Foursquare (4square) is a web and mobile application that allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location. Points are awarded for “checking in” at venues. The user with the most number of *days* with check-ins at a specific place within the past 60 days qualifies to become the mayor of that place.
To foster brand loyalty some businesses are offering specials for the mayor of the venues. Recently I received a USB-stick for becoming the major of a computer shop.
Today at Department X of our hospital, I saw this Special offer:
Google already offered the possibility to search for certain characteristics like color, size, faces, or license-free images. See for instance this fabulous search of “sea stars” limited to pink (never knew such sea stars exist).
But now Google also allows search by image. If you found an image that you’re curious about, you can start to “explore, examine and discover”. Thus you can use an image as a search query. You can drag and drop photos from the web or from your desktop, into the search box, you can upload photos or you can use a Chrome extension for this. Google will return results that show you where that image, and similar images, appear on the web.
On the same day that I read about this new tool @JoBrody asked at Twitter:
Anyone know this plant? Thank you RT @JoBrodie: My mate Yasmin’s wondering what plant this is – any suggestions? http://post.ly/2DTbX (The photo is at the left)
She referred to the Wikipedia entry of Silene vulgaris, with pictures clearly resembling the photo of Jo Brodie’s friend.
Now, since I had just learned about Images by Google, I checked Google Images in the meantime. I uploaded Yasmin’s photo to images.google.com and got this as result.
Hmpf? No Silene vulgaris appears. Whereas similar photos are on the web (Wikipedia for instance). It is clear that Google just has a broad look at the composition of photo’s and that the distribution of colors is most important. So any whitish item on a green background becomes resembling, even shoes and tigers….
That was interesting. Besides that Twitter had beaten Google in time, it was also more reliable (no surprise btw).
Since Google has the possibility to search faces, I tried what Images by Google would make of a face. I choose my own photo, which I use as an avatar at Facebook (making it easy for Google because the very same photo is on the web).
Google had no problem in finding the photo at Facebook and (less nice) no problem identifying me on www.123people.nl (removed).
But now lets look at the resembling photos. Lets “Explore, examine and discover”.
Ooh yes! Stunning!
I would have never guessed I resembled males, colored people and above all….. Angela Merkel.
Peer review is never funny, you think.
It is hard to review papers, especially when they are poorly written. From the author’s point of view, it is annoying and frustrating to see a paper rejected on basis of comments of peer reviewers, who either don’t understand the paper or thwart you in your attempts to get the paper published, for instance because you are a competitor in the field.
Still, from a (great) distance the peer review process can be funny… in some respects.
Read for instance a collection of memorable quotes from peer review critiques of the past year in Environmental Microbiology (EM does this each December). Here are some excerpts:
Done! Difficult task, I don’t wish to think about constipation and faecal flora during my holidays!
This paper is desperate. Please reject it completely and then block the author’s email ID so they can’t use the online system in future.
It is sad to see so much enthusiasm and effort go into analyzing a dataset that is just not big enough.
The abstract and results read much like a laundry list.
.. I would suggest that EM is setting up a fund that pays for the red wine reviewers may need to digest manuscripts like this one.
I have to admit that I would have liked to reject this paper because I found the tone in the Reply to the Reviewers so annoying.
I started to review this but could not get much past the abstract.
This paper is awfully written. There is no adequate objective and no reasonable conclusion. The literature is quoted at random and not in the context of argument…
Stating that the study is confirmative is not a good start for the Discussion.
I suppose that I should be happy that I don’t have to spend a lot of time reviewing this dreadful paper; however I am depressed that people are performing such bad science.
Preliminary and intriguing results that should be published elsewhere.
Reject – More holes than my grandad’s string vest!
The writing and data presentation are so bad that I had to leave work and go home early and then spend time to wonder what life is about.
Very much enjoyed reading this one, and do not have any significant comments. Wish I had thought of this one.
This is a long, but excellent report. [...] It hurts me a little to have so little criticism of a manuscript.
More seriously, the Top 20 Reasons (Negative Comments) Written by the Reviewers Recommending Rejection of 123 Medical Education Manuscripts can be found at Academic Medicine (vol 76, no . 9 / 2 0 0 1). The top 5 is:
Statistics: inappropriate, incomplete, or insufficiently described, etc. 11.2 %
Overinterpretation of the results 8.7 %
Inappropriate, suboptimal, insufficiently described instrument 7.3%
Sample too small or biased 5.6 %
Text difficult to follow, to understand 3.9%
Neuroskeptic describes 9 types of review decisions in the The Wheel of Peer Review. Was your paper reviewed by “Bee-in-your-Bonnet” or by “Cite Me, Me, Me!”
The subjects you propose for a series of Mathematical and Metaphysical Essays are so very profound, that there is perhaps not a single subscriber to our Journal who could follow them.
Responses to a rejection are also of all ages. See this video anno 1945 (yes this scene has been used tons of times for other purposes)
Yet if you are still unsuccessful and want a definitive decision rendered within hours of submission you can always send your paper to the Journal of Universal Rejection.
Only my youngest daughter (11) was fooled …. by her teacher. She has 2 teachers. Today (April 1st), one of them was to be replaced by another. When the class started, the main teacher came in and said: “Sorry guys, the new teacher couldn’t make it: she is ill” . Then she left … to come back with the new teacher. A lovely April Fools day joke. And a good way to introduce the new teacher.
As usual, the web was full with jokes and hoaxes too.
Indeed many Google jokes were really good. Like the gmail-motion (a new motion technology that interprets physical movements to translate it).
And the development of a new Android app that translates your pets words into human language.
This was also covered by GrrlScientist at Punctuated Equilibrium (Guardian Science)
Not mentioned at Search Engine Land, is what happens if you Google “helvetica” ….
(It also worked with “comic sans” by the way)
In the Netherlands, there was an advertisement for new SENSEO® beer pods giving you a full, cold glass of Heineken beer (only to be used in combination with the Philips SENSEO® coffee pod system Hot ‘n Cold®). See http://www.bierpad.nl/ for the full advertisement.
Did you know, there is a web site that keeps track of the major April Fools’ Day Jokes that Web Sites have run each year (from 2004 till today): http://aprilfoolsdayontheweb.com/.
Besides the Google Jokes, there are several other good traps this year: A Blackberry with no screen, Pay what you weigh for your airline seat & All donations going to church of scientology (http://aprilfoolsdayontheweb.com/2011.html).
And just when you think it’s over and you save your last draft just before 00.00 am, you notice that WordPress puts in a word too.
I think it is the least successful joke I’ve seen today….
The Frantic Friday belongs to the same series as the Silly Saturday, Funny Friday etc. posts. These are not directly related to Science or library matters. Often these post are about humorous things, but not in this case. Therefore the name of the series was adapted. It took me a week to write it down, so it reflects what happens over the entire period (and insights did change)
Aerial of Sendai, Japan, following earthquake.
Last week was overshadowed by the terrible earthquake in North East Japan, and the subsequent tsunami which swept away many villages in this part of the country. Some people see this as a sign of the world coming to an end, especially since the dates of the Twin tower attack (9-11-01) and the date of the Tsunami in Japan (3-10-11) add up to 12/21/12, the predicted date of the end of the world. Whether you believe in this omen or not (I don’t), the pictures and videos of this event sure do show the unprecedented power of nature, which is devastating beyond imagination. The Jazeera video below was shown on Dutch tv the entire morning: people, cars and boats have no time to escape and a large tsunami is engulfing various cities, eating anything on its path.
Another impressive video shows how a small stream grows to a wild turbulent flood and sweeps away cars and even houses. Sadly, many commenters to this video see the disaster as a punishment for “those that have turned there backs on HIM etc”. Videos like these can now be found anywhere, like at BBC news Asia.
As if it wasn’t enough there was also a volcano eruption last Sunday, and the initial small problems with the nuclear plants near to the tsunami area seem now to get out of hand (see below).
Indirectly, there are some library, web 2.0/social media & science aspects to this natural disaster. I will concentrate on (medical and scientific) information
Immediately after the earthquake we could learn some scientific facts about earthquakes and tsunamis. On thing I learned is that the more superficial the earthquake the more devastating the effects in the area surrounding it. I also learned that a tsunami can have a speed of 800 km per hour, i.e. “flies” with the speed of an airplane, and that a wave can be 1 km long and have an incredible force. Science writers further explain why Japan’s tsunami triggered an enormous whirlpool.
These are facts, but with the nuclear effects we are unsure as to what is happening and “how bad it will be”. I’m a scientist, but surely no expert in this field, and I find the information confusing, contradictory and sometimes misleading.
Lets start with the misleading information. Of course there are people who see the hand of God in this all, but that is so obviously without any foundation (“uit de lucht gegrepen”), that I won’t discuss it further.
I saw it on Facebook and took it seriously. Others received it by mail, with an explanation that 550-750 rads means “nausea within a couple of hours and no survivors.” Clearly that is nonsense (fallout killing all people in the US East Coast). Also disturbingly, the makers of this map “bored” the logo of the Australian Radiation Services (ARS). (see Snopes.com, thanks to David Bradley of Sciencebase.com who mentioned it on Facebook).
But the pro-nuclear people come with equal misinformation. There is a strange link on Facebook leading to a post : “MIT scientist says no problems”. The post was blogged by an australian teacher in Japan, who wrote up the words of a friend, family member and MIT-scientist Josef Oehmen (@josefoehmen on Twitter)… But the post really seems to be a repost from something called The Energy Collective, and written by Brooks, a strong proponent of nuclear power. The site is powered by Siemens AG, which recently became an “industry partner” of MIT/LAI. (and the circle is round). Read about this and more at Genius Nowin : The StrangeCase of JosefOehmen (access the cache if the site can’t be reached). The German translation of the official piece is here. The comments (permitted) are revealing….
With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer.” We shouldn’t worry about the damaged Japanese reactors because they’ll make the locals healthier”
Ample amounts of necessary minerals such as magnesium, iodine, selenium, zinc, and others, Saunas, both infrared and far-infrared, Raising core energy levels with botanical formulas, Supporting and improving individual capacities to mobilize and eliminate toxins, Therapeutic Clays to remove positively charged particles, Solum uliginosum products from Uriel Pharmacy – also available directly from us etcetera.
Thus various examples of misinformation by seemingly well-informed scientists, experts & doctors.
Perhaps this is the downside of Social Media. Twitter and Facebook are very well suited to spread the news fast, but they can also easily spread false information or hoaxes fast-via “your friends”. It is important to check where the news actually comes from (which can be hard if one misuses logo’s and institutions) and if the writer has any biases pro or con nuclear power. But an other disadvantage of Social Media is that we hurry through it by speed-reading.
Besides real lies there is also something called bias.
I have to admit that I have a bias against nuclear power. I was teenager when learned of the Club of Rome, I was in my twenties when the Dutch held large Peace Marches with “Ban the bomb” placards, I was in my thirties when the Dutch cattle had to be kept in stables and we couldn’t eat spinach, because of the Chernobyl nuclear fallout. At the University, my professor in Physics spend one or two lectures talking about the danger of nuclear power and the connection with poverty and the arms race, instead of teaching the regular stuff. During environmental studies I learned about the pitfalls of other energy sources as well. My conclusion was we had to use our energy sources well and I decided to use my feet instead of driving a car (a decision I sometimes regret).
The opinion piece by By David Ropeik“Beware the fear of nuclear….FEAR!” in Scientific American seems a little biased in the opposite direction. This guest post, written soon after the trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, mainly stresses that:
“… the world is facing the risk of getting the risk of nuclear power wrong, and raising the overall risk to public and environmental health far more in the process.”
As if nuke-o-noia that is the most worrying at the moment. He also stresses that in addition to being actually physically hazardous, nuclear power has some psychological characteristics (odorless, man-made) that make it particularly frightening: It is all in the mind, isn’t it?
I do get his point though and agree as to the quiet danger of fossil fuels and the risk of being too dependent upon other countries for energy. But as a commenter said: two wrongs don’t make a right. And isn’t there something like renewable resources and energy saving?
It is surprising, that minds have changed overnight: all (potential) risks of nuclear plants were long known.
Regarding misinformation, TEPC, the utility that runs the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and supplies power for Tokyo, has a long history of disinformation: here were many incidents (200) which were covered up (Dutch: see NRC-handelsblad, Thursday 2011-03-17; non-official forum here).
But now for reliable information? Where can we get it? What about the health risks? Again, I’m no expert in this field, but the following information at least helped me to get an idea about the situation and the actual danger.
It is possible that it the will not be confined to leaks of radioactivity and explosions, but that a nuclear meltdown may occur.
A nuclear meltdown or nuclear reactor explosion is a grave event, but is NOT a nuclear explosion. As explained at Sciencebase: “There is a risk of particles of radioactive material entering the atmosphere or the ocean, but this does not amount to the impact of an actual nuclear explosion.” Thus even in a worst-case scenario the effects are not as severe as a nuclear explosion.
One major difference with Chernobyl is that radioactivity at Fukushima remains largely contained within the reactor and that we know the problems from the start (not surprised by fall-out).
Still radioactive fumes leak from the power plant. March 16th there was “an alarmingly high dose rate of 0.08 millisieverts (mSv) per hour, 25 kilometres away from the plant (Nature News). March 17th is 17 mSv/hr, 30 kilometres northwest of the reactor. There are also reports of .012 mSv/hr in Fukushima City, 60 km away from the plant. (The Great Beyond). Sanya Gupta monitored that his radiation levels quadrupled, even in Tokyo (see CNN-video).
The time of exposure is as important as the dose. Thus exposure to a 4 to 10 times higher radiation than normal during a couple of days, poses little extra health risk. But if you would receive 4 to 10 times more radiation than usual during months or years it could pose a health risk (cumulative effect). On the other hand peak doses recorded at Fukushima of 400 mSv per hour are enough to induce radiation sickness in about two hours’ time ((The Great Beyond)
Radiation sickness is a (more or less) acute effect of irradiation. It can occur in the immediate surroundings of the radioactive leak. A single dose of 1000 mSv causes radiation sickness and nausea but not death. But 6000 mSv (chernobyl-workers) kills people within a month (see picture in The Guardian)
Over the long term, exposure to radiation, may increase the risk of developing cancer. An exposure rate of 100 mSv/yr is considered the threshold at which cancer rates begin to increase.
To put this into perspective: we are all exposed to 2 mSv natural irradiation per year, one full body CT-scan gives 10 mSv and a flight from New York – Tokyo polar route gives 9 mSv.
The most worrisome on the reported releases of radioactive material in Japan are radioactive cesium-137 (gamma emitter, high energy radiation, penetrating deep) and Iodine-131, a beta emitter (can be easily shielded, dangerous when ingested or inhaled).
Iodine-131 has a short half life of 8 days, but is dangerous when it is absorbed, i.e. through contaminated food and milk. It will accumulate in the thyroid and can cause (mostly non-lethal) thyroid cancer. An easy form of protection is potassium iodide (KI), but this should only be taken by people in the emergency zone, because it can cause serious adverse effects and should not be taken unnecessarily. (For more info see CDC).
Over the long term, the big threat to human health is cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years. It is cesium-137 that still contaminates much land in Ukraine around the Chernobyl reactor. Again it can enter the body via food, notably milk.
Note: this is a short summary of what I’ve read. Please go to official sites to get more detailed scientific and medical information.
A chemical professor by the Twittername of @Takaguchi (Tak), who describes himself as a “Chemist loving nanocarbons, supramolecules, main group elements, photoreactions, and photoproperties has this Twitter Avatar:
Alan Dangour has experiencedwhat may happen when you report scientific evidence which is then covered by the news.
He and his group published systematic reviews that found no evidence of any important differences in the nutritional composition of foodstuffs grown using conventional and organic farming methods. There was also no evidence of nutrition-related health benefits from consuming organically produced foods.
The press quickly picked up on the story. The Times ran a front-page headline: “Organic food ‘has no extra health benefits’ ”, the Daily Express added “Official” while, in a wonderfully nuanced piece, the Daily Mail ran: “A cancerous conspiracy to poison your faith in organic food”.
Initially it was “tremendously exciting and flattering, but their findings were contrary to beliefs held by many and soon the hate-mails started flooding in. That’s why he concludes: “Come on scientists, stand up and fight!” when not the scientific evidence is called into question, but also your scientific skills, and personal and professional integrity. Quite appropriately a Lancet editorial put it like this: “Eat the emotion but question the evidence”.
Upstream, we have the early stages of communication about some area of science: meetings, literature reviews or general lab gossip. Gradually these ideas are worked through, and the communicative output flows downstream towards the peer-reviewed and published journal article and perhaps, via a press release and maybe even a press conference, some mass media reporting.
This still is pretty vague to me. I think less pushed press releases copied by each and every news source and more background stories, giving insight in how science comes about and what it represents would be welcomed. As long as it isn’t too much like glorification of certain personalities. (More) gossip is also not what we’re waiting for.
Her examples and the interesting discussion that follows clarify that she thinks more of blogs and twitter as tools propelling upstream science journalism.
One main objection (or rather limitation) is that: “most science journalists/writers cover whatever they find interesting and what they believe their readers will find interesting (Ian Sample in comments).”
David ropeik(commenting at Big Think) is more sarcastic:
“Wonderful goal, to have journalism serve society in this, or any way, but, forgive me, it’s a naive hope, common among those who observe journalism but haven’t done it.(…..) Even those of us who feel journalism is a calling and serves an important civic role do not see ourselves principally as teachers or civil servants working in the name of some higher social cause, to educate the public about stuff we thought they should know. We want the lead story. We want our work to get attention. We want to have impact, sure, hopefully positive. But we don’t come into work everyday asking “what should the public know about?”
That’s reality. John Fleck (journalist) agrees that the need to “get a lot of attention” is a driving force in newsroom culture and decision-making, but stresses that the newspapers he worked for have always devoted a portion of their resources to things managers felt were important even if not attention-getting.
So truth in the middle?
Another blogpost -at Jay Rosen: Public Notebook gives advice to journalist “formerly known as the media”. Apart from advice as “you need to be blogging and you need to “get” mobile he want the next generation journalists to understand:
Replace readers, viewers, listeners and consumers with the term “users.”
Remember: the users know more than you do.
There’s been a power shift; the mutualization of journalism is here. We bring important things to the table, and so do the users. Therefore we include them. “Seeing people as a public” means that.
Describe the world in a way that helps people participate in it. When people participate, they seek out information.
Anyone can doesn’t mean everyone will. (…) It’s an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will ‘interact’ with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it… So what’s the conclusion? Only that you shouldn’t expect too much online.
The journalist is just a heightened case of an informed citizen, not a special class.
Your authority starts with, “I’m there, you’re not, let me tell you about it.”
Somehow, you need to listen to demand and give people what they have no way to demand (…) because they don’t know about it yet
In your bid to be trusted, don’t take the View From Nowhere; instead, tell people where you’re coming from.
Breathe deeply of what DeTocqueville said: “Newspapers make associations and associations make newspapers.”
I think those are useful and practical tips, some of which fit in with the idea of more upstream journalism.
O.k. that’s enough for now. We have been pretty serious on the topic. But it is a Friday Fun/ Silly Sunday post. So bring in the comics.
These are self-explanatory, aren’t they?
(HT: David Bradley and commenter on Facebook. Can’t find it anymore. Facebook is hard to search)
Come on scientists, stand up and fight! From where I’m sitting it looks as if we are under attack from those who not only want to question the importance of scientific evidence but also to cast doubt on our scientific skills, and our personal and professional integrity. In the year of the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society we must defend the importance of scientific evidence and stand up for science.
I’m quite lucky. My research is just about interesting enough to discuss at dinner. It helps that I’m a public health nutritionist and, at least at dinner, my friends are generally happy to talk about food and sometimes even health. I work on projects including nutritional and physical activity interventions designed to maintain health and function in later life and the impact our love affair with animal foods has on both the environment and public health. Dressed up, and with a light touch of spin, these are all possible dinner party conversations.
My first brush with an audience outside the narrow circles of academia came soon after completing my PhD on the growth of the legs of Amerindian children (the things you used to be able to get funding for!). It turns out that leg length is a sensitive marker of diet and health in early childhood. Later work in England showed that the legs of English boys and girls are now longer than they were 20 years ago, probably because of improved diet and environmental conditions. The great British press loved this story. Lots of photos of long-legged women adorned the newspapers and one national paper even ran a competition to find Britain’s longest legs! This was a good story — easy to understand, straightforward to report and not challenging any pre-existing beliefs.
However, I have recently had a different experience of what can happen when you report scientific evidence. Last year, a team of us from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine released two systematic reviews on the nutritional quality and nutrition-related health benefits of organically produced foods. The research had been commissioned by the Food Standards Agency and had taken more than a year to complete.
We were not the first people to ask whether there were any differences in nutritional composition or health benefits of foods produced under different production regimens but it became clear that no one had addressed the question systematically. Systematic reviews are an important tool for scientists; unlike ordinary reviews, they are seen as original research and help to provide clarity in areas of uncertainty. The basic underpinning of a systematic review is that the process of conducting the review is pre-specified and that the review itself is as comprehensive as possible within these pre-specified limits. Reviews that are not systematic are much more prone to bias, especially with regards to the selection of papers included for review.
Our systematic reviews found that there was no evidence of any important differences in the nutritional composition of foodstuffs grown using conventional and organic farming methods. There was also no evidence of nutrition-related health benefits from consuming organically produced foods.
The press quickly picked up on the story. The Times ran a front-page headline: “Organic food ‘has no extra health benefits’ ”, the Daily Express added “Official” while, in a wonderfully nuanced piece, the Daily Mail ran: “A cancerous conspiracy to poison your faith in organic food”.
This was initially a tremendously exciting and unprecedented period in my academic career. My ego was certainly flattered! However, the tide of emotion quickly started to turn sour. I became increasingly dismayed at the way in which our data were being used and distorted, especially by those who would benefit from the return of uncertainty to the argument. I was also frustrated that we were being criticised for not including other aspects of organic farming (use of pesticides etc) in our review.
With correspondents only a click away, it will not be surprising to learn that we also received many hundreds of e-mails (it would be very interesting to know what proportion of these correspondents had actually read our reports). My favourite e-mail came from a physician in the US who complained that his wife had “been wasting money for years on organic food” and that at last our “scientific review may finally bring her to her senses”.
Other correspondents were less polite and we received many angry, even vicious e-mails questioning the integrity, independence and ability of the team. These are essential ingredients for a good research team and it is fair to ask these questions but the ferocity of the attack suggested that, by questioning the scientific evidence on the nutrient content of organic food, we had actually questioned something bigger. For the first time, we had drawn into sharp focus the strength of the evidence supporting the widespread belief that organic food is “better” — and many people did not like what they saw. As a Lancet editorial put it: “Eat the emotion but question the evidence”.
Beliefs are important, but so is science and standing up for scientific evidence is crucial. We should not be afraid to report our findings publicly, whether they are merely of academic interest or of a controversial nature. This is our job as scientists.
I expected our reviews to be read with interest but I’m not sure that I fully realised how far I was putting my head above the parapet. I think I’ve passed through the toughest hours and have emerged stronger and better able to fight for the importance of science in modern life.
Returning to the dinner party theme, I have also learnt the — at times painful — consequences of telling women that “based on current scientific evidence” their legs are slightly shorter than would be expected for their height. There’s a time and a place for everything.
Alan Dangour is a senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Curious to know “who is watching you” then watch the infographic* made by Wordstream.com (a marketing company).
A previous post already addressed privacy problems with Facebook (also showing infographics). Here is also described how you can reclaim your privacy using a simple bookmarklet.
(it was August 4th, I remember I was at home multitasking
(twittering, blogging, mailing, scratching my back, playing
patience, humming a tune and looking out of the window)
The Netherlands turns orange again, the colour of the Dutch Team. After 32 years, Oranje plays the World Cup final tonight.
A good moment to write a Silly Sunday post, with some silly and some less silly topics.
Lets begin with the serious ones.
It seems that not all African countries love football.
The al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab has banned playing soccer in Somalia. It prohibits broadcasts of the World Cup, describing the sport as “a satanic act” that corrupts Muslims. They threaten Somali soccer players and anyone who has challenged their extreme views. Worse, in the past month, they have killed at least five people for watching the World Cup.Read more at the Washington Postand at NU.nl (NL)
Despite concerns about South Africa‘s ability to host the World Cup, so far the tournament has gone off without any major incidents. The major hiccups concerned transport.
I enjoy the football matches, I like the chit-chat at tv about the Dutch team, but I’m not charmed by the way the FIFA keeps the organization in a stranglehold like a giant octopus. And I’m not talking about FIFA’s non-response to wrong decisions of referees nor its unwillingness to introduce new technology to assist the referees. But about the non-transparancy and their too big fingers (or rather arms! aka monopoly) in the pie of football revenues. The latter permits it to extract immense rents from countries (US$1 billion per year, with an additional US$ 3 billion generated in the year when the World Cup is held). Most of its revenue is generated through their control over television and marketing rights for games.
As I’ve experienced in the UK last week, the Dutch NOS-television blocks NOS.nl/WK2010abroad, because the NOS is under contractual obligation to broadcast only in the Netherlands. The FIFA also has a strict regulations with respect to advertisements. The entire world could witness that women were arrested because they wore Dutch orange dresses with microscopic Bavaria logos, because official sponsor Budweiser is the only beer company allowed to advertise within FIFA venues (see Telegraph.co.uk).
More seriously are the consequences of this monopoly for South Africa. Read why the Daily Maverick concludes that“the price of staging this spectacle is that we had to make a deal with the devil. We signed over sovereign rights to foreigners who, secretly, despise us.”
Social Media and Football don’t seem to go hand-in-hand. Mashable reports that besides alcohol and sex, coaches increasingly institute ad hoc bans on social media sites. “So far, players on the teams from Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Germany, Argentina and England are forbidden to use social services such as Twitter.”
As a link to the humorous part, Dutch can read this column of Youp van het Hek in the NRC about Budler (and more).
Animals
Many Brazilians disliking Brazil’s leading sports announcer, Galvão Bueno, twittered “Cala Boca Galvão.”, which means “shut up Galvão”. It became a trending topic on Twitter and tweople start asking what it meant. Someone made up it meant “Help us save the Galvão birds”. In fact “gavião,” (hawk) resembles Galvão. Websites and videos were made to substantiate this. The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho wrote on Twitter: “CALA BOCA GALVÃO is the Brazilian version of a homeopathic remedySILENTIUM GALVANUS.” (sources: NY Times and Joop.nl [nl]). So indirectly animal lovers and animal rights activists helped to spread the word like parrots… A brilliant practical joke.
Speaking about homeopathy, the Octopus Paul who has accurately predicted all knock-out matches till now seems to be an example of a placebo-effect: believing in a certain outcome helps to establish this. People take it very seriously, and threatened to use the octopus as an ingredient in a meal. Not paella, because the octopus has favored Spain as the Winner. However, I seriously doubt the experimental settings, as one of the boxes the octopus can choose from is always closer to the octopus than the other, and he always seems to choose the closest (possibly he is not psychic, but intelligent). Furthermore, the experimenters were not blinded to the outcome and neither was the octopus.
By the way the Octopus has competition of an exotic bird, an Aardvark, a chimpanzee and others who all have predicted another outcome of the Final, namely the victory of the Dutch!! However, some have accused the animals of orange bias.
Anyway in support of the Dutch I have changed my avatar on Twitter (right).
By the way I was completely fooled earlier this week by a hoax of the journal the Telegraaf who showed this picture:
Here is an updated results scheme for the world cup brand war. Since the brands do supply the goods to enhance natural talent and performance, this may be another way of predicting the outcome. Alas (again), the Dutch are sponsored by Nike, and the Spanish by Adidas. Adidas has won almost all matches till now (except against Holland once) (source: Freshnessmag.com).
eurogeneMaybe Science shld do same. Nice picture! @laikas: RT @noahWG: Paul the octopus selecting manuscripts 4 review at Nature for months now.11 Jul 2010 from TweetDeck
The World Cup Soccer 2010 started 2 weeks ago. For now I only follow the Dutch team live. But indirectly I follow many other matches via Twitter. It is very entertaining, especially if things go awry, like the way the English were crushed by the Germans today (1:4). This was partly due to the referee who ruled out a legitimate goal by Frank Lampard when it was still 1 : 1.
Below are some of the tweets in my timeline. I especially like @precordialthump’s comparison of the English knock-out with apoptosis.
@Precordialthump opens with the best Faulty Tower fragment: “Don’t mention the War”. I can’t resist to show the fragment here.
mariawoltersat least #eng will be spared the excruciating penalty shootout this time #brightside #schlaaaaand #fb27 Jun 2010 from mobile web
Herring1967I blame our 12th invisible player. Everyone keeps passing to him and then he fucks it up.27 Jun 2010 from web
TW_AdornoYour team qualified with ease under a Labour Govt and have struggled in every game under the Conservatives. How could this be?27 Jun 2010 from twidroid
thestephmerrittIs this happening because they’ve cut the defence budget? #ididafootballjoke27 Jun 2010 from web
precordialthumpThe England team’s performance turned out to be the World Cup football equivalent of apoptosis… well done, Germany.27 Jun 2010 from Echofon
It is HOT & Radiating. Eizo, a medial diagnostic supply company, issued a very special pin-up calendar.
No body part was concealed from the girls, exposed to the camera…. It is really very original…
But..…Why does no one pose the question whether this illuminate work [full body irradiation x12 (if the same girl poses on the calendar), x attempts ......] is a responsible thing to do? It is no CT-scan, but still…
RT 
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