VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

The Most Direct Link to Knowledge Workers in the Southeast Forest Economy

All Friday Reports are posted at www.vardaman.com/friday.php

Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company

FRIDAY REPORT OF 10/07/05

The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy

“PAY PER SALE
The holy grail of advertising is within reach”

Our title and quotes below are from The Economist print edition of 09/29/05:

“…The basic idea behind pay-per-click is that advertisers bid in an online auction for the right to have their link displayed next to the results for specific search terms – ‘used cars’, for instance, or ‘digital cameras’- and then pay only when a web surfer actually clicks on that link (hence ‘pay-per-click’). Since the consumer has already expressed intent – first by typing in the search terms, then by choosing the advertiser’s link – he is more likely to make a purchaser…

“But pay-per-click is far from perfect. There is ‘click fraud’ – bogus clicks generated by software-powered websites set up just for this purpose. And even humans who search and click often stop short of buying. Hence the next step: pay-per-call advertising. Most people first heard the term last month, when eBay, the world’s largest online auction site, bought Skype…

“But even the pay-per-call model may turn out to be only an intermediate step toward the ultimate in advertising efficiency, which would be a pay-per-sale approach. This is what Bill Gross has recently started offering at SNAP, a search engine that he founded. United Airlines, for instance, places text links on SNAP’S search pages, but it pays (about $10) not when somebody clicks or calls, but only when somebody buys a ticket…”

To read the complete article, click on http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_QQGNRTT

“GETTING IN
The social logic of Ivy League admissions
By Malcolm Gladwell”

Our title and quotes below are from an article posted on THE NEW YORKER on 10/03/05:

“I applied to college one evening, after dinner, in the fall of my senior year in high school. College applicants in Ontario, in those days, were given a single sheet of paper which listed all the universities in the province. It was my job to rank them in order of preference. Then I had to mail the sheet of paper to a central college-admissions office. The whole process probably took ten minutes. My school sent in my grades separately. I vaguely remember filling out a supplementary form listing my interests and activities. There were no S.A.T. scores to worry about because in Canada we didn’t have to take the S.A.T.s. I don’t know whether anyone wrote me a recommendation. I certainly never asked anyone to. Why would I? It wasn’t as if I were applying to a private club.

“I put the University of Toronto first on my list, the University of Western Ontario second, and Queen’s University third. I was working off a set of brochures that I’d sent away for. My parents’ contribution consisted of my father’s agreeing to drive me one afternoon to the University of Toronto campus where we visited the residential college I was most interested in. I walked around. My father poked his head into the admissions office, chatted with the admissions director, and – I imagine – either said a few short words about the talents of his son or (knowing my father) remarked on the loveliness of the delphiniums in the college flower beds. Then we had ice cream. I got in…”

“In 1905, Harvard College adopted the College Entrance Examination Board tests as the principal basis for admission, which meant that virtually any academically gifted high-school senior who could afford a private college had a straightforward shot at attending…

“As the sociologist Jerome Karabel writes in “The Chosen” (Houghton Mifflin; $28), his remarkable history of the admissions process at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, that meritocratic spirit soon led to a crisis. The enrollment of Jews began to raise dramatically. By 1922 they made up more than a fifth of Harvard’s freshman class. The administration and alumni were up in arms. Jews were thought to be sickly and grasping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced the sons of wealthy Wasp alumni, which did not bode well for fund-raising. A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school: ‘The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate…because they drive away the Gentiles. And then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also’…

To read the remainder of this fascinating six-page article, click on http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/051010crat_atlarge

“WHY DOES SKIN WRINKLE WITH AGE? WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO SLOW OR PREVENT THIS PROCESS?
By Susan Obagi

Our title and quotes below are from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of 09/26/05

“Normal healthy skin has a nice epidermis with a smooth cornified, or outer, layer that acts as a good barrier to water or environmental injury. Skin color and tone is even and unblemished. Components such as collagen (which provides skin firmness), elastin (which supplies skin elasticity and rebound) and glycosaminoglycans or GAGs (which keep the skin hydrated) are all abundant…

“Intrinsic aging is the natural aging process that takes place over the years regardless of outside influences. After the age of 20, a person produces about 1 percent less collagen in the skin each year. As a result, the skin becomes thinner and more fragile with age. There is also diminished functioning of the sweat and oil glands, less elastin production, and less GAG formation. Wrinkle formation as a result of intrinsic aging is inevitable, but it will always be slight.

“Extrinsic aging occurs in addition to intrinsic aging as a result of sun and environmental damage (tobacco use and exposure to pollution, for example). Extrinsic aging shows up as thickening of the cornified layer, precancerous changes such as lesions called actinic keratosis, skin cancer (including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, lentigo maligna melanoma), freckle and sun spot formation, and exaggerated loss of collagen, leastin, and GAGs. Alone or in concert, these processes give the skin the appearance of roughness, uneven tone, brown patches, thin skin and deep wrinkles.

“Prevention is key to minimizing wrinkles. The most important thing is to take care of your skin before all these changes start to take place. Sun protection against both UVA and UVB rays is critical 365 days a year using an SPF of at least 35: I prefer zinc- or titanium based products…”

To read the complete article, click on http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00000540-62EC-1334-A2EC83414B7F0000

“DID RISING OXYGEN LEVELS FUEL MAMMAL EVOLUTION?”
by Nicholas Bakalar

Our title and quotes below are from 09/30/05 National Geographic News:

“Writing in the current issue of Science, researchers report that over the past 205 million years the concentration of oxygen in the air has more than doubled.

“The successive increases in oxygen levels coincided first with the appearance of warm-bloodied animals, then with the evolution of placental reproduction, and finally with the increasing size of mammalian species, the scientists say.

“How can scientists know how much oxygen was in the air 205 million years ago? Atmospheric oxygen comes from the splitting of water molecules, a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, by sunlight.

“Plants grow using the hydrogen part of the water molecule. The more plants grow, the more organic matter is buried in marine sediments when the plants die. Scientists can infer the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere from the amount of organics in the sediment…”

To read the complete article, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0930_050930_mammal_oxygen.html

“THE ZOMBIE HUNTERS”
by Evan Ratliff

This fascinating six-page article in The New Yorker of 10/10/05 describes how “Prolexic,” an Internet-security company in Hollywood, Florida, protects its worldwide clients from cyberextortionists who demand payments in return for leaving them alone. Selecting excerpts from it is likely to confuse you. We urge you to read the entire article by clicking on http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/051010fa_fact

CHANGES IN BOOK SALES

We offer for sale all books listed at http://www.vardaman.com/booksale.php.

NEW SYSTEM FOR BUYING OR SELLING LAND OR TIMBER

For the details, click on http://www.vardaman.com and then on the red horizontal bar “Buy/Sell Land/Timber.” You can offer to buy or sell timber or land. You must post the general area of your interest; be sure to include the state. You must also post your E-MAIL ADDRESS and the URL of your Internet site. Our tracking report will not report the number of visitors UNLESS you enter your URL. If you are selling, you should post the name of the tract. When you have entered all details, click on “Submit,” and what you just entered will appear on our Internet site at the bottom of the page under the red horizontal bar “Buy/Sell Land/Timber.” Be sure to check for and correct errors.

For each tract posted after 05/12/05 and whose owner posted his URL, we charge $0.25 for each visit his ad receives. On each Friday at 0900 Central Time, we will e-mail him a bill for $0.25 for each visit his ad received during the week just ended. You can pay us by e-mailing the money to “Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company” at PayPal or mailing it to P.O. Box 12293, Jackson, MS 39236. We will delete your ad when your payments cease. The new fee schedule does not apply to tracts marked with asterisks::

SELL LAND OR TIMBER

For 107-A. tract in GA, send e-mail to slaseter@comcast.net

BUY LAND

BUY TIMBER

*For tracts in AR, send e-mail to dyork@digitalpassage.com
*For tracts in IL, send e-mail to psftimber@hotmail.com