Sleep

is important to good health:

more cat pictures

Especially if you’re going to get up and do something active tomorrow.

Geovandals target archean bacterial mats

Chris Rowan at Highly Allochthonous writes about archean bacterial mats that are important evidence of life 2.9 billion years ago. Unfortunately, someone is trespassing onto the site, which is private property, and stealing samples, presumably for sale: “Archean bacterial mats under the hammer.”

STC Toronto: The Power of Podcasts, May 13

Podcasts are seen as a platform for reviews, opinions, and polemic. But they can do much more. This presentation helps you discover how valuable podcasts can be.

Podcasts are the next step beyond blogging. But they are also a powerful platform for training and user assistance. They are useful whether you’re a technical writer explaining how an application works or a marketer expounding on product benefits.

Aaron Davis and Scott Nesbitt will examine how you can tap into the power of podcasts. First, they’ll explain what podcasts are and how to create one.

You’ll learn how podcasts

• Can help maintain an ongoing dialogue about a domain or topic
• Are a great way to disseminate new developments
• Serve the users’s convenience by being available anytime, and anywhere
• ake supplementary material more interesting

Aaron and Scott will

• Outline the mechanics of podcasting
• Point out some of the popular training and educational podcasts on the Web
• Analyze why these podcasts are successful
• Tell how you can use the same techniques with your audio materials

About the presenters: Aaron Davis and Scott Nesbitt are partners in DMN Communications, a technical communications consultancy in Toronto. Since 2006, their podcast, Communications from DMN, has been entertaining, informing, and occasionally annoying a diverse global audience.

The meeting will be held in the Burgundy Room at the North York Memorial Hall, 5110 Yonge Street, concourse level, at 7:00 p.m. General Admission is $5; STC Members attend for free.
For directions, visit STC Toronto and click on “Meetings.”

U.S. passes Genetic Non-discrimination Act

The U.S. Senate has passed a law which should prevent companies from using people’s personal genetic information to deny them insurance coverage, employment, or other benefits. It’s called GeNA. It need only be signed into law.

I wonder what President Bush will do? In Canada, laws are signed by the Queen’s representative, the Governor General. In theory, the Governor General could refuse to sign a law, but there is a long-standing precedent that he or she will sign any law passed by the House of Commons and Senate, whether or not he, she, or the Queen approves or disapproves of it.

Once and for all, Hitler was a Christian!

Hat tip to PZ Myers at Pharyngula. Here’s the text of Hitler’s “New Order” speech:

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life” (’My New Order’, Adolf Hitler, Proclamation of the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933)