Friday, January 06, 2006

If anyone here is in LA in March, you better be spending half your time with the LA Philharmonic. Check this out, this is INCREDIBLE:

THE GREAT ARTISTS OF OUR TIME COME TOGETHER TO CELEBRATE MUSIC, FILM AND THE MINIMALIST MOVEMENT.

Film Festival: Week of Jan 09, 2006
Music Festival: Mar 18 – Apr 02, 2006
Symposia: Mar 31 – Apr 01, 2006
Full festival calendar below.

In a groundbreaking first by a major orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents a wide-ranging survey of Minimalism. Under the watchful ear of Festival Director John Adams, Minimalist Jukebox reflects on where we've been, the current state of the art, and things to come. Run Minimalism's musical gamut from African drums to Branca’s electric guitars, from Riley, Glass and Reich to Andriessen, Pärt and Adams himself. Open your ears and expand your mind.

Seriously - Branca's Symphony for 100 Guitars? Steve Reich? Arvo Part? Just look at the calendar... awesome!
posted by Barrie , 11:01 PM Þ 

Here is a great response towards this year's EDGE World Question Center (this year, "what is your dangerous idea?"). The Question Center this time around is not quite as good as last year's but still has fostered many stimulating responses. I have not finished the whole thing yet, as I am reading it at work when there is nothing to do (admittedly sometimes for an hour at a time... January is slow). This person's response seemed totally relevant and totally BLOGDIAL, perhaps because it criticizes the question posed, and exists outside any of the other responses I've read so far.
Be sure to also check out Leonard Susskind's response.

ALISON GOPNIK
Psychologist, UC-Berkeley; Coauthor, The Scientist In the Crib

A cacophony of "controversy"

It may not be good to encourage scientists to articulate dangerous ideas.

Good scientists, almost by definition, tend towards the contrarian and ornery, and nothing gives them more pleasure than holding to an unconventional idea in the face of opposition. Indeed, orneriness and contrarianism are something of currency for science — nobody wants to have an idea that everyone else has too. Scientists are always constructing a straw man "establishment" opponent who they can then fearlessly demolish. If you combine that with defying the conventional wisdom of non-scientists you have a recipe for a very distinctive kind of scientific smugness and self-righteousness. We scientists see this contrarian habit grinning back at us in a particularly hideous and distorted form when global warming opponents or intelligent design advocates invoke the unpopularity of their ideas as evidence that they should be accepted, or at least discussed.

The problem is exacerbated for public intellectuals. For the media too, would far rather hear about contrarian or unpopular or morally dubious or "controversial" ideas than ones that are congruent with everyday morality and wisdom. No one writes a newspaper article about a study that shows that girls are just as good at some task as boys, or that children are influenced by their parents.

It is certainly true that there is no reason that scientifically valid results should have morally comforting consequences — but there is no reason why they shouldn't either. Unpopularity or shock is no more a sign of truth than popularity is. More to the point, when scientists do have ideas that are potentially morally dangerous they should approach those ideas with hesitancy and humility. And they should do so in full recognition of the great human tragedy that, as Isiah Berlin pointed out, there can be genuinely conflicting goods and that humans are often in situations of conflict for which there is no simple or obvious answer.

Truth and morality may indeed in some cases be competing values, but that is a tragedy, not a cause for self-congratulation. Humility and empathy come less easily to most scientists, most certainly including me, than pride and self-confidence, but perhaps for that very reason they are the virtues we should pursue.

This is, of course, itself a dangerous idea. Orneriness and contrarianism are in fact, genuine scientific virtues, too. And in the current profoundly anti-scientific political climate it is terribly dangerous to do anything that might give comfort to the enemies of science. But I think the peril to science actually doesn't lie in timidity or self-censorship. It is much more likely to lie in a cacophony of "controversy".
direct link
posted by Barrie , 8:35 AM Þ 
Thursday, January 05, 2006

Take a leap into hyperspace

  • 05 January 2006
  • Haiko Lietz
  • Magazine issue 2533
Fancy a trip through another dimension? New Scientist Space uncovers the curious tale of the rocket driven by quantum gravity

EVERY year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference. Last year's winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There's just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics. Can they possibly be serious?

The AIAA is certainly not embarrassed. What's more, the US military has begun to cast its eyes over the hyperdrive concept, and a space propulsion researcher at the US Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has said he would be interested in putting the idea to the test. And despite the bafflement ...

The complete article is 2463 words long. [...]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18925331.200

and here:

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006

Every day there is another article like this bringing us closer to Full Disclosure.

Like we have been saying all along; interstellar travel is a fact, and it has and is being done by aliens right now. Whats that you say?! Surely you aren't so stupid as to think that only humans could have come up with this technology? Honestly, that would be REALLY DUMB.

It's almost time for the SETI Skeptics to get the salt shakers and cheque books out - they will need the salt to eat their hats, and the cheque books to pay off the thousands of dollars on their bets against the reality of ETI they are going to lose very shortly.
posted by Irdial , 5:31 PM Þ  

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the Foundation for Information Policy Research      http://www.fipr.org/
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Telegraph Online

Freedom fears as the DNA database expands
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 05/01/2006)

The government was accused last night of compiling a national DNA database
"by stealth" as police reported a rapid increase in genetic profiling in
recent years.

New Home Office figures estimate that by 2008, the samples of some 4.2
million people - seven per cent of the population - will be contained on a
central criminal database, which is growing by about half a million a year.

The system, which held only 700,000 samples when Labour took office in
1997, now exceeds three million and includes 140,000 from people never
charged with any offence.   Proportionately it is easily the largest DNA
database in the world and is 50 times the size of the French equivalent...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

.................
Telegraph Online

'Library' holds blood, hair and skin from three million people
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
(Filed: 05/01/2006)

The national DNA database at the centre of controversy last night is a
"library" of samples of human material taken from around three million
people suspected of, or charged with, crimes.   Each sample - including
mouth swabs, hairs, scrapings of skin or blood - has been analysed to
produce a unique DNA, or genetic, "fingerprint", which is recorded in
digital form on a computer.

Physical samples, which are taken by doctors at the request of police, are
preserved by the Forensic Science Service (FSS), a government-owned agency
that is "custodian" of the database (NDNAD) and is based in Birmingham.

Each sample/profile - gathered under laws that allow samples to be taken
from children as young as 10 - is accompanied by details, such as age,
address or criminal record, supplied by police to identify the
individual...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/05/ndna105.xml


.........................

DNA of 37% of black men held by police

Home Office denies racial bias

James Randerson, science correspondent
Thursday January 5, 2006
The Guardian

The DNA profiles of nearly four in 10 black men in the UK are on the
police's national database - compared with fewer than one in 10 white men,
according to figures compiled by the Guardian.
Civil liberties groups and representatives of the black community said this
offered evidence that the database reinforced racial biases in the criminal
justice system...

http://society.guardian.co.uk/

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posted by Irdial , 2:08 PM Þ 

For those of you on the mac and who are spending hours writing code I cannot reccomend Textmate highly enough. Its the best editor I have ever used, and I have run J-Edit, Ultraedit, BBEdit, Gedit, VI and some other, smaller editors, and Textmate trounces the lot of them.

Take a look at this newly added Screencast'Putting Flickr on Rails' to see Textmate going through its paces.

This tool is so good, I bought a licence.
posted by Irdial , 1:55 PM Þ 

RFID-Zapper

What is the RFID-Zapper?

The RFID-Zapper is a gadget to deactivate (i.e. destroy) passive RFID-Tags permanently. The development-team presently consists of two people. Goals are a proof-of-concept and the construction of at least one functioning and appealing prototype, as well as a documentation of the project, so that everyone can build an own RFID-Zapper.

Why should I need such a thing?

We have to expect to find RFID-Tags, serving many purposes, almost everywhere around us within the near future. The consequences of this development are discussed elsewhere; as far as the RFID-Zapper is concerned it is enough to know, that RFID-Tags are likely to further threaten and compromise the privacy of customers. To defend yourself against such measures, you might want a small, simple and relatively appealing gadget to permanently deactivate RFID-Tags around you, e.g., to deactivate RFID-Tags in recently bought clothes without damaging those.

...

Thought this may be appealing to the DIYs in the group ...
posted by mary13 , 2:46 AM Þ 
Wednesday, January 04, 2006

That means not paying tax.

And not buying Government Bonds and other such investments.
posted by meau meau , 6:40 PM Þ 

ruby on rails
I had a look at it at around this time last year chris ... unfortunately, due to work / life commitments i didn't get beyond the 'wow this is really very fast i must look at it in greater detail' stage ... i bought 'programming ruby' and was taken by how beautiful the language seems to be, but haven't had time to use it ... i'd be interested to hear how you get on with it
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 5:14 PM Þ 

justcurio.us

There is this story on the BBQ: skye bridge fiasco.

Whats poignant about this story is that it was the first PFI project started by the last conservative government and carried on by the current labour one.

It is indicative of how all the hospitals and schools built under this deal are a sham and a fraud, using our taxes to line the pockets of private companies, instead of building them more cost effectively using public sector borrowing.

This is another BBQ story about how a [flagship PFI] hospital local to me is nearly £20 million in debt and expects it to rise to £100 million in four years due to the set up of its PFI 'contract'.



Is anybody using Ruby on Rails? If so, how are you finding it? Im involved in a project with a few online friends and all of us are beginners with it. We all have experience with php and some with perl so I cant see it being a steep curve but just wondered about others experiences with it.

I had my birthday on sunday. I spent the day relaxing at home, finishing off reading 'Margrave Of The Marshes' [John Peel's semi-autobiography] and treated myself to what can be used as a music making device, namely a P5 gaming glove, even though I am lefthanded!:
posted by chriszanf , 3:22 AM Þ 
Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Did my ancestors eke out a bare existence on Plymouth Rock to practice their faith for this?

Spying on ourselves as the Russians only could have in the most fevered dreams of the KGB.

Did my ancestors fight and die for the American Revolution for this?

Calling it necessary to stop terrorist attacks when all that was needed to stop 9/11 was strong doors and locks in cockpits.

Did they fight and die on the battlefields of the Civil War for this?

Even Lincoln suspending habeaus corpus was at least done in the open.

Did my grandfathers fight in Europe and the Pacific for this?

Inherant power under the Constitution to do this is beyond laughable.

Has the entire last 400 years of struggle of my ancestors been utterly in vain?

Has America forgotten utterly what it is?

Have the darkest nightmares of George Washington and the dangers of party politics finally been realized?

Why is all of the debate about the NSA spying revolving around it's legality? How is that even possible here?

Can anyone see right from wrong anymore in America?

Can anyone remember what it means to be an American?

Where is the Spirit of America?

Do not vote for any incumbent, Democrat or Republican, in coming elections, or it will be the worse for us all. They are both corrupt parties, fighting over power that they are loathe to give up.

We The People are Sovereign here.

The Republican and Democratic Parties are not Sovereign, and have no inherant right to exist.

We The People ARE the Government of this Nation, and it seems to be long past time that we administered a refresher course in that lesson at the ballot box, to both of those old and corrupt parties.

How is it that the rules to stand for office in this nation are so convoluted and nearly impossible to meet for anyone not personally wealthy or backed by the Republicans or Democrats?

Does either of those parties truly even remember what those words MEAN?

Have we truly become the worst in what we hate? How is unquestioned rule by one or the other different from unquestioned rule by one party?

Does anyone understand what this program means?

It WILL lead to abuses of personal power that make the 47 year rule of the FBI by it's first director seem tame and pale, and whomever grabs the reigns of such an apparatus will not easily give them up.

Who in the Democratic party has already been blackmailed by data gathered by this program? If they haven't yet, give it at most one more election cycle.

How would electing another batch of Democrats truly make things any different?

What excuse would they grab hold of to do the same, and how long would that temptation of power take before they gave in to it?

My God, what ever happened to the plain meaning of the text of the 4th Amendment?

What ever happened to the plain meaning of the law being what it meant?

What ever happened to individuals actually running for office and truly representing the interests of those around them in their communities?

When was the last time that the outcome of elections for the House of Representatives was not almost entirely a foregone conclusion?

It no longer matters if any individual candidate means well personally, if they are a member of one of the two major parties they are supporting a corrupt apparatus.

Would you sell your birthright for a mess of potage?

Do not vote for major party candidates if you still know what the Spirit of America is.

If it still lives, prove it at the ballot box. Start write in campaigns for independent candidates, and do not donate to the two major parties. Vote with your wallet as well.

Vote the two parties out of power while you still can, as electronic balloting will soon make anonymous voting a dream of the past, and it will then be too late.

Ask these difficult questions, forward and post this message, and do not take excuses for an answer.

-David Mercer Tucson, AZ

This essay is public domain and may hence be distributed in any media with or without attribution, in whole or in part. [...]

Posted on the Politech mailing list no less.

Like I said before; even if bombs in London kill ten thousand in one year not a single one of our rights should be given up because of it. MILLIONS of people laid down their lives voluntarily so that we wouldn't have to put up with people like Bliar turning the UK into a police state.
it seems to be long past time that we administered a refresher course in that lesson at the ballot box
WRONG.

The ballot box is the means by which they control the population, diffuse pent up indignation, transfer legitimacy and authority to themselvs and continue the relentless sham. The only thing that will stop the monster in its tracks is a withdrawl of all services rendered to the state by the iindividual. That means not paying tax. It's the only language they understand, and the last tool left to the millions of americans who want to have real, fine grained, direct control over what their government does. Anyone who says 'vote' is a part of the problem. The entire system needs to be dismantled and then reconstructed with even more controls and restrictions on government. Anything less is just a waste of time.
posted by Irdial , 9:28 PM Þ 

Just found out Derek Bailey (the improvising guitarist) died on the 25th of December, was lucky enough to see him in action four or five times, wonderful genius stuff, every time.

Moog, Ferrari, Bailey what a year.

-

Have These any involvement with the imminent This Heat boxset? Sounds intriguing.
posted by meau meau , 6:38 PM Þ 
Monday, January 02, 2006

Month rhymes with Tokenism
Orange rhymes with Defoliant
Silver rhymes with Iscariot
Purple rhymes with Nelson

I know what you're thinking, but you'd be wrong.

Back to work tomorrow.
posted by Alun , 2:11 PM Þ 
Sunday, January 01, 2006

Seen on a biscuit wrapper...
No words in the English language rhyme with:
Month
Orange
Silver
Purple

HNY :P
posted by slip , 6:37 PM Þ 
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