About Blog CarnivalBlog Carnival
Welcome to Blog Carnival! We love the idea of blog carnivals where someone takes the time to find really good blog posts on a given topic, and then puts all those posts together in a blog post called a "carnival".
To understand what a blog carnival is, consider some examples. Here is the first edition of Carnival of the Vanities (one of the earliest blog carnivals). Carnivals can be very descriptive like this one, or very concise, like this one. Find the style the fits your topic and time schedule.
We think blog carnivals are a great way for bloggers to recognize each other's efforts, organize blog posts around important topics, and improve the overall level of conversation in the blogosphere. Carnivals come in edited "editions", just like magazines or journals. The fact that carnivals are edited (and usually annotated) collections of links lets them serve as "magazines" within the blogosphere, and carnival hosts can earn their readership by providing high quality collections.
Since blog carnivals include lots of posts on specific topics, they also serve as a place to connect with those who are expert (or at least highly opinionated!) and those who are interested in that field.
Blog Carnival simplifies carnivals for two kinds of people:
People who read and contribute to blog carnivals, and
People who organize and publish blog carnivals.
Blog Carnival blog carnivals...
You may have noticed that we run some of our own blog carnivals. We started Blog Carnival by choosing some topics that we liked and went at it.
As time went by, we developed some tools to help us write our carnivals and blogs. We're sharing our tools with the blogging community. If you have suggestions for other tools or services for blog carnivals, please let us know.
We invite your feedback! Feel free to contact the Blog Carnival team.
It’s, like, so 1998 again…
Alfred Chuang, chairman and CEO of BEASystems, drew that comparison of nine years ago with today’s new technology climate, but he isn’t talking about dot-coms. Rather, Chuang was referring to the sea change Java wrought on enterprise computing back in ‘98, and notes that today, the converging forces of SOA and enterprise mashups are shifting IT dynamics.
Chuang made is remarks at the opening of BEA World today in San Francisco, which I am attending. (I’ll be providing more updates from there.) He declared that the “era of innovating with traditional enterprise packaged applications is over.” A follow-up speaker, Comcast’s Andy Baer, begged to differ on that point, observing that many of his company’s installed packaged applications aren’t going away anytime soon, there’s no doubt SOA has become a disruptive force in how new applications are brought together and assembled.
I remember those heady days in the late 1990s when Java came on the scene as a language that could run across any platform, freeing applications from the constraints of underlying OSes. Perhaps SOA-mashups will free applications from technology altogether.
Chuang said that the force replacing packaged apps are Dynamic Business Applications, which are sort of like SOA composite applications, but with a Web 2.0 flavor added. It also looks like a new spin for an old acronym — DBA. Chuang was also emphatic on the point that DBAs also enabled end-users to build their own applications.
DBAs are built on SOA and are both external and internal facing, Chuang explained. They’re “designed for people and how people work, no the system they run on.” BEA is embodying its Dynamic Business App efforts within the scope of a new project called “Genesis,” which builds upon the vendor’s Workspace 360 console.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs reiterated his commitment to charging the same price for iTunes downloads across Europe as his lawyers defended the company on Wednesday against allegations its prices are not uniform.
"We think prices should be the same. We think anybody in Europe should buy off any store", Jobs told a press conference in Berlin, which he visited in connection with an iPhone deal.
At the same time, Apple executives were defending the company in Brussels.
The Commission charged in April that Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group and Warner Music Group were forcing Apple to curtail cross-border access to iTunes.
According to a person in the room on Wednesday, a representative of Apple said there was nothing in its contract with Universal obliging it to operate national stores or to set a higher price in countries such as Britain.
Apple, according to the observer, said it had made unilateral decisions, in part because doing business in Europe turned out to be more complex than in the United States.
Apple was represented by Eddy Cue, who heads its iTunes division, and the company's general counsel, Donald Rosenberg.
Originally the hearing was to have run two days, but EMI and Warner dropped out, so it was abbreviated to one day.
The case dates back to 2005, when the British consumer association complained that iTunes stores in France and Germany charge 99 euro cents ($1.38), but Britons must pay 79 pence ($1.58).
Microsoft wants video gamers to "finish the fight" when the last chapter of its Halo trilogy comes out next week, but a carefully crafted merchandising strategy will make sure the space-marine protagonist Master Chief lives on for years to come.
Halo is crucial to the success of Microsoft's Xbox video game business, which has lost billions of dollars since it was started in 2001 as a way to counter Sony's growing dominance.
Hailed by some as the Star Wars for Generation Xbox, the Halo franchise has spawned a mini-empire of licensed toys, clothing and tie-ins. The game features a space marine called Master Chief trying to save humanity from an alien army known as the Covenant.
For a company expected to post $57 billion in revenue this year, such licensing deals are little more than a rounding error. Yet Microsoft is driving to make the games division profitable this fiscal year, so every penny counts.
"Halo merchandise is a logical way to earn some extra revenue, and they are trying to collect on as many fronts as they can to turn Xbox into a profitable business," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft.
The most important effect of new Halo-branded products, however, is to make people more aware of the game.
"We make money and making money is great because this is a business. But we want long-term money that satisfies the fan base, not money today," said Steve Schrek, director of franchise development at Microsoft.
Microsoft also hopes Halo will help it "finish the fight" against Sony, whose PlayStation 3 console has struggled in the United States since it made its debut nearly a year ago.
The PS3's high price--still $500 after a July cut--is the biggest factor behind its woes, but Sony has also failed to deliver a true "system seller"--a game so good that people will buy a particular console just to play it.
Halo 3 is just such a title, and Microsoft has kicked off an advertising blitz that includes evocative TV spots featuring live actors recalling events that happen in the game.
Transmuting Halo from geek spectacle to the mainstream is a challenge for a company more used to pitching operating systems and word-processing software than building consumer entertainment products.
Microsoft is wary of watering down Halo, meaning it would rather walk away from deals for Master Chief pajamas or Covenant sippy cups.
"It's a balancing effort to be very, very careful that we don't oversaturate and piss off our 15 million fans," said Brian Jarrard, franchise lead at Bungie, the game studio within Microsoft that created Halo.
"We are obviously looking to broaden Halo and make it accessible...while at the same time, we want to keep feeding our core audience."
Microsoft had little experience in talking to toymakers and others about how to transfer an onscreen experience to real objects. But such experts exist in the licensing arms of movie studios, so Microsoft partnered with 20th Century Fox to act as the main licensing agent for the Halo brand.
Items that did not make the cut were a Halo-themed lottery ticket, lingerie modeled after a female hologram character, and toy guns based on the game's weapons. Instead, fans can expect high-quality action figures from McFarlane Toys, a tabletop game from WizKids, and replica weapons for mature buyers.
"We're very clear with them that this is not about running out and carpet-bombing everything. This is figuring out how in five years we're hitting new customers as opposed to in five years nobody cares," Schrek added.
Whether we’re looking for someone to date or sizing up a potential rival, our eyes irresistibly lock on to good-looking people, a new study finds.
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Tomoji Tanabe, who has been the world's oldest man since January this year, lives with his son and family in Japan's southern prefecture of Miyazaki. He keeps a diary and reads the newspaper every day.
"I want to live indefinitely. I don't want to die," he said as he marked his birthday, Kyodo News reported.
Tanabe, a teetotaller who has repeatedly said that avoiding alcohol is a secret of his longevity, was given a certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records by the mayor of his local municipality in June.
Japan has the largest population of centenarians in the world. The number of Japanese aged at least 100 years old is expected to top 30,000 by the end of September, the health ministry said in a recent report.
The Japanese people's renowned longevity is often attributed to eating the country's traditional healthy food, despite the hectic lifestyle many lead in the big cities.
But the longevity is also presenting a headache as the country has one of the lowest birthrates, raising fears of a future demographic crisis as a smaller pool of workers supports a mass of elderly.
Fact: Coral reefs are among the oldest ecosystems on Earth.
Fact: Coral reefs are the largest living structure on the planet.
Fact: Although coral reefs cover less than 1% of the Earth’s surface, they are home to 25% of all marine fish species.
Fact: 500 million people rely on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods.
Fact: Coral reefs form natural barriers that protect nearby shorelines from the eroding forces of the sea, thereby protecting coastal dwellings, agricultural land and beaches.
Fact: Without the existence of coral reefs, parts of Florida would be under water.
Fact: Coral reefs have been used in the treatment of cancer, HIV, cardiovascular diseases and ulcers.
Fact: Corals' porous limestone skeletons have been used for human bone grafts.
Fact: It is estimated that coral reefs provide $375 billion per year around the world in goods and services.
Fact: If the present rate of destruction continues, 70% of the world's coral reefs will be destroyed by the year 2050.
All parents like their babies to be the centre of attention – but that won't be a problem for one couple, who think they may have the world's hairiest newborn.
Heads turn whenever two-month old Katie-Lee is pushed down the street by her parents, Steph Pleasance and Danny Webster, because of her shocking hair.
Some onlookers even think the diminutive Cilla Black look-alike is sporting a toupé.
Miss Pleasance said: 'Even the midwife asked if it was a wig. When they see a baby, most people say “Isn't she cute”. When people see Katie-Lee, they say “Look at her hair”.'
Mr Webster added: 'Her hair is of unique colouration. We are forever being stopped in the street and asked if her hair is real.'
Katie-Lee's grandfather, John Webster, said: 'It shocked me the first time I saw her.
'I just looked at her and said, “Blimey, look at that hair”.'
Katie-Lee's parents, from Ashton under Lyne, Greater Manchester, are at a loss to know why their daughter has such an amazing mop of hair, which shows no signs of growing more slowly.
Mr Webster has already got far less hair than his eight-week old baby and Miss Pleasance said she was born without a hair on her head.
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Elisabeth Iversen's sunflowers are probably the closest ever grown to the North Pole.
She fondly waters her spindly 1.5 metre high yellow flowers in a greenhouse in an Arctic research base, brightening life in what locals call the world's most northerly permanent settlement, 1,200 kilometres from the Pole.
Looking like a shock side-effect of global warming, her garden on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen is a defiant reminder of a warmer south in an icy wilderness of polar bears, reindeer, seals and lichen.
"This is the first year we've tried growing sunflowers," Ms Iversen, a 56-year-old Norwegian said.
She works for King's Bay, the firm that manages the Ny Alesund settlement, where 30 people live in winter and 130 in summer.
"They're doing very well."
She also has tomatoes, peas, parsley, rocket and cucumbers improbably flourishing on a latitude north of Alaska, with snow on the ground outside and reindeer wandering the streets.
Along with her plants, almost everything in Ny Alesund seems out of place in one of Europe's most isolated communities. Originally built around a coal mine, it is now on the front line of Arctic climate research.
All food, and most construction materials, have to be shipped or flown to the base.
There may be midnight sun in summer, but in winter some compare life here to a claustrophobic "Big Brother" television set, where the sun sets for a solid four months and only the hardiest remain.
Ms Iversen says gardening helps to keep her sane in a place so remote that you need to carry a gun outside the settlement, backed by snow-topped mountains, in case a polar bear attacks.
"We're pretty sure that these are the first sunflowers so far north," she said.
Native to the Americas, sunflowers grow best in Europe near the Mediterranean.
Hostile conditions lessening
Grown for fun rather than research, the sunflowers will end up in a vase in the canteen. But in the same greenhouse, a Dutch scientist is growing grass as part of a climate change study.
All around Ny Alesund are signs that the bitter climate is turning fractionally less hostile. Glaciers are receding, and in the last two winters the fjord failed to freeze over for the first time in living memory.
Among side-effects of the change are the fact Norwegian climate researcher Paal Prestrud can no longer say he got married in 1982 on the nearby Blomstrand peninsula.
"It turned out that Blomstrand is an island - the glacier retreated and in 1994 you could circumnavigate it," he said.
Mr Prestrud says global warming, stoked by human use of fossil fuels, is happening about twice as fast in the Arctic as elsewhere on the planet. Once exposed, dark ground or sea soak up far more heat than ice and snow.
In other parts of the Arctic, the thaw is disrupting the lives of indigenous hunters. Some countries, such as Russia, which recently planted a flag on the seabed under the North Pole, are hoping for new shipping routes or to find oil and gas.
- Reuters
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Two-thirds of the world's current polar bear population could be gone by mid-century if predictions of melting sea ice hold true, the US geological survey says.
The fate of polar bears might be even more imperiled than that estimate, because sea ice in the Arctic might be vanishing faster than the available computer models predict, the geological survey said in a report aimed at determining whether the arctic bear should be classified as a threatened species.
"Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realised, will result in loss of approximately two-thirds of the world's current polar bear population by the mid 21st century," the report's executive summary said.
"Because the observed trajectory of Arctic sea ice decline appears to be underestimated by currently available models, this assessment of future polar bear status may be conservative."
In January, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, noting polar bears depended on sea ice as a platform to hunt seals.
Projected sea ice loss due to global climate change is believed to jeopardise the bears' range.
- Reuters
LONDON, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- British and other European researchers have found a way to induce out-of-body experiences using virtual reality goggles.
The researchers, who used the goggles to mix up sensory signals to the brain, said the studies suggest a scientific explanation for a phenomenon often thought to be a figment of the imagination, the American Association for the Advancement of Science said Friday in a release.
The scientists said the sight of their bodies located somewhere else plus the feel of their real bodies being touched simultaneously made volunteers sense that they had moved outside of their physical bodies.
The findings, published in the journal Science, suggest out-of-body experiences may be created by a disconnect between the brain circuits that process certain types of sensory information.
In a study by Henrik Ehrsson of University College London and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, volunteers viewed recorded images through their headsets. In the other study, by Olaf Blanke of the Ecole Polytechique Federale de Lausanne and University Hospital in Switzerland, volunteers saw images of their own bodies from the perspective of someone behind them.
The studies said multi-sensory conflict is a key mechanism underlying out-of-body experiences.
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