I hope that whomever left this working piano in the woods of Harwich, Massachusetts was planning on coming back every night and beating the hell out of the keys with some kind of all-night swing session, playing and playing as the piano deteriorated through the fall and winter, going mushier and wetter, until all that would come out of it was its own funeral march.

Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact -- and, apparently, in tune.

The piano was at the end of a dirt road, near a walking path to a footbridge in the middle of conservation land near the Cape.

Mystery piano in woods perplexes police

Christian Wohrl undertook a German fan-translation of my novel Little Brother, working on his daily train-commute. He's just finished the work and posted "version 1" on his site. The whole text is CC licensed, of course!

"Little Brother" auf Deutsch (Thanks, Christian!)

Susan sez, "On one of the roads I walk by on my morning commute, the ground was re-paved and a bunch of leaves got stuck into the pavement. It is so beautiful!" Leaves stuck in the pavement on Cromwell (Thanks, Susan!)

While we're waiting for the new economic stimulus plan to be unveiled on change.gov, or while we're waiting for it to kick-in, how about developing a backup plan at sparechange.gov?

Here's Tom Waits in a YouTube video singing the Depression-era "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931). It's a little rougher than the traditionally smooth Bing Crosby version.

They used to tell me, 
I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, 
I made it run
I made it run against time
Once i built a railroad, 
and now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime? ...

Once in khaki suits,
Ah, gee we looked swell
Full of that yankee-doodle dee-dum!

Brother, can you spare a dime?

There are more and more people all around us needing our help.

Forget behavioral economics -- the Naked Scientists science podcast interviews a scientist who is investigating the hormonal basis for bubbles and crashes. It's endocrinal economics!

John - We found that the traders, if they had high testosterone in the morning relative the the median levels, they made a lot more money for the rest of the day than they did on the days when they had low testosterone.

Meera - When most people think of testosterone they obviously associate it largely with males. Does this then mean that females are relatively unaffected?

John - Women have about 10% of the testosterone that men do. It's entirely possible that they're not subject to this kind of overconfidence.

Meera - But you're also looking into levels of cortisol, as well.

John - That's right. In the current environment that may be the more interesting steroid. When the market turns around it turns into a crash what can happen is that cortisol, which is a stress hormone, can become elevated in the bodies of traders. Cortisol, if you're exposed to it chronically at high levels for a long period of time, it can have a devastating effect on both the mind and the body. In terms of affecting traders decisions what it can do is affect the memories you recall. You tend to recall bad memories, negative precedents. You tend to see risk where maybe there is none. You become fearful, you feel anxiety. I think that decreases a trader's appetite for risk. While testosterone is causing people to take too much risk cortisol is causing people to take too little risk in the crash.

Hormones and the Money Markets