The Long Tail

A couple of days ago, a querent on a local SF-oriented e'mail list inquired about the availability of Windows-compatible clones or emulations of M.U.L.E., a fondly-remembered computer game which I've discussed before, elsewhere. This reminded me of an insightful article from the October 2004 issue of Wired:

The Long Tail."Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream."

Go ahead and read the article. It's got references to Netflix, Bollywood, business plans and economic analysis. Something for everybody. (If this doesn't draw a few comments out of the woodwork, I don't know what will.)

The plot thickens

An update to the July 12th posting about Steve Barton (R-Oil), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and his taxpayer-funded attack on science which his employers find inconvenient. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York), chairman of the House Science Committee, objects to Mr. Barton's harassment of researchers, and does so quite publicly, forcing even the newspapers of Mr. Barton's home state to take notice.

Links here, here, and elsewhere.

Google digitization agreement online

For those interested in such things, Google's library digitization agreement with the University of Michigan is apparently available online.

Pot, meet Kettle.

Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, has repeatedly tried to use the courts to muzzle Oriana Fallaci, the fiercely outspoken reporter and writer whose recent books The Rage and the Pride and The Force of Reason bitterly criticize the "Islamization" of her native country and the rest of Europe. Now, in an ironic twist to the story, it seems that Mr. Smith has just been sentenced to six months in jail for "defaming religion", the same crime of which he accuses Ms. Fallaci. It seems that, while spewing vitriol at Ms. Fallaci for "defaming Islam" by citing unpleasant facts from Islamic history, he has conducted television interviews characterizing Christianity as a "criminal conspiracy", called the pope a foreign-born "con man", and described the crucifix as a "miniature cadaver". Apparently someone objected.

His response to the conviction? To complain that he's being politically persecuted for the sake of "freedom of judgment and criticism". Pot, meet Kettle.

Smith has, over the years, filed lawsuits demanding that the Italian government destroy Renaissance artworks depicting Christian themes and sued Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later elected as pope) for the "crime" of stating Christianity to be preferable to Islam, as well as demanding that the government silence Fallaci. FrontPage supplies a thorough fisking of his frivolity and hypocrisy, with further commentary on the current lawsuit and the death threats that Ms. Fallaci has received from people like him.

I find Ms. Fallaci's writing to be more confrontational than rational, myself, but the transparently hypocritical political and legal ploys of certain Muslim leaders like Smith make me wonder whether she might be on to something in her assertion that there is a long-term plan to conquer and "Islamicize" the West through massive immigration, manipulation of legal systems, focused fanaticism, and the threat of violence against governments that fail to do their bidding.

I'll be ordering a copy of both of Ms. Fallaci's works for the library. Just so folks in Suburbia can know what Smith is talking about. Congratulations, Adel!

His conviction for the very same crime of which he accuses Ms. Fallaci is the perfect irony, both hilarious and disturbing. I don't like "religious defamation" laws because they stifle thought and speech and are subject to blatant political abuse. But it's blockheaded fanatics like Smith who have agitated for this kind of prosecution, and if it's going to happen, well, it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

The Inquisition begins

Are you the head of a polluting oil company? Do you wish that all those annoying scientists nattering on about global warming would just shut thye hell up so you could get back to figuring out which tax-free offshore subsidiary you're gonna use to launder that embarrassing surplus of money you're pulling from $2.35-a-gallon gasoline prices?

Simple! Just have your man in Washington use public tax money to bully them into silence.

As every good Republican knows, the truth is what the CEO says it is. Who do those derned lib'rul scientists think they are?!? M'gosh, you'd think they believed in freedom of speech and the rest of the First Amendment, just like all them other Amurrica-hatin', Democrat-votin' terrists!

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

In a sign of how climate science has grown increasingly political, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating three professors whose work suggests that the earth's climate is warmer now than at any time in many centuries and that increasing levels of greenhouse gases from burning fossils fuels are largely to blame.

In letters to the three scientists last week, Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, demanded detailed documentation about the hundreds of studies on which they were an author or co-author. Mr. Barton also sent a letter to the director of the National Science Foundation that requests information about the work of the three professors, as well as a list of all grants and awards in the area of climate and paleoclimate science, which number 2,700 in the past 10 years....

... Mr. Barton worked in the oil-and-gas industry before being elected to Congress, in 1984. In the past decade, he has consistently ranked as one of the top five recipients of campaign contributions from that industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics....

The letters in question, in which Joe Barton (R-Oil Industry) demands vast amounts of personal and financial information about specific global-warming researchers who fail to agree with the oil industry, can be read here. No word on whether Mr. Barton has demanded this type of information about, say, Patrick J. Michaels.

Quoth the Chronicle....

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