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30. oktober 2002
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California Art Online
 Wired reports about a massive effort in California to bring the Museum collections into a free online database. At any time, less that 7 % of the items are available to the public; the rest locked away. By providing pictures on the net, art appreciators and scholars alike can get access to huge collections of artwork.
The Museums and the Online Archive of California (MOAC) is an ambitious project in the works to bring all the artwork in the state into one site. Now all we need is for the idea to spread, and for MOAC to 1) get a working search function; and 2)come up with a catchier acronym!
10:58:13 PM 
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Russians Finally Identify Killer Gas
"Russian health officials say the gas used to end the Moscow hostage siege was Fentanyl -- a fast-acting opiate drug." (CNN)
9:37:15 PM
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Toyota Reports 90% Increase in Profit
"Profits at Japan's largest car maker Toyota have risen sharply, up 90% during the past six months." (BBC)
This may be an indication that the Japanese economy is finally recovering. However, it is still true that one swallow, even a large one, does not a summer make.
9:37:12 AM
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Crime on the Increase in the U.S.
 After a ten year decline in crime, the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2001 reports a marked increase. The reports provide a nationvide estimate based on reported figures.
For murder, the category most reliably reported to the FBI, there has been an increase of 2.5%, while armed robberies shows the most dramatic increase with 3.7%. The allover increase in crimes was 2.1%, the first increase reported since 1991.
The report does not include terrorist activities, such as the events on 9/11.
7:19:39 AM
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Women Prefer 'Masculine' Men While Ovulating
 BBC will broadcast on Wednesday a documentary about how genes influence women to infedility. When ovulating, women in a study tended to prefer men with a more 'masculine' face, while at other times they preferred a man judged more likely to be a reliable partner.
The documentary also says that as many as 1 in 10 men unawarely raise children that are not theirs.
My comment: Many are skeptical against what they call 'biological determinism.' No doubt many will assert that studies such as these serve to 'justify' a certain behaviour. Not so. The fact that genes influence us to be unfaithful, violent or selfish does not mean we have no choice in the matter. In fact, knowing about the tendencies evolution has given us can help us to make better ethical choices.
6:01:09 AM
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Holy Cremola
There has been a noticable decline over the last days in the number of spam messages dropping into my hotmail mailbox. Is this just a coincidence, or has hotmail started to put their act together?
5:31:20 AM
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The Long Dark Discussion of the Soul
I have written a follow-up on the topic 'does the soul or spirit really exist', answering some objections from Rayne and further explaining the arguments I made in the first article. [read more...]
2:05:04 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.11.02; 00:17:42.
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