Deans world has a question for all women:

what do you like about men?

the answers are somewhat surprising, somewhat overtly sexist, but i'm not sure that's always bad anymore.

in any case, go read and respond.

Misuse of Science. In a report recently complied by Rep. Waxman (D-Calif) and the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee's special investigations division areas in which the Bush administration has manipulated science to the benefit of his political agenda are highlighted. The report has an accompanying website. [MetaFilter]

The site mentioned above reveals that the bush science policy is basically anti-science to the extent that if anything infringes upon prior belief or faith, it is not supported. In short, you can clearly see that this regime relies on something other than science, which has been clear for some time actually.

On the Futility of Reading. KF is writing about the need to re-read. Well, here's a disconcerting thought: reading is a woefully inefficient way of processing information. (I know, I know: who reads just to “process information”? But bear with me a moment.) Let's say… [Matthew G. Kirschenbaum]

books yes, but what about the journal articles, ick. if it weren't for conferences, i doubt i'd be able to keep up with what's going on.

Users Rights to Communications Services.

The Commission for Communications Regulation, Ireland has released a new publication Users Rights to Communications Services (Protecting Users in a Developing Communications Market), which is the decision governing the regulatory framework for the protection of users of electronic communications services. This decision follows their consultation 03/26 (Protecting Users in a Developing Communications Market Implementing Measures under the National and EU Communications Framework ).

The consultation focused on how the national regulatory framework in this area would evolve in light of changes in the EU framework, in particular, the EU Directive on Universal Service and Usersâ Rights. It dealt with measures such as transparency of information for users, operator codes of practice for complaint handling, contracts and the publication of quality of service information.

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

This seems to be an interesting report, but i think it forgets that profit is tied to knowledge, and if users don't know, they pay more. not that it is right, but that is the way profit works.