On the 8 Spot

This is just plainly wrong. NO TO CENSORSHIP!

Gay Asians criticize Oscar speech’s TV censorship

02/25/2009 | 04:38 PM

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Gay Asians voiced indignation Wednesday after television broadcasts of the Academy Awards in their region censored the words “gay” and “lesbian” in speeches that called for equal rights for homosexuals.

The speeches by actor Sean Penn and writer Dustin Lance Black — who won Oscars for their work in “Milk” — were shown in full during live broadcasts of the Oscars that were screened across Asia on Monday morning.

But viewers who caught recorded telecasts in the evening on STAR, an Asian satellite TV service that says it reaches more than 300 million viewers in 53 countries, noticed that the sound was removed whenever both men mentioned “gay” or “lesbian.”

GMANews.TV – Gay Asians criticize Oscar speech’s TV censorship – Entertainment – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA.

Utah (Montana) fact of the day

This one concerns adult entertainment:

Dividing state subscription counts by the FCC’s Broadband Deployment quantities, the most-subscribing state is Utah (where 5.47 of every 1,000 broadband households subscribed to the service at issue), while the least-subscribing state is Montana (1.92 per 1000 broadband households).

Marginal Revolution: Utah (Montana) fact of the day.

UPDATE:

my comment at the post:

I was originally thinking walras’ law but I think substitutes are more like it. Just as the other have already pointed. Although I sense a certain confirmation bias in all our comments concerning Utah.

There is nothing wrong with highlighted (by me) text, just felt that when a century is 8 years++ old its like stating a milestone that really isn’t.

Executives at Manulife Financial Corporation (MFC/TSX) said they would use the funding from the country’s six largest lenders to help the insurer withstand one of the worst financial crises of the century.

Market turmoil caught us off guard: Manulife.

Considering that the other countries in the top part of the Americas, this is a good place in a not so good list!

4th most illegal migrants in US from RP

By Veronica Uy INQUIRER.net First Posted 15:38:00 02/24/2009 Filed Under: Migration, Security (general), Government

MANILA, Philippines — Filipinos make up the fourth largest group of unauthorized migrants in the United States as of January 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a report released Tuesday.

Of the 11.6 million unauthorized migrants believed to still be in the US, the DHS said Mexicans comprised the most, with 7.03 million.

After Mexico came El Salvador (570,000), Guatemala (430,000), the Philippines and Honduras (300,000), Korea (240,000), China (220,000), Brazil (180,000), Ecuador (170,000), and India (160,000).

4th most illegal migrants in US from RP – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

People are realizing more and more that happiness is freedom, and freedom is to be able to “travel light”, not possessing a lot of things, because at the end of the day, the things start to possess you. I

Today’s Question by the reader : Annelise at Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

The old lady in Copacabana

Published by Paulo Coelho on February 20, 2009 in Stories Paulo Coelho

She was standing on the sidewalk of Atlântica Avenue with a guitar and a hand-written sign that said: “Let’s sing together.”

She began to play alone. Then a drunk arrived, then another old lady and they began to sing along with her. In a short time a small crowd was singing together and another small crowd played the audience, clapping hands at the end of each number.

“Why do you do this?” I asked between songs.

“Not to be alone,” she said. “My life is very lonely, just like almost all old folk.”

I wish they all could solve their problems in this way.

The old lady in Copacabana at Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

I wanted to try the netflix challenge but never seem to have the time. This seems something that needs to be addressed. I’m a little busy right now so don’t know if this has already been addressed by netflix but this seems a too gross oversight from them.

Stole this from the comments of the previous linked marginal revolutions post.

Interesting — I have the opposite complaint about the Netflix 5-star rating system: I think it is too course. Why? Because even there are 5 ratings, it’s really effectively only 3 ratings if you only bother to rent movies you are actually willing to watch; the movies that I would give one or two star ratings to mostly go completely unwatched and unrated by me. As a result, if I am going to reserve the 5-star rating for movies I think of as truly excellent, most of the movies I watch end up with 3 or 4 star ratings — and as a consequence, Netflix’s *predictions* of ratings of films that I haven’t seen seem all to end up in the 3.3 to 4.5 star range. I suspect that the predictions would end up a little more accurate if I had a 3.5 star and 4.5 star rating available.

Marginal Revolution: *Spin* magazine moves from a five star system to ten.

What I do personally when I rate something is to put it in a 100 star system and then convert it to a 7 star system, (I remember reading a report that a 7 star system is less ambigous than a 5 or ten star system).  This is logical to me because like a 5 star system there is a clear middle star and at least a choice in ranking somethign closer to average or closer to perfect/worst.

Yes they are putting their reputation on the line when they give ten stars, but this will happen so infrequently that it will be harder to judge their overall trustworthiness.

Evaluation systems with fewer and grosser distinctions are often more credible because they are easier to monitor.

Marginal Revolution: *Spin* magazine moves from a five star system to ten.

Do you deserve it?

Do you deserve the luck you’ve been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you’ve got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?

Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. Most of us don’t deserve the great opportunities we have, or the lucky breaks that got us here.

The question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what are you going to do with it now that you’ve got it?”

Seth’s Blog: Do you deserve it?.

These results show that people consistently classify difficult to pronounce items as risky, and this is the case for both undesirable risks (such as getting sick on a roller coaster or hazardous food additive) as well as desirable risks (such as an adventurous amusement park ride). These findings also suggest that risk perception may be influenced by the way the items are presented – if they are difficult to process (such as hard to pronounce names), they will be viewed as being inherently riskier. The authors note that these findings are relevant for risk communication and they suggest that difficult product names “may alert consumers to the risks posed by potentially hazardous products, possibly motivating them to pay closer attention to warnings and instructions.”

If It’s Hard To Say, It Must Be Risky.