Sunday, April 27, 2003

There are times when one wonders if John Ashcroft would turn into a pile of ashes if he touched the Constitution (particularly the Bill of Rights)?. An interview about the much denied Patriot II Act with Cindy Cohn of the EFF. __ And in a semi-related development (at least on the rights of an individual) , the RIAA continues to disturb me. How can a commercial group be given the right to investigate people without the need to invoke the judicial process of obtaining a search warrant? It is frightening when the RIAA is transformed into a law enforcement agency. Perhaps they will get uniforms and leather boots. It is interesting to speculate on how this will play. People who steal music rather than buying it (I would suggest this number is much smaller than what the RIAA claims) may change their ways. It is unlikely that they would pay for music in any event. People who pay for music (the majority) will fall into one of several bins those who applaud the efforts of the RIAA for coming down on common criminals and making the world safe for musicians. those who will largely ignore the music industry's legal position and will not alter their music consumption those who become sufficiently upset with the RIAA's tactics to decrease their consumption of music from the major labels My guess is the middle group will be the largest and the first group will be vanishingly small. The real question is how big will the last group be and will the RIAA, by their actions, cause it to grow. This would be an excellent research topic for some social scientists I know... A related question is how the consuming public will respond to the scale of RIAA aggression. Ten suits probably won't make much of an impact, but 10,000 might create a massive boycott. The question is "where is the tipping point and what is it a function of.." I would not personally invest in the RIAA's clients as I doubt they understand this calculus. 5:29:19 AM     Mark your calendar for late August. Mars will be very close to the Earth and will be a very bright (-2.9 magnitude) object in the Southern sky. It has been pointed out that the approach will be the closest in over 60,000 years. Using the MICA package from the Naval Observatory (the real program rather than the web interface, but the web interface is fun) one gets a separate of 55,758,006 km at 9:59 UT on August 27, 2003. I can't verify that this is the closest in 60,000 years (people have used MICA and JPL's DE406 Planetary Ephemeris to agree on identical values and have checked separations for a few million years on either side of our time). Stickers for detail may want to calculate the apparent distance (taking light travel time into account). I get a minimum separation that is about 85km closer about 300 seconds before the actual moment. You could add the relativistic correction, but it would be very small. Oh -- you only have to wait to wait until August 28, 2287 for a closer (by a few thousand km) approach. In any event this is a good time for you or your family to get acquainted with a telescope. Some will find the view disappointed and a few will have their lives changed. btw -- if you really like to worry about where things are in the solar system, check out Craig Markwardt's page. 5:28:49 AM     A researcher friend collects remote controls as an example of a technology that everyone uses, but few think about deeply. Recently the LA Times ran a piece on the subject. The old ultrasonic remotes were cute ... you could trigger them by dropping a coin on a hard surface and the transducers made dandy microphones for bat detectors. 5:28:25 AM

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