Book Reviews
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Thursday, March 20, 2003
![[Item Permalink]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0112083/images/ur_bullet.gif){kind=small} Flying tomorrow -- Comment()
I'm attending tomorrow a project meeting in Kuopio, Finland. It is said that air travel will diminish a lot due to the war, so perhaps the plane will not be full. And perhaps the security is tighter. Somehow the war doesn't feel real yet.
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Scientists hunt for life: "A hunt for intelligent species who inhabit worlds orbiting alien suns was launched yesterday. [...] Scientists began to use the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to study around 150 spots identified as the source of possible signals from extraterrestrial civilisations by a sky survey conducted using the biggest "distributed computing" project on the planet. [...] The shortlist was drawn up after more than a million years of computation by 4.3 million computers worldwide using SETI @ home, a program disguised as a screensaver that pops up when a computer is idle and analyses data from the 1,000 ft telescope in search of intense or unusual signals." [Google Technology News]
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The least free press in the world -- Comment()
Here are the worst offenders of press freedom in the world according to the worldwide press freedom index: 124 BelarusUSA should have started the campaign of freeing countries from the bottom of the list. So, first priority should be North Korea, then China, then Burma... Iraq is 10th in priority. But perhaps we should consider also the oil reserves of these offending countries.
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The freedom of press and media worldwide -- Comment()
The worldwide press freedom index shows that number one is Finland --- a four-way tie shared with Iceland, Norway, and Netherlands. USA is below Costa Rica: "The poor ranking of the United States (17th) is mainly because of the number of journalists arrested or imprisoned there. Arrests are often because they refuse to reveal their sources in court. Also, since the 11 September attacks, several journalists have been arrested for crossing security lines at some official buildings." I wonder how the recent developments will affect the ranking of USA. There is already talk about black-listing those who present contrary opinions. I'm happy to say that the Finnish movie director Aki Kaurismäki, whose film "The man without a past" is a candidate for Academy Awards (Oscars), has refused to attend the price ceremony as a small token of protest.
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Bioterror Defense: Quick DNA Scan: "A new method for quickly identifying bioweapons that may have contaminated the food, water or air supply may soon make it into the hands of doctors and other nonspecialists. By Dermot McGrath." [Wired News]
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E-mail virus exploit war interest: 'Computer security experts are warning about a new e-mail virus that feeds on public interest in the war against Iraq. The Ganda worm comes as an e-mail attachment with a variety of subject lines such as "Spy pics" and "GO USA !!!!".' [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]
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Zen Bush koan -- Comment()
The Aardvark Speaks: 'President Bush approaches Saddam Hussein with a large DU shell and says: "If you do not go into exile, I will attack Iraq. If you go into exile, I will also attack Iraq." No-one is enlightened, and no-one will be in the foreseeable future.'
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It's simply about power: "The U.S. feel that they can establish a new kind of imperialism to the world and that all existing international organizations, leftovers from the last century, are not needed anymore (if not to clean things up once they're done). Only Europe, as a friend od the US, could have opposed this imperialism. But we failed. Right after September 11 the US were leading the largest coalition of countries ever seen. Now, whatever the US administration is saying, they are going to a war alone. Even in the countries officially supporting this war (Italy is one of them), very large majorities of the population are strongly against it. There's something terribly wrong about all this." [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog > Curiouser and curiouser!]
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Lessig Blog writes: "Most lawyers and policy makers do not understand what technologists believe; most technologists don't understand that (at least some) lawyers believe that what technologists believe about the system should matter. [...] So here's an idea. I'd like to construct a page of views of technologists who have experience with the system. The aim will not be to evaluate the system as a whole, but instead to collect credible testimony about the burdens the system imposes. Policy makers should be evaluating whether the benefits outweigh the burdens. My aim is not to do that weighing. My aim is simply to collect stories and evidence about the burdens. [...] If you have experience and a view, then email me and describe both. I will collect them and verify the source, and then make the results available here."
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Cross posting: How do I choose my links? "An introspective and thoughtful post, S.A. Affolee, speaks about thoughts concerning linking. [...] So who do I link to? Oh, all sorts of people. Scientists, students, feminists, musicians--people who are in many respects similar to me." [Private Ink]
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What is the opposite of wisdom? -- Comment()
I'm thinking of the actions of USA and the war coalition. They are not wise, but they are not stupid either. You can be clever but not wise. What is the right word for this?
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Strategic planning -- Comment()
In addition to making performance reviews, I'm currently involved in strategic planning by writing and editing a memo on scientific software. This memo was started a month ago, and will (I hope) be ready early next week. A lot of colleagues have commented and provided feedback, but there is still a lot of polishing to do. Some years ago editing a strategy memo would have been a huge and perhaps not so rewarding task. Nowadays I'm getting used to this kind of work. The process of thinking, writing, commenting, and editing can be enjoyable, even if the result is just another memo.
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