Cracking toast, Gromit! Steve linked to a set of info from BBC News on the new Wallace & Gromit shorts. Here’s the press release with AtomFilms. The first episode is available for free. The package of ten episodes plus a “making of” video will be released on October 22nd for a one-time fee of $9.95, exclusively in the Windows Media video format. Don’t despair Mac folks, despite what you may think, there is actually a Windows Media player for MacOS (Solaris too!).

The Washington Post offers a look into the economics of college financial aid. According to this article, top tier colleges who attract the top students only offer discounts to those who can not afford the sizeable tuition. The schools below the top tier used to behave similarly, but over the last 15 years have caught onto the ideas taught in their Econ 101 courses. Instead of using financial aid merely in a charitable capicity, colleges are employing it as a tool for attracting better students to their schools. Desirable applicants get preferred packages with more grants than loans, and marginal applicants may be accepted if they agree to pay full price. The resulting offers make it difficult for parents and students to determine what the best value is for their situation. Is the school with the bigger reputation that is offering not much aid worth it over the not so bad school that’s offering a hefty discount? Schools may employ help from “student enrollment management” experts to package their deals. I suspect parents are calling financial advisers for help on their side. (bonus links: Harvard’s financial aid information; many top schools continue with “need-blind” admissions, despite the financial hurdles; Brown, the only Ivy without need-blind admissions has plans to change)

How can you pass up a headline like: “Spacewoman Stuck in Orbit with Too Much Shrimp“? Peggy Whitson, an American astronaut on the space station planned to have 40 shrimp meals during her stay (she’s just had her 130th day in orbit), but found that she didn’t care for shrimp in space as much as she did back on the ground. Her Russian cosmonaut friends are happily helping her out with this dilemma. In related news, Pamela Melroy and the rest of the space shuttle crew, were awakened Friday by a song recognizeable by many a Wellesley alum (of which Melroy is one): “Oh Thou Tupelo,” performed by the Wellesley College Choir. Ahhh.

A couple years ago I read about Anna Morris who works as a hotel concierge at the Westin Santa Clara. I’m not sure why I did not link to her story then, but I ran across it again today and I’m not letting it go this time. Anna Morris provides the usual concierge services, making restaurant reservations, getting theater tickets, recommending sights. But she does this all from the convenience of her own home, 75 miles away in Antioch. The Westin did not want to lose her abilities when she went on maternity leave so they agreed to a plan she concocted to do her job via video conferencing technology. She works a split shift, which allows her to be available during the two chunks of time her services are most needed. When she steps away, she displays a PowerPoint slide on the flat plasma monitor. And she likes to wear slippers while she works.

With a clientele of “a number of three-letter agencies,” Virage is poised to capitalize on their video indexing and searching technology. They wouldn’t mind if their products were also popularized in the public sector. Imagine being able to search television programming for keywords, or videotaped conference proceedings for relevant topics. I would be surprised if Google soon added a “TV/Radio” tab. At the very least it would be great to have automatically generated transcripts of specific programs that could then be keyword searched like any text document. Imagine having all the information broadcast on NPR shows also available for searching.

There is a purveyor of psychic readings not far from our house, and we noticed that there has been no shortage of cars in the parking lot recently. When the economy goes down, business goes up for psychics. San Francisco area psychics are getting more requests to reveal their customers’ futures in business instead of love. A spokesman for The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal says “People turn to irrational beliefs in times of uncertainty — when pressure is on financially for people they’re attracted to paranormal and irrational beliefs.” It would seem that survival in bad times would benefit more from rational behavior, but perhaps anything that may spur creative energies is helpful when you’ve had little luck.

How did I miss this news? The U.S. Treasury is planning to add “subtle background colors” to our currency, starting with the $20 bill in fall 2003. The news was announced on June 20th and I found a news article as old as March 13 about it. I am so amazed by this enhancement. We’ve been the boring green money country for so long as other nations moved onto rainbow bills with lovely printing and designs. Well, we have the counterfeiters to thank for this change, but I’m not going to complain, although I think it will still be a while before we get truly beautiful paper money. People will want to stick with the traditional look and history is not going to change who our prominent dead leaders are. (via Now This)

In this really nifty educational site about the Origins of Writing, there’s an essay on the evolution of the Cinderella story. You are probably aware of variations on the Cinderella story from various sources, fairy tale books, Disney, opera, it was also used in the Broadway musical “Into the Woods”. One study examined the passing of the story between geographical areas by comparing the different versions in various cultures. The researcher concluded that folktales did not necessary travel between areas through merchants and travelers, but “through a very slow and systematic diffusion from culture to culture.” The story we know as Cinderella was adapted to each culture, to teach morals and values, some of which were the same from place to place, some of which were a little different. And as the tale became a written one, we lost the cultural shifts from oral storytelling. But there are still variations on the theme. And now we can record them all with a variety of media. (via xBlog)

Note: if you are looking for a huge, mind-boggling variety of Cinderella stories, take a look at Shen’s Books (run by my friend Renee). Shen’s specializes in multicultural children’s books and they have Cinderellas from every culture and lifestyle you can imagine (even a penguin!).

The design for Alabama’s state quarter has been unveiled and it’s one for the record and trivia books. Not only does feature a woman (PA and NY have female statues but not of real women) but it is the first U.S. coin to have a Braille inscription. That may give you a clue as to which woman has the honor of representing Alabama: Helen Keller. The theme for the design competition, open to Alabama schools, was “Education:
Link to the Past, Gateway to the Future.” “A number” of the 450 designs included Keller, who fits the quarter’s actual theme “Spirit of Courage.”

It has been five years since the “gray lady” started dressing up in colored inks, and Carl Schlesinger, retired print-room operator, wants to celebrate the occasion, reports the New York Observer. So on October 16th a five-piece band will stand outside the New York Times’ building and play “The New York Times Color March”, words and music by Schlesinger (with a little help from an old advertising jingle and a big tip of the hat to John Philip Sousa). The Times has no official connection to this event, but Schlesinger is keeping the paper informed of his activities. He hopes to have the song performed all over the country eventually. This newspaper march isn’t unprecedented. Sousa was commissioned to write “The Washington Post March” to promote an essay contest sponsored by the paper in 1889. (via MediaNews)