An accurate assessment of Arctic Ice

Back on September 7 the Daily Mail published what is quite possibly the most dishonest recent article on the climate that I've seen. It would attempt to persuade people that this year's decrease in the amount of Arctic ice is in fact a growth of 60% from last year that represents an amazing recovery. In reality the extent of last year's ice still represented the sixth lowest level in the history of satellite measurements of Arctic ice. Another British news outlet, The Guardian, gives a much more accurate assessment, including pointing out the errors of the Daily Mail.

DVDs and Blu-Rays will still be relevant for a while yet

This columnist for Forbes understands that but still misses one of the biggest reasons why. He addresses the fact that if you're picky about picture or sound quality streaming isn't going to provide the absolute best experience. He brings up other facts but misses one of the absolute biggest obstacles in the real world to media streaming taking over the U.S. market.

Our pathetic broadband quality is a major barrier not only to streaming taking over the media market but to fully utilizing the potential of high speed internet for education, remote medicine and other benefits we probably just haven't thought of yet. There are areas inside major metropolitan areas where you can't get broadband, believe it or not. I work for a small chain of funeral homes and cemeteries. They have a location in Leavenworth Kansas. It's a town with a bit over 35,000 people in it and considered to be part of the greater KC metropolitan area. To this day I haven't been able to get useful broadband at that location. Then you work your way "down" to smaller cities and towns and rural areas and it only gets worse. If you can find it, decent bandwidth is expensive most of the time.

Netflix and its gaming cousin, GameFly, are a much more reasonable answer for millions of Americans when they want to watch movies, television series or play video games and will probably be staying that way for years to come.

Psychic Claimed Amanda Berry Was Dead : Discovery News

I retweeted this article from Discovery News's Twitter account. I think it needs some real exposure and hope lots of other people and sites will pick it up. I know there are lots of people who believe in psychics but this is a horrible thing to do to very vulnerable people.

Honesty about a complex subject

I'm sharing this New York Times essay mostly because I think it's just such a refreshingly straightforward article by someone who is comfortable in her own skin. It also shows, IMO, just how complex a subject sexuality and sexual identity can really be.

Though her relationships with men far outnumber her relationships with women and she is happily married to a man she recognizes that her emotions and sexual attraction for those women she'd been involved with were just as meaningful and just as deep as those she'd felt for men. There are people who just refuse to recognize that this woman's sexuality and that of others like her is just as valid as theirs and unfortunately I think there will be people like that for a very long time to come.

Joe Gandelman's Quote of the Day

Joe Gandelman points out that Larry Sabato tries to bring media critics down to earth by correcting the myth that we ever had a "Golden Age" of disaster coverage where reporting on major events wesn't full of early misinformation. Sabato's prime example is one of the best known post-WWII shocks to the United States in the 20th century.