Massachusetts Unemployment Insurance Benefits

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Weekly Benefit Amount (WBA) Calculator

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Note: The current maximum benefit rate is $512 a week.

harvard.edu: Layoffs / Position Elimination

Here it comes...

From: The Boston Globe
Author: ALEX BEAM
Date: January 29, 2004
Page: C1
Section: Living

Fair Harvard

Only a churl would juxtapose Monday's report in the Harvard Crimson that Harvard is eliminating 18 librarians' jobs with the Globe story earlier this month about the $107 million payout to six investment managers at the Harvard Management Co. According to the Crimson, Harvard's library system has to cut $2.3 million in fiscal year 2005, scaling back on both hours and jobs. Better the money runners should buy a second Jaguar than layabout librarians collect their pathetic pittance, I say! This is one university that has its priorities straight.

An alert reader spotted this related job posting at the World's Greatest University: "Case manager . . . Support laid-off employees in Central Administration with internal and external job search . . . [Don't try the libraries! - A. B.] This is a term appointment through August 31, 2004. Position is 60% time initially, hours may expand depending upon need for services." Emphasis added by resident churl.

I'm Partying RIGHT NOW!

I'm at my friends' Alex and Sean's house celebrating Alex's Birthday.

Can dogs see TV?

Haven't you always wondered?

Subject: Can dogs 'see' what's on tv like people can see?
Date: Fri Feb 20 13:01:46 1998
Posted by Peggy Borchers
Grade level: teacher/prof
School: Brazoswood High School
City: Clute State/Province: Texas
Country: USA
Area of science: Neuroscience
ID: 888001306.Ns
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message:

I have read that dogs cannot really "see" television or their image in the mirror. We know they can hear the tv and can react to sounds on it. I read that dogs don't have the depth perception in their vision to see the screen as we see it or the mirror image as we see it. Have any studies been done on this?

***

Date: Wed Feb 25 08:24:55 1998
Posted By: Rick Huneke, D.V.M./M.P.H. Faculty, Division of Comparative Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine
Area of science: Neuroscience
ID: 888001306.Ns
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message:


Dear Peggy:

Vision is a complicated process, and some of these processes are different in the way dogs see compared to the way people see. Since television was developed for people and not for dogs, aspects of dog vision were not considered.

One aspect of vision is sensitivity to flickering light. If a light is flickered fast enough, it appears as constantly illuminated light. Flickering light appears to fuse at approximately 50 Hz in people, while dogs can detect a much quicker flicker (up to 80 Hz). Because of this heightened sensitivity to flicker, a television program, in which the screen is updated 60 times per second and appears as a fluidly moving story to most humans, may appear to rapidly flicker to dogs.

Dogs also have depth perception, as anyone who has seen a dog jump a fence or catch a frisbee can attest to. However their field of depth perception is limited compared to humans. It takes two eyes looking at the same object (binocular vision) to have depth perception. Because both eyes face forward in man, we have a field of binocular overlap of about 140 degrees. In dogs, where the eyes face to the sides, the extent of binocular overlap is in the range of 30 to 60 degrees, thus their field of depth perception is only in front of them.

I don't know if dogs can see themselves in the mirror, but knowing dogs, I'm sure they wouldn't care what they looked like anyway!!

Reference: Miller, PE and Murphy,CJ, Vision in Dogs. Journal of the
American Veterinary Association. December 1995. 207 (12): 1623-1634.

origin: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/feb98/888431783.Ns.r.html

Not suicide?

Elliott Smith death not a suicide? The article also says he had no controlled substances in his system besides anti-depressants. And there were TWO stab wounds. Weird.

Fever dreams

I haven't updated this for a while and what better time to write than when I'm running a fever sick with the flu? I had to cancel our gig tonight and I'm pretty bummed. But it would have been worse to try to sing and play when I feel like falling over. I slept so much today that I'm wide awake right now even though I feel like crap.

The holidays are over and all I can say is Thank God. It's always a weird thing, probably for everyone. We're supposed to be all cheery and full of holiday spirit but really everybody just wants to punch someone. Driving like assholes and elbowing to the front of long lines, freaked out about spending money they can't afford to spend on STUFF. Can't have enough STUFF, now, can we?



They found Saddam just in time for Christmas, which is supposed to make us forget they DIDN'T find Osama,which is what started this mess in the first place.