[Quote:]

Vanmorgen is in de savannestal van Dierenpark Emmen een zebra ter wereld gekomen met een wel heel bijzondere tekening. Het strepenpatroon bij een zebra is uniek. De dieren herkennen elkaar aan dat patroon, dat van zebra tot zebra verschilt. Er zijn vele varianten in het strepenpatroon bekend. Zo bestaan er dieren waarbij de strepen geheel ontbreken en er zijn ook zebra’s die vrijwel helemaal zwart zijn. De pasgeborene, die de naam Vitumbiko (Afrikaans voor “Geboren in april”) kreeg, is voorlopig alleen in de stal te bewonderen, maar zal met mooi weer al snel op de grote Afrikasavanne te zien zijn.

[Quote:]

In 1943, the Allied forces wanted to understand Hitler’s psychological makeup in order to predict, to the extent possible, his behavior as the Allies continued their prosecution of the war and his response to Germany’s defeat. The Allies were also seeking to understand the German national psyche to gain an understanding of how to convert them into a “peace-loving nation.”

This report was written for the OSS by Dr. Henry A. Murray, pre-war Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic and head of the OSS. Dr. Murray obviously was forced by circumstances to psychoanalyze his subject from a distance. He gathered information from a variety of second-hand sources, such as Hitler’s genealogy; school and military records; public reports of events in print and on film; OSS information; Hitler’s own writings, Hitler biographers; and “Hitler the Man – Notes for a Case History,” an article written by W.H.D. Vernon under Dr. Murray’s supervision. From these resources and his “needs theory” of personality, Dr. Murray created a psychological profile that correctly predicted the Nazi leader’s suicide in the face of Germany’s defeat.

With the benefit of hindsight and more than 60 years of scientific advances, one can appreciate the analysis of Hitler’s personality and also catch a glimpse into an early application of personality psychology by one of the discipline’s founders. Dr. Murray’s Explorations in Personality (NY: Oxford Press, 1938) established personality psychology as a behavioral science. Murray explored a theory of personality in which the interplay of 20 psychogenic needs of varying strength produced distinct personality types. Murray pegged Hitler’s personality as “counteractive narcism,” a type that is stimulated by real or imagined insult or injury. According to Dr. Murray, the characteristics of this personality type include: holding grudges, low tolerance for criticism, excessive demands for attention, inability to express gratitude, a tendency to belittle, bully, and blame others, revenge, persistence in the face of defeat, self-will, self-trust, inability to take a joke, and compulsive criminality. Dr. Murray concluded that Hitler had these characteristics (and others) to an extreme degree but lacked the offsetting qualities that round out a balanced personality.

[Quote:]

D66 heeft besloten alle leden die zich na woensdag hebben aangemeld bij de partij aan een onderzoek te onderwerpen. Het bestuur van D66 heeft dit donderdagavond besloten. Reden is ‘de extreme stijging van het aantal aanmeldingen vanaf dat moment’.

In een perscommuniqué stelt D66 te vermoeden dat ‘gehoor is gegeven aan de verschillende oproepen via de media en internet om met onzuivere bedoelingen stemrecht te verwerven om hiermee het congres te beïnvloeden’. De leden van de partij hebben zaterdag de mogelijkheid zich uit te spreken over het Paasakkoord dat D66 is overeengekomen met de coalitiepartijen VVD en CDA. Als de leden het akkoord verwerpen, stapt D66 alsnog uit de coalitie en is de kans op nieuwe verkiezingen groot.

Donderdag werd bekend dat onder meer het weblog geenstijl.nl mensen opriep zaterdag per bus naar het congres te gaan. Voor een bedrag van vijftig euro zouden zij lid kunnen worden, een T-shirt krijgen en tegen het akkoord kunnen stemmen.

Het bestuur van D66 zegt de maatregel te betreuren, omdat ‘mensen die om zuivere redenen lid willen worden, benadeeld zijn’.

This image issued by the Nakheel development company in Dubai, on Dec. 1, 2004, shows an impression of ‘The World Project’ by Nakheel which will consist of 300 islands positioned to form the shape of the world which has been started 4 kms (2.5 miles) offshore from Dubai in Gulf waters and supposed to be finished as the most exclusive project in United Arab Emirates by 2008. (AP Photo/Nakheel, File)

Being braindead does’t garantuee you government intervention if you need food:

[Quote:]

Operator: “… dept, how can I help you?”
Bitch: “Yeah, I’m over here…I’m over here at Burger King, over here in San Clemente.”
O: Mmm-hmm.
B: Um, no, not San Clemente, I’m sorry, um I live in San Clemente, um, Laguna Niguel I think that’s where I’m at.
O: Mmm-hmm.
B: I’m at a drive-thru right now.
O: Uh-huh.
B: I ordered my food THREE TIMES, they’re mopping the floor inside and I understand they’re busy, they’ve not even busy okay I’ve been the only car here. I asked them four different times to make me a Western BBQ burger. Okay and she’s given me a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions. And I’m not leaving, I want a Western burger because I just got my kids from Tae Kwon Do they’re hungry, I’m on my way home and I live in San Clemente.
O: Uh-huh.
B: Okay. She GAVE me another hamburger, it’s wrong. I said 4 times, I said I want it, she said ‘Can you go park out in front’ I said NO, I want my hamburger RIGHT. So then the lady came to the manager or whoever she is and she came up and she said, um, she said um, ‘Do you want your money back’. I said no, my kids are hungry and I have to jump on that 12 freeway. I said I am not leaving this spot, and I said I will call the police, because I want my Western hamburger done RIGHT. Now is that so hard?

O: Okay, what exactly is it you want us to do for you?
B: Uh, send an officer down here. I want them to make my order right.
O: Ma’am, we’re not going to go down there and escort your Western bacon cheeseburger.
B: *pause* ….What am I supposed to do?
O: This is, this is between you and the manager. We’re not going to force how to make a hamburger. That’s why, that’s not a criminal issue. There’s nothing criminal there.
B: So I just stand here. So I just sit here and–
O: You, you need to calmly and rationally speak to the manager and figure out things between you.
B: She DID come up and I said, ‘Can I please have my Western burger’, she she said ‘I’m not dealing with this’ and she walked away. Because they’re mopping the floor and [blahblahsomething i can't hear] they don’t want to rush, they don’t want to go through there….
O: Then I suggest you get your money back and go somewhere else. This, this is not a criminal issue. We can’t go out there and make them make you a cheeseburger the way you want it.

B: *stunned* Well….that is, that, you’re supposed to be here to protect me.
O: Well what are we protecting you from, a wrong cheeseburger?
B: No, it’s–
O: Is this a HARMFUL cheeseburger or something? I don’t understand what you want us to do.
B: Well–just come down here, I’m not leavin’!
O: No ma’am, I’m not sending the deputies down there over a cheeseburger! You need to go in there and act like an adult, and get your money back, and go home.
B: SHE is not acting like an adult herself! I’m sitting here in my car, I just want them to make my kid a Western burger–
O: Ma’am, here’s what I suggest. I suggest you get your money back from the manager, and you go on your way home. Okay?
B: Okay–
O: Bye.

here is the audio tape of the call.

[Quote:]

The South Korean information technology companies probably never saw it coming.

Traditionally known for producing tiny MP3 players which used shock-resistant flash memory, they thought they had cornered the market that Apple did not want.

After all, for the past four years, Apple seemed only interested in making iPods which were bigger, more expensive and used vulnerable hard disks for storage.

Last July, three Korean companies – iRiver, MPIO and Samsung – owned almost half the US market in the flash-memory MP3 device category.

In January, Apple dropped the bombshell and it landed right on their home turf.

Apple had unveiled the iPod Shuffle, a low-cost flash-memory player stripped of everything but the ability to play songs.

It was a stark contrast to other flash-memory devices which boasted voice-recording and radio functions on top of MP3 playback.

According to the JoongAng Daily, the Shuffle took just two months to carve out a 10 per cent share in Korea’s flash-memory player market.

[Quote:]

When speaking this month to a representative from Soundscan, the company that provides much of the data for the Billboard Top 200 Chart, I learned things that would contradict reported statements by the RIAA. Mainly that US labels have had a significant reduction in sales over the past three years. Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, responded personally, put his rebuttals on the record and in the process exposed intriguing insight into the way the RIAA calculates “losses.”

[..]

Forget the confusing percentages, here’s an oversimplified example: I shipped 1000 units last year and sold 700 of them. This year I sold 770 units but shipped only 930 units. I shipped 10% less units this year. And this is what the RIAA wants the public to accept as “a loss.”

I’ll go a step further. This fact, that Sherman seems to confirm, should logically mean a smaller percentage of returns. But, shouldn’t fewer returns mean higher profit margins and faster turnaround; and shouldn’t that be good for both the retail and wholesale side of the industry? “Sure,” admits Sherman today, “but I have no idea what US shipments looked like in the first quarter.” Then how can he claim world-wide “losses” in his March speech to Financial Times New Media?

Roger Goff, an Entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles confirms that, indeed, retail has reacted this way in the Post-Napster era. “Retail used to buy 10 weeks-worth [of records] and now they realize, in most cases, they don’t have to carry more than two weeks-worth.” In other words, retail has adapted to more of an “on demand” model (similar to the Internet) as opposed to the, accepting-tons-of-product-shoved-down-the-pipeline model record companies imposed on them in the past.

I misplaced my MBA this morning, but my mental math assures me that fewer returns and shorter reserves should mean an INCREASE in record company profits and artists’ royalties. If this is true, and file-sharing is responsible, one could conclude that “on-line piracy” has been the single greatest factor in increasing profits, because it forces record companies to keep a tighter lid on mass-production and costs.

[Quote:]

Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, a study of 12,000 adolescents suggests.

The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers could help explain their earlier findings that teens who pledged abstinence are just as likely to have STDs as their peers.

The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however, “puts you at risk,” said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale and one of the study’s authors.

[..]

The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the researchers found.

[..]

Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, S.D., called the study “bogus,” disputing that those involved had pledged true “abstinence.”

“Kids who pledge abstinence are taught that any word that has ‘sex’ in it is considered a sexual activity,” Unruh said. “Therefore oral sex is sex, and they are staying away.”

Gee, I guess they won’t be visiting Essex any time soon, then.

The Popocatepetl volcano sends out a plume of smoke as seen near the city of Puebla, Mexico on Wednesday might March 30, 2005.(AP Photo/Joel Merino)

[Quote:]

The decoration of the Regensburg Stadttheater auditorium.
The reconstruction was carried out between 1998 and 2001 and included new decoration throughout the auditorium. The whole ceiling had to be repainted, as well as the curtain, the proscenium arch and the four tiers of boxes.

Hans Heid’s designs remodelled the whole auditorium, drawing inspiration from the painting of the first tier of boxes dating from around 1850. A few surviving pictorial elements came to light once successive layers of paint had been removed.
All the decorations were painted on canvas in the workshop, then attached in the theatre.

150K Quicktime movie here. and a larger (500K) Quicktime movie here.