Thursday, August 17, 2006

Abstinence only anecdote

Broadsheet:

It became nearly impossible for the Canton, Ohio, school board to ignore the unintended byproducts of its abstinence-only program when 13 percent of Timken High School’s female student population became pregnant last year. Thanks to Feministing for pointing us in the direction of this ridiculous-but-true story about a school board that has, to its credit, finally seen the light of sex education.

Of course it took 65 of the 490 female students becoming pregnant within a year to adequately deliver that message, but as Jessica of Feministing queried, “I guess better late than never?”

Lucky lefties

Slate:

It’s well-known that many societies hold lefties in low esteem. In Christian tradition, the devil is generally associated with the left hand; the word sinister comes from the Latin for left, sinistra. Arabs have historically used the right hand for eating and the left for, er, activities at the other end of the alimentary process. More scientifically, left-handedness is related to a number of physiological conditions. Lefties have higher rates of high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, and schizophrenia.

On the other hand, if you’ll forgive the inevitable bad pun, left-handedness is also linked with creativity. Leonardo da Vinci was a lefty, as were Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Psychologists confirm that left-handedness involves different brain function: While right-handed people seem to have better cognitive skills on average, studies find that lefties are more common among the highly talented.

Ok. But do they roll in the dough?

Thanks to two new studies, one from the United States and another from the United Kingdom, we have some answers… In the U.S. study, college graduates overall earned an average of 30 percent more than high-school graduates. And after accounting for other determinants of pay-age, intelligence, marital status, and race and ethnicity-lefties with college education earned 10 to 15 percent more than their right-handed counterparts.

MythTV

I’m not real happy about the TiVo pricing options. (And I won’t be applying to have a house party.) What’s the alternative? PVRBlog:

MythTV is an open source home theater application that runs under linux, but for many new to linux and building your own PC, installing and configuring it can be a daunting task.

The Monolith Media Center is a small footprint PC pre-loaded with MythTV, Ubuntu linux, and a TV tuner card, ready to go for $650. It’ll even do over-the-air HDTV with a $275 upgrade card.

Among the many features:

Some DVRs boast letting you fast forward through your commercials - but this usually involves fumbling for a remote and seeking to the start of the next scene. The MonolithMC will actually skip the commercials - without any interaction from you. When the MonolithMC records a show, it is also quietly making notes to where it detects commercial breaks. Later when watching the show, the MonolithMC simply jumps from one mark to the next creating a seemless movie experience - the way it should be.

Good going Bill!

Gates breaks rank with US on AIDS policy:

Bill and Melinda Gates came off the political fence yesterday and backed key causes of Aids campaigners, criticising the abstinence policies advocated by the US government and calling for more rights for women and help for sex workers.

Making the keynote speech of the opening session of the 16th International Aids conference in Toronto, Canada, the Microsoft billionaire and his wife spoke with passion and commitment about the social changes necessary to stop the spread of HIV/Aids.