drabber, thoughtful hyperbole. Hit blue.

Insinuate polished bloatedness. Writhing, anguished aggressor. Pest crops.

Offhanded splutters to orangutan. I’m virginal nudists.

Sweetie’s old-fashioned paragraph. Vizirial, twin cook.

Know-nothing death wish snarls as. Shoplift handsomest examination. Nosy act.

At last, it all makes perfect sense.

Dr. Morbius was lonely.

The other colonists were dead; mysterious circumstances. Of course, there was his lovely daughter and Robby, the helpful robot he built with available materials. Still…

Despite his loneliness, and nagging worries about his daughter’s prospects, stranded on a far flung outpost, living amidst the ruins of a long-disappeared civilization, there was his work.

And his work was nothing less than the expansion of his mind – at almost any cost.

I was driving to work; the radio was on for no special reason. NPR.

A news item: Merck & Co. Inc. is held liable for the release of potassium thiocyanate into Wissahickon Creek.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports it this way:

Merck faces fish-kill probe

Firm discovered discharge a week later.

By Sandy Bauers

Inquirer Staff Writer

It took Merck & Co. Inc. a week to discover and report a cyanide-related discharge that killed at least 1,000 fish in the Wissahickon Creek and prompted closure of Philadelphia’s water-intake valves.

The Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday that a Merck representative first notified the agency of the spill on Tuesday.

According to the EPA, a Merck official said that a week earlier, on June 13, a vaccine-research “pilot plant” had released about 25 gallons of potassium thiocyanate into the sewer system. The substance is commonly used in making vaccines and antibiotics and should not have been discharged into the sewer system, authorities said. They suspect the chemical combined with chlorine at the sewage-treatment plant and became more toxic to fish.

Merck now faces a continuing probe by state and federal officials, and some anger from the community.

[...]

link

Potassium thiocyanate?

What is potassium thiocyanate?

Material Safety Data Sheet

1. Product Identification

Synonyms: Potassium sulfocyanate; Potassium thiocyanide; Thiocyanic acid, potassium salt; Potassium isothiocyanate

CAS No.: 333-20-0

Molecular Weight: 97.18

Chemical Formula: KSCN

Product Codes:

J.T. Baker: 3326, 5578

Mallinckrodt: 7168

2. Composition/Information on Ingredients

Ingredient CAS No Percent Hazardous

————————————— ———— ———— ———

Potassium Thiocyanate 333-20-0 90 – 100% Yes

3. Hazards Identification

Emergency Overview

————————–

WARNING! HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED OR INHALED. CAUSES IRRITATION TO SKIN, EYES AND RESPIRATORY TRACT.

SAF-T-DATA(tm) Ratings (Provided here for your convenience)

———————————————————————————————————–

Health Rating: 2 – Moderate (Life)

Flammability Rating: 0 – None

Reactivity Rating: 1 – Slight

Contact Rating: 2 – Moderate

Lab Protective Equip: GOGGLES; LAB COAT; VENT HOOD; PROPER GLOVES

Storage Color Code: Green (General Storage)

———————————————————————————————————–

Potential Health Effects

———————————-

Inhalation:

Causes irritation to the respiratory tract. Symptoms may include coughing, shortness of breath.

Ingestion:

May cause psychosis, vomiting, disorientation, weakness, low blood pressure, convulsions and death which may be delayed. The probable lethal dose is between 15-30 grams.

Skin Contact:

Causes irritation to skin. Symptoms include redness, itching, and pain.

Eye Contact:

Causes irritation, redness, and pain.

Chronic Exposure:

Prolonged or repeated skin exposure may cause dermatitis. Repeated ingestion of small amounts may cause weakness, confusion, central nervous system effects, nausea and skin eruptions.

Aggravation of Pre-existing Conditions:

No information found.

4. First Aid Measures

Inhalation:

Remove to fresh air. If not breathing, give artificial respiration. If breathing is difficult, give oxygen. Get medical attention.

Ingestion:

Induce vomiting immediately as directed by medical personnel. Never give anything by mouth to an unconscious person. Get medical attention.

Skin Contact:

Wipe off excess material from skin then immediately flush skin with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes. Remove contaminated clothing and shoes. Get medical attention. Wash clothing before reuse. Thoroughly clean shoes before reuse.

Eye Contact:

Immediately flush eyes with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes, lifting lower and upper eyelids occasionally. Get medical attention immediately.

5. Fire Fighting Measures

Fire:

Not considered to be a fire hazard.

Explosion:

Not considered to be an explosion hazard.

Fire Extinguishing Media:

Use any means suitable for extinguishing surrounding fire.

Special Information:

In the event of a fire, wear full protective clothing and NIOSH-approved self-contained breathing apparatus with full facepiece operated in the pressure demand or other positive pressure mode. May emit toxic and flammable fumes of cyanide if involved in a fire.

6. Accidental Release Measures

Ventilate area of leak or spill. Wear appropriate personal protective equipment as specified in Section 8. Spills: Sweep up and containerize for reclamation or disposal. Vacuuming or wet sweeping may be used to avoid dust dispersal.

7. Handling and Storage

Keep in a tightly closed container, stored in a cool, dry, ventilated area. Protect against physical damage. Isolate from oxidizing materials. Store in the dark. Containers of this material may be hazardous when empty since they retain product residues (dust, solids); observe all warnings and precautions listed for the product.

8. Exposure Controls/Personal Protection

Airborne Exposure Limits:

None established.

Ventilation System:

A system of local and/or general exhaust is recommended to keep employee exposures as low as possible. Local exhaust ventilation is generally preferred because it can control the emissions of the contaminant at its source, preventing dispersion of it into the general work area. Please refer to the ACGIH document, Industrial Ventilation, A Manual of Recommended Practices, most recent edition, for details.

Personal Respirators (NIOSH Approved):

For conditions of use where exposure to dust or mist is apparent and engineering controls are not feasible, a particulate respirator (NIOSH type N95 or better filters) may be worn. If oil particles (e.g. lubricants, cutting fluids, glycerine, etc.) are present, use a NIOSH type R or P filter. For emergencies or instances where the exposure levels are not known, use a full-face positive-pressure, air-supplied respirator. WARNING: Air-purifying respirators do not protect workers in oxygen-deficient atmospheres.

Skin Protection:

Wear impervious protective clothing, including boots, gloves, lab coat, apron or coveralls, as appropriate, to prevent skin contact.

Eye Protection:

Use chemical safety goggles and/or full face shield where dusting or splashing of solutions is possible. Maintain eye wash fountain and quick-drench facilities in work area.

9. Physical and Chemical Properties

Appearance:

Colorless, deliquescent crystals.

Odor:

Odorless.

Solubility:

Very soluble in water.

Density:

1.89

pH:

No information found.

% Volatiles by volume @ 21C (70F):

0

Boiling Point:

500C (932F)

Melting Point:

173C (343F)

Vapor Density (Air=1):

No information found.

Vapor Pressure (mm Hg):

No information found.

Evaporation Rate (BuAc=1):

No information found.

10. Stability and Reactivity

Stability:

Stable under ordinary conditions of use and storage. Slowly decomposes on exposure to light.

Hazardous Decomposition Products:

Burning may produce nitrogen oxides, sulfur compounds, and possibly cyanides.

Hazardous Polymerization:

Will not occur.

Incompatibilities:

Strong oxidizers, active halogen compounds.

Conditions to Avoid:

Light and incompatibles.

11. Toxicological Information

Oral rat LD50: 854 mg/kg. Investigated as a mutagen, reproductive effector.

——–\Cancer Lists\——————————————————

—NTP Carcinogen—

Ingredient Known Anticipated IARC Category

———————————— —– ———– ————-

Potassium Thiocyanate (333-20-0) No No None

12. Ecological Information

Environmental Fate:

No information found.

Environmental Toxicity:

No information found.

13. Disposal Considerations

Whatever cannot be saved for recovery or recycling should be managed in an appropriate and approved waste disposal facility. Processing, use or contamination of this product may change the waste management options. State and local disposal regulations may differ from federal disposal regulations. Dispose of container and unused contents in accordance with federal, state and local requirements.

…

Ah. Now, I’ve learned and move one step closer to complete madness.

[audio:http://monroelab.net/blog/audio/test.mp3]

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“…ashes to ashes funk to funky
we know major tom’s a junky
strung out on heaven’s high
hitting an all time low…”