Yahoo Buzz January Searches
The Buzz Log - Search Spikes and Trends

January's Searches Monday January 31, 2005 4:00AM PT
Tsunami
The first month of 2005 was another busy month for the Buzz. As we brace ourselves for a frantic February, we pause to look back at search highlights from the past 30 days.
Top Searches Overall:
Tsunami
Cartoon Network
Paris Hilton Top Sports Searches:
NBA
Super Bowl
Australian Open Top Music Artists:
Britney Spears
Jessica Simpson
Eminem Top TV Shows:
American Idol
Days of Our Lives
Smallville Top Movies:
Revenge of the Sith
Lord of the Rings
Catwoman Top Increases:
Johnny Carson
Teri Polo
Detroit Auto Show

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 2:16 PM

 
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson Slinger of ink
Jan 27th 2005 From The Economist print edition
Bridgeman
A man who, by turns, was seductive and infuriating
Robert Louis Stevenson: A BiographyBy Claire HarmanHarperCollins; 503 pages; £25Buy it atAmazon.co.uk
IN 1885 Robert Louis Stevenson dreamed a “fine boguey tale” that in a matter of weeks had been turned into one of the most famous stories ever published—indeed, so famous, Claire Harman says, that it hardly needs to be read at all. At its heart is not just a shocking story of evil and transformation, but also a crystallisation of man's greatest dilemma, his relationship with himself. “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” exposes, as Dr Jekyll himself says, “the thorough and primitive duality of man”. The strength of Ms Harman's new biography is how it engagingly explores in fresh detail how the conscious warred with the unconscious in Stevenson himself.
Born into a long line of obsessive and successful engineers, Stevenson quickly revolted against such a calling and was determined to be a “slinger of ink”. He spent the first half of his life as a near-invalid, ill and frail and certain he was doomed to an early death, just like Shelley. And, like Shelley, he was “toiling to leave a memory behind”. In the second half of his life—as close friends submitted to one fatal illness after another—Stevenson conceived an unlikely lust for life while touring the South Pacific, submitting to the roughest and most dangerous of conditions, but this time with barely a murmur.
Ms Harman's is the first biography of Stevenson since an eight-volume edition of his collected letters was published by Yale University Press in 1994-96. She uses the wealth of new evidence to examine her subject's extraordinary range of interests, a mercurial side that sometimes verged on unpleasantness, and his ever urgent desire to earn money.
For years, Stevenson allowed himself to be pampered, fussed over and financed by overbearing parents and by “Cummy”, his sainted nanny—while taking every opportunity to escape their influence. He sat in dark rooms with writer's block, depressed and self-pitying. Yet at the Savile Club he was recognised by Henry James and others as a wit, a wag and a bohemian. He took countless trips to spas in search of a cure for his undiagnosed and occasionally hypochondriacal illness. Yet he told J.M. Barrie that he smoked cigarettes “without intermission except when coughing or kissing”. Even after his first alarming experience of spitting blood, he still saw himself as a professional consumptive in search of a cure, blind to his own self-abuse.
When ill himself (tuberculosis was never formally diagnosed), Stevenson showed great compassion to other sufferers, as his friendship with William Henley, a long-hospitalised poet, testifies. Ms Harman has found an unpublished poem by Henley which neatly encapsulates his friend's personality:
An Ariel quick through all his veins
With sex and temperament and style;
All eloquence and balls and brains;
Heroic and also infantile.
Stevenson was a fanatical launcher of projects which he rarely finished. In his essays, he laboured over style and ideas, inventing many aphorisms that were quickly adopted by books of quotations (“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”). Yet his most popular, and profitable, works were impulsively tossed off: “Treasure Island” began as a map he painted for his stepson one rainy day, followed within days by chapters serialised in a children's paper, Young Folk. It then lay in a drawer for two years before anyone thought it worth putting out as a book.
For Cummy—who had the most baneful influence on him as a boy, condemning theatre as the mouth of hell, prescribing caffeine for insomnia and instilling a very literal fear of damnation—Stevenson wrote the bucolic “A Child's Garden of Verses”. This is one of his most enduring works, written in a dark, shuttered room when his health was at its worst.
Stevenson's contradictions come to the fore in his relationships with women. Mothered and smothered when young, he later became obsessed with women who seemed to want most to control him. His early manhood was dominated by a largely unrequited love for the married Frances Sitwell, but he eventually transferred his obsession to an American, Fanny Osbourne, another married woman, whom he met in France during one of his bohemian escapades.
In praise of wives
He travelled to and across America to persuade Fanny to leave her husband; when she relented at last, Stevenson found himself married to someone who matched him for hysteria and hypersensitivity. Fanny became his harshest critic, but also his inspiration and a trusted editor. Literary friends of Stevenson's saw her as a gold-digging bore. Yet Stevenson never had a sharp word in public to say against his wife and described himself as “uxorious Billy”. Their relationship only ever showed real signs of strain when his own condition seemed to stabilise and his future look brighter.
As a biographer, Ms Harman feels that subjects become “less knowable the more data accrues around them”, but that through this mess of information there is a glimpse of “real life poking through”. And so it is, for better or worse, that she rarely takes a firm position about her subject. Her complex portrait paints a man whom she finds both admirable and infuriating. Her prose has such narrative force that Stevenson's death from cerebral haemorrhage leaves a genuine sense of shock and loss. Ms Harman's kaleidoscopic light suits a man whose personality seemed in a state of constant flux.Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography. By Claire Harman. HarperCollins; 503 pages; £25
Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.


- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 8:45 PM

 
Fitness and Fidgeting
January 28, 2005
The Fit Tend to Fidget, and Biology May Be Why, a Study SaysBy DENISE GRADY
verweight people have a tendency to sit, while lean ones have trouble holding still and spend two hours more a day on their feet, pacing around and fidgeting, researchers are reporting in findings published today.
The difference translates into about 350 calories a day, enough to produce a weight loss of 30 to 40 pounds in one year without trips to the gym - if only heavy people could act more restless, like thin ones.
The difference in activity levels may be biological and inborn, the researchers say, the result of genetically determined levels of brain chemicals that govern a person's tendency to move around. It is the predisposition to be inactive that leads to obesity, and not the other way around, they suggest.
The findings, being published today in the journal Science, are from a study in which researchers at the Mayo Clinic outfitted 10 lean men and women and 10 slightly obese ones - all of whom described themselves as "couch potatoes" - with underwear carrying sensors that measured their body postures and movements every half second for 10 days on several occasions. By the end of the study, which required a staff of 150, the researchers had collected 25 million pieces of data on each participant.
One thing that convinced the scientists that the activity levels were innate, and not the product of a person's being overweight or underweight, was that the levels did not change when the subjects were forced to gain or lose weight in different phases of the study. To make sure they knew exactly how many calories the subjects were eating, the researchers cooked all their meals for weeks at a time, and had them pledge not to cheat. A total of 20,000 meals were prepared.
The director of the study, Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist and nutritionist at the Mayo Clinic, said the findings offered hope to overweight people, suggesting that relatively simple and painless changes in their daily behavior, like making an effort to walk more and ride less, could help control weight. He said increases in obesity in recent decades could be traced more to declines in daily exercise - more time spent in cars, behind desks and in front of computers and televisions - than to increases in eating.
In an environment that allows people to be sedentary, those with a biological predisposition to sit still will do so, he said. In contrast, the restless ones will still find ways to burn off calories, even if it means walking around their desks.
"People with obesity are tremendously efficient," Dr. Levine said. "Any opportunity not to waste energy, they take. If you think about it that way, it all makes sense. As soon as they have an opportunity to sit down and not waste those calories, they do."
Participants in the study went through three 11-week phases over a year or so in which their diets were controlled to maintain, increase or decrease their weight. They were paid $2,000 at the end of each phase, for a total of $6,000.
Each phase included a 10-day period during which they had to wear the underwear with the sensors around the clock, taking it off for only about 15 minutes a day to shower and get a fresh set from the researchers.
The top was either an undershirt or a sports bra made of Lycra, and the bottom was a risqué-looking pair of shorts with openings at the crotch and backside so the garment would not have to be lowered during the day, which would have disturbed the sensors.
Dr. Levine said he had designed the outfit with a colleague.
"We had to be very creative," he said. "And you have to test them for comfort. I would put them on top of my suit. Mayo has a very strict dress code. Nothing gave me more pleasure than to wander around with this bizarre underwear over my suit."
Dr. Eric Ravussin, an obesity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., who wrote an essay in Science about Dr. Levine's study, said that because the tendency to sit still seemed to be biological, it might not be easy for obese people to change their ways. "The bad news," Dr. Ravussin said, "is that you cannot tell people, 'Why don't you sit less and be a little more fidgety,' because they may do it for a couple of hours but won't sustain it for days and weeks and months and years."
But Dr. Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University Medical Center, said, "People can be taught and motivated to change their behavior in service of their health."
Dr. Leibel also noted that although it was plausible that the tendency to be inactive was biologically determined, it had not been proved.
Dr. Ravussin said it might be possible to help people stay lean by making their environments less conducive to sitting, though that would take major societal changes like rebuilding neighborhoods in which people can walk to markets instead of "the remote shopping mall with 10,000 parking spots and everybody is fighting for the handicapped one."
A participant in the study, Othelmo da Silva, 41, an academic adviser at Rochester Community and Technical College in Minnesota, said he was overweight and felt encouraged by the study and the idea that people could lose weight by moving around more and did not necessarily have to join a gym.
As for the idea that the tendency to sit still might be genetic, Mr. da Silva said no "lazy genes" had been identified and added, "I personally believe in self-determination over detrimental biological predisposition."
Dr. Jules Hirsch, an obesity researcher at Rockefeller University, said studies in the 1950's first suggested that obese people were less fidgety than thin ones. One study, of young women playing tennis, showed that although fat and thin ones played equally well, fat ones wasted less motion hitting the ball. They were seemingly more efficient, and probably burned fewer calories.
Dr. Hirsch said some people were probably born with, or developed at an early age, a "greater efficiency at caloric storage," from eating more or moving less.
"This phenomenon helps store energy," he said, "but is a great risk factor for the development of obesity."
But until it is understood better, he said, "we're not apt to understand the overall obesity problem any better."
Dr. Levine of the Mayo Clinic said the study findings had inspired him to redesign his office. His computer is now mounted over a treadmill, and he walks 0.7 miles an hour while he works.
"I converted a completely sedentary job to a mobile one," he said.
The walking is addictive and "terribly good fun," Dr. Levine said, adding that he has had 30 or 40 requests from colleagues at Mayo for treadmill desks like his.
Has he lost weight? He does not know.
"I'm a relatively lean bloke," he said. "I never weigh myself. You'll think I'm a bad nutritionist. I don't recommend people weigh themselves all the time. It's not a healthy thing to do."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS Help Back to Top

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 8:21 PM

 
Yahoo Buzz Rumors
The Buzz Log - Search Spikes and Trends

Rumor Control Friday January 28, 2005 4:00AM PT
50 Cent Your local rumor mill is nothing compared to what happens when a juicy bit of gossip hits the Internet. Too bad for the likes of John Goodman and 50 Cent (+47%). Though unrelated in every other way, they are the center of much search speculation this past week. Just as rumors of Goodman's death proved to be a hoax, reports that 50 Cent may have lost a hand in a freak accident started circulating. Assisted by faked news articles and messageboards, the rumor sent hip-hop lovers to the Search box. Searches on "50 Cent hand" and "50 Cent hand injury" shot out of nowhere and seem to be on a direct course back that way as no reliable reports could be found to substantiate the rumor. But the Buzz proves that everyone loves a little gossip, so we've compiled the top 10 "rumors" searches to give you a little water cooler talk as we head into the weekend:
NBA Rumors
MLB Rumors
NFL Rumors
Wrestling Rumors
Halo 3 Rumors
New York Mets Rumors
Spider-Man 3 Rumors
Chicago Cubs Rumors
Harry Potter Rumors
Mac Rumors

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 8:09 PM

 
Super Bowl XXXlX
Super Talker: Eagles' Mitchell stirs trouble with Patriots


By ROB MAADDI, AP Sports WriterJanuary 28, 2005
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Freddie Mitchell's big mouth struck again.
The Philadelphia Eagles' other loquacious receiver -- the one without the Pro Bowl pedigree and ankle injury -- offended some Patriots when he dissed their secondary in a television interview.
Mitchell, a starter only because All-Pro Terrell Owens is hurt, said he just knew the numbers -- not the names -- of New England's cornerbacks. He singled out Rodney Harrison, saying he ``has something'' for the veteran strong safety.
``It just shows he doesn't have respect for us,'' Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel said Friday, responding to Mitchell's comments from a day earlier.
The Patriots' defensive backs will see Mitchell up close when the defending champions meet the Eagles in the Super Bowl next Sunday.
``You have so many young guys nowadays, so many young guys that don't have respect for the game,'' Harrison said. ``Some people are just immature. Some people really haven't experienced certain things.''
The Patriots have a patchwork secondary that includes a rookie free agent (Randall Gay), a converted wide receiver (Troy Brown) and a guy (Hank Poteat) who was taking college courses before the playoffs started.
Starters Tyrone Poole and Ty Law have been sidelined with injuries most of the season, but the fill-ins shut down Peyton Manning and the rest of the Colts in a second-round playoff game, and intercepted Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger three times in the AFC championship game.
``Freddie Mitchell is a guy who is getting time now because Terrell is hurt,'' Patriots linebacker Willie McGinest said. ``We don't worry about what he's saying. He will have to deal with that on the field.
``All I can say is, Rodney Harrison is the wrong guy to mention, especially if you're a receiver. He (Mitchell) is not humble. He hasn't done enough in this league to be on TV talking about that. Philly has a lot more class than that. It's just one guy.''
Mitchell's response to the Patriots' reaction?
``I was joking. I don't care. It'll all be solved on Sunday,'' he said.
A first-round pick in 2001, Mitchell hasn't lived up to his potential in four seasons with the Eagles. He had five catches for 65 yards and two touchdowns, including one on a fumble recovery, in Philadelphia's second-round playoff win against Minnesota. But he caught just two passes for 20 yards in the NFC championship game against Atlanta.
``I'm a special player,'' Mitchell said after the win against Minnesota. ``I want to thank my hands for being so great.''
Mitchell and the rest of the Eagles' receivers clearly are tired of hearing about Owens, who had surgery to repair torn ankle ligaments on Dec. 22. and is trying to return for the Super Bowl despite his doctor's orders.
``We got there without T.O.,'' Mitchell said. ``He's going to be a great addition if he comes, but we're going to stick with our guns. When he comes back, he'll be a huge help for us because he's one of the best receivers in the game. Until then, let's talk about Greg Lewis, Todd Pinkston and Freddie Mitchell, the receivers who are here and won the NFC championship.''
Mitchell later grabbed a reporter's microphone and bombarded Lewis with questions in a mock voice.
``What about T.O.? Is he 80 percent? When is he coming back? How do the receivers get it done without T.O.?'' Mitchell said.
Lewis replied: ``Everybody said we weren't capable of winning without T.O., but we proved them wrong.''
Mitchell has something to prove to the Patriots.
Updated on Friday, Jan 28, 2005 4:12 pm EST
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 1:36 PM

 
Las Vegas Air Traffic
America West Gambles On More Flights To Las Vegas
By Harry SaltzgaverExecutive Editor
The next phase of increasing commercial air flights out of Long Beach is on the horizon, with America West announcing plans to begin service to Las Vegas in April.
America West currently flies four times a day between Long Beach and Phoenix. All of those flights are part of America West’s share of the 41 commercial jet slots currently allowed at the airport.
To add the extra service, America West will apply for three of the 25 available commuter jet slots, according to spokesman Philip Gee. Those slots will allow America West to add a flight to Phoenix as well as two flights to Las Vegas.
“What we will do is reshuffle our slot allocations,” Gee said. “We’ll fly three commuter jets to Phoenix, freeing up two commercial jets for the Las Vegas service.”
Under the city’s noise ordinance, a commuter jet is defined as an airplane that weighs less than 75,000 pounds. America West and its subsidiary, Mesa Airlines, have a number of 50-passenger Canadair Regional Jet CRJ200 jets that are certified in that category. Other airlines also have certified the CRJ900 as less than 75,000 pounds, although America West has not done so in Long Beach. That 86-passenger jet currently is used on some of the Phoenix-Long Beach flights.
The airline has not filed a formal request for the commuter slots, according to Long Beach airport spokesperson Sharon Diggs-Jackson. That process would have to start soon in order to meet the April 29 start date America West has announced.
The announcement comes as the City Council debates how much — or whether to — improve the terminal at Long Beach Airport. The council is scheduled to vote Feb. 8 on a scope for an Environmental Impact Report to be done before any permanent improvements can be done.
The terminal has been packed since the arrival of JetBlue Airways, which now offers 22 flights a day out of Long Beach to New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Salt Lake City, Oakland and Las Vegas. American Airlines also flies out of Long Beach to Dallas, and Alaska Airlines flies from Long Beach to Seattle.
Two temporary passenger hold rooms have been added to the terminal as well as a second baggage handling facility. America West passengers share one of those hold rooms with American passengers.
Diggs-Jackson said that, because America West already has ticketing and ground crew facilities, the airport likely would accommodate the new flights with the current facilities. The biggest difficulty may be airplanes stacking up on the airport apron, where there are only 10 “parking spaces” available.
Airlines seeking the use of the commuter slots has been one of the issues used by airport officials to justify the size of potential terminal improvements. It also is a stated concern of anti-airport groups.
JetBlue has no plans to seek commuter slots, according to Kristy Ardizzone, the airline’s West Coast development manager. None of JetBlue’s jets would fit into that category, she said.
JetBlue currently offers two flights a day to Las Vegas, with fares ranging from $39 to $119 each way. America West’s first flights to Las Vegas are being offered for $121 round trip.

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 1:33 PM

 
Rembrandt
January 28, 2005ART REVIEW 'REMBRANDT'S LATE RELIGIOUS PORTRAITS'
Humanity With Flaws ForgivenBy MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
ASHINGTON
THE woman, hand to chest, leans a little forward, head turned and tilted, lips slightly parted, liquid eyes gazing into the ether. She is dressed in a dark, fur-lined cloak that reveals a peek-a-boo white chemise; a robe sewn with gold is draped over her right shoulder and it glints, like the gold fillet in her hair. Her round, pretty face is a little puffy and sad, and she seems oblivious of us. But she is no doubt alert to the painter, her lover, whose gifts are so surpassing that simply by virtue of being the object of his devotion she looks divine.
This is a portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's companion. In the little Rembrandt show opening Sunday here at the National Gallery, the picture is tentatively identified (with a question mark after the title) as "The Sorrowing Virgin."
Had he been a poet instead of a painter, Rembrandt would have seduced countless women with his love sonnets. Every lover would have believed him when he wrote yet another poem that swore undying devotion to her unrivaled feet and peerless earlobes.
His portraits convey pretty much the same message, after all. Each one says: "Here, stripped bare, is the true essence of this person, the depth of his or her soul in paint. Have you ever met anyone so authentic and remarkable?" Painting after painting makes that point. Rembrandt's touch was itself about his own individuality, suggesting the inimitability of his genius (never mind that his style was imitable enough for assistants and followers to flummox future generations of experts, and delight those who mischievously enjoy seeing other people's gold turn out to be brass).
Not everybody would want to be painted by Rembrandt - launched into posterity in such an eloquent brown fog, bearing the weight of the world on one's shoulders, looking watery-eyed and wrinkled. But it's flattering to think of yourself as the sort of person, spiritually speaking, that Rembrandt concocted: soulful, substantial. Every Dutch burgher became a saint in his hands. My favorite Rembrandt portraits may be a pair of pictures in London, the ones of Jacob Trip and his wife, Margaretha de Geer, at the National Gallery there. Trip was a Dordrecht mining honcho and an arms dealer, rich as Croesus. In his portrait, he looks like the aged Moses leaning on a cane instead of a staff.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., the curator of this focused gem of an exhibition, contemplated including the Trip portrait, which was painted sometime around 1661. It would have joined 17 other works from the 1650's and 1660's, pictures late in Rembrandt's career (he died in 1669, at 63), which have mystified scholars.
They are paintings of Jesus, Mary and assorted evangelists, apostles and monks. Or some are. Others may be. Some look like "portraits historiés," commissioned portraits in which Rembrandt decked out his hoity-toity patrons as holy men and women. Some are clearly not commissioned portraits but models. We know this because the same face appears in different pictures, here as a St. Bartholomew, there as a St. Paul.
Portraits like the one of Stoffels are more ambiguous: an "Apostle Bartholomew" is so titled because the alert, heavy-lidded, mustachioed man with his hand to his chin staring melancholically at us, clasps a knife, the symbol of Bartholomew's martyrdom. But at one time this same painting was called "Rembrandt's Cook," then "The Assassin."
Cook, assassin, lover or the Virgin Mary? The first question is why Rembrandt, reared a Protestant, whose religious beliefs nonetheless remain largely unknown, would have painted saints and apostles at all. In Protestant Holland, Catholic religious orders and monasteries were banned. Reformationists regarded saints as needless intermediaries in the quest for salvation. For whom did Rembrandt paint these pictures? For himself? Did he have Catholic patrons, perhaps, outside Holland?
It's clear he was going through a bad patch at the time. The church condemned his relationship with Stoffels when she bore him a child out of wedlock in 1654. Debts forced him to auction off his house, his personal effects, his art collection, even his wife's grave. His style of painting also fell out of fashion in Amsterdam; young artists were deserting his brand of expressiveness. It's hard to know how much trouble Rembrandt really was in, whether he sheltered income from creditors, whether he still had assistants. He was commissioned to paint not just Trip's portrait but also the "Syndics of the Drapers' Guild," so he was not without opportunities.
But in various ways, Rembrandt's difficulties might have caused him to identify with saints and apostles. His self-portrait as St. Paul, Mr. Wheelock speculates, is "about the supremacy of grace over law" and the notion of "the great but flawed man who, saved by God's grace, reveals the power of the Christian faith to those struggling with their own human limitations." Rembrandt's Paul is not a sturdy and forbidding pillar of righteousness but a scruffy, ordinary old man, hapless, weak-chinned and quizzical, gazing at or just past us with arched eyebrows, crumpled brow, a big, fleshy nose and wild tufts of hair escaping from his turban: a humble Paul, on whom God happens to shines the bright, consoling light of grace.
Perhaps Mr. Wheelock is right. It's as if Rembrandt, at odds with the law now, were saying the only law that matters ultimately is divine law. He's also admitting in this picture, "I'm not perfect."
The flawed humanity of his saints is the heart of the art, and what gives it spiritual truth. Plain sight suggests that some of the paintings might have been linked as a series because they're the same size. But others differ; their touch varies wildly - so much so that people might well wonder whether Rembrandt even did them all.
I prefer to flip the question: could any other artist have painted with such affective variety? Rembrandt by this stage knew how to do everything: how to scuff and scratch and scribble, where to leave passages rough, where to smoothen, how to telegraph forms, to hint at volumes, to paint thin and dry or thick and pasty. In a version of "Apostle Paul," this one with a bearded model sitting before a table, hand to brow, rapt in thought, Rembrandt painted flesh tones as a thin layer over a warm primary. Then he suggested eyes, nose and beard without drawing any sharp contours, letting light sculpture the hair, skin and bone, a different tack from the one he took for "Bartholomew" or Stoffels or himself.
What's constant is the human aspect. It's what Rembrandt focuses our eyes on: on St. James's meaty hands; on Simon's long, rugged face, like a lumberjack's, brooding, his thumb casually hooked over the handle of the cross saw that is the instrument of his martyrdom; on the sad eyes of the man with the reddish mustache and bushy beard, a portrait that used to be called "A Jewish Rabbi."
Rembrandt's power was to show us ourselves in these portraits of holy men and women. Which is to say, the divine in us.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS Help Back to Top

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 1:12 PM

 
Blogging Overkill
press boxBlog OverkillThe danger of hyping a good thing into the ground.By Jack ShaferPosted Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2005, at 5:48 PM PTA long, long time ago—OK, it was 33 years ago—Michael Shamberg and a clutch of other video visionaries from the Raindance Corporation visited my college campus to preach their gospel of the coming media apocalypse. Waving a copy his book Guerrilla Television, Shamberg prophesied that the Sony Porta-Pak—an ungainly video camera wired to a luggage-size tape deck carried over the shoulder—would herald a media revolution greater than the one fomented by Gutenberg's moveable type. Once the People got their hands on the video power and started making decentralized, alternative media, the network news programs would collapse under the weight of their own lies, Shamberg said. The Hollywood industrial entertainment complex was going down, too, man, and would be replaced by street stories recorded by Porta-Pak-toting freaks. The multiplexes out by the freeway would be shuttered and sold to neighborhood theater groups. In Guerrilla Television Shamberg wrote:With portable videotape technology, anything recorded on location is ready on location, instantly. Thus, people can control information about themselves, rather than surrender that power to outsiders. ABC, CBS, and NBC do not swim like fish among the people. They watch from the beach and thus just see the surface of the water.Shamberg convinced me that this clunky black-and-white camera would completely redistribute media power, although I didn't join the rebellion, unlike some of my classmates, who purchased communal shares in a new Porta-Pak. So long, CBS, I thought. Nice to have known you, Warner Bros.!But the video vérité of proletarian life and the drama of the antipoverty demonstration, which the video guerrillas found so riveting, proved no competition for Starsky and Hutch and 60 Minutes. Even though video cameras continued to shrink in size and price throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s and have now proliferated to the point of ubiquity, the guerrilla uprising Shamberg and his comrades plotted never progressed much beyond the unwatched public-access channels at the high end of the dial. Their revolution was televised, but nobody watched.Memories of the video guerrillas percolated to my forebrain last Friday while I attended the "Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility" conference at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Many of the speakers, such as New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen and tech wizard/Ur blogger Dave Winer, echoed Shamberg's fervor as they testified to the socially transformative power of blogs. A blogswarm of amateurs, they proclaimed, is breaking the professionals' hold on the press. There's a major power shift going on, Rosen stated, tilting toward users and away from the established media.In language only slightly less fervent than Shamberg's, conference participants declared blogs the destroyers of mainstream media. (See this page and this page for a real-time transcription of the conference.) Others prescribed blogs as the medicine the newspaper industry should take to reclaim its lost readers: Publishers should support reader blogs and encourage their reporters to blog in addition to writing stories. Podcasts would undermine the radio network empires. "Open source" journalism, in which readers and bloggers help set the news agenda for newspapers, was promoted as a tonic for what ails the press. Reporters were encouraged to regain the lost trust of readers by blogging drafts of their stories, their notes, and even their taped interviews so other bloggers could dissect and analyze them for fairness.Winer discounted any chance that the clueless media would adapt to the blogofuture, saying publishers were as blind as the mainframe computer manufacturers of early 1980s who refused to believe PCs would replace their big iron. I hadn't witnessed such public expressions of high self-esteem since the last time I attended a journalism awards ceremony.Despite all the blogger preening, none of the attending representatives of the "dinosaur" media—Jim Kennedy of the Associated Press, Jill Abramson of the New York Times, and Rick Kaplan of MSNBC TV—seemed hostile to or threatened by blogs. Kaplan (rightly) boasted about the proliferation of MSNBC blogs, including Hardblogger and Keith Olbermann's Bloggermann. (See also Dan Abrams' Sidebar and Joe Scarborough's Congressman Joe.) His network ran something like 19,000 video clips by citizens from the tsunami front and invites viewers to contribute to its Citizen Journalist Report page.When the Times' Abramson asked rhetorically if the conference bloggers had any idea how much it cost to maintain a news bureau in Baghdad, the supreme confidence of a couple of bloggers fractured into petty defensiveness."That's a silly question!" snapped Winer. "Asking bloggers what this costs is silly. If you want to tell us what it costs, that's fine. ... But there are bloggers in Baghdad! That's your competition; that's what you have to deal with."Moments later, Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine criticized the Times for missing an antiterrorism demonstration in Baghdad that an Iraqi blogger photographed and posted. The Times ignored this story, Jarvis claimed, because it ghettoizes news gatherers who aren't professionals. Abramson shook her head as he spoke."We're not trying to ghettoize anyone," Abramson said."So why did you shake your head!?" the ordinarily composed Jarvis barked, as if Abramson's modest physical expression of disagreement constituted the crime of arrogance. Such was Jarvis' yelp that conference host Alex Jones reminded folks to keep it civil.The bloggers certainly weren't going to get much lip from me. I saddled up with the new media posse back in 1996, and much of what I do—write, post, link, read, communicate with readers, devote myself to an arcane subject—resembles what most bloggers do, except that I get paid for it, and I tend to write twice or three times a week at 1,000 words rather than several times daily at a paragraph or three. The biggest difference between me and conventional bloggers is that I usually pause between first thought and posting. Inspired by the slow food movement, I like to think of myself as a slow blogger. Sometimes I'm so slow—as this Wednesday dispatch from a Friday-Saturday conference proves—that I resemble a conventional journalist.Maybe because I've been writing and editing on the Web for so long and reading, to my great edification, the blogs of such writers as Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, James Wolcott, Eugene Volokh, Glenn Reynolds, Mark A.R. Kleiman, Edward Jay Epstein, as well as Reason's Hit & Run and the essential Romenesko, to name a few, the alleged divide between the old media and this new whippersnapper media of blogs has never seemed real to me.With the exception of the "metro" section reporter covering a 12-car pile-up on the freeway, I think most practicing journalists today are as Webby as any blogger you care to name. Journalists have had access to broadband connections for longer than most civilians, and nearly every story they tackle begins with a Web dump of essential information from Google or a proprietary database such as Nexis or Factiva. They conduct interviews via e-mail, download official documents from .gov sites, check facts, and monitor the competition—including blogs—the whole while. A few even store as a "favorite" the URL from Technorati that takes them directly to what the blogs are saying about them (here's mine) and talk back. When every story starts on the Web, and every story can be stripped to its digital bits and pumped through wires and over the air, we're all Web journalists.The premature triumphalism of some bloggers indicates that they haven't paid attention to how Webified journalists have become. They also ignore media history. New media technologies almost never replace old media technologies, they merely force old technologies to adapt and find new ways to connect with their audiences. Radio killed the "special edition," but newspapers survived. When television dethroned radio as the hearthside infobox and cratered the Hollywood box office, radio became a mobile medium, and Hollywood devoted itself to spectaculars that the tiny TV set couldn't adequately display. The competitive spiral has continued, with cable TV, VCRs and DVDs, satellite TV and radio broadcasters, and now Internet broadcasters entering the fray. The only extinct mass medium that I can think of is the movie house newsreel.The likelihood that blogs will vanquish mainstream media recalls the prediction Michael Crichton made in his 1993 essay "Mediasaurus." Crichton wrote that the New York Times and one commercial TV network would vanish within a decade and would be replaced by artificial-intelligence agents, skimming information and the news from news databases and composing front pages or broadcasts tailored to the interests and needs of individuals. Like Shamberg's guerrilla revolution, Crichton's infotopia failed to arrive as promised. In 2002, Crichton good-naturedly claimed that his vision will still come true; it's just running a little late.If media visionaries underestimate the adaptive skills of the old media to imitate, acquire (as Slate did kausfiles and as the Washington Post Co. did Slate), and innovate, they also tend to underestimate their own abilities to take over the old media from within. When the guerrilla movement stalled, Shamberg worked his way up the media food chain and into the mainstream. Raindance Corporation morphed into Top Value Television, or TVTV, which shot the 1972 political conventions for several cable systems, produced documentaries for PBS, and then bunked with the bourgeoisie to create a comedy pilot for NBC, The TVTV Show. Ensconced in Hollywood, Shamberg became a motion picture producer in 1980 with a docudrama about Cassady and Kerouac, Heart Beat. Since then he's produced or executive-produced almost three dozen features, including The Big Chill, Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Gattaca, Out of Sight, Man on the Moon, and Erin Brockovich. All have screened at your local multiplex.The danger of fetishizing a new technology (the Porta-Pak) or a new media wrinkle (the blog) is obvious: In the rush to define the new new thing and celebrate its wonders, the human tendency to oversell kicks in. Am I the only one who remembers how John Perry Barlow, drunk on the Web nine years ago, issued his ridiculous "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace"? In hyperbolic fashion, Barlow wrote, "We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before." Lenin subscribed to this sort of technological moonbeamism when he declared that socialism plus electricity would equal communism, and we know where that led. News blogs, political blogs, sports blogs, community blogs, gardening blogs, tech blogs, shopping blogs, radio blogs, video blogs, and blog blogs all possess great potential. But we owe it to this prodigious new communications form not to demand too much too soon.******Watch the bloggers work me over here. (I've collected some comments below.) I'll send a U.S. dollar to the first who writes "Shafer doesn't get it." Send e-mail to pressbox@hotmail.com. Disclosure: The conference covered by airfare and lodging. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)Bloggers Rip My Flesh: Here are comments from the blogosphere about my "Blog Overkill" column. Note on methodology: I harvested them from Technorati, Daypop, Blogdex, and from e-mails sent to me by bloggers.(Jan. 27, 2 p.m. ET) BuzzMachine: "Shafer's column is pretty clueless." Lead and Gold: "I was surprised at this Slate piece on blogs. It is thoughtful and even-handed." Blogenlus: "Shafer gives too much credence to those that believe blogs will revolutionize media." Captain's Quarters: "We may exaggerate our importance at times, but if Shafer thinks that the news and entertainment industries will remain essentially unchanged ten years from now, he may be one of the last casualties of the revolution." The Agitator: "Jack Shafer expounds on what I've been saying here for months--the blogosphere has begun to take itself way too seriously." EdCone.com: "Boring, Jack. And worse, inaccurate." EricRice.com: "I've got news for all you disclosure weenies. I disclose that I agree with a good deal of what Shafer writes." Ruminator: "[Shafer] still misses the most important point." The New SteveSilver.net: "… a tough-but-fair piece on blogs that I suspect the 'sphere will be all over tomorrow." Soul of Wit: "I don't buy everything he says, but he makes a compelling point that, despite we bloggers thinking we are the web-savvy journalists of the future, traditional journalists have long made use of the internet and computer technology in their work." (Jan. 27, 7:30 p.m. ET) Bopnews.com: "What is different is that there is a wall around Jack [Shafer], and there isn't a wall around most bloggers." Broadsheet: In an excellent review of last weekend's "Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility" conference at Harvard, Shafer makes the point that Bloggers might be getting a little too full of themselves in claiming the coming apocalypse of mainstream media." Light Seeking Light: "As a useful corrective to the optimism of bloggy zealots (that's right you--you know who you are) read Jack Shafer's "Blog Overkill" article in the current edition of Slate." The Liberal Conservative: "Jack Shafer doesn't get it. … And belittling that movement by directing his barbs at the particular representatives of blogging at a particular conference … only serves to demonstrate how deeply Shafer's ignorance lies." [Shafer note: You win the $1. Send your postal address to pressbox@hotmail.com and I'll send you the cash.] Hit & Run: "One thing I never see mentioned in these MSM-vs-blogs stories is how completely positive, ecstatic, and fawning the old media coverage of blogs is." Gawker: "Jack Shafer writes something about blogs or something. (It was too long, but Jeff Jarvis is mentioned!)" The Paul Wall: " … the bottom line is that Shafer gets about half of it. I appreciated his detailed report of the conference face-off, but even the most clued journos don't seem to understand that this is not a mutually exclusive enterprise." Projo.com (Providence Journal): "Jack Shafer of Slate vs. Jay Rosen of NYU take off the gloves in an intramural flap over old and new media, blog triumphalism and decency that really doesn't have anything to do with the act of blogging." Mr. Left: "I honestly believe that Mr. Shafer is going to look back someday and realize that this blog revolution is hell of a lot closer to causing the kinds of changes that the printing press produced than the results the Porta-Pak produced." Bless Our Bleeding Hearts: "Maybe you could forgive some of the hyperbole a little if you take into account how powerless we feel otherwise. So if I put in Jack Shafer's name will the technorati site find it?" Galley Slaves: "Inside payoff: Read Shafer's list of blogs he likes and find which one is missing. It'll make you glad to know that the rift must be real. If you know what I'm talking about, it'll make you smile."(Jan. 28, 9 a.m. ET) Wizbang: "Captain Ed writes eloquently as to how Shafer missed the revolution." Anil Dash: "I wasn't at the conference, so I can't comment on the specifics that Jack Shafer references, but I'm finding it hard to disagree with anything that's written in this Slate column." Threadwatch.org: "Well, im [sic] happy at least, half the blogosphincter want his blood for pointing out the patently obvious but it's made my day to see that someone actually sees through all the ridiculous hype and ego preening nonsense about blogs out there." Culture Hack: "I won't say Jack Shafer doesn't get it, but his comparison of blogging and Shamberger's [sic] 'Guerrilla Television' misses the target." Eight Diagrams: " … a well-earned a chuckle from this corner." Dohiyi Mir: "Slate's Jack Shafer writes about last week's SloMoBloJoCred. And gets it." Tom Watson: "Shafer's point is this: modern journos are--in general--incredibly blog-savvy. Sure, they get busted by bloggers; but the good ones use the blogosphere as a Candyland of rumor, data, and story leads." Random Thoughts: "Jack Shafer believes all of this emphasis on blogs, especially the emphasis on blogs somehow replacing traditional journalism, is so much overkill. And it is." Reasonablenut: "Jack Shafer has an article on the continuing self-gratification that bloggers are giving themselves. He apparently attended some forum at Harvard last weekend that included MSM types and the archetypal 'rogue, independent' blogger that is out there digging for the truth on a daily basis. The forum included Jeff Jarvis who seems to have permanently thrown his dress over his head." Fafblog: "A POX upon Jack Shafer, who mocks the Holy Revolution of Blogtopia from his old-media citadel of Slate Magazine! Giblets will explain why his Bloggian Revolution beats your old-style mainstream 'internet journalism,' Shafer. Oh sure, you also write independent fast-paced web-based fact-checking on the media. But the difference is you have 'experience' and 'resources' and 'training,' while Giblets rides the unbounded electronic fury of the internet which he can unleash upon you at his whim! Destroy him, my pretties!" Hawk's Net: "The editor at large of Slate has some sobering thoughts about the blog hype. … His arguments sound similar to discussions about e-books replacing real books. The Evangelical Outpost: "Bloggers don't want to replace the media. We only want to be included in the process." Blogghype: "Jack Shafer har en bra artikel i Slate om hur bloggare inte verkar förstå att tidningar faktiskt inte hotas av bloggar som många verkar tro."(Jan. 28, 12 noon ET) E-mail from video guerrilla turned Hollywood producer Michael Shamberg:Dear Jack,I enjoyed your piece about the enthusiastic prophecy of my youth. In some ways I was right, decentralized media tools did open up many new points of view on television in a gamut that runs from the Rodney King video through The Real World to America's Funniest Home Videos. But at every turn mainstream media assimilated these new points of view and there are less media companies today than 33 years ago so I was wrong to think that new content would mean new ownership. I think the reason is that the scale of investment needed to run distribution outlets is too large for small groups to manage. However, with the internet the economic barriers to entry are very low so it is possible to imagine new businesses growing out of them.While I support the messianic fervor of bloggers it is too soon to predict what structural change, if any, will emerge in the media. The ultimate limit isn't economic, but talent. Not that many people have something original to say. But the bloggers are right that you can get alternative information to people quickly and without censorship. Indeed, I read your article because someone in my office forwarded it to me. In the old days, it would take a letter or a fax to circulate the information. I think that is revolutionary. When I speak to college classes I tell them that now is the most exciting time in history to work in the media. Making a living at it is another story. ...Best,MSJack Shafer is Slate's editor at large. Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2112621
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 1:06 PM

 
Mafia Turncoat
January 28, 2005'Last Don' Reported to Be First One to Betray MobBy WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM In a remarkable turn in the long, sometimes colorful history of law enforcement's fight against organized crime, the imprisoned boss of the Bonanno crime family has begun cooperating with federal authorities and has told them about another top Mafia member's proposal to kill a prosecutor, law enforcement officials said yesterday.The cooperation of one of the official bosses of New York's five Mafia clans is all the more extraordinary because it involves Joseph C. Massino, 62, who was known as the last don, an Old World stalwart who clung to the fading values of honor and omertà, the Mafia's code of silence.Mr. Massino, who was convicted in July on federal murder and racketeering charges and could face the death penalty if he is convicted in a new pending murder case, secretly recorded prison conversations with another mob figure about the idea of killing the prosecutor, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of Mr. Massino's cooperation. The threat led federal authorities to provide the prosecutor with a 24-hour security detail.The discussions between Mr. Massino and the other mob figure, the Bonanno family's acting boss, Vincent Basciano, were recorded on Jan. 3 and Jan. 7 inside the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail in Brooklyn where both men were imprisoned, according to officials and court papers. Both men were in solitary confinement; it is unclear how or where in the prison they met.Their conversations are briefly outlined in a murder and racketeering indictment unsealed yesterday against Mr. Basciano, a beauty salon owner who is known as Vinny Gorgeous, in an unrelated killing. It does not cite Mr. Massino by name but refers to two meetings between Mr. Basciano and "a high-ranking member of the Bonanno family" at which the proposal to kill the prosecutor - who handled two cases against Mr. Massino and an earlier case against Mr. Basciano - was discussed. The officials said that the high-ranking member was Mr. Massino.As the news spread yesterday among law enforcement officials and lawyers who represent organized crime figures, and in the world of the gangsters themselves, most people responded with disbelief. One former Mafia member who himself turned informant in recent years summed up the reaction, shouting "What?" when he learned of the development. "I'm shocked," the onetime mob figure continued in a phone interview. "He seemed like an old-time guy. I never would have thought."The defense lawyer who represented Mr. Massino in his trial that ended in July, David Breitbart, was skeptical that his former client was cooperating with the government."I can't believe Joe Massino is an informant - I just don't buy it," he said. Mr. Massino's current lawyer, Flora Edwards, would not comment yesterday. Neither would spokesmen for the F.B.I. nor the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn. Several law enforcement officials suggested that Mr. Massino's cooperation so far has been limited largely to his disclosure about what they say was Mr. Basciano's proposal to kill the prosecutor, Greg D. Andres, and the secretly recorded tapes. And it is unclear what Mr. Massino may be seeking - or may have obtained - in exchange for his cooperation with the F.B.I. and Brooklyn federal prosecutors or why he came forward.He may have been seeking consideration in the death penalty case or perhaps wanted to forestall pending forfeiture proceedings that could leave his family destitute. One former investigator said Mr. Massino might have been prompted to act by Mr. Basciano's proposal, a highly unusual violation of mob protocol, which holds that such killings are to be avoided because of the intense scrutiny they would bring.It also remains to be seen whether Mr. Massino will be extensively debriefed, as are most Mafia turncoats, but the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors believe they already know much about the Bonanno family because so many of his underlings have already switched sides and testified for the government. Nine former associates, including Mr. Massino's brother-in-law and underboss, testified against Mr. Massino at his trial last summer.Mr. Massino is far from the first high-ranking mob figure to cooperate with the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors: Luchese acting bosses Alphonse D'Arco and Joseph Defede both became government witnesses, as did the Gambino underboss, Salvatore Gravano, and the Luchese underboss, Anthony Casso. But Mr. Massino is the first official boss of New York's five crime families to do so, and is also, according to several experts on organized crime, the first high-ranking New York crime figure to secretly record one of his underlings.But the symbolic impact of a Mafia boss - let alone one like Mr. Massino, who held bloody sway over the Bonannos for 25 years, 10 of them as boss - cooperating with the government was not lost on those who investigate and prosecute mob figures, and those who defend them.Despite his skepticism, Mr. Breitbart, Mr. Massino's former lawyer, noted that the prosecutor had been successful finding mob witnesses: "Andres has turned everyone else. I'm the guy that cross-examined nine ex-friends of Joe Massino, from reputed soldiers to an underboss."Bruce Mouw, a retired F.B.I. supervisor who spent 18 of his 26 years in the bureau making cases against the mob, including the one that led to Mr. Gravano's cooperation and John J. Gotti's conviction, saw the development yesterday as a further sign of the deep decay of La Cosa Nostra, as the Mafia is known in the F.B.I."The big thing is Joe has been the boss for over 10 years, and he's always been considered a traditionalist - an L.C.N. loyalist and an old time boss," he said. "Some of these die-hards, they would die in jail before they betray La Cosa Nostra and their oath to omertà. This just shows you the state of organized crime - nothing is sacred. It's the rules of the jungle, every man for himself."The indictment unsealed yesterday did not charge Mr. Basciano in connection with the proposal to kill Mr. Andres. But it said that he saw Mr. Massino at the Brooklyn federal courthouse, where both men had cases pending against them, in late 2004, and "proposed the murder of a federal law enforcement official involved in investigating and prosecuting members of the Bonanno family, including Mr. Basciano."Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer who has represented Mr. Basciano in the past, said he was not handling the case unsealed yesterday or another pending case against him. Mr. Basciano has not yet been arraigned on the new charges and a lawyer for him could not be located yesterday.Mr. Massino's current lawyer, Ms. Edwards, in a letter sent Wednesday to the judge handling Mr. Massino's cases, said she sought to adjourn his sentencing date and complained she could not locate her client. Mr. Massino had been moved to a prison in Manhattan, possibly because prosecutors had planned to unseal the indictment yesterday.Diane Cardwell contributed reporting for this article.Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS Help Back to Top
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 11:33 AM

 
Freemont Street Stench

Cameras Reveal Source of Las Vegas Stench
Fri Jan 28,10:32 PM ET
LAS VEGAS - Pipe-probing robots fitted with cameras have discovered the source of the awful smell that has plagued downtown Las Vegas for a decade.

Construction debris that got backed up in the storm drain system trapped stagnant water and bits of rotting trash, creating what has been called the "Stench of Fremont Street," city officials said.
"It was critical that we find this for business and tourism," Mayor Oscar Goodman said Thursday. "This smell turns people off, including me."
After years of trying to cover up the stink with deodorizer, city officials conducted a $97,000 investigation to track down the source of the smell. Now they have to figure out how best to remove the trapped bits of concrete, gravel and trash.
The junk could be blasted with high-pressure water jets or cleared by snaking cables with scoops on the ends.
City Engineer Charles Kajkowski said the narrow width of the pipes keeps maintenance workers from clearing them by hand. They are also dissuaded by the overpowering odor.
"It just doesn't smell very good," Kajkowski said.

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 11:04 AM

 
Silicon Valley Income Lagging
January 24, 2005NEW ECONOMY
Mixed Report on Silicon ValleyBy GARY RIVLIN
SAN FRANCISCO
VENTURE capital is on the rise, and once again Silicon Valley is growing thick with startups. Research and development funding in the Valley has hit new highs and corporate profits at area firms are generally robust.
And yet, despite an environment in which entrepreneurship is strong and established firms are by and large healthy, the Silicon Valley job market remains stagnant. Household income in the area is down, and troubling disparities persist in the areas of health care, education and housing.
Those are among the findings of a report, "2005 Silicon Valley Index," released today by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit organization that assesses the region's economic health each year.
"There are really two ways to view the Silicon Valley economy," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. "You could say lots of things are up in Silicon Valley, which gives us reason to be hopeful, except jobs are down, and of course that's an enormous exception." Mr. Levy was an adviser to the Joint Venture.
"Sales and exports are up at Silicon Valley companies," Mr. Levy said. "Profits are up. But that's not translating into general prosperity. In the past, we could take the return of prosperity among Silicon Valley's biggest companies as a signal that general prosperity is upon us. But I think the story here is that link has been severed. The question now is whether that link has been severed permanently."
The study found that the region lost an estimated 1.3 percent of its jobs between mid-2003 and mid-2004, and average pay fell by 1 percent. That drop came on the heels of the 200,000 jobs that were lost earlier in the decade - representing nearly 20 percent of the work force - when the San Jose metropolitan area, which includes much of Silicon Valley, suffered the worst collapse of any metropolitan area in the United States since the Great Depression, surpassing even Detroit in the early 1980's, which lost 13 percent of its jobs.
"Silicon Valley used to be this place that created jobs at a dizzying pace," said Russell Hancock, the group's chief executive. "People thought of that as a reality, but our index is saying this is reality. The reality is that ours is an economy that will be very productive on the high end but not necessarily this big job generator."
The main culprit, Mr. Hancock said, has not been that jobs have migrated to countries where labor is cheaper, as one might have expected, but that productivity gains have enabled companies to do more with less.
"Offshoring has always been part of the Silicon Valley story, back to the 70's," Mr. Hancock said. "Today it's Taiwan and China and India, but back then it was the Japanese. What we do in Silicon Valley is innovate, things become a commodity, and so it's moved offshore while we continue to do the design and innovation."
Increasingly, those high-end jobs can be found in the health and medical fields, the report found. "The local economy is creating these dynamic new clusters in areas like biotech, the biomedical industry, bioinformatics, health care and at the intersection of bio with information technology," Mr. Hancock said. "That seems to be where the job generation is."
The report's authors cautioned against drawing conclusions that were too negative. If comparing present-day Silicon Valley to 2000, things look grim by nearly every measure, as the area has seen a steep decline in everything from jobs to venture capital to funding for the arts and municipal services.
But if the comparison year is 1998, just before the dot-com phenomenon spun out of control, "then we seem to have returned to similar levels of performance, and embarked on a new period of incremental growth," according to the report's authors. The study also found that 40 percent of the regional population is foreign-born, up from 32 percent in 2000.
"I'd say it's not bad news coming out of Silicon Valley, but we have our challenges," Mr. Hancock said. Primary among those concerns is what he called the "Manhattan effect."
"Our worry is that Silicon Valley becomes this world center for people working on innovative enterprises who can afford to live here, but at the same time people who want and need to be here find that ours has turned into an economy that's not robust in terms of the middle," he said. That day hasn't arrived yet, Mr. Hancock said, but the study found that housing is so expensive that "it's difficult to retain young talent, teachers and service professionals."
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 2:31 PM

 
Lance Armstrong
January 24, 2005
So Many Miles to Cover and So Little Time to Do ItBy JOHN MARKOFF
SOLVANG, Calif., Jan. 20 - On a sunny Southern California afternoon, a crowd gathered in a hotel parking lot here to watch Lance Armstrong and his team complete its daily six-hour training ride.
Though it appears to be a solo effort, bicycle racing is clearly a team sport. In Armstrong's case that team effort extends to an informal group known as F-One, an array of sports physiologists, computer engineers, aerodynamicists, as well as bicycle, helmet and clothing designers, which met for the first time this year on Thursday.
Indisputably the world's best cyclist, Armstrong, the six-time winner of the Tour de France, has been hinting broadly that he might take a year hiatus from the event he has dominated since 1999. He has also speculated that his next goal may be a sporting challenge virtually unknown in the United States until now.
For the rest of the world, however, the Hour Record, as it is known, holds as much magnetism as ascending Mount Everest. The object is for a solo rider to ride as far as possible in 60 minutes on a banked velodrome.
The record was first set in 1893 by the Tour de France founder, Henri Desgrange, with a mark of 21.95 miles. Since then, many of the world's cycling greats have taken turns assaulting the standard. Chris Boardman of Britain, a time-trial specialist, most recently set a mark of 30.721 miles in Manchester, England, in May 2000.
The event is attractive to Mr. Armstrong because it plays to many of his strengths: he is domineering in time trials, a category he has defined by his ability to produce extraordinary amounts of pedaling power over long periods.
"I think it would be an amazing spectacle," said Morris Denton, an executive for Advanced Micro Devices, one of Mr. Armstrong's sponsors. "If you look at the crowds Lance draws in the United States and you think about what would happen if you put some kind of marketing effort behind this event, it would be immense."
Mr. Armstrong has said he will not announce his intentions until April at the earliest. However, the plotting began here last week in a windowless hotel conference room for an attack on the Hour Record.
Johan Bruyneel, who is the coach of Mr. Armstrong's team, and Bart Knaggs, the president of his sports management company, Capital Sports and Entertainment of Austin, Tex., assembled the group to begin discussing the complex strategy and design issues that need to be solved.
Mr. Knaggs made clear to the group in his opening comments that no decision had yet been reached on which races Mr. Armstrong would attempt this year.
"Right now it's an idea," he said. "It's a four-minute-mile kind of thing, but we don't have it on the calendar yet."
The colorful history of the event is divided between an "athlete's record" originally set at 30.71 miles on a traditional track bike by the Belgium cycling legend Eddie Merckx in Mexico City in October 1972, and another record set using the most advanced technology.
The Merckx record went unchallenged until Francesco Moser broke it in January of 1984 at 31.57 miles, using a technologically advanced bicycle and a radical aerodynamic position.
Mr. Boardman then set the record of 35.029 miles in September 1996 in Manchester, only to have the Union Cycliste Internationale, the bicycle racing sports organization, set new rules in an effort to rein in the pace of technology.
Now, Mr. Armstrong must decide which record he wants to break.
"You have a philosophical decision to make," said Jay T. Kearney, a sports physiologist who is a vice president at Carmichael Training Systems, a company in Colorado Springs that oversees Mr. Armstrong's training regimen each year.
That is not the only decision the F-One group is faced with. In a presentation before the group last week, Mr. Kearney laid out a matrix of variables, each of which could have a drastic impact on Mr. Armstrong's chances.
For example, while Mr. Boardman set his records at sea level, Merckx rode at a velodrome at high altitude in Mexico City. In detailed charts, Mr. Kearney showed the group how moving the challenge to higher altitude significantly cuts air resistance, making it easier for a rider to go faster. The benefit of lowered air resistance is balanced by the decline in maximum oxygen uptake, which declines at altitude, even for elite athletes like Mr. Armstrong.
Air pollution, or even a cheering audience exhaling carbon dioxide in an enclosed stadium can have a measurable effect on rider performance, Mr. Kearney told the group.
In Las Vegas during a recent appearance at a media event, Mr. Armstrong showed a keen interest in the Hour Record. He rattled off the distance that Boardman had gone in his 2000 "athletic" attempt to the one-hundredth of a kilometer. He suggested that one exciting way to try to capture the record would be to make a first attempt at sea level in Madison Square Garden. Two weeks later, he would tackle the event at a higher altitude, perhaps in Salt Lake City in a sporting center that is a favorite of speed skaters and has produced many records for that sport.
At the meeting here on Thursday, the F-One design effort was just beginning.
"You need to tell me whether you need 60 days, 120 days or 500 days to be ready," Mr. Knaggs told the group.
In addition to thinking about the possibility of the Hour Record, each representative made progress reports on preparations for the new Discovery Communications Pro Cycling team, which replaces Mr. Armstrong's United States Postal Service sponsor this year.
The F-One group is made up of Carmichael Training Systems; Giro, the helmet maker; Nike; Trek bicycles; the wheel builder Hed Cycling Products; the computer chip maker Advanced Micro Devices; and the aerodynamicist Len Brownlie.
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 2:08 PM

 
Virus Writer Testing Cell Phones
January 24, 2005
A Virus Writer Tests the Limits in CellphonesBy TOM ZELLER Jr.
Marcos Velasco, a 32-year-old Brazilian software developer, enjoys movies with special effects, maintains a vast collection of antique computers in his home and is the proud father of two young children and one mobile phone virus, which he named after himself: Velasco.
Computer security experts around the world have given his virus and its variants more toxic-sounding names like "Lasco.A," "Symbos_Vlasco.A" or simply "the Lasco virus." They are also calling it stupid.
"We think he's dangerous," said Mikko Hypponen, the director of antivirus research for a Finnish company, F-Secure, "because he publicly posts working mobile malware that any clown anywhere can easily download and use."
Mr. Velasco's creation is essentially a piece of computer code that takes advantage of the short-range radio frequency technology called Bluetooth, which is installed on many common handheld devices, especially cellphones. If a person carrying an infected phone passes someone carrying a Bluetooth phone on the street, Mr. Velasco's worm can jump the gap, infecting the second phone.
He does not spread the virus - technically a worm, according to some computer security experts, that has the ability to reproduce itself and does not need a host program - but he is evidently happy to share his work. "This worm for cellular phones is the first one with available source code in the world," his Web site declares.
Whether anyone beyond antivirus researchers has downloaded Mr. Velasco's program is an unanswered question, and industry experts are careful to say that the age of the cellphone virus is not yet upon us.
But Mr. Velasco's virus, which appears to do little harm, points not just to the inevitability of more virulent ones aimed at cellphones and other mobile devices, but also to a virus-writing subculture unfazed by multimillion-dollar bounties, international prosecution and an official inclination, after the attacks of September 2001, to characterize virus writers as terrorists.
For Mr. Velasco - as with many virus enthusiasts who operate in a murky area of the law - the objective is not malice, but about testing theories, solving puzzles or just free expression. From his home in Volta Redonda, a steel-making city west of Rio de Janeiro, Mr. Velasco runs a small software development company, dotes on his collection of 104 aging computers (which he says he may open to the public one day), and dreams of writing a book on viruses.
"Security, hacking and viruses are all hobbies to me," he said in an e-mail interview. "I like this area a lot."
In the last few weeks, Mr. Velasco's worms have been cataloged in all the major encyclopedias maintained by antivirus companies - from Symantec in Cupertino, Calif., to the Kaspersky Lab in Moscow and Trend Micro, based in Tokyo. All classify the virus, like the four or five other known mobile viruses that have emerged over the last year, in the relatively benign "proof of concept" category, meaning that it is currently a low-level threat.
Indeed, Mr. Velasco's worm carries no malicious payload. Still, it represents a significant improvement of sorts over what was largely viewed as the first cellphone virus, called Cabir, thought to have been developed last summer by an international virus-writing collective known as "29A."
Cabir, which also took advantage of Bluetooth technology, was able to sniff out other active Bluetooth devices and, if it found one in the typical transmission range of about 11 yards, a user of the receiving device would see a cryptic installation message. If they unknowingly accepted, the virus would have successfully propagated. But Cabir was limited to one "jump" for each boot-up, not the most efficient way to spread.
Mr. Velasco repaired that shortcoming and published the improved version on his Web site in December. Then he recompiled the source code to come up with more polished variations that could both exploit the Bluetooth protocol and burrow into a device's system files - waiting to be uploaded by other means, via memory cards or cable links, for instance. Then he posted those, too.
"These are real viruses and they work well," Mr. Hypponen of F-Secure said. "Almost too well. Mr. Velasco's Cabirs are actually much more virulent than the original Cabirs made by 29A, and the Lasco.A virus by him is the first mobile phone virus infecting installation files."
All the Cabir and Lasco variants aim at devices using a version of the Symbian operating system, which is collectively owned and licensed by companies including Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung. Symbian is one of the three major platforms, along with Microsoft's PocketPC and the PalmSource OS, now competing for dominance in the mobile market.
Until recently, the much-discussed but little-seen mobile phone virus had been hampered by the relatively small market penetration of truly "smart" devices - less than 5 percent of the mobile market over all, according to the research firm Canalys. Smart devices are those that marry data-rich (and virus-vulnerable) services like Web browsing, scheduling, e-mail and text messaging, as well as plain old phone service. And the variety of platforms and interfaces running on these machines has thus far rendered them something of a moving target for would-be writers of malicious code.
"Today, everything is still sort of scattered across Symbian, Blackberry, Palm, PocketPC," said John Pescatore, an Internet security analyst at Gartner, which advises companies on the global information technology industry. "One virus can't possibly hit all the phones; not even 20 percent of the phones."
But Symbian-based devices made big gains in the mobile market in 2004, according to data compiled by Canalys. In the third quarter of 2003, the three major platforms each made up about a third of all smart mobile shipments. In the 2004 quarter, Symbian-based devices grew to half of all new shipments. And on Wednesday, Symbian announced its entry, along with PalmSource, into the Open Mobile Terminal Platform group, an organization of mobile phone operators that seeks to bring more interoperability and consistency to the forest of mobile devices on the market.
These are the kinds of preconditions - market penetration, uniformity - that, according to Mr. Pescatore, will be needed to pique the interest of would-be scammers, hackers and virus writers. And in that sense, Mr. Velasco's exploits are something of an early object lesson.
"We've told our enterprises," Mr. Pescatore said, "that 2005 is the year to start planning how to prevent this," adding that the real threat will come if virus technicians figure a way to reliably deliver payloads not via the short-distance radio frequencies used by Bluetooth, but by raining them down through the cellular networks. "That would be a much bigger problem, and a much harder solution," he said.
For now, though, the problem is only about as big as Mr. Velasco - though for many, that is big enough.
Other antivirus companies that have downloaded Mr. Velasco's creation and tested it in their labs corroborate the basic functioning of the worm. And while they, too, see it as a relatively benign bit of code in its own right, it suggests the potential for more aggressive worms that might destroy or steal data, generate hidden and expensive phone calls, or render a mobile device inoperable.
"It's not healthy for anyone to do this sort of thing," said Todd Thiemann, director of device security marketing at Trend Micro. "We need to be measured and not say the sky is falling. But this signals that this is what is possible. That's the real risk from this publication."
All the major antivirus vendors offer an inoculation for the Lasco virus on their Web sites - as does Mr. Velasco himself. And for those inclined to worry if their phones might catch a strain of the Velasco flu from infected passers-by, the advice is simple: keep your Bluetooth service disabled until you need it, and do not accept any unknown offers to install anything.
"It's all fairly common-sense stuff," said Keith Nowak, a spokesman for Nokia, who said that representatives of the company in Brazil were aware of Mr. Velasco's Web site and that they were planning to contact him - gently.
"We're not into strong-arm tactics," Mr. Nowak said. "And we don't want to get in the way of the free exchange of ideas. But with malware, in the spirit of open communication, we might get in touch and say, 'Hey, this isn't a good thing.' "
Still, if Mr. Velasco is not much intimidated by Microsoft's $5 million bounty on the heads of several prominent virus writers, which the company began offering in 2003, nor by the arrest of several worm code writers last year - including Sven Jaschan, a German suspected of launching the disruptive Sasser and Netsky worms - it seems unlikely that he will respond to gentle prodding.
"I don't publish viruses to cause a panic," he said. "I only publish to spread knowledge."
And he added, "I don't think knowledge should be punished."
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 1:59 PM

 
William Safire How To Read A Political Column
January 24, 2005OP-ED QUARTET: A COLUMNIST'S FAREWELL
How to Read a ColumnBy WILLIAM SAFIRE
t last I am at liberty to vouchsafe to you the dozen rules in reading a political column.
1. Beware the pundit's device of using a quotation from a liberal opposition figure to make a conservative case, and vice versa. Righties love to quote John F. Kennedy on life's unfairness; lefties love to quote Ronald Reagan. Don't fall for gilding by association.
2. Never look for the story in the lede. Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.
3. Do not be taken in by "insiderisms." Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as "lede." Where they lede, do not follow.
4. When infuriated by an outrageous column, do not be suckered into responding with an abusive e-mail. Pundits so targeted thumb through these red-faced electronic missives with delight, saying "Hah! Got to 'em."
5. Don't fall for the "snapper" device. To give an aimless harangue the illusion of shapeliness, some of us begin (forget "lede") with a historical allusion or revealing anecdote, then wander around for 600 words before concluding by harking back to an event or quotation in the opening graph. This stylistic circularity gives the reader a snappy sense of completion when the pundit has not figured out his argument's conclusion.
6. Be wary of admissions of minor error. One vituperator wrote recently that the Constitution's requirement for a president to be "natural born" would have barred Alexander Hamilton. Nitpickers pointed out that the Founders exempted themselves. And there were 16, not 20, second inaugural speeches. In piously making these corrections before departing, the pundit gets credit for accuracy while getting away with misjudgments too whopping to admit.
(Note: you are now halfway down the column. Start here.)
7. Watch for repayment of favors. Stewart Alsop jocularly advised a novice columnist: "Never compromise your journalistic integrity - except for a revealing anecdote." Example: a Nixon speechwriter told columnists that the president, at Camp David, boasted "I just shot 120," to which Henry Kissinger said brightly "Your golf game is improving, Mr. President," causing Nixon to growl "I was bowling, Henry." After columnists gobbled that up, the manipulative writer collected in the coin of friendlier treatment.
8. Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day. When the two-topic writer strains to tie together chalk and cheese, turn instead to a pudding with a theme. (Three subjects, however, can give an essay the stability of an oaken barstool. Two's a crowd, but three's a gestalt.)
9. Cherchez la source. Ingest no column (or opinionated reporting labeled "analysis") without asking: Cui bono? And whenever you see the word "respected" in front of a name, narrow your eyes. You have never read "According to the disrespected (whomever)."
10. Resist swaydo-intellectual writing. Only the hifalutin trap themselves into "whomever" and only the tort bar uses the Latin for "who benefits?" Columnists who show off should surely shove off. (And avoid all asinine alliteration.)
11. Do not be suckered by the unexpected. Pundits sometimes slip a knuckleball into their series of curveballs: for variety's sake, they turn on comrades in ideological arms, inducing apostasy-admirers to gush "Ooh, that's so unpredictable." Such pushmi-pullyu advocacy is permissible for Clintonian liberals or libertarian conservatives but is too often the mark of the too-cute contrarian.
12. Scorn personal exchanges between columnists. Observers presuming to be participants in debate remove the reader from the reality of controversy; theirs is merely a photo of a painting of a statue, or a towel-throwing contest between fight managers. Insist on columns taking on only the truly powerful, and then only kicking 'em when they're up.
In bidding Catullus's ave atque vale to readers of this progenitor of all op-ed pages (see rule 10), is it fair for one who has enjoyed its freedom for three decades to spill its secrets? Of course it's unfair to reveal the Code. But punditry is as vibrant as political life itself, and as J.F.K. said, "life is unfair." (Rules 1 and 5.)
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 1:50 PM

 
Internet News Sites Flourishing
January 24, 2005
Internet News Sites Are Back in VogueBy ERIC DASH
When L. Gordon Crovitz, the president of Dow Jones & Company's electronic publishing division, sat down last spring to assemble a three-year strategic plan, one of the things he foresaw was a potentially costly gap about to open. If the demand for online advertising continued to grow, Dow Jones's Web sites, including The Wall Street Journal Online, would not provide enough page views for all the online ads the company could sell.
"That is a wonderful problem to have," Mr. Crovitz said, "but you don't want to have that problem if you can avoid it."
Last summer, Mr. Crovitz set out to solve part of his problem by acquiring CBS MarketWatch, the financial news Web site found at cbsmarketwatch.com. The only problem: three other media giants apparently reached the same conclusion. The New York Times Company, the Gannett Company and Viacom Inc. all joined in to bid for the site. "I never thought the list of potential bidders was as long as it turned out to be," Mr. Crovitz said.
Dow Jones won the bidding with a deal, expected to be completed today, for $519 million, about six times MarketWatch's 2004 revenue. The four-way frenzy among the companies to own MarketWatch outright may be the strongest sign that news and information sites, long thought to be dot-gone relics of 1999, are making a big comeback in 2005.
Many of the same companies that were badly burned by Internet investments before are aggressively bidding for these sites not just because of the growing online ad business but because, like Dow Jones, they are worried that their current Web sites will not be able to keep up with demand.
"The existing old-line media companies, which have a big stake in where people advertise, have to recognize this medium," said Larry S. Kramer, a founder and chief executive of MarketWatch. "Our audience means more to them now because it's not just revenue they are going to pick up. It's revenue they are going to lose."
Online advertising is expected reach $9.7 billion in 2004, or about 3.7 percent of United States advertising spending, according to a recent Merrill Lynch report. Still, that number is expected to grow 19 percent this year as the nation's largest advertisers shift budgets from print and network television to cable and the Internet, the report said.
As a result, publishers are being forced to confront a potential advertising inventory crunch. There is no physical limitation to the number of Web pages, of course, but advertisers want to be placed on the most popular pages and those which cater to their most profitable audiences. And those kind of pages are in shorter supply.
"You would find publishers across the board being more concerned about inventory," said Cliff Sloan, vice president of business development in The Washington Post Company's Internet division. "As online advertising has taken off, the importance of having inventory to meet the demand has gone along with it." Indeed, old media has been snapping up new. In August, Viacom spent $46 million for the rest of Sportsline.com, in which it owned a minority stake. In December, the Washington Post bought Slate, the online magazine, for a price thought to be between $15 million and $20 million.
There could be more deals on the way. At a media conference earlier this month, Sumner N. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, said more Internet acquisitions where his company is "underinvested and underrepresented," were coming. TheStreet.com, the investing Web site founded by the trader-turned-talk-show-host James J. Cramer, is currently up for sale. And there is some speculation among industry analysts that The Motley Fool could be next, although the company denies being on the market.
Dow Jones executives say that MarketWatch is a good fit. The Wall Street Journal Online and the company's other consumer news Web services contributed about $80 million in revenue last year, or about 5 percent of the company's total. But just under $30 million came from advertising on the WSJ.com site, Mr. Crovitz said.
The MarketWatch deal will triple Dow Jones' online reach to about nine million unique visitors, while giving it more personal finance content, which is popular with advertisers. More importantly, the mostly free MarketWatch would allow Dow Jones to get a greater share of the booming online ad market beyond its existing WSJ.com Web site, which has been profitable but is constrained from attracting new visitors by the $79 subscription rates it charges online-only readers. While revenue has increased, paid circulation has been leveling off to about 700,000 subscribers this year, Mr. Crovitz said.
Still, some analysts suggested that the price Dow Jones paid for MarketWatch was steep, especially if another downturn in the economy causes an overall advertising decline. But even those analysts concede that the MarketWatch audience was desirable. "Dow Jones definitely paid up, but the attraction of MarketWatch is they survived," said John Tinker, an analyst at ThinkEquity Partners. Not only did they attract a wealthy, large and loyal following, Mr. Tinker added, but it was one that high-paying advertisers like luxury automakers and online brokers want to target.
Mr. Crovitz of Dow Jones said that his company had considered creating its own personal investing site to compete with MarketWatch, but he estimated the company would have burned through "several hundred million dollars" just to start.
"It was very clear to me the costs of creating a new brand were considerable, the risks were pretty significant, and the time to obtain a reasonable audience would be quite long," he said. "Given how we are very optimistic about online advertising, speed-to-market was really important."
Although all of the losing MarketWatch bidders declined to comment about the reasons for their interest, Mr. Kramer said that in each case "it all came down to Internet advertising."
According to people with direct knowledge of the deal, Mr. Crovitz made his first overture to Mr. Kramer last June. In early August, the Times Company, hoping to extend the advertising potential of the business and finance section of its own site, approached MarketWatch to discuss a potential acquisition.
Viacom, which already owned a small stake in the company, was approached by MarketWatch's board. It hesitated at first to make a serious offer but then bid aggressively. By late September, those people said, Gannett wanted to enter the bidding to extend its USA Today.com financial section. Even Yahoo expressed early interest then decided to sit out the auction. Pearson, which also is a MarketWatch minority owner, was also approached by the board, but it turned down a chance to bid. It came down to Viacom and Dow Jones, but in the end, only Dow Jones raised its price. Unlike many dot-coms, MarketWatch has been profitable since 2003. In the first three quarters of 2004, it earned $1.7 million after taking charges related to its sale.
However, integrating MarketWatch could be a challenge. The deal does allow Dow Jones to bundle features like MarketWatch's short-selling tools with its existing news wires and gives it access to Bigcharts.com, a data service popular with sophisticated investors.
Mr. Kramer, who will take home about $10 million from the sale, will remain on until at least April and then will serve as a consultant to Dow Jones' electronic publishing division on new products.
For other companies looking to buy, analysts say the market may be getting that much tighter.
"If you look around, there aren't that many ways to get into the Internet now," said Mr. Tinker, the analyst. "Either companies went out of business or the companies have consolidated.
"There aren't too many left," he added. "You can't buy Yahoo. Who else is there?"
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 1:45 PM