Monthly Archives: February 2014

Is there free speech in Russia? These writers think not

Posted: February 6, 2014 at 11:41 pm

Hundreds of authors including Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie, and Margaret Atwood have signed an open letter criticizing Russian laws which they say 'strangle free speech.'

On the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, more than 200 authors from 30 countries have published an open letter criticizing recent Russian laws that strangle free speech, joining a wave of protestors denouncing rights abuses in Russia.

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Anti-gay and blasphemy laws place a chokehold on the right to express oneself freely, the letter, published in the Guardian Thursday, states.

Among the prominent author-signatories are Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Gunter Grass, Julian Barnes, Neil Gaiman, and Orhan Pamuk. Notably, as the Guardian points out, Russia's foremost contemporary novelist, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, is also a signatory to the letter.

They condemn three specific laws: gay propaganda laws that prohibit the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors; blasphemy laws that criminalize religious insult; and the recent recriminalization of defamation laws.

These laws "specifically put writers at risk", according to the letter, and its signatories "cannot stand quietly by as we watch our fellow writers and journalists pressed into silence or risking prosecution and often drastic punishment for the mere act of communicating their thoughts.

The letter reads:

A healthy democracy must hear the independent voices of all its citizens; the global community needs to hear, and be enriched by, the diversity of Russian opinion. We therefore urge the Russian authorities to repeal these laws that strangle free speech, to recognise Russia's obligations under the international covenant on civil and political rights to respect freedom of opinion, expression and belief including the right not to believe and to commit itself to creating an environment in which all citizens can experience the benefit of the free exchange of opinion.

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Is there free speech in Russia? These writers think not

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Flashing headlights protected free speech? Not in MN

Posted: at 11:41 pm

A quick flash of bight headlights is a driver-to-driver warning only some know about and many police officers don't like, but a federal trial judge has ruled it is protected free speech. In Minnesota, the rules aren't so clear.

Many languages evolve and change over time, and it seems that flashing headlights to another driver on the road is hardly a universal symbol for anything these days. Yet, in many areas, a couple of flashes can signal there is a cop waiting up the road with a speed gun -- and a federal trial judge in Missouri says those speed trap warnings are constitutionally protected free speech.

"I think, at this point, the case may be unsettled," CLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh -- the go-to expert on the topic, said.

According to Volokh, intent is what counts.

"What was he saying? Watch out for police or watch out and drive safely?" he questions.

In Minnesota, there is no specific law preventing drivers from warning other motorists about speed traps, but that doesn't mean anyone who tries it out won't get a ticket. State law says headlights must be on continuously a half hour before sunset and after sunrise, but high-beams may not be used within 1,000 feet of an oncoming vehicle. That may allow them to initiate a stop.

"Officers can certainly stop someone," John Elder, with the Minneapolis Police Department, confirmed. "It's up to the officer whether they want to issue a ticket, but they can certainly stop for it."

These days, warnings tend to be more high-tech anyway. Waze is a traffic app that encourages drivers to report police activity -- including whether the cops are visible or hidden. Of course, police can also pull over a driver they suspect of texting behind the wheel too.

The Minnesota State Patrol said their main concern with flashing headlights to communicate with other drivers isn't keeping speed traps a secret. Rather, it's about avoiding creating additional distractions on the roads.

"It's really a traffic safety issue for us -- not so much for warning other drivers," Lt. Eric Roeske said.

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Turkey passes draconian internet law, Turks say goodbye to their freedom of speech

Posted: at 11:41 pm

5 hours ago Feb. 6, 2014 - 3:23 PM PST

The Turkish government has long had a fractious relationship with the internet, marked by periodic bans on sites like YouTube for content that contravenes Turkish laws like the law that makes it an offence to insult Turkishness. But new amendments to the countrys internet legislation that were passed by parliament on Wednesday take this internet-phobia to new levels, and represent an unprecedented attack on the free speech rights of Turkish citizens.

Among other things, the amendments allow the authorities to block access to specific content on the internet with as little as four hours notice, and without a court order. The legislation goes beyond the kind of blanket site-wide banning that Turkey has used in the past against services like YouTube, and allows the government to block specific pieces of content at the URL level, in much the same way that Chinas Great Firewall does.

In many ways, the new Turkish law is the rough equivalent of SOPA and PIPA two anti-piracy bills that were proposed by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 2011 and sparked a huge outcry about surveillance and free speech, to the point where both were withdrawn. The Turkish amendments, however, have been passed by parliament and now just require the signature of the countrys president, Abdullah Gul.

Like those laws, the Turkish legislation forces ISPs to act as agents of the government in a variety of ways, including a requirement to store virtually all data about their users online activity for at least two years. The amendments also authorize the government to use methods such as deep packet inspection in order to bypass anonymizing tools and other technologies that Turkish dissidents might use to get around content blocks or bans.

Turkish nationals, including University of North Carolina sociologist and social-media expert Zeynep Tufekci, have been criticizing the proposed legislation for some time because they see it as an infringement of their rights to free speech. Some see the crackdown as a response to the recent corruption scandal, in which some senior ministers have reportedly been receiving bribes. Turkey also routinely censors and restricts its national news media, making internet sources and especially social media an even more important factor.

As noted by the site BoingBoing, one Turkish citizen has written a goodbye letter to the internet and posted it on Medium, saying: This is a farewell to our freedom of speech, privacy and World Wide Web, and an unwanted welcome to Turkey Narrow Web. Ahmet Sabanci described the legislation in this way:

ISPs going to log everything we do together. Theyll keep these logs for years and government can check these logs whenever they want. Theyll use URL-based censorship on you. That means, if my essays on Medium counted as harmful, other people can see Medium but theyll never be able to read my essays on Medium. And most of the people wont be able to notice this.

In a recent interview with Wired magazine, the creator of the web Sir Tim Berners-Lee said that one of his fears about the future of the global network was that it would become Balkanized, with countries taking control of portions of the net and restricting information. He said he wants a web thats open, works internationally, works as well as possible and is not nation-based. Unfortunately, that kind of free flow of information isnt in the interests of repressive regimes.

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Space Station Live: Space Diet to Prevent Bone Mineral Loss – Video

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Space Station Live: Space Diet to Prevent Bone Mineral Loss
Space Station Live commentator Pat Ryan conducts an interview with Dr. Scott M. Smith, the principal investigator of the Pro K experiment. The experiment is ...

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Which was the first space station launched by Russia? – Video

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Which was the first space station launched by Russia?
General knowledge!

By: Srikanth Radhakrishna

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Let’s play Space Station 13 – ! – Video

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Let #39;s play Space Station 13 - !
SS13 ! 18:00.

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how to draw cartoon astronautHow to Draw an Astronauthow to draw astronautHow to Draw Cartoon Astron – Video

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Testing CATS in Space: Laser Technology to Debut on Space Station

Posted: at 6:45 am

While felines in space may be what youre thinking, the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) is a much more helpful accompaniment planned for theInternational Space Station. CATS will study the distribution of aerosols, the tiny particles that make up haze, dust, air pollutants, and smoke.

When IcelandsEyjafjallajkull volcanoerupted nearly four years ago, for example, officials grounded flights in Europe because particles contained within its massive plume could damage aircraft engines, resulting in potentially deadly consequences for passengers. NASA couldnt dispatch aircraft-borne instruments for the very same reasons European officials had grounded commercial aircraft. When the next volcano erupts, NASA will have a new tool in orbit that can monitor the spread of particles in Earths atmosphere from its space-based perch.

ThisEarth remote sensinginstrument is scheduled to launch to the space station in September 2014 as a demonstration project. Its sensors will help researchers determine for the first time what state-of-the-art, three-wavelength laser technology can do from space to measure tiny airborne particlesalso known as aerosolsin Earths atmosphere.

Developed by NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Matt McGill, and his team, CATS will be able to see the character as well as vertical and horizontal distribution of aerosols in a whole new light. When CATS begins operations from its docking port on the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility (JEM-EF), the refrigerator-sized sensor will continue measuring atmospheric aerosols using the same two-laser wavelengths as NASAs Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission the 1064 and 532 nanometer wavelengths.

Third Wavelength Added

What makes CATS stand out is the addition of a third laser wavelength at 355 nanometers. This will deliver more detailed information and could help scientists differentiate between the types of particles in the atmosphere. CATS is also equipped with extremely sensitive detectors capable of counting individual photons, delivering better resolution and finer-scale details.

"You get better data quality because you make fewer assumptions, and you get, presumably, a more accurate determination of what kind of particles youre seeing in the atmosphere," said McGill.

While CALIPSO can deliver 20 pulses of laser per second, using, as McGill described it, a whopping 110 milliJoules of energy in each of those pulses, CATS will fire 5,000 laser pulses per second, with only about 1 milliJoule for each pulse. The greatly simplified CATS power and thermal requirements are a huge plus for space-borne applications.

Earth Science from the Space Station

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Russian Soyuz rocket launched to International Space Station

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A Russian Soyuz rocket boosted an unmanned Progress supply ship into orbitWednesday, kicking off a six-hour rendezvous with the International Space Station.

With a sky-lighting burst of flame, the Progress M-22M/P-54 spacecraft climbed away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at11:23 a.m. EST(GMT-5,10:23 p.m.local time) at roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the launch complex into the plane of the space station's orbit.

The space station passed 260 miles above Kazakhstan within a few minutes of liftoff, giving the lab's crew a glimpse of the rocket's fiery climb go space.

"We got a pretty good view of the first stage," flight engineer Rick Mastracchio told NASA flight controllers in Houston. "After (stage) separation, we pretty much lost it, but it was a good show for a few seconds."

The climb to space went smoothly and the Progress supply ship slipped into its planned preliminary orbit, with a high point of around 150 miles and a low point of roughly 120 miles, about nine minutes after liftoff. A few moments later, the spacecraft's solar panels and antennas deployed as expected.

"We have confirmation of separation of the Progress vehicle (from the Soyuz booster) and also deployment of the solar arrays and the appendages associated with the automated rendezvous and docking system," commentator Kyle Herring reported from NASA's mission control in Houston.

If all goes well, the cargo ship will carry out an automated four-orbit rendezvous with the space station, gliding to a docking at the Earth-facing Pirs module at6:25 p.m.As usual, Russian cosmonauts aboard the lab complex planned to be standing by in the Zvezda command module to remotely take over manual control of the approaching Progress if necessary.

The spacecraft is loaded with 2.8 tons of equipment and supplies for the station's six-man crew, including 2,897 pounds of spare parts, experiment hardware and general supplies, 1,764 pounds of propellant, 926 pounds of water and 110 pounds of oxygen.

The next space station resupply mission will be carried out by a commercially developed SpaceX Dragon supply ship launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Liftoff is expected in mid March.

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Progress spacecraft blasts off on quick trip to space station

Posted: at 6:45 am

Russia launched a Progress resupply freighter Wednesday on a six-hour journey to the International Space Station, delivering nearly 3 tons of fuel and supplies to the orbiting scientific research laboratory after a smooth automated rendezvous.

The Soyuz rocket lifted off at 1623 GMT (11:23 a.m. EST; 10:22 p.m. local time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photo credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now The unpiloted Progress M-22M spacecraft lifted off on top of a Soyuz rocket at 1623:33 GMT (11:23:33 a.m. EST) in temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, kicking off an expedited six-hour rendezvous with the space station.

The launch was timed for the precise moment necessary to reach the station in such a short time. The outpost was at an altitude of 260 miles over the western border of Kazakhstan near Volgograd, Russia.

Rick Mastracchio, one of the space station's six occupants, reported seeing the Soyuz rocket's fiery exhaust trail as the complex flew over Baikonur.

A series of rocket burns with the Progress craft's own thrusters fine-tuned the ship's path toward the complex, with the on-board automated rendezvous sequence commencing about two hours before docking.

The fast track rendezvous is now the standard approach for all Russian vehicles, including the Progress and crewed Soyuz capsules, replacing a longer two-day flight profile to the 450-ton complex.

Docking with the space station's Pirs module occurred at 2222 GMT (5:22 p.m. EST) as the vehicles flew over the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida.

The Soyuz rocket delivered the Progress to orbit about nine minutes after liftoff after launching into a clear night sky over the historic Baikonur launch base. The kerosene-fueled rocket shed its four strap-on boosters about two minutes into the flight, with its core engine and upper stage continuing to fire to propel the Progress M-22M spaceship into orbit with an altitude between 120 miles and 150 miles.

Moments after separating from the launcher's third stage, the Progress extended its two power-generating solar panels stretching 35 feet tip-to-tip, along with communications antennas and its navigation radar to guide the ship to docking with the Russian segment's Pirs module.

The Progress M-22M logistics ship is loaded with 1,446 pounds of propellant to be pumped into the Russian Zvezda service module, plus 110 pounds of oxygen and 926 pounds of water to bolster the space station's reserves.

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