] "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology walked away
] from a $404,000 study because the government wanted to
] restrict participation by foreign students. Other
] universities are balking at demands that the government
] check research in the name of national security before
] scientists can publish or even talk about it."
...
] "The Bush administration and scientists alike are
] struggling with how to balance openness against the fear
] that all sorts of research could help terrorists "

I still don't understand why we just don't stop pissing everyone else off. That might be a good first start to reducing terrorism. Duh.

Could fear of terror muzzle science?

[ Forwarded to me in an e-mail and recommended into MemeStreams
as I believe this will be of significant general interest.
--Rek ]

Last fall NPR did a series of broadcasts on the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The whole series was broadcast on KQED last night. Its very factual and provides an excellent overview of the historical roots of the problem. It does not place blame on either side, but simply tells what happened. You can listen to the whole series in an hour and I highly recommend it.

NPR : The Mideast : A Century of Conflict

] "Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel known
] to broadcast statements from Osama bin Laden (news - web
] sites), will reach out to the West starting in February
] with an English-language Web site. "

Yes!

I've been craving the opportunity to read the Al-Jazeera news stories directly, and not just be limited to excerpted bits from BBC and CNN. I have yet to find a good online translator that would convert Arabic websites into something English-readable. So it'll be great to get Arabic news from the source (or at least closer to the source).

Al-Jazeera to provide English-language Web site

Decius wrote:
] Although most of the articles in the new phrack consist of
] more boring papers on buffer overflows, this article is
] interesting. How to Jam civilian GPS receivers. There is also
] an entertaining article about how traffic lights work...

Agreed. It's the only one I read and the only one that was truly interesting.

RE: Phrack: Jamming GPS

] "WiFi is scaring the government not because it's a tool
] of terrorism but because it's a tool of unregulated
] political dissent. "

This article misses the giant economic impact of giving away free 802.11 access on the business models of the major carriers/service providers, some of whom have spent billions on G3 license purchases. But it's still a fun little rant.

What's behind the DoD's asinine reaction to WiFi 'Peril:?

This book is a MUST read for anyone who wants to understand the power structure and how it works via the media in America. It's right up there with Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky, but supplies specific anecdotal evidence of real life suppression and how it works.

The journalists involved in these experiences are from the mainstream: CBS, CNN, Associated Press, Reuters, etc, and none were particularly radical before personally encountering the censorship mechanisms of the power elite, which is what makes the book so fascinating.

Give a shit. Care. Get involved. Read this book.

18 Tales of Media Censorship : Into the Buzzsaw

Swater wrote:
] ] "automakers have, over the past decade, ramped up their
] ] SUV designs to appeal even more to the "reptilian"
] ] instincts of the many Americans who are attracted to SUVs
] ] not because of their perceived safety, but for their
] ] obvious aggressiveness. "
]
] This article is hillarious yet revealing in the ways SUV's are
] deliberately marketed to our atavistic desires and fears. And
] at last provides proof of their hazardous safety record.
]
] Vanity. Insecurity. Uh hunh.

Yeah. I've been sucked in, too. I want one. I probably won't buy one, but I want one. :(

The absolute worst as far as I'm concerned is that new Hummer, H2. Every time I see one I'm like: "What are they thinking???"

RE: Bumper Mentality: The story of SUVs

From John Watkinson, The Art of Digital Audio, 2nd edition, pg. 104:

In the early days of digital audio research, the necessary bandwidth of about 1 Mbps per audio channel was difficult to store. Disk drives had the bandwidth but not the capacity for long recording time, so attention turned to video recorders. These were adapted to store audio samples by creating a pseudo-video waveform which would convey binary as black and white levels. The sampling rate of such a system is constrained to relate simply to the field rate and field structure of the television standard used, so that an integer number of samples can be stored on each usable TV line in the field. Such a recording can be made on a monochrome recorder, and these recording are made in two standards, 525 lines at 60 Hz and 625 lines at 50 Hz. Thus it is possible to find a frequency which is a common multiple of the two and is also suitable for use as a sampling rate.

The allowable sampling rates in a pseudo-video system can be deduced by multiplying the field rate by the number of active lines in a field (blanking lines cannot be used) and again by the number of samples in a line. By careful choice of parameters it is possible to use either 525/60 or 625/50 video with a sampling rate of 44.1KHz.

In 60 Hz video, there are 35 blanked lines, leaving 490 lines per frame or 245 lines per field, so the sampling rate is given by :

60 X 245 X 3 = 44.1 KHz

In 50 Hz video, there are 37 lines of blanking, leaving 588 active lines per frame, or 294 per field, so the same sampling rate is given by

50 X 294 X3 = 44.1 Khz.

The sampling rate of 44.1 KHz came to be that of the Compact Disc. Even though CD has no video circuitry, the equipment used to make CD masters is video based and determines the sampling rate.

44100 Explained

Well, in a recent SpeakEasy e-mail they mentioned this broadband/DSL oriented site. I actually wasn't expecting much except that it turns out they are extremely broad in their coverage. A lot of nuggets of news. Also, surprisingly, they seem to be global in their coverage and there is a constant stream of it (about every two hours something new is posted).

If you want to get updates regarding Telecom, Broadband, P2P, and anything else even marginally related to broadband services this looks like the place.

broadbandreports.com - the place for BROADBAND

] "The Saturday, the Hangyore newspaper in Seoul Korea
] carried a front-page article entitled, "Youth Politics of
] the IT Generation Won," on the role of network
] connectivity in the recent election. Young supporters of
] No Mu-hyon flooded the internet with e-mails and
] saturated text messaging services with calls to get out
] the vote for No Mu-hyon. The article noted claims by
] information technology columnist Sin Tong-nyo'k': that
] information and power in the mass media and
] representative democracy were in the past vested in a
] minority, but have been conferred on the majority by the
] internet."

Wow... Now South Korea is considerably more wired then the United States, so this is a window into the future.

Smart Mobs turn election in South Korea