They do the scans on Sunday night when they are no patients ( I've been a subject in other experiments). But apart from that, if you think that there's no medical value to this research, you need to sit back and do something that enhances your imagination. They've also studied how cancer patients swallow. Besides the vocal tract, the heart is another organ that needs real time mri, so it's no gimmick. Also this research was from USC, not UCSD.

We have a project that is a bit more insightful about what is actually being classified as positive and negative:
http://politics.twittersentiment.org/streams/
http://politics.twittersentiment.org/streams/stats.html

Here's the link to actual tweet data that is classified into positive/negative/neutral/unsure
http://politics.twittersentiment.org/streams/stats.html

We have a project at USC that we've been working on which is similar but we show a sample of the individual tweets that were classified:
http://politics.twittersentiment.org/streams/
The system in the article doesn't show any of the data that they use to base the scores on, so it is effectively a black box. Also it lacks the entertainment value of seeing the sometimes funny twitter data. Also, ours is real time so it's interesting to watch during a debate.

I just logged into www.google.com/history and saw my browsing history back to 2007. I understand some of the privacy concerns, but I actually found it interesting to see what webpages I went to 5 years ago. For me, the ability to look back into details of the past that may have left my conscious memory recall seems to outweigh the security concerns. Also, on the www.google.com/history page you can delete individual record items so if there's something IN PARTICULAR that you want to delete... hint, hint, nudge, nudge, say no more.

a consolation for us non-billionaires

is Iceland Scandinavian? It seems like they might be a counter example...

and first post!??

Um, last time I checked they speak Galician (Gallego) in Galicia, which is no where near Madrid. Galicia is near Portugal, so from what I've heard, it's similar to Portuguese. Also, they have a Celtic sound to their local music, so there might be some influence of that, but I'm not so sure.

I got a naked dsl plan from at&t and it really sucks b/c they have to come to your home and change the wiring... it took them 2 months to finally do it... 2 months with out internet at home :@ Then it's impossible to use any of the online forms to change the service or pay bills b/c they all require a phone number, which I don't have (I have a cell, but they supposedly need the phone number associated with the dsl plan, which I don't have).

The opium wars are not a good argument for a number of reasons: 1. Opium != marijuana in an important way. One is physically addictive and the other is not. 2. Opium was marketed into China so that foreign powers could profit. I think the opium war makes sense as an argument against fossil fuels as much as it does as an argument against the good herb.