~e; Electromagnetic News & Views #52
From
human being <human@electronetwork.org>
Date
Mon, 6 Oct 2003 23:42:05 -0500
===================================================
Electromagnetic News & Views -- #52
===================================================
00) Electronetwork.org Commentary (10/06/2003)
01) Top Stories of Electromagnetism
02) Electromagnetic health & safety
03) Electromagnetic trash & treasure
04) Electromagnetic security & surveillance
05) Electromagnetic power & energy
06) Electromagnetic current & human affairs
07) Electromagnetic transport & communication
08) Electromagnetic matter & information
09) Electromagnetic trends & inventions
10) Electromagnetic weaponry & warfare
11) Electromagnetic business & economics
12) Electromagnetic artworks & artifacts
===================================================
00) --commentary-- URLs...
===================================================
01) --top stories--
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Confessions of a hacker // confirms Linus' statement
<http://www.startribune.com/stories/789/4135449.html>
'"For the current generation of kids, hacking into other people's
computers is the video game of this decade," said Alan Paller, research
director of the SANS Institute, a Maryland organization that studies
computer security issues and provides training. "It's those attacks
that companies spend most of their time and money protecting themselves
against."'
// Lewis Mumford once wrote something to the effect that 'mining
// techologies' had great influence on developing culture. it
// seeemed obtuse in the present (yet, not with the military-
// industrial complex, which it was most likely referring to),
// and yet below is one of many examples of 'crossover' in the
// tools and technologies of one industry influencing others.
// in mining and oil surveying and other fields, technologies
// are used which can have great impacts in other areas, such
// as archaeology and architecture. it will be interesting to
// see how GIS/GPS will influence understanding and community,
// possibily in positive ways for developing cultural awareness.
// the connections such as 'radiocarbon dating' and even 'metal
// detectors' (if utilized as such) are a few previous advances.
// any archaeologists on list could explain the role of EM in
// fieldwork and reconstruction with a much greater accuracy.
What lies beneath -- New "non-destructive" sensing
technologies are transforming archaeology
<http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2099826>
'So knowing what lies beneath the surface before the trowel hits the
soil has long been the dream of many an archaeologist. .. This dream is
slowly becoming a reality, as a result of improvements in
non-destructive surveying techniques. Archaeology has never been a
wealthy discipline, but by borrowing tools developed for more
well-endowed professions, archaeologists are developing X-ray
vision--or, to be precise, infra-red, microwave and magnetic vision,
which are even better.' ... 'They could even trace the sewage system.
"It was almost as though the soil was transparent," says Dr Limp.' ...
'The team combined several techniques. A ground-based magnetic
gradiometry survey, which measures variations in the magnetic
properties of the soil, detected buried sewage pipes containing iron.
Variations in the magnetic polarity even revealed joins where one pipe
met another. An electrical resistivity survey, which works by passing
an electric current through the ground, detected buried pavements and
bricks, which are more resistant to electricity than the surrounding
soil.'
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02-- electromagnetic health & safety
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Signs of improvement
Video conference programs expand horizons for deaf
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/06/
BUGUO24GQC1.DTL>
American and Briton win Nobel for MRI research // 1970s...
<http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2003/10/06/med_nobel/>
'American Paul C. Lauterbur and Briton Sir Peter Mansfield won the
2003 Nobel Prize for medicine Monday for discoveries leading to the
development of MRI, now relied on by doctors for getting a detailed
look into their patients' bodies.' ... 'Lauterbur, 74, discovered the
possibility of creating a two-dimensional picture by producing
variations in a magnetic field...' ... 'Mansfield, 69, showed how the
signals the body emits during an MRI exam could be rapidly analyzed and
transformed into an image...'
// and, a very interesting (audio) description on PBS' NewsHour...
Nobel Prize Winners // transcript not yet available online... 6/10/03
<http://audio.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/newshour/expansion/2003/10/06/
nobel.rm?altplay=nobel.rm>
Lasers operate inside single cells
Nanosurgery vaporizes cellular components leaving rest intact.
<http://www.nature.com/nsu/030929/030929-12.html>
'With pulses of intense laser light a millionth of a billionth of a
second long, US researchers are vaporizing tiny structures inside
living cells without killing them. The technique could help probe how
cells work, and perform super-precise surgery.'
Why 3G won't fry your brain just yet // the usual...
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/64/33203.html>
Largest Study To Date Finds Radiofrequency Ablation
Is Best Treatment For Benign Bone Tumor
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030930054834.htm>
'Interventional radiologists perform RFA by inserting a CT-guided wire
to the tumor site and transmitting an electrical current to destroy the
lesion. Following the two-hour procedure, most patients are able to
resume daily activities immediately.'
---------------------------------------------------
03-- electromagnetic trash & treasure
---------------------------------------------------
World's eels on slippery slope // some e-fish, also, sushi
<http://www.nature.com/nsu/030929/030929-1.html>
Scientific Researchers Routinely Fudge Citations
<http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22423.html>
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04-- electromagnetic security & surveillance
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Surveillance Van Item number: 2435281675 // periscope! via TSCM-L.
<http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/
eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6729&item=2435281675>
SF library wants to track books with computer chips // RFIDs
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2003-10-03-sf-
library-rfid_x.htm>
Hey ... You're Not My User!
Software Identifies Computer Users By Typing Style
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031003062125.htm>
---------------------------------------------------
05-- electromagnetic power & energy
---------------------------------------------------
EM-Quote from: Interview With President Putin
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/international/06PTEXT-CND.html>
'I think that both Russia and the United States are interested in
development of economic relations and one of the issues lies on the
surface. It is energy. Russia is interested in the realization of its
potential at the foreign markets and the United States is interested in
keeping stable prices at an admissible level, in the diversification of
the sources of energy.'
Build & Experiment with a Model Alternative-Energy House // EM kit
<http://www.kitsusa.us/store/index.cfm?frm=details&piid=501>
SMART-1 Ion Engine Fired Successfully // quantum Hall-effect
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031002055001.htm>
'This is the first time that Europe flies an electric primary
propulsion in space, and also the first European use of this particular
type of ion engine, called a 'Hall-effect' thruster.'
---------------------------------------------------
06-- electromagnetic current & human affairs
---------------------------------------------------
Never heard of Mers Kutt, eh? Time you did // interesting...
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6923000.htm>
'He's being called the ``inventor of the personal computer'' in Canada
and it seems proper to call him one of the parents, anyway.' ... 'On
Sept. 25, 1973, Kutt and his team from Micro Computer Machines, of
Toronto, demonstrated a desktop computer powered by Intel's 8008
microprocessor. The 20-pound machine came equipped with a keyboard,
plasma screen, cassette drives and a virtual memory function that
boosted its operating memory up to 102 kilobytes.' ... 'The MCM-70
(base price of $3,500 in U.S. dollars) was built for those who knew
nothing about computers.'
---------------------------------------------------
07-- electromagnetic transport & communication
---------------------------------------------------
Toyota Says Hybrids Can Be Cheap // some good news...
<http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,60667,00.html>
'The latest Prius model is equipped with automated steering to help
curbside and back-in parking. The driver does not have to touch the
steering wheel for the car to park itself.'
Venezuela TV station raided: The authorities in Venezuela have seized
broadcasting equipment from the 24-hour television news channel,
Globovision, known for its criticism of President Hugo Chavez.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3163254.stm>
Iraq goes GSM // mobile contracts...
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/33247.html>
'The awards divide Iraq into three regions. In the north, the award
goes to Asia Cell Telecommunications, a new consortium which includes
Kuwait's second GSM operator Wataniya Telecom . The central region and
Baghdad goes to Egypt's Orascom Telecom , and the south to Atheer
Telecom, in which Kuwaiti operator MTC-Vodafone provides the know-how.'
[and] Iraq awards mobile telephone contracts (AP)
<http://salon.com/tech/wire/2003/10/06/iraq_mobile/>
---------------------------------------------------
08-- electromagnetic matter & information
---------------------------------------------------
The 10 Commandments for Handling Data
<http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22430.html>
Schrödinger's cat comes closer -- Object big enough to see with
microscope could be in two places at once.
<http://www.nature.com/nsu/030929/030929-3.html>
'William Marshall of the University of Oxford and his coworkers
outline a scheme for evading decoherence to achieve a quantum
superposition of states in an object with around a hundred trillion
atoms. This is about a billion times larger than anything demonstrated
previously.'
Snapshots go postal // custom camera-phone stamps?...
For just a few dollars, Japanese can have their face
or favorite photo printed on postage stamps.
<http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/03/news/funny/stamps.reut/index.htm>
Gamma-ray burst linked to mass extinction
<http://www.nature.com/nsu/030922/030922-7.html>
'In short, a nearby GRB might first have showered harmful radiation
onto the exposed face of the planet, killing more or less
indiscriminately, and may then have exposed the other hemisphere to
increased ultraviolet radiation, damaging marine life decreasingly with
increasing depth.'
Chemists' constant hangs in the balance // weights and measures
<http://www.nature.com/nsu/030915/030915-15.html>
'"The anomaly in the data could be in the original American
Watt-balance experiment," says Stuart Davidson, head of mass and
density standards at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington,
UK. "We are getting new values with our balance in the UK that agree
with the German silicon results."'
Radar Finds Evidence For Hydrocarbon Lakes On Saturn's Moon Titan
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031003061858.htm>
---------------------------------------------------
09-- electromagnetic trends & inventions
---------------------------------------------------
// not sure what to think of such information, except that it seems
// that many 'infrastructures' could be co-developing, such as RFIDs
// and readers, bluetooth, wi-fi, and other non-identical technologies
// which may offer various services to various devices, such as cell
// phones, PDAs, computers, in a way, possibly some of these tied in
// with GPS and other systems to act as 'billboards' on small screens.
// questioning if there will be 5 standards to convey information in
// various formats, and devices will have to be built (expensively)
// to address various encounters with these infrastructures, or if
// they could be designed (on a chip) seamlessly to interact with
// eachother, even VOIP and cellphone networks compete, and phones
// are adding wi-fi, bluetooth, GPS, etc. so what is the outcome?
Study: Bluetooth Shipments Double in 2003
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1093&ncid=1093&e=2&u=/
pcworld/20031003/tc_pcworld/112759>
---------------------------------------------------
10-- electromagnetic weaponry & warfare
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[no news is no news]
---------------------------------------------------
11-- electromagnetic business & economics
---------------------------------------------------
Enron E-Mails Show Arnold Met With Ken Lay During Energy Crisis
<http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/utilities/pr/pr003708.php3>
'Internal Enron e-mails confirm that Arnold Schwarzenegger was among a
small group of executives who met with Lay at the posh Peninsula
Beverly Hills hotel in May of 2001, in the midst of California's energy
crisis. View the e-mails. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer
Rights, which obtained the e-mails, is calling on Schwarzenegger to
acknowledge the meetings and disclose the information that was
presented and discussed. The meeting with Enron occurred ten days after
rolling blackouts darkened California for two consecutive days;
Schwarzenegger has previously said that he does not remember such a
meeting.'
[and in related news...]
Computer experts fear recall vote fraud // e-chads...
<http://salon.com/tech/wire/2003/10/06/recall_vote/>
'...according to a July study by Johns Hopkins and Rice universities,
any clever hacker could break into Diebold's system and vote multiple
times. Researchers found it was theoretically possible to insert "back
doors" into software code that would allow hackers -- or insiders -- to
change future voters' choices and determine the outcome.'
[and, see this enronomic image in the California Recall...]
'Lights on Afterschool! 2003' with Mr. Schwarzenegger...
<http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20031006/
capt.mjt10210052210.daivs_recall_mjt102.jpg>
Will You Buy a Car From This Man? // securing e-classifieds space...
<http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60703,00.html>
'Tribe.net's founder and CEO Mark Pincus said that building
communities of people linked by a common interest means such
transactions are a safer bet for users than those conducted through
anonymous services like craigslist.'
Ruling Opens Cable Lines: Internet Access Choices May Grow // .US
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52839-2003Oct6.html>
'If the ruling survives a likely appeal, the decision could provide
broadband Internet users with new options for the content they see
online, their e-mail addresses and potentially the monthly rates they
pay.' ... 'FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell vowed to appeal the decision.'
---------------------------------------------------
12-- electromagnetic artworks & artifacts
---------------------------------------------------
Theater spotlight: 'Sweet Nothing in My Ear' // local. EM-related...
<http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/4127769.html>
'OPENING: Mixed Blood Theatre opens its season with its social
conscience at work in this drama questioning the role of "medical
miracles" in changing people's lives. Terrylene , one of the country's
leading deaf stage actors, portrays a deaf mother, and Gabriel Jarret
is her hearing husband. Their son is losing his hearing, and the couple
debate whether he should receive a cochlear implant. The mother wants
him to remain a member of a culture with its own traditions and
language. Conversely, the father sees possibilities for a "normal life"
through the advance of medical technology. The show was written and is
directed by Stephen Sachs, artistic director of Fountain Theatre in Los
Angeles...'
[PDF] Vintage Electric Kitchen Appliances // 200k
<http://www.amst.umd.edu/amst205/sg/appliances.pdf>
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