So if this really get you mad, be sure to read my other posting of NPR articles about our economy.
Dear MoveOn member,
CNN is now reporting that up to 100,000 people have died from the cyclone that hit Burma. The scale of this disaster is hard to even imagine, and relief is urgently needed. So we wanted to pass along this email from our friends at Avaaz.org (the global online progressive group) letting you know how you can help.
-Eli
Dear friends,
In the wake of a massive cyclone, tens of thousands of Burmese are dead. More than 40,000 are missing. A million are homeless. But what’s happening in Burma is not just a natural disaster—it’s also a catastrophe of bad leadership. Burma’s brutal and corrupt military junta failed to warn the people, failed to evacuate any areas, and suppressed freedom of communication so that Burmese people didn’t know the storm was coming when the rest of the world did. Now the government is failing to respond to the disaster and obstructing international aid organizations. Humanitarian relief is urgently needed, but Burma’s government could easily delay, divert or misuse any aid. Today the International Burmese Monks Organization, including many leaders of the democracy protests last fall, launched a new effort to provide relief through Burma’s powerful grass roots network of monasteries—the most trusted institutions in the country and currently the only source of housing and support in many devastated communities. Click below to help the Burmese people with a donation and see a video appeal to Avaaz from a leader of the monks: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/burma_cyclone/77.php Giving to the monks is a smart, fast way to get aid directly to Burma’s people. Governments and international aid organizations are important, but face challenges—they may not be allowed into Burma, or they may be forced to provide aid according to the junta’s rules. And most will have to spend large amounts of money just setting up operations in the country. The monks are already on the front lines of the aid effort—housing, feeding, and supporting the victims of the cyclone since the day it struck. The International Burmese Monks Organization will send money directly to each monastery through their own networks, bypassing regime controls. Last year, more than 800,000 of us around the world stood with the Burmese people as they rose up against the military dictatorship. The government lost no time then in dispatching its armies to ruthlessly crush the nonviolent democracy movement—but now, as tens of thousands die, the junta’s response is slow and threatens to divert precious aid into the corrupt regime’s pockets. The monks are unlikely to receive aid from governments or large humanitarian organizations, but they have a stronger presence and trust among the Burmese people than both. If we all chip in a little bit, we can help them to make a big difference. Click here to donate: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/burma_cyclone/77.php With hope, Ricken, Ben, Graziela, Paul, Iain, Veronique, Pascal, Galit and the whole Avaaz team PS: Here are some links to more information: For more information about Avaaz’s work to support the Burmese people, click here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/burma_report_back/ For more information about the cyclone, the humanitarian crisis, and the political dimension, see these articles: New York Times: “A Challenge Getting Relief to Myanmar’s Remote Areas.” 7 May 2008. BBC: “Will Burma’s leaders let aid in?” 6 May 2008. India’s Economic Times: Indian meteorological department advised junta 48 hours in advance, 6 May 2008. BBC: “Disaster tests Burma’s junta.” 5 May 2008 Times Online: “Aid workers fear Burma cyclone deaths will top 50,000.” 6 May 2008. _________ ABOUT AVAAZ |
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, May 6, 2008:
Summary:
On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
We’ve known since our first studies of how users read on the Web that they typically don’t read very much. Scanning text is an extremely common behavior for higher-literacy users; our recent eyetracking studies further validate this finding.
The only thing we’ve been missing is a mathematical formula to quantify exactly how much (or how little) people read online. Now, thanks to new data, we have this as well.
For full details, see the following academic paper:
Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf, Eelco Herder, and Matthias Mayer: “Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Use,” in the ACM Transactions on the Web, vol. 2, no. 1 (February 2008), article #5.
In the study, the authors instrumented 25 users’ browsers and recorded extended information about everything they did as they went about their normal Web activities. What’s important about this study is that it was completely naturalistic: the users didn’t have to do anything special.
One downside of the study is that the users had above-average intelligence, with several being university employees. This might not be a problem in the long run, however. If, for example, we compare data we collected in 2008 for our Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability seminar with a similar study we ran in 2004, we find that 2008’s average behavior is close to that of 2004’s higher-end users. Thus, even though Weinreich et al.’s data represents high-end users, it’s likely to be fairly representative of broader user behavior in the future. In fact, the authors collected their data in 2005, so the recorded behaviors might already be fairly common.
In any case, the research yielded several interesting findings, and the full paper is well worth reading.
Among other things, the authors found that the Back button is now only the 3rd most-used feature on the Web. Clicking hypertext links remains the most-used feature, but clicking buttons (on the page) has now overtaken Back to become the second-most used feature. The reason for this change is the increased prevalence of applications and feature-rich Web pages that require users to click page buttons to access their functionality.
Of course, Back is still the user’s lifeline and is so frequently used that supporting it remains a strong usability guideline.
Harald Weinreich graciously provided me with the dataset detailing 59,573 page views.From this data, I removed the following records:
After cleaning the dataset, I was left with 45,237 page views for my analysis.I was able to fit very nice formulas to describe users’ reading behavior for pages containing between 30 and 1,250 words. For longer pages, reading became quite erratic. Pages with a huge word count are probably not “real” pages anyway — they’re more likely to be either academic papers or “terms & conditions” pages, which people don’t give the time of day. (In research for the book Prioritizing Web Usability, we found that people read only about 10% of the text that they supposedly “agreed” to.)
The following chart shows the average time users spend on pages with different word counts:
Obviously, users tend to spend more time on pages with more information. However, the best-fit formula tells us that they spend only 4.4 seconds more for each additional 100 words.
Usually, I assume a reading speed of 200 words per minute (WPM), but because the users in this study are highly literate, I’ll go with 250 WPM. At that reading speed, users can read 18 words in 4.4 seconds. Thus, when you add verbiage to a page, you can assume that customers will read 18% of it.
This wasn’t an eyetracking study, so we don’t know precisely how users allocated their time on the Web pages. The formula in the chart above indicates that there is a fixed time of about 25 seconds, plus an additional 4.4 seconds per 100 words. (Of course, the numbers are not “fixed” in the sense that they’re always the same — these are averages.)The formula seems to indicate that people spend some of their time understanding the page layout and navigation features, as well as looking at the images. Clearly, people don’t read during every single second of a page visit.
However, the total time spent on a page is definitely the upper limit of possible reading time. Thus, we can calculate the hypothetical maximum number of words users would be able to read, if they allocated their entire page-visit to reading.
The following chart shows the maximum amount of text users could read during an average visit to pages with different word counts:
This is a very rapidly declining curve. On an average visit, users read half the information only on those pages with 111 words or less.
In the full dataset, the average page view contained 593 words. So, on average, users will have time to read 28% of the words if they devote all of their time to reading. More realistically, users will read about 20% of the text on the average page.
As an example of word count on various pages, here’s the total for some popular Alertbox columns:
| Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill? | 902 |
| This column | 1,068 |
| Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings | 1,079 |
| Change the Color of Visited Links | 1,209 |
| Intranet Information Architecture (IA) | 1,961 |
| Top-10 Application-Design Mistakes | 3,572 |
Clearly, the average visitor won’t make it too far through most of my articles. But I’ve consciously targeted a small, elite readership with a firm commitment to usability. If you target a broader audience or have sales cycles that are shorter than 5 years, you’d be wise to put your word count on a strict diet.
Full-day seminar on Writing for the Web at the Usability Week 2008 conference in London (in 2 weeks), San Francisco (June), and Melbourne (July).
Morgan Stanley has made available their Internet Trends report for 2008. The 72 page report covers:
1) Usage Patterns
2) Social Networking
3) Widgetization
4) Measureability
5) Monetization
6) Facebook Apps
7) Online Ad Spend 
Online Video
9) Mobile Outlook
10) Emerging Trends
11) Recession Impact
This a great report on the trend of the internet as it stands right now.
URL: http://www.webguild.org/images/InternetTrends031808.pdf
This is a great resource!!!! Now go learn something new!!!!
http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/200-free-online-classes-to-learn-anything
Donna Kato sent me this link!
Most of these are articles I think are important from Fresh Air, my favorite NPR show.
I think all of these are valid and informative. If you want to talk politics or current events with me, then please listen to these programs.
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This article is about how deregulation in investment banking has damaged our economy.
Fresh Air from WHYY, April 3, 2008 · Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You’re not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets.
Greenberger is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the director of the University’s Center for Health and Homeland Security.
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Have you heard of the Amero? This movie will make you mad.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm
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InterviewsFees, Cheats and ‘Gotcha Capitalism’ 
Columnist Bob Sullivan covers Internet scams and consumer fraud for MSNBC.com, where he writes a column called The Red Tape Chronicles. His new book is about the hidden fees found in many phone, cable, credit card and other bills. —————————————-
David Cay Johnston on How the Rich Get Richer
Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston explores in his new book how in recent years, government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected.
Fresh Air from WHYY, October 10, 2007 · Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist Gretchen Morgenson talks about the subprime mortgage crisis and its effects on the markets and on the economy. Morgenson, an assistant business and financial editor for The New York Times, has covered the financial markets for The Times since 1998.
InterviewsOil and the ‘New International Energy Order’
With both the cost of and demand for oil rising, nations with large energy reserves are redrawing political and military alliances, and oil-rich countries like Russia and Venezuela are enjoying greater influence. Michael Klare, author of Rising Power, Shrinking Planet, calls it the “new international energy order.”
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InterviewsCandidates’ Prescriptions for Health Care Reform
Missed evidence, ignored clues, political considerations—investigative journalist Philip Shenon examines the shortcomings of the 9/11 Commission.
InterviewsJames Hansen and Mark Bowen on Censored Science
James Hansen, a leading NASA climate scientist, says the Bush administration has tried to silence his warnings about global warming. Writer and scientist Mark Bowen wrote a book on the affair: Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming.————————
Scientist Francis Collins makes a case for the existence of God in his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Collins, an evangelical Christian, headed the National Human Genome Research Project. ——————–
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Interviews‘Fresh Air’ Reflects: Actress Nancy Cartwright
Our weeklong retrospective of the year’s most entertaining interviews continues with Nancy Cartwright. You’ve probably heard her work, but you may not have known it was her. She’s the voice of Bart Simpson.
This is one of the best use of modern technology and natrue that I have seen in a while.
checkout this youtube video of the ABC3D book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnZr0wiG1Hg
http://scawley.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/uk-the-florescent-field-by-richard-box/
Richard Box, artist-in-residence at Bristol University’s physics department got the idea for this installation from a friend. Talking about how florescent bulbs light up beneath power lines that got Box thinking.
After ‘bribing’ a farmer £200 to use his field he used 1031 florescent tubes ‘planted’ across the site at the foot of an electricity pylon. Towards the evening they pick up the waste emission from the overhead power line causing them to light up as they would inside a normal fixture.
Link to Richard Box’s main website
See the quicktime panorama of the field from Richard Box’s main website
Howstuffworks article on florescent lightbulbs
Friday, April 18th
9:45 a.m. Pope Benedict XVI arrives at Kennedy Airport
10:00 a.m. Pope Benedict arrives at the Wall Street heliport and will travel by motorcade to the United Nations
10:45 a.m. Pope Benedict will address the United Nations
1:45 p.m. Pope Benedict will travel to the Vatican’s Permanent Observer residence on East 72nd Street
5:20 p.m. Pope Benedict visits Park East Synagogue on East 67th Street
6:00 p.m. Pope Benedict will have an Ecumenical Prayer Service at St. Joseph’s Parish, 404 East 87th Street
Saturday, April 19th
9:00 a.m. Pope Benedict arrives at St. Patrick’s Cathedral
9:15 a.m. Pope Benedict will say Mass for 3,000 deacons, priests and religious men and women from across the country
11:00 a.m. Pope Benedict will have lunch in Cardinal Egan’s residence
1:15 – 1:30 p.m. Pope Benedict will travel via the Pope Mobile up Fifth Avenue to the Vatican’s Permanent Observer residence
4:30 p.m. Pope Benedict arrives at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers for a meeting.
6:00 p.m. Pope Benedict will deliver an address at a rally at St. Joseph’s Seminary
Sunday, April 20th
9:30 Pope Benedict visits Ground Zero
2:30 – 5:00 p.m. Pope Benedict will say Mass at Yankee Stadium
8:00 p.m. Pope Benedict arrives at Kennedy Airport
8:30 p.m. Pope Benedict leaves for Rome, Italy
Street Closures
Friday, April 18th
United Nations: You can expect the same closures that are put into affect for the General Assembly from early that morning to after the Pope leaves.
Vatican’s Permanent Observer Residence: The area surrounding this location (East 72nd Street, Fifth – Madison Avenues) will be have no parking and most likely no vehicular traffic for the duration of the Pope’s visit. Also only people living on or having business on East 72nd Street will be permitted during his stay.
Park East Synagogue: This is located on East 67th Street between Lexington and Third Avenue and will have similar restrictions as all other areas the Pope visits.
Saturday, April 19th
St. Patrick’s Cathedral: There is a large area that will have NO Parking beginning at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, April 18th and continue until approximately 2:00 or 2:30 p.m.
Vehicular Parking Fifth Avenue: 42nd Street – 72nd Street 47th – 53rd Streets: Avenue of the Americas – Park Avenue 53rd – 59th Streets: Avenue of the Americas – Madison Avenue 50th & 51st Street: These streets will be closed to all motor vehicle traffic from 6:00 a.m.
Pedestrian Crossings:
47th Street: Avenue of the Americas and Madison Avenue
53rd Street: Avenue of the Americas and Madison Avenue
55th Street: Avenue of the Americas and Madison Avenue
57th Street: Avenue of the Americas and Madison Avenue
59th Street: Avenue of the Americas and Madison Avenue
50th & 51st Streets: Any person that desires to be a spectator will have to pass through a Secret Service inspection and a Magnetometer or scanning search. NO BAGS OR BACKPACKS WILL BE PERMITTED ALONG THE ROUTE.
Sunday, April 20th
Ground Zero: The immediate area surrounding the World Trade Center site that should cover an area from Rector Street north to Murray Street and Broadway west to West Street.
Yankee Stadium: The immediate street surrounding Yankee Stadium.
Please be advised that this plan is approximate with times and some street closures changing by the time of the event taking place.
