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| compos mentis. Concision. Media. Clarity. Memes. Context. Melange. Confluence. Mishmash. Conflation. Mellifluous. Conviviality. Miscellany. Confelicity. Milieu. Cogent. Minty. Concoction. |
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Press Release: The Cyrillic Projector Code Has Been Solved |
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| Topic: Cryptography |
11:34 pm EDT, Sep 22, 2003 |
] An international group of cryptographers, the Kryptos
] Group, announced this week that the decade-old Cyrillic
] Projector Code has been cracked, and that it deciphers to
] some classified KGB instructions and correspondence.
]
] The Cyrillic Projector is an encrypted sculpture at the
] University of North Carolina in Charlotte, that was
] created by Washington DC artist James Sanborn in the
] early 1990s. It was inspired by the encrypted Kryptos
] sculpture that Sanborn created two years earlier for CIA
] Headquarters.
]
] The message on the Cyrillic Projector has turned out to
] be in two parts. The decrypted first part is a Russian
] text encouraging secret agents to psychologically control
] potential sources of information. The second part appears
] to be a partial quote from classified KGB correspondence
] about the Soviet dissident Sakharov, with concerns that
] his report to the Pugwash conference was being used by
] the Americans for an anti-Soviet agenda. Kudos to Elonka and crew! Press Release: The Cyrillic Projector Code Has Been Solved |
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What Else Was Lost In Translation |
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| Topic: Movies |
10:20 am EDT, Sep 21, 2003 |
DIRECTOR (in Japanese to the interpreter): The translation is very important, O.K.? The translation.
INTERPRETER: Yes, of course. I understand. ... INTERPRETER (In English, to Bob): Right side. And, uh, with intensity.
BOB: Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that. This is the English translation of a very funny scene from Lost In Translation. What Else Was Lost In Translation |
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The New Humanists | Edge.org |
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| Topic: Science |
11:32 pm EDT, Sep 20, 2003 |
"The New Humanists: Science at the Edge" Panelists: Jared Diamond, Marc D. Hauser, and Jaron Lanier Los Angeles | 7:30 pm | Thursday, 9/25 | Barnes and Noble at The Grove (near Farmer's Market) John Brockman has a new book out, and several members of the edge.org community will be in Los Angeles on Thursday for a panel session. |
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The New Foreign Correspondence |
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| Topic: Society |
1:59 pm EDT, Sep 20, 2003 |
From news services to "blogs," the Internet has revolutionized the international news market -- opening it up to a broader and more active audience. Such technological innovations are rapidly changing the way people produce and consume news, making the traditional model of foreign correspondence obsolete. This article appears in the September/October 2003 issue of Foreign Affairs. You can read a free preview online. The New Foreign Correspondence |
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Beyond File-Sharing, a Nation of Copiers |
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| Topic: Intellectual Property |
10:51 am EDT, Sep 14, 2003 |
Of more than 18,000 students surveyed, 38 percent said they had lifted material from the Internet for use in papers in the last year. 44 percent said they considered this sampling no big deal. "I'm not sure it's shifted values yet, but for a lot of students, it's heading in that direction." In fact, for many people, that shift has already come. ... In a nation that flaunts its capacities to produce and consume, much of the culture's heat now lies with the ability to cut, paste, clip, sample, quote, recycle, customize and recirculate. Beyond File-Sharing, a Nation of Copiers |
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| Topic: California |
7:23 pm EDT, Sep 13, 2003 |
One hundred years from now, if present trends continue, California could conceivably have as many as 90 million residents. Where these future residents will live and work is unclear. How future Californians will occupy the landscape is also unclear. As the union's most populous state sizes itself up for the century ahead, I am reminded of this comment by José Ortega y Gasset, about 1930's Europe: "Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travellers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room." Consider this your guide to long-term investment. (In real estate? In politics?) How We Will Grow [PDF] |
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Johnny Cash, Singer Known as 'The Man in Black,' Dies at 71 |
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| Topic: Music |
6:40 am EDT, Sep 12, 2003 |
Johnny Cash, the legendary Man in Black whose gravelly bass-baritone was the vocal bedrock of American country music for more than four decades, died early this morning at a hospital in Nashville. He was 71. It is a sad day in Nashville, and for fans of great music everywhere. Johnny Cash, Singer Known as 'The Man in Black,' Dies at 71 |
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Shirky: Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content |
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| Topic: Intellectual Property |
12:39 am EDT, Sep 9, 2003 |
Micropayments, small digital payments of between a quarter and a fraction of a penny, made (yet another) appearance this summer with Scott McCloud's online comic, The Right Number, accompanied by predictions of a rosy future for micropayments. To read The Right Number, you have to sign up for the BitPass micropayment system; once you have an account, the comic itself costs 25 cents. BitPass will fail, as FirstVirtual, Cybercoin, Millicent, Digicash, Internet Dollar, Pay2See, and many others have in the decade since Digital Silk Road, the paper that helped launch interest in micropayments. These systems didn't fail because of poor implementation; they failed because the trend towards freely offered content is an epochal change, to which micropayments are a pointless response. ... The interesting questions are ... how much better collaborative filters will become in locating freely offered material. Shirky: Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content |
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CFP 2004 / Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference |
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|---|
| Topic: Politics and Law |
10:10 pm EDT, Sep 8, 2003 |
The Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference is headed back to the Bay -- April 20-24 in Berkeley, CA. We are seeking proposals on all aspects of computers, freedom, and privacy ... We have identified three themes for CFP2004: * The role of technology in providing national security and preserving individual privacy and freedom in the post-9-11 world: How has it enhanced or undermined public security, increased or decreased public access to information, helped or hindered military and law enforcement readiness and efficacy, and infringed or redefined individual privacy? * The impact of new legal and technical developments on the Internet's utility as a medium for disseminating and archiving information, interacting with individuals, and culture: From digital rights management and trusted computing architectures to jursidiction, intellectual property and tort law, how are the laws of government and the laws of physics and mathematics altering our ability to access, archive and interact with information? * The role of computer and telecommunications technologies in the political process: What are their effects on grassroots activism, information dissemination, opportunites for informed participation, organizing, candidate and issue campaigns, citizenship and the voting process itself at the local, national, and global levels? All submissions must be received by October 31, 2003. The program committee includes: Hal Abelson, MIT; Lorrie Cranor, AT&T; Lenny Foner, MIT Media Lab; Susan Landau, Sun Labs; Pamela Samuelson, Berkeley; and many others. CFP 2004 / Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference |
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