Where is the racism? Look here.

Source: MSNBC

Racism alarms Obama's backers
Candidate's foot soldiers encounter name-calling, vandalism, bomb threats

By Kevin Merida
updated 12:04 a.m. PT, Tues., May. 13, 2008

I think it's a remarkable article as one thing I remember reading often in news stories on surveys about race in America is a disconnect between various groups in the US on whether or not racism is a problem and the article suggests a simple answer: racists hide their views until they feel it is most convenient for them.

Here's a quote from the article that I find fascinating:

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers)....

One might say, surprise, surprise, but why? If racists know that there is a position in this country against what they do, why wouldn't they carefully and as intelligently as they can, hide it?

So that what you see is different from what someone else sees until there is a door opened by a special circumstance.

And this presidential election for obvious reasons is a special circumstance.

Ooyala & High Def Video

I was reading this news article about people leaving Google and it mentioned this company created by one group of them called Ooyala so I, of course, Google'd it and checked it out a little bit and think it a great concept.

The high def video examples were great so worth checking out for that though I did find some hitching which could be a number of things.

I didn't download anything or sign up for anything but I wanted to post about it to remember the site, and also because I'm frustrated by how little high def video I'm finding, so I'm recommending high def sites.

It is so bizarre given how much better the experience is that the options are so paltry or maybe I'm just not looking in the right places or something as to have the technology and see the examples of what's possible and just not have much just seems weird.

There is an odd lag in content in high definition or I am just missing out as I haven't found it. Hopefully that will change soon.

Site: www.ooyala.com

Hours of video content

To the right you can see links to 4 videos shown at any given time, which are the top 4 videos in Google Videos for the search strings I'm using, so in fact you could just go to Google Video and type in the same search string and get exactly the same list.

Most of the videos are coming from YouTube so if you click on and watch one you'll see a menu button on the video which if you click it will give you a list of even more videos that you can try to click on and view. I say try because if the video is setup in YouTube to not allow embedding then you'll get a message that the video is not available which means you'd have to actually go to YouTube itself to see that video, or also I've found recently--kind of odd--that I have to cut-off Google Web Accelerator to be able to see videos.

(Oh, also, a way to have the timer on the video click down instead of up is to click on it, which I like so I know how much time is left on the video.)

Given the number of videos that loop through--where I have no control over that ordering, which is good as even if I did I would just as soon let it go like to does now--there are several hours of videos that can be reached.

What search strings I use and how many is an evolving process I like to say though I suspect it is really just about my moods.

Oh yeah, one other thing--during play you can also click on the video itself to get another window opening at YouTube with that video, which I do at times to be able to go to full-screen mode.


James

Learning penalty in nature

Source: NY Times

Science
Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn’t Better
By CARL ZIMMER
Published: May 6, 2008
New research indicates that growing smarter has dangerous side effects that make its evolution even more puzzling.

Really surprising research to me, though reading the article it makes sense that learning has its costs.

Here's a quote from the article:

Dr. Kawecki and like-minded scientists are trying to figure out why animals learn and why some have evolved to be better at learning than others. One reason for the difference, their research finds, is that being smart can be bad for an animal’s health.

And one more:

Dr. Kawecki says it is worth investigating whether humans also pay hidden costs for extreme learning. “We could speculate that some diseases are a byproduct of intelligence,” he said.

Hmmm...