r.john's blog

Advertising in space

r.john — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:04:13 -0500

The campaign to broadcast the first ever advert into space is launched today (Friday March 7)- with University of Leicester space scientists playing a key part in the process.

The British public is being asked to shoot a 30-second ad about what they perceive life on earth to be as part of Doritos ‘You Make It, We Play It’ user-generated-content campaign. The winning advert in the competition will be beamed past the earth's atmosphere, beyond our solar system and into the Universe, to anyone 'out there' that may be watching. The winning ad will also be broadcast on terrestrial TV.

On 12th June, the space-bound ad will be broadcast from a 500MHz Ultra High Frequency Radar from the EISCAT Space Centre in Svalbard, which lies in the Arctic Ocean about midway between northern Norway and the North Pole.

The week in BULLYING news

r.john — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:56:21 -0500

Workplace bullying, such as belittling comments, persistent criticism of work and withholding resources, appears to inflict more harm on employees than sexual harassment, say researchers who presented their findings at a conference today.
Cite yer source

This week in ANT NEWS!!

r.john — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:23:06 -0500

Invasion of the Garden Ant!!

budda budda budda budda dummmm.

As graduation rates go down, school ratings go up

r.john — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:20:59 -0500

New study shows the negative implications of No Child Left Behind

A new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin finds that Texas' public school accountability system, the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), directly contributes to lower graduation rates. Each year Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation -- a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, Latino and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students.

By analyzing data from more than 271,000 students, the study found that 60 percent of African-American students, 75 percent of Latino students and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate within five years. The researchers found an overall graduation rate of only 33 percent.

Cartoons are less male chauvinist

r.john — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:58:18 -0500

Women are as intelligent, agile, attractive, strong, and heroic as their male mates…or more. The profile of women who are the main characters of the most watched cartoons from the Walt Disney corporation has noticeably changed in the last few decades. Women, who are not necessarily human, have nothing to do with mythical characters such as Snow White, Cinderella, or Minnie. A study carried out by Pilar Casares García, who is a teacher of the Department of Pedagogy from the University of Granada, shows that today’s cartoons are less male chauvinist than those in the past, since the importance of female characters has become powerful, and balanced with the importance of the male character.

You could already be a part of a multinational commercial

r.john — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:38:25 -0500

Under the banner of "intellectual property," record labels warn you not to bootleg their songs. Hollywood studios warn you not to download their movies. Intellectual property has lately seemed the concern of corporations trying to protect the artist from the grabby public.

But in an increasingly user-generated world where the public is the artist, sometimes it's the big boys who get grabby. And the questions that arise are about ownership, but they are also about fairness, and changing culture, and ultimately, the search for authenticity.

Homeland Security and the REAL ID

r.john — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:24:14 -0500

Just like the REAL DOLL, new technologies are making government sponsored idenitifications sleeker, smoother, and much more supple to the touch!

State Driver's Licenses

FAQS

SATAN and the DMV

Unsupervised children are more sociable and more active

r.john — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:15:20 -0500

Key findings from the paper include:

* Children allowed out without adult supervision are more active, being found at home less often. Statistically, they are more likely to be found playing out or visiting the homes of friends than children who aren’t allowed out alone.

* Children walk faster and take a more direct route when an adult is present, but they do not use more energy than unaccompanied children. This is because unsupervised children move in a more meandering fashion as they investigate their environment and socialise with other children.

* Access to local open space is a significant factor in determining whether boys are allowed out of the house without an adult. 71% of those with access to open space were allowed out, compared to just 51% of those without such access.

New Deal Photographs examined

r.john — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:16:19 -0500

Analysis of documentary photos revises history
By analyzing some lesser known photographs, taken by world famous documentary photographers, art historian Cecelia Strandroth relates a new history of the Depression Era in the United States. She will publicly defend her dissertation at Uppsala University on December 14.

Can documentary photographs be regarded as credible depictions of events in the world or are they rather staged representations of a special perspective? Do documentary photos take part in the struggle against injustice or are they in fact instruments of those in power? These questions have been discussed intensively over the last few years and a particularly relevant in terms of the photographs that Cecilia Strandroth studies in her dissertation, taken during the 1930s by photographers employed by the Farm Security Administration, U.S. government authority. The photographs are classics of the documentary genre. Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange’s images of the suffering of destitute farmers in the American South have become part of the American national heritage. Today they are symbols of the Great Depression of the 1930s and are said to show the resilience of the American people. The country survived the Depression and went on to win World War II.

Internet users give up privacy in exchange for trust

r.john — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:38:56 -0500

Internet users give up privacy in exchange for trust

With public concern over online fraud, new research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, has revealed that internet users will reveal more personal information online if they believe they can trust the organisation that requests the information. ‘Even people who have previously demonstrated a high level of caution regarding online privacy will accept losses to their privacy if they trust the recipient of their personal information’ says Dr Adam Joinson, who led the study.

The findings of the study are vital for those aiming to create online services that pose a potential privacy threat, such as Government agencies involved in developing ID cards. The project found that even those people who declared themselves unconcerned about privacy would soon become opposed to ID cards if the way that they were asked for information made them feel that their privacy was threatened.