Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:41:53 GMT

October blue

Have you ever heard that the skies in October are bluer than in other months? I can remember hearing that as a child. It was often used in an expression, such as “bluer than an October sky.”

I suppose it is a subjective judgment. I can’t say that I’ve made any quantitative measurement of the blueness of the sky in other months, but the idea must have some basis in fact somewhere if it’s been around for so long.

I’ve wondered what might make people think this way. The best idea I’ve come up with is that the leaves on trees turn and the blueness of the sky is a stronger contrast than in other months. It sounds plausible.

I’ve wondered if maybe the tilt of the earth or the thinness of the air might somehow make the scattering of blue light in the atmosphere bluer. Or if the rapid departure of color from the rest of the natural world in autumn made people crave what color they could find and hold it even more precious.

I’d read somewhere that the reason there aren’t more blue flowers is because they can’t attract pollinating insects to the color. I don’t know if that reasoning is valid, but blue is the most common color in nature, at least in volume.

Missouri calendar:

• New England asters bloom — provide nectar for late-migrating monarchs.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:38:48 GMT

Phantom Vibrations

If your hipbone is connected to your BlackBerry or your thighbone is connected to your cell phone, those vibrations you're feeling in the car, in your pajamas, in the shower, may be coming from your headbone.

Many mobile phone addicts and BlackBerry junkies report feeling vibrations when there are none, or feeling as if they're wearing a cell phone when they're not. Research in the area is scant, but there are enough theories about the phenomenon, which has been termed 'ringxiety' or 'fauxcellarm.' Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:08:23 GMT

The Counterfeiters in the UK.

To hear Jonathan Freedland tell it, you'd think German cinema has only just now begun to deal with Nazism, WWII and the Holocaust. If "Downfall and The Counterfeiters suggest a watershed has been reached," we'll have to write a few names out of history, including, just for starters, Fassbinder and Syberberg, Wolfgang Staudte and Frank Beyer.

Besides, The Counterfeiters is Austria's entry in the Oscar race, not Germany's. Meantime, the Guardian's review: "Stefan Ruzowitzky's tale is fascinating because the material is so rich in dramatic potential, lifting the lid on a clandestine scheme in which a disparate group of concentration-camp inmates were corralled into propping up the German war effort," writes Xan Brooks. "And it is flawed because the moral implications of this scheme are so charged and turbulent that they defy neat resolution. If the film's inhabitants are walking a tightrope, it occasionally seems that that its writer-director is too." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:17:31 GMT

Will Skype Become a Social Network?

Skype is an Instant messaging program that lets you keep in touch with your friends and see if they're online. Send them a message with the click of a button and find out more about them by reading their profile. Skype also lets you make voice calls to your friends.



Sounds like a social networking site, doesn't it? Skype is not currently considered a social networking site, they're just an IM. Tom Keating, of the VoIP & Gadgets Blog thinks that it's about time Skype do something about this and become a full fledged social networking site.

Why not? After all, they already have the database of people and the friend's lists, not to mention simple profiles. With just a little more work, they could be bigger than Facebook. Posted by: Linda Roeder      Read more     Source

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:46:26 GMT

Dryas octopetala

White mountain-avens can be found in Arctic and alpine areas of Europe, Asia and North America (extending as far south as Colorado). It is colony-forming and quite common along higher elevation rocky roadsides in Jasper and Banff National Parks; mid-September is a good time to witness it in fruit en masse.

The US Forest Service provides a detailed account of Dryas octopetala (PDF). For a quicker read, Paul Slichter writes about Dryas octopetala on his wildflowers of Oregon and Washington site. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:22:56 GMT

The Early Years.

"Having built his international reputation with a restless need to reinvent himself and, more recently, a string of caustic pieces of satire, [Lars] Von Trier does a full on about face here, trading in his vitriol and raw cinematography for a beautifully- and very conventionally - shot piece of nostalgia," writes Todd Brown at Twitch. "Though directed by Jacob Thuesen rather than Von Trier himself, [Erik Nietzsche: The Early Years] is a surprisingly gentle comedy, a reminiscence of Von Trier's time in film school and the transformation of a young man into a coldly opportunistic businessman." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:17:27 GMT

Financial statement fraud gangs

In the past, I have talked about delinquent communities here and here. I have argued that most corporate frauds are the work of delinquent communities, where you get a whole gang of people in on the act, aiding and abetting each other and helping themselves to the spoils.

So how big a gang do you need? How many does it take to perpetrate a fraud? An average of seven, according to a new study from the Institute for Fraud Prevention.

The study, Control Overrides in Financial Statement Fraud was based on a sample collected by the Government Accountability Office of 834 companies that issued restatements between January 1, 1997, and June 30, 2002. The authors, Robert Tillman and Michael Indergaard of St. John's University found that 374 companies, or 45 per cent, were accused of securities fraud and subject to shareholder suits, SEC enforcement action or both. For firms accused of fraud, the average number of respondents was 7.2, including including CEOs, CFOs, COOs, general counsel, directors and internal and external auditors.

According to the study, CEOs and CFOs were named as participants in the great majority of fraud allegations, suggesting that the requirement under Sarbanes-Oxley for CEOs and CFOs to certify reports to shareholders should be maintained.

In 21 per cent of cases, external auditors were named as participants and at two-fifths of the firms where financial statement fraud allegedly took place, one or more members of the board of directors was named as participants.

Another interesting finding was that that among all organizational defendants and respondents named in class action law suits or in actions taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission, over half were companies other than the restating firm. Indeed, many of these were accounting firms and banks.

In other words, the delinquent communities extend well beyond the company itself. Posted by: leon      Read more     Source

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:10:11 GMT

Gentiana algida

Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – Daniel

Today's photograph is courtesy of Dawn Endico (Dawn's photos on Flickr | original | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Thank you, Dawn. For those of you interested in identifying flowers you might encounter in the wild within North America, Dawn has created a handy visual identification tool for North American wildflowers.

Whitish gentian or arctic gentian is found in alpine areas of western North America and east Asia. From Alaska, its range extends southwards to New Mexico; from Siberia, it reaches south to Sikkim. Plant-life.org has a summary description of Gentiana algida, while the Flora of China has its usual taxonomic account. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:35:22 GMT

Toronto and NYFF preview. Secret Sunshine.

"After several plot turns that I refuse to spoil, Secret Sunshine [site] becomes, among many other things, the truest depiction of evangelical Christianity I've seen on film," writes Darren Hughes. "Fortunately, [Lee Chang-dong's] film is not evangelical itself and, instead, wrestles with the strangeness and disappointments of faith in a way that The Mourning Forest, with its contrivances, could only mimic. Damn, I love this film." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:47:54 GMT

Urban Warrior

My cousin first introduced me to Flare Magazine (A Canadian fashion magazine) about two years ago. She was interning there at the time (lucky girl), and she gave me several copies of it to flip through. I loved it, because it was full of eye candy for anyone with an eye for aesthetic - both beautiful fashion spreads/editorials and beautiful home goods. It featured some quirky things that you wouldn't see in Elle or Vogue. I devoured the magazines, put them on my bookshelf, and forgot about them.

Just today, I suddenly remembered Flare. I went online, and was once again intrigued. I especially enjoyed the editorial Urban Warrior. Full of tough black boots and jackets mixed with colored tights and playful extras, it's pure inspiration. Badass meets fun. I want to create my own Urban Warrior look! Take a peek:



Great, huh? I wish larger images were available. Find the rest of the editorial here.

Other highlights of the fashion section include dreamy photographs, affordable looks, and an interesting affordable lookson Japanese street style. Check it out! Posted by: Kori      Read more     Source