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Saturday, March 1, 2003
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With the current world situation I decided to spend some time trying to find an old Orwell essay on freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
Of course my own library of things Orwell is poor (save three books and some scattered essays), but I came on a nice library of things Orwell. (It isn't clear what the copyright status is ... note that the domain is Russian).
The piece I was looking for is Freedom of the Park, which is well worth the read.
The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. ...
2:07:34 PM 
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Research into fusion energy machines has been slow and expensive sledding for about five decades. Recently it has been announced that the US will joing the ITER project - sort of a next generation tokamak.
Several experiments have been exploring the "break even" range where the energy obtained from fusion exceeds the energy necessary to ignite and sustain the reaction. ITER aims to explore moving towards a commercial fusion reactor .. It is big (500MW) and expensive -- really expensive and to say that it is technically challenging is an extreme understatement.
I'm torn as this is very cool physics, but it isn't clear that it is the best use of research money. It would be nice if the economies of the countries involved were strong enough that this didn't heavily impact other projects and didn't divert people from energy programs that have immediate payback.
6:07:56 AM
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Apart from NOW, Frontline and South Park, I don't follow television closely. Two nights ago Frontline was displaced by a fund raiser so I hunted for my favorite episode on the web. If you haven't seen their piece on racism, take the time to watch it now.
6:07:42 AM
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