Google Knowledge Base: Knol.

I’ve created my own Knol as a test.

Knol doesn’t rely on just anybody to create its collection of knowledgeable articles. You get to be the author, the buck stops here byline on a contribution, and if you write it, you kind of own it. Unlike Wikipedia, which it is compared to, Knol has a commercial bent. You get to run ads, too, and, in theory, make some money off of your expertise. It’s not a new concept, but it is a Google concept, and that’s about all it takes for the world domination theorists to come out of the woodwork. But, does it have legs?

After months of teasing and internal testing, Google officially launched its eagerly-anticipated online encyclopedia announced in December . The service dubbed Knol aims to organize the collective knowledge of Internet users into a searchable, browsable service that has been compared to Wikipedia. However, this is where similarity with world’s famous online encyclopedia stops. At first glance, Knol feels more inviting and Web 2.0-like, which may attract those put off by the academic appeal of Wikipedia. But, ultimately, it will come down to content and Google thinks it got it right with Knol.

“Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects,” explained Knol product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally in a Google blog post Wednesday. You will not have to be a rocket scientist to post a knol because everyone can become an author. And you also get a chance to earn some money on content you post, if you opt to run.

Similarly to the Facebook culture, Google will try to persuade authors to use their real names (although this will not be a requirement) and to stand behind their work, unlike Wikipedia where mostly anonymous authors post articles. Google says it will provide optional author identity confirmation via telephone or credit card verification. Verified authors will have a “verified” stamp added to their knols.

With Knol, multiple authors will be able to write about the same topic. “The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It’s their knol, their voice, their opinion. “We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good,” said Google.

It remains to be seen if Knol will have more fact-checked content than stuff on Wikipedia, where entries are sometimes gamed for nefarious purposes, limiting its efficacy at times. Readers can suggest edits to a knol but its author always remains in charge able to accept, reject or modify a reader’s suggestions before their contribution becomes visible. Google thinks this fact alone can mean a world of difference to the authority of its offerings. Readers will also have the opportunity to submit comments, rate or write a review of a knol. – tgdaily

Award winning economist says America has bankrupted itself with the Iraq war

… Joseph Stiglitz is one of America’s leading economists and one of the most pessimistic. He recently predicted that the subprime mortgage crisis which has burst the US housing bubble and fiercely shaken the debt ridden domestic economy would result in the worst downturn since the great depression. On top of that, he says future administrations will struggle to pay off the massive burden of debt used to fund the war in Iraq. In his latest book ‘The Three Trillion Dollar War’ Stiglitz sets out the hidden costs of George Bush’s Middle East adventure. Stiglitz won the Noble Prize in economics in 2001. Before that he was the chief economist at the World Bank and before that, the chairman of President Clinton’s council of economic advisers. He’s a Professor of economics at the Columbia School of Business and we caught up with him in Rome earlier this evening. … this is now the second longest war in America’s history and the second most costly. One of the reasons it’s so costly is the cost per troops have gone up, soared. Previous wars, $50,000 per troop, this war is for $400,000. There are a number of factors. One is this is the first war that has been privatised to the extent that it has. We use private contractors rather than military. Private contractors are very costly. … Modern medicine has meant that more people are surviving, but the cost of keeping them alive is very high. And the ratios are again unbelievable. Previous wars, the ratio of survivals to fatalities is 2.5 to 1. This war it’s 15 to 1. …

TONY JONES: What you’re saying suggests this is without a doubt, the greatest foreign policy folly and it now is sounding like the greatest economic folly that an American administration has got itself into?

JOE STIGLITZ: I think that’s right. It’s an order of magnitude worse than the Vietnam War. But here we’re talking about a region that was already very volatile in the Middle East. A region with one of the world’s most important resources, oil. And what we did is we converted a region that was, you might say, unstable into a region that was just highly volatile, where groups that had lived together perhaps not totally in peace but lived together, the Shi’ites and the Sunnis are now fighting each other. We’ve let forth a set of problems the full nature of which will take I think decades to resolve. – abc

You can’t pull $3 trillion out of the economy and not have an effect.

For years I’ve assumed they knew about the coming oil shortage and went into Iraq to prolong the magic. Someone I spoke to who understands Washington much better than I do, however, said there just isn’t that much forward planning. According to him, our political leaders pretty much only really plan up to the next election. Frightening, but it rings true. Shouldn’t we have 20, 50, 100 and 1000 year plans? PNAC seems to me to (somewhat) contradict the view that there is no long term planning.

Dangerous economic territory: At a certain point the declining dollar will cause oil pricing to switch away from the dollar and to start using the Euro. When that happens, when the dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, its value can drop like a stone and foreign investors to whom we owe money could then demand re-payment. My guess is that we owe around 3 trillion of the 9.5 trillion dollar national debt to foreign investors.

When we can’t pay, what happens? All Americans will all have to go work off the debt in Japan or China by washing dishes or by being sex slaves ( depending on how straight your teeth are. )? Each American citizen currently owes about $31,301.22 which is about one year’s work. So after a year you could come back home and your debt would be paid off, I guess.

Ford Has $8.7 Billion Loss, Shifts Away From Trucks

Ford Motor Co., the world’s third- biggest automaker, posted a record quarterly loss of $8.7 billion and accelerated a conversion to fuel-efficient vehicles to wean itself from money-losing trucks.

Ford shares fell the most in almost seven years after the company reported a second-quarter deficit of $3.88 a share compared with a profit of $750 million, or 31 cents, a year earlier. The figure included $8 billion in pretax writedowns for plant closings and the declining value of truck leases at Ford Motor Credit Co.

The automaker said it will double production of hybrid vehicles, sell more European autos such as the Fiesta in the U.S. and convert three North American truck factories to make a redesigned Focus and other small cars. The revamping is a response to record gasoline prices that have ravaged sales of large pickups and sport-utility vehicles and derailed Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally‘s turnaround plan. – bloomberg

These people giving up their Ford trucks are many of the same Rush Limbaugh listeners who laughed at “environmental wackos” just about two years ago.

New white whale spotted

A new white humpback has been sighted off Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia.

The newcomer, which was filmed by a television news helicopter, has excited marine scientists who think it may be related to Migaloo – to date, the only known all-white humpback whale.

Migaloo is somewhat of a celebrity down under. Why? “Because as far as we know, he is globally unique,” said Professor Peter Harrison from the Whale Research Centre, Southern Cross University.

It now seems that Migaloo, (whose Aboriginal name means “white fellow”) might have competition. Although predominantly white, the new whale does have some black markings near its head and tail. So who is the newcomer?

A white calf was spotted with a normal humpback mother in Byron Bay two years ago. Experts say the new whale could be the offspring of Migaloo but further tests need to be carried out.

A record number of humpbacks have been spotted off the Australian coast this year on their annual migration north to their breeding grounds. One thing scientists do agree on is that this second white whale has never been seen in these waters before. - bbc

We may all be space aliens

Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday. European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial. Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact. Both of the molecules identified, uracil and xanthine, “are present in our DNA and RNA,” said lead author Zita Martins, a researcher at Imperial College London. RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is another key part of the genetic coding that makes up our bodies. These molecules would also have been essential to the still-mysterious alchemy that somehow gave rise, some four billion years ago, to life itself. “We know that meteorites very similar to the Murchison meteorite, which is the one we analysed, were delivering the building blocks of life to Earth 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago,” Martins told AFP in an interview. Competing theories suggest that nucleobases were synthesised closer to home, but Martins counters that the atmospheric conditions of early Earth would have rendered that process difficult or impossible. A team of European and US scientists showed that the two types of molecules in the Australian meteorite contained a heavy form of carbon — carbon 13 — which could only have been formed in space. “We believe early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoric fragments for use in genetic coding, enabling them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations,” Martins said. – continued on mysterytopia

Mars Was Warm, Wet, May Have Hosted Life, Study Says

For millions of years, early Mars was warm and wet—a perfect host for the development of life—a new study says. Scientists used NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to take a close look at clays on the Martian surface known to be associated with water. (See pictures previously gathered by the orbiter.) – natgeo

Scholars plan to reunite ancient Bible — online

The oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, a 4th century version that had its Gospels and epistles spread across the world, is being made whole again — online.

The British Library says the full text of the Codex Sinaiticus will be available to Web users by next July, digitally reconnecting parts that are held in Britain, Russia, Germany and a monastery in Egypt’s Sinai Desert.

A preview of the Codex, which also has some parts of the Old Testament, will hit the Web on Thursday — the Book of Psalms and the Gospel of Mark.

“Only a few people have ever had the opportunity to see more than a couple of pages of the (Codex),” said Scot McKendrick, the British Library’s head of Western manuscripts. The Web site will give everyone access to a “unique treasure,” he said.

Discovered at the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai by German Bible scholar Constantine Tischendorf in the mid-19th century, much of the Codex eventually wound up in Russia — just how exactly the British Library won’t say, citing lingering sensitivity over the circumstances surrounding its removal from the monastery.

The British Library bought 347 pages from Soviet authorities in 1933. Forty-three pages are at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, and six fragments are at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. And in 1975, monks stumbled on 12 more pages and 40 fragments stashed in a hidden room at the monastery.

Biblical scholars are thrilled at the news that the Codex Sinaiticus — divided since Tischendorf’s trip to the monastery in 1844 — is finally being put back together, albeit virtually. …

Handwritten in Greek more than 1,600 years ago — it isn’t exactly clear where — the surviving 400 or so pages carry a version of the New Testament that has a few interesting differences from the Bible used by Christians today.

The Gospel of Mark ends abruptly after Jesus’ disciples discover his empty tomb, for example. Mark’s last line has them leaving in fear.

“It cuts out the post-resurrection stories,” said Juan Garces, curator of the Codex Sinaiticus Project. “That’s a very odd way of ending a Gospel.”  …

The Codex itself is a fascinating artifact, representing the best of Western bookmaking, Garces said. The parchment was arranged in little multipage booklets called quires, which were then numbered in sequence.

“It was the cutting edge of technology in the 4th century,” he said. – yahoo

Scientists Create Touch-based Illusion: Mind Trick Yields New Insights On Perception

Anyone who has seen an optical illusion can recall the quirky moment when you realize that the image being perceived is different from objective reality. Now, a team of scientists from MIT, Harvard and McGill has designed a new illusion involving the sense of touch, which is helping to glean new insights into perception and how different senses–such as touch and sight–work together. Ambiguous visual images are fascinating because it is often difficult to imagine seeing them any other way–until something flips within the brain and the alternative perception is revealed. This phenomenon, known as perceptual rivalry, is of great interest to neuroscience.  … we wanted to see whether similar illusions can occur in the tactile domain.  – read what they found on sciencedaily

Magicians Know More Than Scientists

Magicians are way ahead of psychologists when it comes to understanding and exploiting the human mind and our perceptual quirks.

A new study, detailed in the current online issue of the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, reveals how elements of human cognition, such as awareness and perception, could be explained by the success of some techniques commonly used by magicians.

For instance, vanishing tricks rely on the idea that we are only aware of a small part of what’s in our visual field.

“Although a few attempts have been made in the past to draw links between magic and human cognition, the knowledge obtained by magicians has been largely ignored by modern psychology,” said researcher Ronald Rensink, who specializes in vision and cognition at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Seeing is believing?

Rensink, UBC colleague Alym Amlani and Gustav Kuhn of Durham University in England recently lifted the lid on some key techniques in the classic magician’s toolbox.

One of their revealing experiments highlighted the disconnect between what participants saw with their eyes and what they were focused on with their minds.

The researchers showed 46 participants a video clip of a magical performance while measuring each subject’s eye movements. In the performance, a cigarette and lighter once in the magician’s hands disappear (he drops each into his lap). About 50 percent of the participants claimed to see the objects being dropped while the others didn’t.

“What people actually saw was not related to where they were looking,” Kuhn told LiveScience. “Several participants who were looking at the object being dropped failed to see how it was done.”

Even though their eyes were focused on the objects, their attention was elsewhere, he said.

Magicians have used so-called misdirection tricks for centuries to make scarves or animals appear out of thin air or cause other objects to vanish. But it’s only been in the last two decades that vision scientists have found that only a small part of the information that enters your eyes, essentially the part that has grabbed your attention, enters your conscious awareness. … -continued on  yahoo

Apollo 14 astronaut claims aliens HAVE made contact – but it has been covered up for 60 years

Aliens have contacted humans several times but governments have hidden the truth for 60 years, the sixth man to walk on the moon has claimed. Apollo 14 astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell, said he was aware of many UFO visits to Earth during his career with NASA but each one was covered up. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as ‘little people who look strange to us.’ He said supposedly real-life ET’s were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is ‘not nearly as sophisticated’ as theirs and “had they been hostile”, he warned ‘we would be been gone by now’. Dr Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

‘I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we’ve been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real,’ Dr Mitchell said. ‘It’s been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it’s leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it. – dailymail

This from wikipedia:

Mitchell has publicly expressed his opinions that he is “90 per cent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets”^[5] and that UFOs have been the “subject of disinformation in order to deflect attention and to create confusion so the truth doesn’t come out.”^[6] In 2004 he told the St. Petersburg Times that a “cabal of insiders” inside the US Government were studying recovered alien bodies, and that this group had stopped briefing US Presidents after John F. Kennedy.^[7] He has said, that “We all know that UFOs are real, now the question is, where they come from.”^[8] – wiki

The real question is: Is the truth about aliens being covered up, or is the “covered up aliens” story itself cover for something else?