Tomorrow ... the world
"What does Google's gargantuan capability mean for its future?" writes Patrick Tucker, citing Planet Google: One Company's Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know by Randall Stross. "Google CEO Eric Schmidt - in a moment of extreme confidence about the company's long-term viability - forecast that Google would succeed in its mission of organizing the world's information 'in about 300 years.' "
Source: The Futurist
True optimism
A California man wanted for a store robbery was arrested after he showed up to take an examination to become a police officer, authorities told Associated Press. Romeo Montillano, 40, was arrested last week for investigation of robbery, making criminal threats and grand theft. Investigators had identified him as a suspect in a Dec. 8 robbery where a man stole a television set, DVD player and telephone, then beat up employees who confronted him in the parking lot, police spokesman Bernard Gonzales said. On the day of the exam, Mr. Montillano signed in and was arrested. As he was being taken into custody, he asked if he would still be able to take the police exam. Told he couldn't, Mr. Montillano asked whether he could reapply and take the test later.
How the rich cut back
"The real estate market in Manhattan has become so unnerving to buyers that some are forfeiting six-figure deposits rather than close on deals they have made," Vivian Toy writes in The New York Times. "At 304 Spring St., a sleek condominium building in SoHo with stunning Hudson River views, the buyer for the duplex penthouse recently decided he would not go through with the deal and walked away from a $780,000 [U.S.] deposit. At 1120 Park Ave. ... it appears that a buyer forfeited a deposit of as much as $1.1-million. Real estate agents representing buyers of at least three other multimillion-dollar properties also report clients who knowingly left deposits of more than $1-million or hundreds of thousands of dollars on the
table."
76 trombones, we hope ...
"It is a hidden, taboo subject, widely known about within the music world but barely discussed," Charlotte Higgins reports in The Guardian. "... inappropriate use of alcohol in Britain's great orchestras is, according to musicians, endemic - ranging from drinking a pint before a concert to steady the nerves, to full-blown inebriation on stage." A delegate to the recent annual conference of the Association
of British Orchestras recalled an incident in which a percussionist actually fell off the back of a high stage when drunk.
Performance anxiety is offered as one of the main reasons musicians use alcohol. "Group culture is part of another. Anecdotally, it is often said that brass players - often overwhelmingly male orchestral sections - drink the most."
In an odd group? Good
"In a study with significant implications for everyday life, two management researchers found that small groups with an odd number of members tend to work better than groups with an even number of members," Kevin Lewis reports in The Boston Globe. "The conventional wisdom, as confirmed in an initial survey, is that even numbers and even-numbered groups are better. However, in an experiment with discussion groups and in an analysis of dormitory groupings at Harvard, the researchers found that even-numbered groups resulted either in stalemate (e.g., two against two) or domination (e.g., three against one). In odd numbered groups, disagreement often implies a swing vote (e.g., two against one), which encourages the majority to tread more carefully. One caveat is that the odd-number effect is less
powerful in groups that are more diverse, because those groups are less cohesive in the first place."
Modern exploration
"There was a time when human space travel was big business," James C. McLane III writes in Search magazine. "... Today a much diminished manned space program limps along on the tax donation of about a dime a day from each American. Unnoticed by most people, NASA's crowning achievement, the International Space Station, passes silently overhead. ... To generate excitement in a rather apathetic public, the periodic crew exchanges on the Space Station are called 'expeditions,' a term inappropriate in reference to a space
hotel."
Thought du jour
"Some day I want to be rich. Some people get so rich, they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be."
- U.S. comedian Rita Rudnermkesterton@globeandmail.com
