XP versus Vista, XP wins

September 2, 2007 12:26 PM PDT
I pity the fool (Windows XP good, Vista bad)
via CNET by Michael Horowitz

It saddens me to think of all the ill advised people buying new computers running Windows Vista, when they could have chosen XP. As Mr. T was fond of saying back in the 1980s, I pity the fool.

Let me be clear, my point is only about the choice between XP and Vista and has nothing to do with Macs or Linux, many of whose devotees feel this way about all Windows users. I'm also not here to defend Windows XP, whose faults are many. My point is simply that if you are buying a new computer to run Windows applications, XP is the right choice, Vista is the wrong choice.
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And why is it that when a new Mac OS comes out it works perfectly fine? Hrm...

Housing Bust Continues...

The New Money Pit
It started with subprime mortgages. Now owners of McMansions are defaulting, and the effects of the housing bust are beginning to ripple through the economy.
By Daniel Gross
Newsweek

Sept. 10, 2007 issue - Walking through the gated community of Black Mountain Vista on a hill in Henderson, Nev., Thomas Blanchard offers a guided tour of real-estate woe. A row of stucco duplexes that recently sold for as much as $500,000 sit empty. "That's a repo," the real-estate agent says as he stands in front of 678 Solitude Point Avenue. Then he points to the adjacent houses, where yellow patches blot the spartan lawns and phone books lie on front porches, their covers bleached from weeks under the desert sun. "No. 680, repo; 684, repo. Those two at the end, repo."

Three years ago, this Las Vegas suburb was teeming with modern-day prospectors armed with low-interest mortgages, all hoping to strike it rich in real estate. Now, what started with the subprime-mortgage mess and subsequent credit crunch are turning communities like Black Mountain Vista into luxury ghost towns. Buyers who got in over their heads are being forced to abandon their homes, leaving behind empty McMansions on the California coast and see-through condominium towers on Miami Beach. Real estate is turning into a money pit, sapping the fortunes of home buyers, hedge-fund managers and house painters alike. The really bad news? This is only the beginning.
( Read more... )

Predatory Business Practices

Staggering amounts of debt and abysmal credit scores are what awaits most upon graduation...

Majoring in Credit-Card Debt
Aggressive on-campus marketing by credit-card companies is coming under fire. What should be done to educate students about the dangers of plastic?
September 4, 2007, 12:01AM EST
by Jessica Silver-Greenberg

Seth Woodworth stood paralyzed by fear in his parents' driveway in Moses Lake, Wash. It was two years ago, during his sophomore year at Central Washington University, and on this visit, he was bringing home far more than laundry. He was carrying more than $3,000 in credit-card debt. "I was pretty terrified of listening to my voice mail because of all the messages about the money I owed," says Woodworth. He did get some help from his parents but still had to drop out of school to pay down his debts.

Over the next month, as 17 million college students flood the nation's campuses, they will be greeted by swarms of credit-card marketers. Frisbees, T-shirts, and even iPods will be used as enticements to sign up, and marketing on the Web will reinforce the message. Many kids will go for it. Some 75% of college students have credit cards now, up from 67% in 1998. Just a generation earlier, a credit card on campus was a great rarity.

For many of the students now, the cards they get will simply be an easier way to pay for groceries or books, with no long-term negative consequences. But for Seth Woodworth and a growing number like him, easy access to credit will lead to spending beyond their means and debts that will compromise their futures. The freshman 15, a fleshy souvenir of beer and late-night pizza, is now taking on a new meaning, with some freshman racking up more than $15,000 in credit-card debt before they can legally drink. "It's astonishing to me to see college students coming out of school with staggering amounts of debt and credit scores so abominable that they couldn't rent a car," says Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.).
Congressional Oversight Weighed
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It would be interesting if credit card companies (on campus or otherwise) had to put each prospective borrower through the same type of introductory class that students have to attend before being allowed to take on federally subsidized student loans.

Economic History

This story reminds me of what I learned in an Economic History class last fall. Wish I had been more up to attending class and everything. *sigh*


Pig DNA reveals farming history
By Liz Seward
BBC News, Science reporter

The first domesticated pigs in Europe were introduced from the Middle East by Stone Age farmers, a new study shows.

The international research project examined DNA in the jawbones or teeth of modern and 7,000-year-old pigs.

The genetic investigation provides fresh insight into the immigration of ancient peoples and ideas.

The scientists tell the journal PNAS that the incoming farmers brought more than just ideas - they brought examples of domesticated livestock.

Agriculture is thought to have begun about 12,000 years ago, in the central and western parts of the Middle East, known as the Near East to archaeologists.

'Farming package'

Between 6,800-4,000 BC, farming methods spread across Europe, but the question of how these methods spread has not been fully established.

The two competing theories are that farming spread through cultural exchange, possibly during trading or that people migrated to Europe bringing their expertise with them.

A previous study, in 2005, analysed modern pig DNA and showed that all modern pigs are descended from European wild boar. This led researchers to conclude that early Europeans domesticated pigs independently of other farming methods.

This new study, however, has discovered that the first domesticated pigs in Europe did have Near Eastern ancestry, indicating that farmers migrated to Europe, bringing their "package" of livestock and farming methods with them.

Domestic pigs of European wild boar ancestry appear soon afterwards.

Bright idea

Dr Keith Dobney, from Durham University, told BBC News: "By use of genetics, we've shown that the earliest domesticated pigs that moved into Europe were originally from the Near East.

"That means that people moved these animals from the Near East into Europe.

"And what happened after that, which is even more interesting, is it appears that once they were introduced, these domesticated pigs spurred or lit the blue touch-paper for people to domesticate the local indigenous wild boar.

"So, we have a secondary domestication which is happening in Europe soon afterwards."

The DNA records show that European domestic pigs became widespread throughout Europe, and that the Near Eastern pigs disappeared.

Export back

Dr Greger Larson, from Uppsala University, Sweden, performed the genetic analysis.

"The domestic pigs that were derived from the European wild boar must have been considered vastly superior to those originally from the Middle East, though at this point we have no idea why," he said.

"In fact, the European domestic pigs were so successful that over the next several thousand years, they spread across the continent and even back into the Middle East where they overtook the indigenous domestic pigs.

"For whatever reason, European pigs were the must-have farm animal."

Studies of cattle also show that modern European cows are partly descended from ancient wild Italian aurochs, disputing a previous claim that all present-day European breeds are descended from cattle domesticated in the Near East.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6978203.stm

Published: 2007/09/04 14:53:30 GMT

Which came first?!

Domesticated cats - or domesticated dogs??

CATS!



DNA traces origin of domestic cat
Domestic cats around the world can trace their origins back to the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, according to a genetic study in Science journal.

They may have been domesticated by early farming communities, experts say.

But the study suggests the progenitors of today's cats split from their wild counterparts more than 100,000 years ago - much earlier than once thought.

At least five female ancestors from the region gave rise to all the domestic cats alive today, scientists believe.

The earliest archaeological evidence of cat domestication dates back 9,500 years, when cats were thought to have lived alongside humans in settlement sites in Cyprus.

However, the new results show the house cat lineage is far older. Ancestors of domestic cats are now thought to have broken away from their wild relatives and started living with humans as early as 130,000 years ago.

The researchers focused on DNA in the mitochondria, the "power plants" of cells which supply energy and have their own genetic material.

Comparison of the genetic sequences enabled researchers to determine the relationships between different cat lineages.

The scientists found the cats fell into distinctive genetic clades, or groups.

The results show that, apart from accidental cross-breeding, European wildcats are not part of the domestic moggy's family tree.

Neither are the Central Asian wildcat, the Southern African wildcat, or the Chinese desert cat.

But domestic cats formed a clade with some wildcats from the Middle East, suggesting that today's moggy stems from the wild felines of this region.

Rodent catching

Experts believe cats originally sought out human company, attracted by rodents infesting the first agricultural settlements.

The early farmers of the Fertile Crescent - present-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel - would have found the animals extremely useful for protecting their grain stores - an association that continues to this day.

"The Felidae family is well known as a successful predator - very deadly, very ferocious, very threatening to all species including humankind," said co-author Stephen O'Brien, of the US National Cancer Institute.

"But this little guy actually chose not to be that," he said. "He actually chose to be a little bit friendly and also was a very good mouser."

The study included researchers from the UK, the US, Germany, Israel, Spain and France.


**Domestication of the dog is placed at approximately 14,000 years ago.