2009 October: Others
Anchor: Base Index
Other months: September November
Other areas: Business
climate computing education
health international Internet
science social
technology
These are grouped into topics that don't fit elsewhere, and are mostly chosen for their personal interest to the compiler.
Note: Crust is educational grist.
Topics: Books crust grist
history humour
miscellaneous people places
writing
AP, Boston Globe, Treasure trove of books to go online, The Age, 2009 Oct. 12 (one of the biggest collections of rare Chinese books outside China is to become freely available as Harvard University has agreed to digitise the titles)
Jane Sullivan, Now screening: a digital book for you, The Age, 2009 Oct. 3 (millions read books on a variety of "twitchy little screens": laptops, e-books, iPods or iPhones; and from October 12, Age readers will be able to read a serialised story on their mobile phones)
Verónica Psetizki, Laptop for every pupil in Uruguay, BBC, 2009 Oct. 16 (Uruguay has given computers to all of its primary school children as part of the One Laptop Per Child scheme)
Farrah Tomazin, Stemming the tide of cyber bullying, The Age, 2009 Oct. 13 (the latest research from Edith Cowan University suggests that on any given day, about 100,000 Australian children will be bullied at school; and between 10-15 per cent are cyber bullied through social networking websites, instant online messaging, mobile phones or other forms of digital technology)
Peter Gregory, Violent youths 'can be changed', The Age, 2009 Oct. 1 (young people engaging in street crime are spiritual anorexics whose behaviour can be changed through structured activities, a leading adolescent psychologist says)
Adele Horin, Welfare families hand suffering down to young, The Age, 2009 Oct. 1 (young people who have grown up in welfare-dependent families are disadvantaged in more ways than has previously been realised, a study shows; from much higher rates of asthma and hospitalisation to much lower rates of post-school study and entry to university, the young are likely to suffer the disadvantages of their parents)
Matt Wade, Dreams of freedom drive Tamils onto boats, The Age, 2009 Oct. 24 (for Vilvarajah, the yearning to get away far outweighs any concern about Australia's border protection rules; he's convinced he will be killed if he stays and that's reason enough to make a bid for Australia)
Guardian, Golden days are here again with bonus bonanza, The Age, 2009 Oct. 17 (Goldman Sachs is gearing up to pay its biggest-ever bonuses to its 31,700 employees after raking in profits at a rate of $US35 million a day; it's the clearest signal yet that London and Wall Street are returning to their old ways of money-making prosperity)
Call for rethink on data storage, BBC, 2009 Oct. 15 (a Microsoft official says new trading rules are needed for the movement of electronic data around the world)
Julia Medew, GPs face patient violence, The Age, 2009 Oct. 13 (Australian GPs and their staff are being verbally abused and physically threatened by people who can't get an appointment or have to wait too long, research shows)
Emilio San Pedro, New fears for species extinctions, BBC, 2009 Oct. 11 (scientists warn of an alarming increase in the extinction of animal species due to loss of biodiversity)
Richard Black, 'Scary' climate message from past, BBC, 2009 Oct. 10 (refined measurements of past climate suggest some current political targets on CO2 are "playing with fire")
Clay Lucas, Million boost to city off the rails, The Age, 2009 Oct. 10 (the Transport Department and Melbourne City Council's urban design director, Rob Adams, have been promoting the idea of building more apartments along existing tram and bus routes; they say this could squeeze in at least a million more people without expanding the city's boundaries; but a report published in Monash University's People and Place journal warns that building apartments along tram routes would result in chaos on Melbourne's roads)
Paul Hudson, What happened to global warming?, BBC, 2009 Oct. 9 (this headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998)
Jonathan Pearlman, Gamers wage real war in virtual world, The Age, 2009 Oct. 8 (unlike the US Army, the free online game America's Army has no age or gender limit for its soldiers, who can come from any country and kill from their bedrooms; gamers take on the roles of real-life American war heroes and replay their heroic exploits across Iraq and Afghanistan)
Cecilia Tacoli, Climate migration fears 'misplaced', BBC, 2009 Sep. 29 (fears of millions of "climate refugees" crossing national borders are not supported by evidence on the ground; we will fail to protect the world's most vulnerable people if misconceptions about migration continue to shape policies)
Harold Mitchell, Stuck at the bottom of the acronym scrum, The Age, 2009 Oct. 16 (the advertising and marketing industry has developed a plethora of advocate bodies. We have the AFA, AWARD and the APG. Together they represent the interests of a $10 billion industry that covers the world of creative, direct marketing and digital design, as well as creative production companies and strategic consultancies; missing at the moment is the Media Federation of Australia (MFA), representing the media agencies)
Peter Ker, Query on question mark punctuates desal controversy, The Age, 2009 Oct. 7 (the consortium building Victoria's desalination plant discovered that recently, when a pickle over punctuation threw its bid into an eleventh-hour redesign)
Simon Webster, Roar deal on the net, The Age, 2009 Oct. 4 (the BBC has opened the world's biggest online zoo, with hundreds of animals on display on the corporation's website)
Rosie Mestel, Ig Nobel prizes make a gas of wonder bra, The Age, 2009 Oct. 3 (a man who cracked his knuckles on one hand—but not the other—for six decades, scientists who figured out why pregnant women don't topple over and chemists who made diamonds from tequila have been honoured at the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony in the United States)
Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor, The Alex Cartoon Strip, IHT, 2007 October (highlights: zz
David Hirst, Hard nut at war on Sundays, The Age, 2009 Oct. 1 (three weeks ago, an assembly of journalists gathered at a Melbourne restaurant to pay witness to our collective failure; it was the 20th anniversary of the founding of The Sunday Herald, a newspaper that lived high, shone for a moment, but died; we were remembering, dare I say, a candle in the wind)
Farrah Tomazin, Stemming the tide of cyber bullying, The Age, 2009 Oct. 13 (a year ago, Korumburra Secondary College student Courtney Graue became the victim of a sustained campaign of cyber bullying)
Scilly switch-off short of target, BBC, 2009 Oct. 7 (a 24-hour energy "switch off" in the Isles of Scilly sees consumption fall by only 1.2% but organisers say they are pleased)
Mathew Murphy, Miner looks to turn a corner with name change, The Age, 2009 Oct. 7 (shareholders in Beaconsfield Gold, the company that operates the mine, will be asked next month to support the renaming of the company to BCD Resources; the company, in turn, plans to change the name of the infamous site, to be thereafter known by its historical name—Tasmania Mine)
Peter Ker, Watery eyes on Shepparton, The Age, 2009 Oct. 5 (as the world's most populous nation contends with severe drought and water shortages, technology from northern Victoria could soon be part of Chinese efforts to make every drop go further)