Listics

Language Log writes about the first time monkeys exchanged money for sex.  Blog antecedents include this post from SavageMinds.  SavageMinds pulls the following quote (now behind the NYT firewall)…

When taught to use money, a group of capuchin monkeys
responded quite rationally to simple incentives; responded irrationally

to risky gambles; failed to save; stole when they could; used money for
food and, on occasion, sex. In other words, they behaved a good bit
like the creature that most of Chen’s more traditional colleagues
study: Homo sapiens.

Donna Wentworth writes,

I wanted to let you know about a website I’ve been working on that many of you may be interested in:  EFF’s new Legal Guide for Bloggers .   

It’s a collection of FAQs aimed at helping the average blogger understand her rights in the face of legal threats that most people don’t even understand.  We don’t want people submitting to these threats (like cease-and-desist letters from trademark holders) without recognizing that they have a protected right to speak.

Check it out and pass the word along….

Apologies to the Mothers for the title of this post, and thanks to Dave Winer for the pointer to Rex Hammock this morning where Podcast Products are discussed, all of which reminded me of Eddie Dickey’s comment on my Audio Kiosk post the other day.

Rex also points to a real dumb article on why smart companies don’t use corporate weblogs.  The article has a poorly conceived beginning and an ending that is lighter than air.  Rather than muddle around in the narrative tangle that might tie the misrepresentations at each end of the narrative arc together, the author makes the better choice of leaving out the middle.  Now, if his editor can get him to work on leaving off those beginnings and endings…

The Rehnquist court has found for Arthur Andersen.  People everywhere were gladdened to see Arthur Andersen fall following its trial and conviction for destruction of documents related to the Enron scandals.  Now, zombie-like, it rises again. One presumes this reversal of the conviction is necessary to protect partners’ fortunes from civil suits, else why bother. 

When I read that the Smithsonian offered its Baird auditorium to the Discovery Institute in return for a  $16,000 contribution, I was chagrined.  I find the Smithsonian’s acceptance of money from these people, the use of the Smithsonian’s facilities by these people, disconcerting because they look to me like  a right wing reactionary front group. 

If there is such a thing as "god," and if that thing should prove to be anything more complex or profound than the spark of love that motivates the best in the beasts and adds warmth and light to this human’s perception of his surroundings, if "god" exists then does that make the scientific method obsolete?

The New York Times article on podcast museum guides portends a new cottage industry - the audio kiosk.  I see pushcarts and kiosks in urban settings selling audio guides cheaper-better-podder than the official museum guides inside.  For those who plan ahead, the downloads should be available.  Is this an iTune spin-off waiting to be spun?  In a lot of cases the demand for the guides is there but the supply is not.  On my recent trip to Nashville I would have paid for a download of guides to the city and to Vanderbilt University.  Who is stepping up to fill the demand?

The CBO does it again with his alert linkage to the blogging by the borg.

Nashville appears to be a wealthy city, with the wealth coming from the music biz.  The music biz is replete with the arcane restrictions of copyright, copywrong and so forth.  A lot of music publishers have Nashville offices, and performance rights organizations like ASCAP are well represented there too.  The recent web publishing gathering (BlogNashville) covered some performance rights issues in Brendan Greeley’s podcasting session, but mostly the tension between the trad pub world and the wild world web was ignored.