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Today's NewWork News Web Tip: China's Business Schools (Sunday, 1/1/06)
China contains nearly as many people now as the entire world contained in 1910 at the beginning of what has come to be known as the American Century, when U.S. population was only 92 million.
The world's most populous country has had the world's fastest-growing economy for several years now, and it suddenly appears that China's economy is the world's fourth-largest, behind only the U.S., Japan, and Germany. China will soon have more people on the Internet than any other country, and it is rapidly becoming one of the largest markets in the world for personal computers, television sets, and automobiles. It also appears that China now has as many cellular telephone users as the United States has total population.
All these may be among the reasons for expecting that the 21st and 22nd centuries could turn out to be like the many centuries before the Italian Renaissance started Europe and people of European ancestry on their way to global dominance.
Incidentally, China wasn't a democracy during those centuries either. China was the most advanced society on Earth, while most Europeans were living in mud huts, and no one in Europe knew about the existence of the Americas.
You might gather from all this that China also has an increasing need for people who know how to run businesses. They've thought of that. Business Week magazine has been compiling a great deal of information about China's business school explosion and why it is not only Chinese companies that will need the new generation of Chinese-trained managers.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: A Brief Career Summary of Ray Kurzweil (Monday, 1/2/06)
Several of the most important minds in the world are carried around inside the heads of visionaries who have spent most of their time since graduate school in the private sector.
One is the great Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel Corporation. Another is Intel co-founder, Gordon Moore, perhaps best-known because of "Moore's Law." Another is Sun Microsystems co-founder, Bill Joy, and, of course, there is Ray Kurzweil, whom Fortune magazine and others have called the successor to Thomas Edison and one of the most influential thinkers of modern history. Here's a Brief Career Summary of Ray Kurzweil.
His latest book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, should be read by all government and corporate officials, as well as anyone else who is interested in the dramatically changed contexts within which all human activities will be carried on during the years immediately ahead.
Of course, two of the most influential minds of modern times were not listed above--Bill Gates and Stephen Jobs--because the term "since graduate school" doesn't apply to them. Bill Gates didn't finish college, and Steve Jobs earned no college credits at all.
You might be tempted to say that Mr. Jobs, who is CEO of both Apple Computer Corporation and Pixar in Hollywood, has done all this with "nothing but a high school education." However, the truth about him is the same as what noted organizational psychologist Carl Frost used to say about Victor Krause, who was responsible for redirecting Wolverine World Wide and inventing the "Hush Puppy" shoe: that he has everything, INCLUDING a high school education.
Gates and Jobs have been largely "self-created," both are thinkers AND doers, and both continue to have a tremendous effect on life in the modern world, including the rapidly evolving global economy.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: International Association of Nanotechnology (Tuesday, 1/3/06)
We called attention to Ray Kurzweil yesterday, as well as Bill Joy. Both are among the people on Earth who know more about nanotechnology than most of the rest of us.
Both seem to agree that it will be "the next big thing," in fact, probably the biggest thing so far, altering, not only how the world conducts its economic affairs, but changing the nature of human life on the planet, and SOON. With respect to nanotechnology, they differ mostly in their attitudes toward what Dr. Joy calls the "balance of promise and peril." Dr. Kurzweil tends to be more optimistic; Dr. Joy tends to be more worried.
If you do research on nanotechnology, you might be interested in presenting a paper or speaking at one of the upcoming conferences sponsored by the International Association of Nanotechnology. On the other hand, if you're still wondering what all the fuss is about, you might want to visit the Association's site as well.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: What You Should Know About the AMT (Wednesday, 1/4/06)
You could be forgiven for confusing the AMT with your ATM, because you may have to open up the latter to pay the former. AMT stands for Alternative Minimum Tax, and it wasn't intended for you, unless you're among the very rich.
Nonetheless, because Congress, in all its wisdom, didn't index the AMT to inflation, it could soon snare you anyway, unless Congress steps in to head it off. You can count on that, if you want, but, in the meantime, it's probably a good idea to get up to speed on what could soon turn out to be a very bad surprise for millions of Americans who never have felt rich. Here's what you should know about the alternative minimum tax from Kathy Krisof of the Los Angeles Times.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Your Rights as a Worker (Thursday, 1/5/06)
The Employment and Training Administration of the United States Department of Labor offers a summary of Your Rights as a Worker.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies (Friday, 1/6/06)
For the time being, the term "developing country" remains a euphemism in many cases. Still, the hi-tech revolution may make it possible for some of the world's poorest regions to "leapfrog" nations whose standards of living grew out of the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, rather than attempting to duplicate the stages of development that nations such as the United States, Canada, Australia, or the countries of Western Europe went through on their way to prosperity. However, the hi-tech revolution also requires certain preconditions in order to take root, and, for many poor countries, this means the development of a necessary infrastructure. Along these lines, here's Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies, a report from the United Nations Development Program.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Slavery in New York (Saturday, 1/7/06)
The history of slavery in America is not simply a history of the Old South. In fact, as the Slavery in New York site points out, New York City was at the center of the North American slave trade for two centuries.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Millennium Seed Bank Project (Sunday, 1/8/06)
If Ray Kurzweil is right about the disconnect between perceptions and reality--i.e., people tend to perceive historical changes as linear, when, in fact, they have been and continue to be geometric--the world as we know it and as previous generations have known it will be left behind very rapidly. The Millennium Seed Bank Project has this in mind as it attempts to preserve the current diversity of plant life for future generations of humans. Incidentally, it's possible for seeds and other plant life to survive for a very long time, as research at Pompeii and Herculaneum has shown.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Glocal Forum (Monday, 1/9/06)
You know about globalization, but how about glocalization? The Glocal Forum will explain the concept and explain itself and its role.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Best Companies to Work For (Tuesday, 1/10/06)
Here's Fortune magazine's latest list of Best Companies to Work For.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Institute of Nanotechnology (Wednesday, 1/11/06)
The "next big thing" may be the biggest thing of all for the global economy, as well as life on this planet. Here's information about microscopic machines and much more from the Institute of Nanotechnology.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Germany's Economy (Thursday, 1/12/06)
Here's some orientation and background information on Germany's Economy from The Economist magazine.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Katrina Index (Friday, 1/13/06)
Here's a 47-page report from the Brookings Institution on the tracking of variables of affecting reconstruction of the Gulf Coast area of the United States affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: U.S. Congress Votes Database (Saturday, 1/14/06)
The U.S. Congress Votes Database contains a record of every vote cast in Congress during the past 15 years.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Pluralism Project (Sunday, 1/15/06)
If historical change is and always has been geometric, not linear, as Dr. Ray Kurzweil says in his important new book, The Singularity is Near, the cultural forms of the past will recede very rapidly from now on, if we do not destroy ourselves and each other before that happens. It would seem that we are living in a very dangerous period, as each day's news suggests.
For example, a majority of the world's 6.5 billion people still have been socialized to identify with traditional religious ideologies and cultures that have their roots in ancient times. These belief systems and strong attitudes are coming into daily collision over much of the world, as geographical distance becomes increasingly irrelevant. Also, wealthy industrial societies have been attracting large numbers of people from poorer regions of the world, so countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, and the United States have become far more diverse than they were only a few years ago.
Since 1991, the Pluralism Project at Harvard University has been studying the rapidly changing phenomenon of religion in social life.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The King Center (Monday, 1/16/06)
Even the smartest, most motivated, most conscientious person on earth isn't going to get everything right. People are complicated, and, paradoxically, imperfection may be part of the definition of a "perfect" human being. The idea has shown up in many cultures throughout the world throughout history. It's probably most familiar to many Westerners in the form of Christianity's concept of "original sin."
For instance, Thomas Jefferson was a flawed human being in many ways, and not just because he apparently carried on an affair and produced children with his slave, Sally Hemmings, who was also the half-sister of his dead wife. In addition, he was a hypocrite with respect to slavery, and he was a world-class spendthrift who managed to work his way from wealth to huge debt by the time he died in 1826. Despite his long and carefully-crafted reputation, it's likely that he was as much dilettante as "Renaissance man." He was a devious politician who, like so most other American presidents who have served two terms, might have had a better presidential record if he had left office after four years. Nonetheless, there is a large monument to him in Washington, D. C., and that probably isn't a mistake.
Winston Churchill was an unabashed colonialist, one of Ghandi's principal opponents, had attitudes toward women which today would make most persons in either the UK or the U.S. cringe, mindlessly put information in one of his books that helped the Nazis later, left most of his political contemporaries with the impression that he was a "loose cannon," and he certainly drank too much. Nonetheless, he was a great man, maybe the greatest in a thousand years.
John Kennedy is another example. Disclosures following his death in 1963 have taken a good deal of the shine off the "Camelot" myth. Nonetheless, he performed brilliantly in the Cuban Missile Crisis, helping the world to avert annihilation. However, judging from what he told New York Times columnist James Reston immediately following his first meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in Europe after becoming president, Kennedy seemed to recognize that he may have had a lot to do with creating the Cuban missile crisis in the first place. He felt that he left the Soviet dictator with the impression that he was not only young, but also naive and weak. If it had not been for that impression, Khrushchev might not have sent missiles to Cuba in the first place.
For several years during the 1990s, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich not only were opponents, but also each others' "protection," in a sense. For a time, the Republicans were unable to push ahead too vigorously over of Clinton's personal flaws because they had Gingrich. Similarly, the Democrats were unable to call too much attention to Gingrich's personal flaws because they had Clinton. Many normal Americans might not want either of these men as next-door neighbors, or want them to hold high public office, once they've gotten to know something about their personal lives. Nonetheless, both are brilliant analysts, and we would be very foolish not to pay close attention to what either has to say about American or geopolitical issues. They have two of the most powerful political minds of the past century.
So, the fact that Martin Luther King apparently carried on extramarital affairs and that rumors about plagiarism relating to his doctoral dissertation at Boston University have been in the wind for decades do not diminish the fact that he was one of the most important figures in modern American history who could end up having a profound influence on world history during the remainder of this century and beyond.
He never saw his 40th birthday, but he would be approaching 80 now, if he had lived. Unfortunately, his family has been carrying on a major feud which, in part, has to do with whether the King Center should be turned over to the National Park Service.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: AMT Assistance (Tuesday, 1/17/06)
Will the Alternative Minimum Tax catch up with you this time? The Internal Revenue Service at the Department of the Treasury offers a calculator as well as other AMT assistance for individuals.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: History of Eminent Domain (Wednesday, 1/18/06)
Many Americans remain highly skeptical of eminent domain, because the taking of private property by the state has had a long history in other societies. In the U.S., private property holders can at least expect compensation. However, taking private property to enable public projects such as highways may be one thing; taking it to enlarge the tax base may be something else entirely. Here's a history of public domain from PBS.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Satellite Tracking (Thursday, 1/19/06)
The global economy is being transformed as nearly everything becomes connected to nearly everything else. Satellites are playing an increasingly important role, and, if you're old enough to remember when there was only Sputnik orbiting the earth, you may feel a little older when you learn that there are hundreds and hundreds of man-made Earth satellites now. In fact NASA offers you an opportunity to track nearly 700 of them on your computer.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Rural and Community Development (Friday, 1/20/06)
The United States Department of Agriculture¹s Rural and Community Development program has been heading many of the U.S. government's rural development initiatives over the past seventy years.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Google Earth (Saturday, 1/21/06)
When you step outside next time, you might want to wave skyward, in case your friends--or Uncle Sam--are watching. Google, which started out as a garage-based search engine about eight years ago, is still s search engine, but the enormously successful company seems to be getting into nearly everything else at this point as well.
For instance, Google Earth is an impressive feature that enables you to look at either large or extremely small parts of the earth from your personal computer with the help of some of the hundreds of man-made Earth satellites--if your computer is sufficiently powerful and suitable equipped, that is. At the moment, you'll need a fairly high horse power Macintosh or Windows machine to take advantage of Google Earth's capabilities. However, given that computers become largely obsolete in about three years, it won't be long before virtually everybody will have what they need. Apparently, the company would like to make it possible for you to view the earth--or the license plate number on a car parked down the street--from space in real time, as soon as that capability becomes available.
Google's corporate slogan is "Do no evil," which may are may not represent its real intentions and may or may not be consistent with its objective of making the world's information available to anybody who is interested.
During recent months, copyright holders have resisted Google's efforts to make other people's books available to everybody online, and Google's apparent policy of keeping a record of every Google search that has ever been performed seems to amount to an engraved invitation to government or anyone else with potentially malevolent motives to do evil of their own.
As this is written, the news is filled with stories about Google's resistance to government demands that it be given access to Google's records of what Americans have been searching for. So, it appears that the people running Google haven't been interested in making ALL information available to everybody. They seem to want to keep quite a bit of it for their own use, which is? One might wonder why on earth they have been keeping those records in the first place. While it might be convenient to read the world's books online, if we forget, for the moment, that many of those books are the property of people who may not want to give them away, what possible good can come from keeping a record of people's searches? Intentionally, or not, Google's providing the means for anyone to keep track of what you're doing as well as keep an eye on you from space seem to strike at the heart of Constitutional privacy guarantees. There are signs that Google also wants to put your genome on the Internet as soon as it's possible to do so. Why? Before long, we should easily be able to tell how often you change your underwear. Just ask anybody.
Their intention to make the world's information widely available seems to be accelerating a fundamental process that's already going on over much of the world, the result of which is that nearly everything is connected to nearly everything else. One importance consequence of this, of course, is that it erodes traditional structure and possibly prevents the development of new structure as well. It's probably important for us to think very seriously about whether an "atomization" of society and culture will really be in our best interest.
Incidentally, where did the two thirty-something grad students--sons of University of Maryland and Michigan State University professors, respectively--who started Google get its odd name? Not from the long-running post-World War I comic strip, "Barney Google," apparently. Instead, it seems that Larry Page and Sergey Brin were trying to make reference to "googol," the mathematical concept, while accepting the idea that most people are likely to feel like spelling it "google."
A "googol" is 1 followed by 100 zeros. It is a VERY large number, so large that it doesn't appear to have any identifiable use at this point, at least when counting. Possibly the only thing on Earth of which there may someday be a googol is the number of Google searches that have been performed through which people who are interested in what you've been doing can conduct "fishing expeditions" with high-speed, hi-tech equipment. In the meantime, be careful what you search for and consider wearing a large hat and dark glasses when you go outside.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Food Safety (Sunday, 1/22/06)
Is it safe to eat? The World Health Organization has been concerned about the matter of food safety for several years.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Earth From Above (Monday, 1/23/06)
Saturday, we introduced Google Earth, as well as our anxieties about it and Google. Earth From Above is something quite different. It documents many of the world's most interesting places and examines the effect of humanity on them. Earth From Above features the photographs of leading photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand and is sponsored by UNESCO and Fuji Film at a time when electronic cameras and digital photography seem to be supplanting the chemical photography that has dominated image making since the 1830s.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Early Childhood Interventions (Tuesday, 1/24/06)
Are early childhood intervention programs a good investment? What are the economic as well as human results? A new RAND Corporation study offers encouraging results about their value. Here's Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: A little hi-tech entertainment history (Wednesday, 1/25/06)
With the Disney-Pixar merger filling the news, it might be time to take a look at where the various companies came from and how they have developed over the years. The Disney history and Pixar history are are in-house presentations, while the history of Apple Computer Corporation is from a highly-regarded individual who doesn't work for Apple. However, his site isn't entirely up-to-date. We include Apple at this point, because Steve Jobs, who has been CEO of Pixar, also is CEO of Apple Computer Corporation, and will now be one of the Disney's largest stockholders, as well as a member of the Disney Board of Directors.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Pew Center for Global Climate Change (Thursday, 1/26/06)
The Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts recently have become a public charity. The seven interlocking trusts were founded by the children of oil tycoon Joseph Pew. The Pew Center for Global Climate Change is headed by Eileen Claussen, formerly an official in the Clinton administration.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: World Intellectual Property Organization (Friday, 1/27/06)
Intellectual property issues have become increasingly important as globalization has proceeded, making for more permeable economic boundaries between nations. The problem is that intellectual property law has been highly developed for many years in parts of the world and largely non -existent in other parts. For example, Bill Gates recently said that he thinks it will take a decade to defeat software piracy in some regions of the world, such as China and India. The World Intellectual Property Organization has its headquarters in Geneva and has the job of administering 23 international treaties dealing with various aspects of intellectual property protection.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Stateline.org (Saturday, 1/28/06)
If you have a special interest in state government or issues relating directly to any of the 50 states, you may want to visit Stateline.org from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Department of Transportation: Digital Special Collections (Sunday, 1/29/06)
Those who want to know more about the history of getting from Point A to Point B in the United States will want to look at the Department of Transportation's Digital Special Collections archive.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Central Park (Monday, 1/30/06)
What would New York be like without Central Park? What if that large area were simply filled with more skyscrapers? If you haven't been to New York, or if you have, or if you live there, it's likely that you will have many reasons for wanting to visit the Central Park web site.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Membership of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1913-2005 (Tuesday, 1/31/06)
Here's a listing of everybody who has served on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from the Fed's beginnings in 1913 through last year. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you will know that the Board's membership is about to change. This is the last day of the Greenspan era. A new Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board takes over tomorrow.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Structure of the Federal Reserve System (Wednesday, 2/1/06)
What is the Federal Reserve? What does it do? How is it put together? Here is information about the Structure of the Federal Reserve System from the Fed itself.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Mine Safety and Health Administration (Thursday, 2/2/06)
The Mine Safety and Health Administration is a division of the United States Department of Labor. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. In addition, it is organized into eleven districts and maintains about 45 field offices.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Friday, 2/3/06)
How many nations currently are members of NATO? If you said "twenty-six," you're entitled to the coveted NewWork News handshake award. Which ones are they? Times up; here's the answer. Also, here's a good deal more information about the alliance that grew out of the North Atlantic Treaty signed in 1949 after most of the world had been traumatized by the principal defining event of the 20th century which mostly gave rise to the world we see all around us now, the Second World War.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Benjamin Franklin: In His Own Words (Saturday, 2/4/06)
Most Americans think of Benjamin Franklin as an old man because that was the stage of life he was in at the time of the American Revolution. He was a generation older than the other founders, most of whom were in their 30s and 40s.
However, long before he became perhaps the most skilled and successful diplomat that the American Colonies and, then, the United States have ever had, he had earned his reputation as the most important physicist of the 18th century, plus a self-made wealthy entrepreneur, America's first franchiser, and more. Ben was born in Boston 300 years ago, even though he became permanently associated with Philadelphia. Here's Benjamin Franklin in His Own Words.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Improving the Lives of the Urban Poor (Sunday, 2/5/06)
The United Nations¹ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific focuses on improving the lives of the world's urban poor.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Monday, 2/6/06)
How do federal and state budget policies affect low-income Americas? The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has been studying this issue since 1981.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Reports and Studies (Tuesday, 2/7/06)
Here is a listing of recent reports and studies from the United States Chamber of Commerce.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Booking the Last-Minute Trip (Wednesday, 2/8/06)
Don't expect to save a lot of money, but, sometimes business travelers have to travel at the very last minute, meaning they have to book flights and hotels without delay. About.com has some advice for Booking the Last-Minute Trip.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Internet Society (Thursday, 2/9/06)
The Internet is a chaotic, wild-west kind of space that may or may not benefit from efforts to organize it or get it under more centralized control. In fact, it may be best to leave it alone and let it organize itself. Nonetheless, it's useful to examine these questions and others relating to a future in which nearly everything will be connected to nearly everything else. More than 20,000 persons across 180 countries belong to the Internet Society in order to do that.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: European Training Foundation (Friday, 2/10/06)
The European Training Foundation is an agency of the European Commission. It conducts programs on the sharing of training expertise in member countries throughout a large region of the globe.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum (Saturday, 2/11/06)
If you think you'd rather stick a blowtorch in your ear than watch more current American politicians on television, you would be misunderstanding what the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum from the Harvard Institute of Politics is. Instead, the Forum's website is a collection of videos of 1200 Forum events over the past thirty years, and includes luminaries such as Lech Walesa. Selecting from this vast archive certainly won't be like watching the latest "spin" on cable talk shows. In fact, when some of America's smartest politicians talk at Harvard, you're more likely to hear them express interesting and important ideas than when they're simply saying predictable things in order to do their party-related jobs on TV.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Alternative Minimum Tax (Sunday, 2/12/06)
SmartMoney.com offers a tax guide for persons who may be threatened by the Alternative Minimum Tax.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: EITC Assistant (Monday, 2/13/06)
Many people who are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit don't apply because they assume that they aren't eligible or don't know how to do it. The Internal Revenue Service now provides an EITC Assistant to help you decide.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Fiscal vs. Monetary Policy (Tuesday, 2/14/06)
The federal government can influence the U.S. economy either through its fiscal policy or its monetary policy, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco explains the difference.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Jobs at MSHA (Wednesday, 2/15/06)
Want a job checking on mine safety for the government? Here's how to go about exploring job possibilities at the Mine Safety and Health Administration at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Fall of Enron (Thursday, 2/16/06)
Swallow some aspirin and take a comprehensive look at the spectacular tumble of the once-mighty Enron. The Houston Chronicle documents The Fall of Enron.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: EconData.net (Friday, 2/17/06)
EconData.net is a portal through which you can easily locate regional economic data, and is sponsored by the Economic Development Administration
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Migration Policy Institute (Saturday, 2/18/06)
We're living in a period during which nearly everything is connected to nearly everything else, and that means that peoples and cultures which, traditionally, have been separated either by thousands of years or thousands of miles, are now coming into daily contact. Moreover, while the gap between rich and poor has been widening, few people still live in isolation, so they're aware of it. These and other factors have contributed to vast migrations around the world. The Carnegie Foundation for International Peace gave rise to the Migration Policy Institute five years ago.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Motley Fool (Sunday, 2/19/06)
The Motley Fool isn't what it may appear to be. Instead, it is National Public Radio's David Gardner on investing and personal finance.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Peace Corps Writers (Monday, 2/20/06)
The Peace Corps at times has been referred to as a "civilian military," and one reason this may be an apt designation is that people who have been in either together during their youth often feel a life-long affinity with one another. Peace Corps Writers includes descriptions of the experiences of people from different generations who have served in the organization around the world.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Internet (Tuesday, 2/21/06)
Millions of people throughout the world are in daily contact on the Internet, but what languages are they using? Is the Internet contributing to global "homogenization?" Here's a 106-page report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on the problem of measuring linguistic diversity on the Internet.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: National Climatic Data Center (Wednesday, 2/22/06)
Unless you're a specialist, this site may tell you far more than you could ever possibly want to know about weather. The National Climatic Data Center is the world's largest archive.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Small World Project (Thursday, 2/23/06)
Psychologist Stanley Milgram probably is best-known in academic circles because of his famous "obedience experiments" from the early 1960s. In these experiments, subjects drawn from the general population were led to believe that they were giving highly painful, potentially lethal electric shocks to complete strangers who had never done the subjects any harm. In reality, no one was getting shocked, but Dr. Milgram was interested in how many subjects would obey the experimenter's instructions under minimally threatening conditions and deliver what they thought were excruciating electric shocks to innocent strangers.
The results astonished everybody, including psychiatrists who had been asked to predict them ahead of time and had wildly underestimated the outcomes. To nearly everybody's surprise, approximately two-thirds of the subjects, despite agitation and apparent discomfort, were willing to administer what they were led to believe was maximum shock. When those few who refused to continue simply said "No," the experiment was terminated immediately, and a full explanation was provided.
The findings attracted a lot of attention, particularly because it had been only about 15 years after the end of the Nazi era in Germany. They also contradicted common cultural assumptions that an individual's behavior is mostly a result of attributes of the person, and, instead, called great attention to the powerful role played by situational variables. Scientific findings such as these have been essentially ignored by American institutions, however, because they are inconsistent with cultural attitudes that have been handed down through many generations.
Milgram died in 1984, but, before his departure, he also conducted his "small world" studies, which gave rise to "six degrees of separation" ideas in the popular culture, which became the name for a play and a Hollywood feature film. Among other things, these studies showed the extraordinary extent to which society is closely networked. For instance, the odds are fairly great that you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows any randomly selected celebrity, or, for that matter, someone chosen at random from the general population. If you know any single big-time political or show-biz figure, or know somebody who does, it's likely that only a few links connect you to most big-time political or show-biz figures, because many of them know each other.
Because of relatively inexpensive international telephone service and air travel now, as well as the Internet, it's likely that the entire world is becoming much more closely networked as well. How many "degrees" now separate you from a randomly-selected person on the other side of the world? At any rate, it's time for additional research that addresses more specific questions, and this is being conducted by Professor Duncan Watts in his Small World Project at Columbia University.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Word on the Street (Friday, 2/24/06)
Until about the time the grandparents of many people still living were born, and more than twice as long as there have been newspapers, movie newsreels, radio and TV news, and the Internet, most people were dependent on single-sheet broadsides for their information about what was going on. Here's The Word on the Street from the National Library of Scotland.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: National Academies: Transportation (Saturday, 2/25/06)
The National Academies are made up of a number of groups and councils that study and advise on a variety of topics, including the general problem of getting from Point A to Point B. Here's the Academies' transportation site.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public Comment Site (Sunday, 2/26/06)
America's national parks had their beginning during the Lincoln administration, when the total U.S. population was smaller than the current population of California. Yosemite was declared a national park in 1890. The National Park Service was established during the administration of Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and now has many long-term plans which you can examine on the National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public Comment Site.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: National Institute of Justice (Monday, 2/27/06)
The National Institute of Justice is the research division of the United States Department of Justice and studies all aspects of criminology.
Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Beige Book Summary (Tuesday, 2/28/06)
Here's a summary of the latest Beige Book report from the Federal Reserve, which, among other things, notes the trucker shortage.
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