I could wax lyrical about the beauty of nature, the splendour of God’s creation, blah blah blah and other such crap. But I won’t. If you want to see the biggest fucking explosion since George Lucas and Steven Spielberg got bombed on angel dust on the set of Saving Private Skywalker, take a look at NASA’s animation of yesterday’s solar flare (yesterday being October 28, 2003, in case you’re a web surfing time traveller from the future). Associated with the flare was an ejection of a billion tons or more of gas from the Sun’s tenuous outer atmosphere, or corona. Both flare and coronal mass ejection accelerated charged particles to very high energies and hurled them at near the speed of light directly toward the Earth.
earthobservatory.nasa.gov
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A comic strip for the big kids. Can you handle it?
www.e-sheep.com
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To all Eurosceptics who contend that nothing good ever comes out of Brussels, I offer a bit of news to prove that the European Parliament does indeed do some good from time to time. They recently voted against a software patent directive proposed by the European Commission, clearing the way for programmers and developers to go about their coding without fear of persecution by corporate interests like Microsoft and IBM.
To those still unconvinced of the ridiculous nature of software patents, think of it like this: books are copyrighted. Likewise, patents exist on the bits of technology that make computers work. But the essence of the book—boy loves girl, boy loses girl, boy buys boat and lives happily ever after—cannot be copyrighted.
A news article on death and destruction in a poor, developing country can be copyrighted, but not all news articles on this topic can be protected in the same way. Large newspapers often have similar basic stories on their front pages, with a difference in emphasis and opinion, of course. You copyright the exact order of the words, but not the basic premise.
Patenting a process in software or web development (say, the ability to order a book by clicking a single button) is like copyrighting all news articles about famine. Clearly, the latter is pure idiocy, but simply because we know that’s not how it works.
Software patents are a new concept to many people, and they haven’t had time to form an idea of “that’s not it works” yet. Hopefully the European Parliament has now given them a moment to catch up, before corporate interests hijack our technological future.
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SF author Cory Doctorow:
The American future is not only increasingly weird, it’s also increasingly parochial. The idea of a non-American tomorrow is growing so inconceivable to the inward-looking country that it is only a matter of time until this country’s tomorrow fractures off into its own parallel universe.
More SciFi opinions related to the election of Schwartzenegger as California governor can be found here.
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A history of the Iraq war, as told in the words of senior Bush Administration officials and advisers:
Once again, we were defending both ourselves and the safety and survival of civilization itself. September 11 signaled the arrival of an entirely different era. We faced perils we had never thought about, perils we had never seen before. For decades, terrorists had waged war against this country. Now, under the leadership of President Bush, America would wage war against them. It was a struggle between good and it was a struggle between evil.
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“Your behavior in the hotel is being watched by staffs. You must not become arrogant. Even if you are an upper guest.” Be honest, have you ever heard more sound travel advice? Kazumi Nonaka’s Batty Cheese art gallery becomes a commentary on a spoof on a commentary. Possibly on a spoof. Depends how far back you want to go. “I became a lost child in the strange land. I only stood there not to touch terrible gods and goddesses. ‘Would you take a picture please?’”
www.kt.rim.or.jp
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Newsgaming presents September 12 a game which is “not a game”, but rather a simulation. The premise is simple: assassinate the terrorists in an unidentified Middle Eastern location, without harming the civilians. Mothers cry when children are killed. Civilians scatter when the rockets hit. And is it my imagination, or do more terrorists appear every time I kill one of them? There may be a lot to be learned from this simple Shockwave metaphor for the war on terrorism.
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Russian prison tatttoos, every home should have one? Perhaps not, but this site is highly enjoyable for anyone into photography, body art or just plain weird and wonderful stuff.
russian.4t.com
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Part satire, part political imperative, part conspiracy theory—this probably best sums up the Réseau Voltaire “Bush Regime Card Deck” (subtitled “The 52 Most Dangerous American Dignitaries”). As political discourse (and factual summary) the deck may or may not be flawed, but it makes an excellent point for debate and an ideal tool for raising political consciousness. Download and print the PDF, amaze your friends. And enemies.
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