~e; Electromagnetic News & Views #149
From
brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org>
Date
Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:01:48 -0600
===================================================
Electromagnetic News & Views -- #149
===================================================
00) Electronetwork.org Commentary (11/12/2004)
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-- ...
// given the .US election outcome and President Bush's
// renewed call for drilling in the arctic wildlife
// refuge for increased domestic oil production, it is
// hoped beyond hope that significant and substantial
// changes are made in the way policies are developed--
// to acknowledge the multiple viewpoints often outside,
// and more complex in addressing multiple concerns, than
// what has been done to date. this would help to regain
// a sense of balance and that public policy includes the
// facts outside of any one insider viewpoint of things.
// this may foretell of the success of bridging the divide
// by placing compromise and also synthesis of goals that
// are larger than politics, such as global warming, the
// need for changes in energy planning and security and
// related foreign policy, that is, to establish a new
// direction, working together, not against one another.
// what if increased energy production is not mutually-
// exclusive from energy indepedence, and it is only a
// matter of how, and 'how to do this together, yet still
// in an effective and successful way' -- rather than a
// win-lose approach, which to date is 'standard issue.'
// with nuclear power plants, with distributed plants,
// with rights of way, with telecommunications and the
// issues of pollution, sprawl, taxes, education, all of
// these areas overlap one another and any one policy is
// off-balance in regards to narrowing issues into very
// distorted contexts, unless taken as a whole at some
// point, to check-and-balance the facts. how will the
// drilling be related to global warming, pollution, and
// economics? how might alternative sites offer another
// option for domestic needs for oil power? what would a
// policy allow that addresses terrorism and security if
// it did not address the fact that nuclear power is the
// #1 most vulnerable form of energy in a disaster? and
// the issues of cost associated with its current forms.
// what about research and development funding for the
// issues known to be critical for shared goals, such as
// energy independence and robust planning and supplies?
// in the 1970s President Carter brought about changes
// in the building industries and others-- what might be
// possible today, by industries and individuals all over
// the world, if a value is intelligent use of our energy-
// resources, and their relation to limiting the needs for
// destructive wars, versus creating trade routes for new
// ideas and ways of making more out of what exists today,
// in terms of not wasting the resources that can dwindle.
// if President Bush exhibits and acts on interests in a
// larger view of the issues that his policies attempt to
// address, yet allows a new, larger, more complex context
// in which to make the 'public' case, rather than private,
// insulated, exclusive views of events and actions based
// on inside-baseball as it is-- this coould regain some
// footing for 'public .US policy' in energy, industry,
// and other interrelated issues (climate change, pollution,
// energy planning, resources, work, taxes) which could be
// a higher-fidelity of representing and addressing through
// policy the critical policies that effect everyone today.
// more accurate context, more public representation, and
// achievable results-- 'public' energy security requires
// 'public' interests to be included with private business.
// the question always returns, if there actually is anyone
// in government to put tangible options on the policy table.
===================================================
01) --top stories--
---------------------------------------------------
The Next American City // *** Sim-city Urban Planning, GIS, via
archnewsnow
http://www.americancity.org/article.php?id_article=21
'... the heart of the game is much less a universal vision of city
design than it is a reflection of the most extreme tendencies of
development in America...' .... 'Because of the widespread use of
SimCity in schools and homes, it is easy to make a case, as Paul Starr
of The American Prospect has, that SimCity provides a more influential
introduction to city planning than any book on the subject.'
Quantum lab fits on a chip
Matter and light mingle inside semiconductors.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041108/full/041108-10.html
'Entanglement is another quantum quirk that would allow data to be
shared between different parts of the computer at the same time. When
two objects are entangled they start to behave like a single entity,
carrying the same information even if they are physically separated.
Tweaking one instantaneously changes the nature of the other.' .. 'The
two teams both use holes inside the semiconductor material gallium
arsenide to house a quantum dot, a ball of just a few million atoms. A
laser pulse directed at the dot jolts it into spitting out a particle
of light, which is entangled with both the quantum dot and the electric
field of the cavity itself.'
// in bin Laden's last mass media address he mentioned the word
// 'states' and although i do not know what the default definition
// may be in other parts of the word, but the word 'state' has been
// a word and idea that has fascinated me for a long time, as it is
// capable of being of multiple scales (such as a nation-state, a
// one of many states inside a nation, and even as an individual).
// it is the idea that individuals and the world (or nation-states)
// share some identity with one another that was written about by
// plato in republic; that sickness in one is mirrored in another.
// and maybe in Christianity too, when the body is analogous to a
// temple. it was wondered if mentioning a 'state' or 'the state'
// is to differentiate about the diverse humanity that makes up a
// larger scale 'state', as while it may not be readily discussed,
// the one moral problem with lumping everyone in one state is to
// run into the moral fact of perpetrating 'collective punishment'
// which furthers the original dynamics and loses all legitimacy.
// this would seem to be a difference between terrorism and war,
// then again, 'war by other means' is constantly referenced in
// the realm of business, education, culture, on and on and on.
// the tumultous world, spinning and reeling further into chaos
// -- it is wondered how much order is found in the oppositional
// perspectives and minds and methods; what is the chance for any
// change, given the words, that one state is not the entirely of
// all states. that is, if one state is all states (which can be
// a public perspective, if human individuals constitute a human
// society) would seem different in a privatized era of mankind,
// where views and actions diverge largely, yet the better angels
// strive for change, transformation, still against all odds, to
// invest in the dream of peace for some future day nearer still.
// that maybe some states, individuals, are different from others
// in their methods, beliefs, yet the way things are organized and
// ideas enacted make it a long process to realize the changes...
// to acknowledge a realism to the viewpoints being shared by way
// of the mass media, the response today is inadequate to what is
// striving of people to see changes in their lifetime, and hope.
// electromagnetic media could empower views that go much further
// to realize the connections shared between cultures and peoples,
// to make them one class and a shared human statehood, an inter-
// civilization of gradients of ideas, viewpoints, and histories.
// yet today private corporations or other private entities often
// limit what is possible, they are invisible 'ceilings' made of
// electromagnetic infrastructures which are not understood by
// most peoples, it is like a behind the scenes, stage-set of
// how things work, like the Wizard of Oz. it is hard to see an
// attempt at some media dialogue when it is all but that of a
// giant robotic machine driven by business, profit, and greed
// to go further than the 30 second commercial or news story to
// get to the issues that are the substratum for a policy basis.
// nor is this mass media democratic in its constitution, it is
// not the function nor the history of it to perform in such a
// way as to fairly represent all the people (all states in the
// larger state). so it is wondered how this could be so simple
// when it is so complex, at what point is the dialogue one of
// ideas or between ideologies. it would seem this CIA officer
// is trying to get into the ideas, beyond media orthodoxy, so
// to advance public representation beyond political ideology.
FORMER HEAD OF CIA'S OSAMA BIN LADEN UNIT SAYS THE QAEDA LEADER HAS
SECURED RELIGIOUS APPROVAL TO USE A NUCLEAR BOMB AGAINST AMERICANS
http://drudgereport.com/flash2.htm
'Even if bin Laden had a nuclear weapon, he probably wouldn't have
used it for a lack of proper religious authority - authority he has
now. "[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise
on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans,"
says Scheuer. "[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his
rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible
for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would
mean you could kill millions of Americans," Scheuer tells [60 Minutes
reporter Steve] Kroft.' .... '[Scheuer continues:] "Until we respect
him {bin Laden}, sir, we are going to die in numbers that are probably
unnecessary, yes."'
---------------------------------------------------
02-- electromagnetic health & safety
---------------------------------------------------
Humane reasons behind brain surgery ban // .CN, drug addicts...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-11/08/content_2189141.htm
'Drug-users are living flesh and blood. They have their own rights and
dignity that should be taken good care of. Drug abuse may be against
our traditional values, but nobody should deny drug addicts the help
they need to get over their addiction and the right to enjoy life. If
they are deprived of such rights because of the method of their
rehabilitation, the question is whether such rehabilitation is moral.'
Moving brain implant seeks out signals // piezo-electric brain tuning...
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996645
---------------------------------------------------
03-- electromagnetic trash & treasure
---------------------------------------------------
Arctic thaw could open vast oil and gas region
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11266561.htm
'The Arctic report, by 250 scientists from the United States, Russia,
Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, says
temperatures in the Arctic are rising by twice the global average and
could rise by another 4-7 Celsius (7-13 F) by 2100.'
---------------------------------------------------
04-- electromagnetic security & surveillance
---------------------------------------------------
Sensor System Enables Real-Time Imaging of Audiotape Tampering // EM
forensics
<http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00098099-877E-
1182-877E83414B7F0103>
'The heart of the new detection system is an array of 64 customized
magnetic sensors, or read heads, which the NIST team placed in a
regular audiotape deck. As a tape is played, these sensors detect
changes in the magnetic data, which is then converted to an image by
software on a connected computer.'
Israel Arrests Nuke Whistleblower Vanunu for 'Leak' // re-arrested
<http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/
story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=948614&tw=wn_wire_story>
Eye in sky may watch Parks workers // GPS
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-gps09.html
'"We could look at a map and pinpoint them,'' said Mitchell, who would
like to begin using the technology next year.' .. 'Under Mitchell's
plan, workers would carry devices that double as two-way radios. The
system would also allow the district to keep better records of how long
jobs take and what work has been done.' .... '"If they want to increase
accountability, you would think they would talk to us as co-partners.
Putting a GPS on someone is not the first step,'' said SEIU Local 73
spokeswoman Joanna Misnik.'
Are Lexmarks printers spying on you?
http://www.engadget.com/entry/3508496627337139/
---------------------------------------------------
05-- electromagnetic power & energy
---------------------------------------------------
Nuclear fusion negotiations go critical // ITER
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996641
SMART-1 arrives at the Moon
Probe proves ion-drive technology and may uncover lunar secrets.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041108/full/041108-16.html
'The size of a domestic washing machine, SMART-1 uses an innovative
propulsion system that wafts the craft along on a breath of gas. It
carries solar panels that convert the Sun's light into electricity,
which is used to strip electrons away from atoms of xenon. This
generates charged ions that are accelerated through a magnetic field
and ejected from the rear of the spacecraft, producing a gentle thrust
equivalent to the weight of two pennies resting on the palm of your
hand.'
---------------------------------------------------
06-- Electromagnetic current & human affairs
---------------------------------------------------
Patron Saint of the Nerds // St. Expedite 24/7
<http://www.wired.com/news/roadtrip/riverroad/
0,2704,65184,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4>
Baseball [General Managers] weigh in on instant replay // free day-pass
http://salon.com/news/wire/2004/11/11/instant_replay/
---------------------------------------------------
07-- electromagnetic transport & communication
---------------------------------------------------
US heavyweights storm supercomputer league // BlueGene/L
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996632
'Fully built, it will contain an unprecedented 65,536 processors and
should be capable of a monstrous 360 teraflops. By contrast, the Earth
Simulator has 5120 processors and Columbia has 10,240.' .... 'One of
BlueGene/L's key tasks will be to simulate the performance of ageing
nuclear weapons. Columbia is already being used to perform weather
simulations for NASA.'
Music mirrors tone patterns in our speech
Classic English and French composers influenced by their language.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041108/full/041108-12.html
'The team's analysis shows that fluctuations in pitch in music written
by classic French composers vary much less than in British music. The
difference mirrors the patterns of pitch found in the corresponding
languages.'
---------------------------------------------------
08-- electromagnetic matter & information
---------------------------------------------------
* wondering when Richard Saul Wurman is going to write the
followup book to Information Anxiety: Information Insanity.
considering each piece of software or screen-based devices
which have extra feature sets and options beyond the core
functions, how much of these are actually used and useful,
versus how much development is wasted on this screen-sprawl?
at what point does living information become 'dead', in that
its original purpose and trajectory are lost or seperated-out
from meaningful contexts? archiving of computer records is
mentioned in terms of the physical hardware, and it has been
thought that someday these spycams with automatic recognition
softwares may actually help those who someday digitize their
photographs en masse, to sort out places, names, and events
based on some initial configurations ('that is friend X,'
'that is Angel Island') which would then map out the entire
collection on some gigabyte archival harddrive, for larger
collections either private or part of the public recording.
* at what size do flash-drives with instant-on and instant-
burning of data nullify CD-roms and DVDs as primary storage?
a CD may cost pennies, a removable flash card may cost many
dollars, yet the time wasted on burning CDs and mounting them
is not comparable with flash-based storage, and if these are
indeed replacing the floppy, it would seem CD/DVD may be next.
* it is not known why computer OS' do not make an archive of
all removable media, of the folder structures by default, so
if rummaging through 20 CDs it could keep a listing of all
the files which are probably held in memory for awhile anyway.
that is, if CD #5 and CD #19 are nearly identical, except for
one file, it would be helpful to know this to manage archives.
custom backup software may exist, yet this is so very basic
in terms of managing information in a computer environment.
it is wondered if RAID storage will be a consumer archival
option given the size and cost of (removable) harddrives.
---------------------------------------------------
09-- electromagnetic trends & inventions
---------------------------------------------------
// the PBS website alt-tags these people as 'democratizers'...
Meet the People Who Made America // PBS TV on .US inventors/innovators
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65618,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5
Getting Girls into Gadgets // via macsurfer.com
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/Getting-Girls-into-Gadgets-37971.html
'Salespeople at consumer electronic retailers are conditioned to
talking about products in a way that's not woman-friendly.'
---------------------------------------------------
10-- electromagnetic weaponry & warfare
---------------------------------------------------
UN warns of nuclear terror race
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3991305.stm
North Korea not ready to negotiate nukes
Pyongyang tells Japan talks on hold until Bush changes policies.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1111/dailyUpdate.html
[quote] Black Flags Are Deadly Signals as Cornered Rebels Fight Back //
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/international/middleeast/12scene.html
'The flags are the insurgents' answer to two-way radios, their way of
massing the troops and - in a tactic that goes back at least as far as
Napoleon - concentrating fire on an enemy. Set against radio waves, the
flags have one distinct advantage: they are terrifying.'
CIA Officer Quits to Speak Freely About Problems With Intelligence
Community
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=246330
---------------------------------------------------
11-- electromagnetic business & economics
---------------------------------------------------
[none]
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12-- electromagnetic artworks & artifacts
---------------------------------------------------
// sensor-based 'performance capture' = digitally rendered,
no-animation.
Polar Express's experimental technology frees actors from their own
bodies
<http://www.canada.com/news/national/story.html?id=fad8430c-91a4-46c2-
8228-2485cd6e8654>
"Nervous System" Bryan Liedahl // EM brain-ball
http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?rid=15456
feed your mind // the great illusion...
http://thegreatillusion.com/feedyourmind.jpg
Stone Secrets -- Bill Atkinson's magnified images reveal hidden
beauties in the rocks around us // *** large-format scanning camera
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.10.04/atkinson-0446.html
[and] Rocks // ***
http://www.billatkinson.com/GenerateCatalog.pl?page=0&filter=_Rocks
Ballettikka Internettikka: illegallikka robottikka
# wireless illegal remote-controlled net-ballet invasion on
[theatre x] by Igor Stromajer & Brane Zorman
time: Saturday, November 13th at 20:00 GMT+1
Central European Time
Berlin/Paris/Ljubljana/Vienna/Madrid/Amsterdam local time
live on-line premiere:
http://www.intima.org/ballettikka/bi-ir
"Database Imaginary" opens Saturday, November 13
at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Center.
Curated by Sarah Cook, Steve Dietz, Anthony Kiendl
http://databaseimaginary.banff.org
'Database Imaginary presents 23 works made by 33 artists between 1971
and
2004. The art projects in this exhibition span a period almost as long
as
the word database has been in use. It is really only with the rise of
computing and widespread access to vast quantities of organized
information
that the term has come to the fore in the popular imagination. The urge
to
organize, however, is a longstanding trait of human civilization. In
this
sense, Database Imaginary is less about databases than about this
cultural
moment when they have become ever-present.'
---------------------------------------------------
* please forward to your friends and colleagues *
---------------------------------------------------
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