Tag: Nature, Space, Science, Tech

Camera Bombs

This story reminded me of an idea I had years ago:

Google is using its popular online mapping service to call attention to atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. In a project with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, inaugurated Tuesday, the Internet search company has updated its Google Earth service with high resolution satellite images of the region to document destroyed villages, displaced people and refugee camps.

My idea? After Rwanda and the Bosnian war and news of slaughter and the concentration camps, I wondered why it was that there were no camera bombs out of which hundreds of little C-U-See-Me style cameras on parachutes are deployed over sites of atrocities broadcasting direct to satellites, landing unseen or picked up by those on the ground to record what was happening to them. The lack of video for CNN to show over and over has been as much the difference between the war on terror and larger human rights disasters like Darfur.

New Science From The New Government

Isn’t it great when politics can solve issues in science:

…a pair of Environment Canada bureaucrats said they don’t even know who’s responsible for climate change policy anymore. They said the now-defunct directorate was specifically in charge of overseeing all new climate-change policy, and that its 10 employees are being reassigned to various quarters.

“Even the people working here say, ‘Who’s really accountable for making climate change policy anymore?’ They don’t even know,” said one bureaucrat who requested anonymity. “Right now we don’t know who’s accountable.”

While that is admittedly a lot of ways of saying it, it appears the results of New Science is in – no worries – move along! Bloggers and politicians have settled the matter so let it be. Hopefully so they will have the vision to apply the same understanding of which knowledge can be to medicine and engineering.

No, I meant the other sort of engineering.

Friday Bullet Points For March

Did I learn anything this week? Wheels put in motion have been rolling along nicely. Things not to be discussed, however. Winter does not leave with February – I’m learning that, too. For while there in the night it’s been like someone was spraying the house with jello from a fire house. The world out there is glazed at 4:15 am.

  • This is the kind of tax breaks I want to see:

    “There are situations where somebody receiving social benefits will go to work and the net benefit for them will be $1.08 an hour,” Flaherty told the Toronto Star recently. “So, quite rightly, they say, `There’s not much in it for me going to work.’ So, the new tax benefit is a way of increasing participation in the workforce.”

    While you are at it, claw back the 53 bucks a month I get for child tax credit. There is no way I need that – give it to the working poor or add it to the money for schools in Afghanistan or at least the anti-poppy forces. What tax breaks could you give up? And why can’t the Federal government have options on the tax form, credits you can waive and direct into various reserve funds for particular spending in the future?

  • Drink stout today and write about it.
  • Anyone else notice that Lessig is apparently not in demand anymore? Last news September 15, 2006 and last upcoming event came and went on October 5, 2006. Does anyone really care about Open Source as a revolution anymore? I think it was the stupid beer story that killed it off. Now it’s just a good browser and other co-op products that coat tail to one degree or another and/or are bundled for sale. Which is good.
  • This was the worst idea ever. Hardly worth congratulating the yikkie people that canceled it last week as they were the yiks who started it:

    Telus Corp. has withdrawn its “adult content” service to cellphone customers, effective immediately, a Telus spokesman said Wednesday. The company had come under a barrage of criticism after introducing the service that allowed adult cellular phone customers to download nude photographs and videos on a pay-per-view basis.

    That is just fingers-on-chalkboard yik. Apparently the firm is into hiring the yikky-enabled if the PR spin is to be believed. Note to file: Telus is/was an Alberta firm. Yik.

  • Speaking of endtimes, did anyone mention to you this week that THE PLANET’S CRUST IS CRACKING!!!

    Dr Chris MacLeod, from Cardiff University, said the Earth’s crust appeared to be completely missing in an area thousands of kilometres across…”Usually the plates are pulled apart and to fill the gap the mantle underneath has to rise up. As it comes up it starts to melt. That forms the magma,” he said. “That’s the normal process. Here it has gone awry for some reason. The crust does not seem to be repairing itself.”

    Drag. We need Team Zissou.

  • It is always bracing at moments like this weeks slump in the blogosphere to remember that there have been slumps before and there will be slumps again. The long term history of blogs has proven that blogs are the safest investment you can make with your time, your money, your family’s patience. Rumours that this drop was triggered by the realization that most blogs are abandoned within only a few posts have been denied by the Blog Marketing Board. You are asked to start another blog within ten days.

So enjoy your jello hose spraying, crust cracking planet while you can. Yesterday I put on my voicemail “Tra-la – it’s May!” before I realized it wasn’t.

The Intensity Principle

How can I adopt the intensity principle into my life so that I, too, can be a better Canadian in the new way:

  • At work, I will not promise to be more productive but when I do work, I promise to really really work, focusing on the really.
  • When losing weight, I will not eat less or exercise more but when I do I will really eat little – perhaps even nothing – and I will exercise in a meaningful way.
  • When retirement planning, I will not fall in to that trap of beginning to save now and making sure I put away a sensible amount every month but when I do get around to savings I am going to borrow a hell of a lot and stick it away…for sure…definitely.

There you have it. It is easy to attain intensity. Intensify yourself. Get intensed. Come to think of it, I am quite intensed about the whole thing right now.

Excellent Satellite Smoking Action

I have to admit, I like China’s style. What other nation would spend a bazillion dollars to smash its own lo-fi satellite out of the sky with a lo-fi ICM with its steering wheel removed, aimed only up.

China’s apparent success in destroying one of its own orbiting satellites with a ballistic missile signals that its rising military intends to contest American supremacy in space, a realm many here consider increasingly crucial to national security. The test of an antisatellite weapon last week, which Beijing declined to confirm or deny Friday despite widespread news coverage and diplomatic inquiries, was perceived by East Asia experts as China’s most provocative military action since it testfired missiles off the coast of Taiwan more than a decade ago.

Provocative? It was gnarly. It’s like a bad guy from Wayne’s World‘s move or even something from a 1950’s Godzilla flick.

[Scene: Dusk. A board room with scientists in lab coats on one side of table with Chinese leaders on the other, all wearing Roy Orbison glasses.]

Lead Scientist: Comrad Chairman, we propose to launch the missile at dawn to smash satellite Golden Happy Tomorrow IV in an unprecedented display of revolutionary power creating a shower of bright burning meteorites that will show your wisdom to the globe!

Chairmen: [Finger tips touching before him, slowly forming a slight smile.] Excellent.

[Room erupts in cautious laughter that builds in a cautious crescendo. Camera pans to a map of world on the wall as laughter continues cautiously.]

Face it: every once in a while a tyranny has to do something stylish and, frankly, Gadafi has the clothes horse thing cornered.

Friday The First Chat Of 2007

Like you, I measure out the days in Friday chats now. If I can just make it to Friday chat without emptying another jar of ginger marmalade, I say to my self, I will be OK.

  • The first group project is going well. I think this one is a high level starter discussion. Next I am going to post one about what to do with the Senate…maybe. Wait for it, though. Don’t take off on the topic in these comments. I think I will propose one every Monday leading up to the next election. The rules are basic. Very strict focus and no debate. If I need to spin out a debate, I can add that in another post later in the week once the ground work is established. I will create a category for group projects and introduce them with the prefix “GP:”.

  • The Randy Johnson experiment is over. The Red Sox’s chance for the pennant look better and better for 2007.
    • Hmmm…I wonder why their work may get interrupted?

    UK scientists planning to mix human and animal cells in order to research cures for degenerative diseases fear their work will be halted.

    One personal guideline I have for my universe: no dog-boys.

  • Syracuse lost to Pitt last night in basketball. Watched it on the best spent 25 bucks a month I have ever spent sports cable TV package. We seldom consider what a boon and blessing premium package cable TV is. Anyway, Syracuse was not looking like a team that would get past the first round of the NCAA’s, though there is some spark there. Pitt was dominant, a wall. Syracuse may get there but they need to get less chippy. Less jack-the-three with 50 seconds to go.
  • Another quarterback from the CFL makes good in the NFL. Good for Garcia. Beat the Giants.
  • I am not sure what to make of CBC’s upcoming Little Mosque on the Prairies. I am not sure I like my comedy to have twists or premises that ties it into a set of opportunities that may limit it…but then again I am quite certain I do not like my comedy provided to me by the CBC. Not since The King of Kenstington anyway – which was a ground breaking culturally inclusive kind of comedy if you think about it. That being said, one thing – one man – gives me great hope for its success: Carlo Rota. He is my favorite actor on TV ever since the Great Canadian Cooking Show. I want to be punched on the shoulder by him one day and hear him say with his belly laugh “you’re one hell of a guy, Al! Beer?”. If anything or anyone can make that happen please email me. These things are possible, you know.

That is it. The day beckons. Don’t forget to listen to David Sommerstein on The Beat Authority at 3 pm EST and then Mike Alzo at 8 pm with The Folk Show both on NCPR. And try to fit in Darcey’s Friday Night Blues and Beer which should be posted about 4 to 5 pm this afternoon. It is a full day.

Friday: Chat. Pleeeeeeeeeeese.

Is it summer or fall? I have no idea. I put the furnace on last evening as much to deal with the damp from the rain. It worked. It worked without making a clang, a thump or a low grinding noise of any sort.

  • This will likely be the news of the day as reported in the Times of India:

    Islamabad’s delicate ties with the United States is threatening to come apart at the seams after it was revealed Thursday that the Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan into the ”stone age” if it did not cooperate in the war on terror after 9/11.

    If it actually was said, one has to admire what can only be a Frintstones reference working its way into global politics. Given that the government of Pakistan has now signed a cease-fire deal with Taliban militants in North Waziristan, one should pay attention to Pakistan’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf a little more closely than we may have been.

  • Last night, the Red Sox played the game that they wished they had played all year, beating Minnesota six to nuttin’. Big Papi got two homers and Josh Beckett was incredibly sharp for an eight-inning shutout performance. Beckett had the string on the ball thing happening, pulling inside fastballs back to just nick the plate.
  • I want my roll-up computer monitor. Life will be better with a roll-up computer monitor.
  • I think Steve did a good job:

    The Prime Minister made the remarks yesterday during his maiden UN speech, which he also used to reinforce the challenges faced in rebuilding Afghanistan and rooting out the Taliban. He said the world community must stay united, lest division make the mission harder for Canada, which has 2,300 troops in the country and will soon have 2,500. “We have no illusions about the difficulties that still lie before us,” Mr. Harper said. “Difficulties don’t daunt us. But lack of common purpose and will in this body would.”

    Interesting to note the demand that everyone seems to have all of a sudden to make the UN work. So much for rejection of world order. Conversly, I had an Ezra Levant article imposed upon me in on of those legal trade magazines yesterday going on dopey-wise about how the supposedly successful Isreali battle in Lebanon this summer showed how international law and action is a fraud – no one told the nation apparently. I guess there was some delay between writing and publishing or maybe just a delay between brain and keyboard. But I suppose when you can come up with great junior-high phrases like “moral ghoulishness” and then build a political theory around it, you have to be given newspaper and magazine column space…right? This one is gold: “Are you a September 10th person or a September 11th person?” By this he clearly means do you agree with me or disagree with me but loads the latter with a truck load of moral superiority that cannot be questioned. Go ahead and question…and watch out for people who award themselves the moral gold star in any discussion.

  • Somewhere there is a scientist saying “why do magnets always get the rap? This had nothing to do with magnets yet there it is: Magnetic train crashes in Germany“. Time we spoke out against the thin veneer that rests over the anti-magnetism we all share but speak not of.

That’s it – gotta go to work now.

Make Your Own Cause

In an effort to advance the cause of supporting supporting, has anyone thought of Ribbon 2.0 where everyone makes up the content of their own magnetic cause ribbons making for a cacophony of causes and claims confusing the drivers of America? Maybe if there were more rounded edges the link to the new 2.0 world would be clearer. The other day I listened to an NPR hour on “the long tail” which I still have no clue about as it seems to be only a way to take existing circumstances, repackaging them as new and making sure someone gets a guruiffic revenue stream from the merchandise. Maybe personalized magnetic cause ribbons will help in my understanding.