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Keynote
Address: Sex, Lies, and Science Television Lynne Friedmann: Just a few moments for an unscripted portion of the program. We've had the privilege of participating - and I'll say in modesty, since I'm a committee member, a pretty amazing conference. And there have been a number of people who have made this all possible and have done things in front of the scenes and behind the scenes that you have no idea, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Gail Porter for all of the help. If you'll please come forward. And a big round of applause, on behalf of the R2 committee and all the participants at the conference. Porter: Thank you very much. Borchelt: There was a point in time when Gail was my boss, and my surrogate mother figure when I was at the National Academy of Sciences, and she pretty much kept me as honest as it is possible to keep me, having learned all the lessons from the mortuary that I talked about earlier today. And, now you see why she's, you know, she's able to keep these kinds of programs going on and has energy that I don't understand. With teenage twins and another teenager at home, and still she's able to manage a conference like this. I just don't understand it. Perhaps that would be the subject of an upcoming Nova special, and we can - with that as a segue, we can talk with our final keynote speaker of the conference, and one I've been particularly anxious to hear. Paula Apsell is the Executive Producer of Nova, and is - I hope there is not a person in this audience who doesn't know what Nova is. It's possible, but I highly - I just really don't think so. Nova, as many of us have come to refer to it, is the grand old dame of science television, and it occurred to us as we were looking for keynote speakers, that this might be the perfect opportunity to take a look at how an organization like WGBH and an organization like the Nova production folks have been able to take a very successful, long-term television program and morph it into something that continues to retain an audience over time. And I think that would be something than many of us - you know, I didn't casually refer to you as dinosaurs this morning -- but I did have a sense that people were concerned that, well, if I'm not - there are some things that we don't want to throw out with the bathwater, and absolutely that is, in fact, the case. And I think that Paula will be able to take with us about, "How do you take what was, originally, a very innovative television product, became over time - spawned a host of competitors in a very competitive marketplace of science journalism, science television journalism - and how they've managed to keep up with those kind of changes in a changing intellectual and technological marketplace. She's head of the science unit at WGBH, as well, and she's been the Executive Producer of several very large Imax features, one's upcoming, and it's Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, coming soon the D.C. Those of you who are D.C. based, please come and see it, bring paying customers, you know, GBH has to go, and we like to keep Paula well supplied with chances to come down and visit with conferences like this. Paula, can we have you come to the podium? Apsell: Thank you very much. As the saying goes, "No one has ever lost money underestimating the taste of the American public." That works in spades for the television industry, where networks, cable channels, and local broadcasters are racing down market at velocities literally approaching the speed of light. And science isn't exempt from this ratings race. It's even generated its own genre - weather porn. [laughter] Not to mention, monsters of the deep, alien abductions, angels, ghosts, all of which pass for science in the feeding frenzy that characterizes the television industry today. Beginning next January, Nova will enter its 30th season, and 30 years is an eternity in television. My daughter would be pleased to know that General Hospital still has a safe lead. It went on 40 years ago. But Nova had outlasted Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, M.A.S.H., Hill Street Blues, and CBS Reports. Not that we haven't had our crises. In fact, with the intense competition for eyeballs in the television industry, it feels as if every moment is a crisis. It makes me nostalgic for the old days in the early '70s, when Michael Ambrosino started Nova amidst almost universal skepticism that any red-blooded American would watch a science show on television. Science was for school. But Michael brought a new approach. He believed that science is a story, and if told with visual flare and strong characters, people would watch. And watch they did. Nova was a success right out of the box. But nothing stays simple. With the advent of cable, the broadcast environment has totally changed since the beginning of Nova. Instead of 4 networks, there are 40 and more. With the spectrum as crowded as it is, like everyone else, we're challenged to get our message out. Now, speaking to a group of science writers, it seems appropriate to quantify the ups and downs of Nova. From the beginning, in 1974, the sky was the limit, until the late 80s, when cable really started to cut into our audiences. In 1987, we began to fight back, reinventing ourselves, producing programs with higher production values, better storytelling, and more innovative formats. To better understand our audience, we did a little study to assess how different subject areas rated with our viewers. We learned, not surprisingly, that topic counts a lot. Viewers clearly preferred certain categories that we referred to by code names, such as "boys and their toys, that's jet fighters, lost airplanes, and random military hardware. "Old bones, " dinosaurs and human origins, and a category we referred to as "TRSH," for "transparent ratings seeking hype,"[laughter] shipwrecks, pirate gold, the Bermuda triangle, et cetera. By changing our program mix even slightly, we were able to improve our ratings and put Nova back into the game. I think we can do away with this little chart that you know is a chart, because is says "chart." But, a decade later, with our competitors going after the same topics and the same eyeballs, our fix stopped working. Ironically, the niche that opened up is one that we should be occupying anyway: science: the real thing: Genomics, cosmology, and string theory. The name of the game now is tinker with style, but not with substance. Maintain the mission, which remains as valid and necessary today as it was at the beginning. As all of you know, the level of science literacy in the United States remains distressingly low, and no less an expert that Jay Leno decided to investigate. Leno: "You know,
a recent survey by the National Science Foundation found that the average
American, when tested on their knowledge of basic science, answered correctly
only 55 percent of the time. We here at the Tonight Show felt that
was way too high. We talk to people every day. Not half, America, it's
a lot less than that. So we took our cameras. We went down to city walk
at University - just picked people out of the crowd, asked them simple,
basic questions. What controls the tides, folks? That seems easy, doesn't
it? What is a homo sapien? It's a person. All right, these seem easy questions,
doesn't it?" "Rachel, where
you from?" "How long does
it take the earth to go around the sun?" "How long does
it take the earth to go around the sun?" "How many cells
does a single-cell creature have?" "How many cells
does a single-cell creature have? Think about it." "What causes
the tides?" "What causes
the tides?" "What causes
the tides?" "What causes
low-tide?" Apsell: Jay's survey may draw laughs, but the reality of the situation is hardly funny. The earth goes around the sun once a year. It's hard to think of a more basic scientific fact, yet one out of every two Americans doesn't know it. In Canada, half of all incoming college freshman believe in astrology and can't say how it differs from astronomy. An NSF survey tells us that most Americans learn about science from television. Now, I don't know if that's the problem or the solution, but it does make our unique public television mission all the more important. For in commercial television, the bottom line is almost always the bottom line. If boosting ratings means stooping to sensationalism and pseudo-science, so be it. The main question for Nova is how to retain our dedication to cutting-edge scientific ideas. The ones that change the way we see ourselves and the world around us, and at the same time, be entertaining. People watch television voluntarily. We'd like to tie them to their chairs Tuesday at 8:00, but we can't. We have to entice them with good stories that they can understand without an advanced degree. Striking the right balance between education and entertainment is the essence of what we do. Occasionally, what we do is so entertaining that Hollywood can't resist copying us. In 1999, the special effects blockbuster, Twister, told the story of a young scientist struggling to uncover the mystery of tornadoes. Michael Crichton, the screen writer, was sued by another writer who claimed that the Twister script was based on his idea. Crichton countered that the idea actually came from Nova's episode, Tornado. Take a look at a section of the Hollywood film and the Nova, and see if you can tell which is which. I'll give you a hint: the blonde belongs to the Hollywood version: [laughter] [video clip] Deploy time is 19:02. A little farther Steve a little farther. We're moving to intercept guys. Get ready to set up. You've got it. Hurry. Let's go. Come on. Ok, that's good. Let's go. Let's go. Contact! Apsell: I mentioned
a few minutes ago that one of the few shows to have survived longer than
Nova is General Hospital. That's no coincidence. Science
has more in common with soap opera than meets the eye. Although we don't
always succeed, we're after dramatic storytelling, not exposition. Fortunately,
science lends itself to that approach because science is a process. Our
programs are less about the moment of discovery than the blood, sweat,
and tears that so often precede it. We try to humanize science by revealing
the passion and the people behind it. Most great films have a simple three-part
story structure: conflict, climax, and resolution. The question is whether
this structure can be applied to science documentaries without dumbing
them down, I think the answer is 'yes.' [video clip] Dozens of suction
cups grasp the object. A colossal mirror, 23 feet across. A crane lifts
it 100 feet into the air and lowers it into its new home. An enormous
telescope. It is destined to play a key role in a dramatic new quest:
to hunt down evidence of a mysterious force lurking in outer space. Already,
the discovery of this force is shaking the very foundations of scientific
thinking. 'These results have enormous implications, and if they're correct,
it really will revolutionize our understanding of what the universe is
like, and how it came to be.' This strange force was predicted by Albert
Einstein, who later discarded the idea. Now, his bizarre theory is suddenly
back in fashion, as scientists rethink their vision of our universe and
its ultimate fate. 'In the distant future, there'll be nothing in the
universe left to see, it'll just be us. And that seems to me to be the
coldest, most horrible end. This universe is weird. It's creepy.' Apsell: By the way, it's always great to include Einstein in any program. [laughter] He has the highest TV cue of any scientist. But the first principle, as the historian David McCullough always puts it, is "Get your hero in trouble, and keep him there." In Runaway Universe, the heroes are a group of astronomers led by Brian Schmidt and Alex Filippenco, who are on the horns of a dilemma. With telescopes in Chile and Hawaii, they're trying to find some elusive exploding stars called type 1-A supernovae. Like mileage markers in the universe, these stars will help them measure how fast the universe is expanding. But these guys have all kinds of troubles. They're tired and scruffy. The weather is bad. The stars they find don't quite fit the bill. And they have stiff competition from another cosmologist, Saul Pearlmutter, who developed many of the techniques that they're using. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be rooting for these appealing stud muffins of science. But as they learn, be careful what you wish for, because you may get it. When Brian and his colleagues finally do get some data, they are appalled. The findings are not what they expected. They're the kind of findings that can make careers, but can end them, too. Let's see why: [video clip] The data showed that the distant supernovae were dimmer, and therefore much farther away than the team expected. Instead of slowing down, the expansion of the universe has been speeding up. With galaxies moving apart at greater and greater velocities." 'I was actually scared that I had made an error, and, you know, one-by-one we started checking off sort of a long list of possible errors, and none of them seemed to be the case. Finally, we had come to grips with this unusual result. I no longer looked at it as a likely mistake, but rather as something very bizarre that nature was trying to tell us.' The bizarre message was that the universe is accelerating. For the team's leader, Brian Schmidt, the results were especially difficult to swallow. 'It was not something that I particularly wanted to be in my data. So I was horrified, because I knew that it was going to be very difficult to sell this to my colleagues, because my colleagues are the ones who have educated me, and they're just as sickened by this thing as I am.' The discovery seemed to contradict everything we thought we know about gravity and its impact on galaxies and stars." 'If our discovery is correct, it suggests that the universe is beginning to accelerate in its expansion, to go faster and faster. Now this is really reminiscent of what we think the universe went through in it's first tiny fraction of a second of existence. You know, the universe was created somehow, and then it went "whoosh," really fast, something pushed it out. And then that something stopped, and the universe kept on coasting. So, we think now it's beginning to go "whoosh" again, maybe not quite so quickly, but a "whoosh," nonetheless.' What could possibly be causing the "whoosh?" Something must be countering gravity, pushing all the galaxies apart. Some mysterious repulsive force, unlike anything we've encountered on Earth. The thought of such a form of energy is strange, but it's not new. It sounds like Einstein's old idea, the cosmological constant, which he had so famously called his greatest blunder. Now, it seems, Einstein may have been right, after all. 'If Einstein heard these results today, he would say, "Yahoo!" It would be such a thrill for him, I think, to see that his original prediction that such weird stuff might exist in the universe turned out to might actually be true.' Apsell: A camera was there as the scientists grappled with their dilemma. Before out eyes, science becomes human drama. Science becomes a story. And story and character are absolutely essential for a good Nova. But, there's another ingredient: good visuals. We shot Runaway Universe on high-definition video, which has six times the information of a normal video frame. We got an NSF grant to help us find this program, and this enabled the Nation Center for Supercomputing Applications to develop some fantastic animation, both for our show, and for the Hayden Planetarium. The most extraordinary piece they did with us was a four-minute voyage from inside out galaxy to the heart of the Virgo Super cluster, an immense conglomeration of galaxies centered 50 million light years away. Unlike nearly all prior broadcasts, this animation was not simply based on artistic license, but it was a 3-D model developed from actual astronomical data, both optical and infrared. Objects like nebulae and galaxies were based on 2-D astro-photographs, which were then interpolated in 3-D so that we could fly through them. The simulation required about 10,000 hours of computer time. Let's take a look: [video clip] Beyond our galaxy, the mystery only deepens. Gravity ties our galaxy to a group of 30 others within a distance of 3 million light years -- our cosmic neighborhood. This local group is bound to a still larger region. It is 50 million light years away. The 10,000 galaxies that make up the Virgo Supercluster. These galaxies move so fast, that some unseen presence must be holding them in. Scientists call it "dark matter," a strange form of matter that exerts gravity, but does not emit or reflect light. Little else is known about dark matter, except there's a lot of it. In the regions of space we can see, there seems to be 10 times more dark matter than ordinary matter, and now there's another mysterious ingredient in the universe: "dark energy."' Apsell: Now, even animation like this won't work if it's just eye candy. It has to play a genuine role in the unfolding of the story. And in this case, it did, giving a scientific context for the Schmidt- Pearlmutter findings, and introducing the audience to the idea that some mysterious force, call it "dark energy, vacuum energy, or quintessence," whatever you want to call it, is causing the entire universe to not just expand, but to accelerate. It's a truly profound discovery. Our heroes are finally out of trouble, as their colleagues embrace their work and struggle to fit their findings into a picture of the universe that is becoming stranger with every passing day. Science producers have benefited enormously from visualization techniques developed by scientists who need to see things to understand them just as we do. Photographic advances that were unthinkable when Nova first went on the air, now allow us to obtain extraordinary microscopic visuals. None more compelling than those photographed by the well-known Swedish cinematographer, Lennart Nilsson. Almost 20 years ago, we worked with Lennart on Miracle of Life, a film about human reproduction that became the most-watched Nova ever. A generation of Americans learned about the birds and the bees from it. But a few years ago, we decided to work with Lennart again to make a new program, Life's Greatest Miracle, using improved photographic techniques, and describing new science about the role of genes in human development: [video clip] Of the many advances that have taken place in television production since I've been with Nova, none is more astounding than the role of CGI, or Computer Generated Imagery. Techniques like those used in feature films, such as Jurassic Park, are coming down in price to the point where they're affordable for high-end television production. Discovery Communications and the BBC have taken advantage of that to produce shows like Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Beasts that create for the viewer entirely believable prehistoric worlds. I've heard that Walking With Cavemen is in the offing. These innovative shows entertain viewers with graphics that are light years away from the old Encyclopedia Britannica approach. The problem with such intensely real computer imagery is how easy it is to believe that the world it creates is real, instead of hypothetical. If we don't go back to ask, how do we know? The essence of the scientific process is lost. Now, we don't have this problem, because for the most part, we can't afford these techniques, and don't think that doesn't make us mad. But with support from the NFS, Sloan, and the Department of Energy, we'll be using CGI in an upcoming mini-series to explain one of the most abstract and strangest of all the ideas in science. In a three-part series, physicist Brian Greene, author of the best-selling book The Elegant Universe, will show how the quest to unite general relativity - there's Einstein again - and quantum mechanics has given rise to string theory, which some physicists consider the last best hope of finding a unified theory of everything. What I'm going to show you now is a work in progress; two scenes from the first of the three-hour mini-series to be broadcast next January. You'll see material we filmed in the studio with a green screen, and then you'll see how our animators replace the green screen with a CGI background and what's called a "composite image." When it's finished, the first scene will be used to explain how electromagnetism is the unification of magnetism and electricity. And the second scene demonstrates how this force is actually much more powerful than gravity. Inter-cut is a behind-the-scenes glimpse of life in the studio and some of the hardships that we forced Brian to endure for the sake of public understanding of science. You'll also see why we ask ourselves, "Why go on location anymore?" [video clip] Apsell: Now, lest you think we can't do without these fancy, new fangled graphics, I'd like to show you how sometimes, the most rudimentary approach does the trick, as in "keep it simple, stupid." Last year, we decided to make a two-hour program on the human genome project, which turned out to be an enormous challenge. We brought in a correspondent, ABC's Robert Krulwich, who is, in my opinion, one of commercial television's outstanding talents and one who is genuinely interested in science. But we were more than a little nervous when Robert walked in to interview Eric Lander, with just about the cheesiest prop I've ever seen in my life, but it worked. Let's take a look: [video clip] 'Now, how small is this? In a real DNA molecule, the distance between the two walls is how wide?' 'Oh, golly. Look at this. He's asking for help.' 'This distance is
about from - this distance is about 10 angstroms, which is…' 'Okay.' Apsell: So,
what does the future hold? I'm tremendously excited about the prospects
for science programming, especially on PBS. Paradoxically, all the competition
has opened up a niche for Nova to be what it really is: a unique
vehicle to tell real stories about real science. While our competitors
are tripping over each other for the best tsunami, the biggest shark,
the most horrifying unsolved mystery, we're in a league of our own with
string theory. Striking just the right balance between education and entertainment
will always be a challenge, but I hope that Nova will continue
to find drama in the stories that reveal the quirky brilliance and grating
persistence that so often pave the way for scientific progress. I'd be happy to take any questions. Thank you. Borchelt: Thank you very much. I believe we have a working microphone again. First question's over on the other side. Question: Thanks. Nova is the best science program on TV, I'll start with that. Apsell: Thank you. Question: But I wonder how many of you viewers noticed that "cytosine" was spelled wrong. Have you ever done a program on nonsensical science. On what people perceive is science but isn't really. Like ridiculous medical machines that are sold to the public with the belief that they work. I mean, pseudo-science, but not pseudo-science that one can easily poke fun at, you know, such as astrology, but pseudoscience that has become so engrained in public life that people assume that is isn't really pseudoscience, that is really works. Apsell: No, I actually - we've done a lot of debunking programs about Bermuda Triangle, Alien Abduction, that kind of this, but I don't think we've ever done a program - I did see one, actually, on 20/20, which I thought was great. And I remember, it did an analysis of scientific evidence against salt, and I happen to be a huge salt lover and love - to me, the perfect food is potato chips, and, you know, my father is always screaming at me not to use salt, and I, because this program looked at and really came to the conclusion - I have no idea whether this analysis was true or not, that the evidence against salt was pretty shaky. So, that was a great - they called it "junk science," but no, we haven't done - you mean "junk science," right? Question: Yeah, junk science, yeah. Apsell: I think it's a good idea. Question: When you do the debunking thing, like the Bermuda Triangle and that, how do those rate in comparison to others? Apsell: Great. They're great. They really are. And, you know, our great fear in those programs is that it will be very transparent that yes, we're doing the debunking, that's the Nova part of it, that we're really doing the subject. And the most recent one we did was - was one on alien abduction. And, you know, true, that's why we call it TRSH, Transparent Ratings Seeking Hype, because even if you debunk it, you know, it still attracts a lot of eyeballs. So, it's always, you know, I think we should do some of them, and I think Nova has to really be out there drawing a line in the sand between science and pseudoscience. I think that's really important, but I think if we did it too much we could be accused of, kind of, exploiting it. So, I'm a little bit careful about it. Question: Paula, here's what we really want to know. Do you have enough material for your next season or two, or are you looking for ideas that we might be able to provide to you? [laughter] And if so, how do we go about it? Apsell: You know, the answer is both. We do have lots of material. We are never short of ideas, even though, you know, not every idea makes a good Nova. The ideas have to have good stories, good characters, and the potential for good visuals. So, there are lots of good ideas out there, but there aren't lots of good Novas. However, we're always interested and receptive, and we like to get ideas, and a lot of our ideas come from scientists, some of them come from viewers, a lot of them come from outside producers, many of them come from our colleagues in the science writing community, so we're always grateful. And here's how you do it. I'll give you two e-mail addresses. Okay. One - many of you might know Evan Hadingham, who's our science editor, so you can send him e-mail at evan_hadingham@wgbh.org. If you want it to come to me, undiluted, without Evan's screening, and he's a pretty tough screener, you can send it to me at psa@wgbh.org, and I'm very happy to get e-mails with ideas. My favorite thing in this business is to think about ideas and think about whether they would make good Novas. That's why I get up in the morning, so. Question: I had, kind of, two questions. One: How many of your programs are underwritten directly by, you know, federal funding by NSF or those sorts of agencies? And then secondly, I mean you do fantastic - especially working with scientific visualization, obviously, the accelerating universe is a great example of that. The visualization products, are those those to be made available for - you know, to be reused in other publicly - public education arenas? Apsell: Yeah, okay. The first question was - oh, okay. PBS, about 60% of our money comes from PBS, and the rest comes from three corporate underwriters that we have, and Sprint, Northwest Mutual, and the Park Foundation, may they always like Nova and be healthy and, you know, just go on for 120 years. But we actually can't make a go of the season with that - that's our steady funding, because some of the programs we make are just too expensive. So, for example, like Runaway Universe, there was an application made to the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation did fund a season of Nova many, many, many years ago they were a contributor to it. We are not regularly funded by the NSF, but they will come in and they will help us with certain programs. For example, the program The Elegant Universe, we also - the Department of Energy and the Sloan Foundation, so, we actually have - and George Smith Foundation - I mean, we have a number of foundations that we go to for a specific reason. And we just could not make the season of Nova on our baseline funding. Now just quickly suggest what your second question - Oh yes Question: I just wondered whether or not visualizations are available. Apsell: Our programs are available for $19.95, and many of them, or some of them come in DVD. It's been an enduring frustration - so, and you can use them for educational purposes. We're often asked my museums if they can use a clip, and if the request comes to me, I always say yes, because I firmly believe that we're publicly funded, and that our programs should be used as much as possible. Our teacher's guides go to 95,000 classrooms, and many of those teachers, or some of those teachers are able to buy occasional Nova programs. I am extremely frustrated that there not a simpler mechanism for us to make available to classrooms all of our materials. Teachers have a very hard time using a 52-minute program, and what they really need is clips or they need videotapes with a wand or they need DVD's, or they just need a section of clips, for example, on earth sciences, something like that. And it does seem to me that there ought to be a way to support this, but I honestly have tried, and every few years I get crazy about it, and we make an application to some agency or another, and it never seems to work, because the requirements and the rules and regulations are such that it always wanted something that aught to be really cheap, turns out to cost $5 million. So, don't ask. It's really a source of frustration. Question: I'm just curious what the lowest-rated Nova of all time is. Apsell: Oh, god. You know, the problem is that - I should be prepared for this question - is that it's never what you expect. Wonderful programs often get very low ratings, and programs that are, you just think are really horrible, get really high ratings. We bought a program from NHK last year, and we kind of had to do it as a little bit of a quid-pro-quo, and it didn't really have anything to do with science. It was kind of called a Garden of Eden, and I was so pissed off about it that I actually never watched the program before it went on the air. I just said, "Okay. Fine." We have a slot that we reserve for really, really weirdoes, and that's, we call it the "Christmas Show." [laughter] We put it on. We figure nobody's going to be watching, so we put it on as close the Christmas as we can. And I actually was - I go skiing at Christmas - and I was working out on the treadmill, and all of the sudden this program goes on the overhead television, and it's like, I watched this and I thought, "Oh, we did this?" But it really did very well, so, and you know, my staff, they never for one second let me forgot how bad a predictor I am of how they're going to do. So, fortunately in PBS, it is true. We do worry about ratings in that sense that you devote hours and hours, and your kind of psychic and emotional energy to something, and you want people to watch it, and also I think even PBS shows have to have a certain number of eyeballs, or else you can start asking yourself why are you really doing this and spending so much money. But we can afford to put on programs that we know are really going to do poorly, in terms of viewership. And of course, even if a program get - I mean, we never get under 2 - 2 ½ rating points, and even if we - that's still 2 million people for one viewing, and usually our programs are on six or eight times during the week, so a cumulative is never going to be less than 5 million viewers. And I think you can ask yourself - in broadcast television terms, that's horrible, but in terms of reaching 5 million viewers, I actually think that's pretty awesome. Borchelt: Final question. Question: What are the demographics of your audience? Apsell: Well, we skew older male. So, that's males above 45, relatively well-educated, relatively affluent. However, we still - that's 60 percent male audience, 40 percent females, and we're represented in every demographic group, every age group, every socioeconomic group, every race. So, we have viewers pretty much everywhere. So we do skew toward a certain direction, but we do have plenty of viewers who do not fall into that category. Borchelt: Until
you got to the affluent, that was Earl. We were very excited. What follows now is another session at the poster sessions. We'll reconvene here at 4:30 for anyone who would like to make concluding remarks in an open-mic session. Happy to hear any comments you might have. Created:
7/14/02
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