Monthly Archives: May 2017

Iran is using indirect censorship methods to avoid international criticism – The Conversation UK

Posted: May 18, 2017 at 1:46 pm

Hassan Rouhani does the rounds at the Tehran book fair.

Human rights watchdogs repeatedly shame Iran as one of the worlds worst offenders against freedom of expression, a harsh censor with little compunction about cracking down on critics with direct methods such as prior restraint and violent means of repression. But Iran, like other states around the world, is increasingly using other, more unorthodox ways of controlling speech what might be called indirect censorship.

Instead of the classic methods of removing content wholesale or blocking access to it, indirect censorship methods make producing or accessing undesirable ideas and information costly, technically difficult or legally risky. They often do so via unrelated laws, or by bypassing weak or nonexistent protective regulations. Deployed by both governments and private actors, these methods often dont fall under conventional definitions of censorship, and are therefore often not condemned as such.

The Iranian government is using indirect censorship partly out of geopolitical necessity. Tehran clearly wants to improve relations with the West, but the countrys domestic human rights situation is a major obstacle and its attitudes to freedom of speech are a particular sticking point. Since the government is hardly inclined to fundamentally change its ways, it has come up with a typically neoliberal solution: to transfer responsibility for enforcing censorship to the private sector.

In a speech at Tehrans 2016 International Book Fair, president Hassan Rouhani proposed that the ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance hand its job of censoring books and cultural products to an association of writers and publishers. His government promoted this idea as an initiative to relax book censorship, and it was broadly accepted as such by the Western media. But because there are few clear regulations regarding censorship and a huge range of sensitive subjects, it would more likely have the opposite effect.

The plan is currently in its pilot stage, and if it becomes operational, the government will free itself from direct responsibility for book censorship. It would be left to publishers and writers themselves to enforce vague red lines, including upon themselves, lest they fall foul of a judiciary capable of seizing books after publication and inflicting paralysing financial damage.

This would inculcate a conservative culture of self-censorship, with writers and publishers desperate to avoid unbearable financial or legal consequences taking an even more cautious and strict approach than the government itself.

Using unrelated laws to put pressure on media and to silence the dissidents is a typical method of indirect censorship. In Iran, defamation and insult lawsuits are an effective instrument with which to punish critics, and have a powerful and chilling effect on the media. And the way defamation laws are currently interpreted by the court means they can easily be used to restrict freedom of expression.

The Iranian legal system hosts two major approaches to dealing with defamation cases. The first, dominant until the Islamic Penal Code was introduced in 1983, considers that when someone attributes a specific crime to someone else, the accusations must be adjudicated by a court, and that if the accused is acquitted and considers themselves defamed, they may take their defamer to court in turn.

The other approach, which began to take hold in 1983, also allows someone claiming defamation to take their alleged defamer to court, but puts the burden of proof on the accuser. This violates the principle of presumption of innocence, and it puts particular pressure on investigative journalists who rely on anonymous or secret sources.

Worse still, according to an additional clause in the Islamic Penal Codes article 697, allegedly defamatory statements can be punishable even when they are proven justified and true. This provision makes a useful pretext to crack down on any whistleblower or investigative journalist who reveals defensible evidence of the governments corruption to the public.

A notorious case of this sort kicked off recently when the Iranian website Memari News published a set of official reports by the General Inspection Office that indicated that the Tehran Municipality had illegally transferred properties to a number of its high-ranking officers. Memaris editor-in-chief, Yashar Soltani, was soon arrested and charged with defamation and gathering classified information with the intent to harm national security.

Even though the General Inspection Office confirmed the credibility of the documents and that the municipality was involved in the illegal transfer of public properties, Soltani remains on bail with his case open, and still stands accused of harbouring a hidden political agenda.

For now, the Iranian government is still using the same harsh methods of direct censorship for which it has long been known blocking critical websites, for instance, or arresting government critics. But as it increasingly turns to more indirect methods, it is doing a better job of evading the scrutiny of the human rights watchdogs whove justifiably criticised it for so long.

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Ron Paul: What will bury Trump’s presidency? It’s not what you think – Tulsa World

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Alaska Lawmakers Deny Transgender Man Human Rights Post – NBCNews.com

Posted: at 1:42 pm

Drew Phoenix, left, and his girlfriend, Ellen Robertson, in 2012. Rachel D'Oro / AP file

Sen. John Coghill, a Republican from North Pole, said there's no problem with being an advocate "until you get on that commission and then what you want to do is you want to look at protecting all rights."

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat who supported Phoenix's nomination, asked whether the state is willing to appoint people to boards and commissions who understand discrimination first-hand and will work to end it or if people want to live in a state intolerant of those different from the majority or who have different views.

In a phone interview Tuesday evening, Phoenix said he was "incredibly upset and disheartened" by the vote.

"I just find it so ironic that somebody like myself, with so much years' experience personally and professional working on behalf of human rights, that they would not confirm me to the commission on human rights," he said.

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Phoenix said a state Senate committee that held confirmation hearings asked him questions related to his work as a transgender man with the LGBT community and if, given the opportunity, he would work to advance issues of equality for the LGBT community through the commission. He said he replied that, if that's what the commission seeks to do, he would.

He said one conservative group has framed the advancement of LBGT people as posing a threat to religious freedom. He said he is an ordained Christian minister and values religious freedom.

Phoenix thanked Walker "for having faith in my qualifications."

"I'm so sad I won't be able to use my expertise and experience to advance the work of the commission," Phoenix said.

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One problem with productivity is, we’re only human: Comment – Financial Post

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Financial Post
One problem with productivity is, we're only human: Comment
Financial Post
We all know that productivity growth is a problem. That's partly because of the limitations of new technology. But it's more about the imperfections of people. I suggest that we focus on how hard it is to build communities, and how trying it can be to ...

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One problem with productivity is, we're only human: Comment - Financial Post

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Elon Musk Has Finally Confirmed What the Boring Tunnels He’s Making Are For – Futurism

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In BriefWe now have an idea of just what Elon Musk's Boring Company isgoing to be for. Yes, it's to solve traffic, but it looks like itisn't meant just to be your usual tunnel for cars. In a new updatetoday, the company asserts that it's actually building a tunnelthat can also run the Hyperloop. Boring Through Traffic

Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk is ready to conquer space, roads, roofs, and now even tunnels. What started out as a simple musing on Twitter has become a full-blown startup aptly named The Boring Company. Today (May 17), the company added a FAQ pageto their website,which offers an abundance of newinformation about their specific goals.

The most notable announcement that was finally confirmed? The Hyperloop.

The FAQ explains that Musksinitial inspiration was:to solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic. The solution is to go three-dimensional, which could be done using flying cars an idea Musk doesnt think is very viable or to go underground. The other option is to go down and build tunnels, the website states, as these provide a fair amount of perks, including weatherproofing and the practically limitless layers of tunnels that could be builtmuch better than malfunctioning cars potentially plummeting from the sky.

But there is a problem. First, theres the cost. Second, existing tunnels cant support the Hyperloop pods. Musks new company is out to fix this.

Currently, tunnels are really expensive to dig, with some projects costing as much as $1 billion per mile. In order to make a tunnel network feasible, tunneling costs must be reduced by a factor of more than 10, explains the new FAQ.To make the tunnel more cost effective and efficient, its diameter is going to be less than 4 meters (14 feet) whereas normal tunnels (one-lane road tunnels) are usually about 8.5 meters (28 feet) in diameter. To do this, Musks tunnel company would use what it calls an electric sled.

Musks Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) or Godot is ready to start digging the first among these network of tunnels. However, as the TBM isnt even as fast as a snail yet, Musk is determined to find ways to make tunnel digging faster to defeat the snail in a race by increasing the TBMs speed, which will also cut down costs.

So, theres now a place to start digging this tunnel under Los Angeles and a machine to do it. But what is this tunnel really meant for? At first, many thought Musks tunnels would be like every other tunnel except they would be longer and could potentially connect LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and Sherman Oaks, as Musk said in an Instagram post.

However, as mentioned above, more detailshave come to light.

Since the companys introduction, many (including Futurism) have speculated that the tunnels true purpose was to work in tandem with the Hyperloop.This is the real clincher here. It seems like The Boring Company isnt just going to be for cars. The electric skate can transport automobiles, goods, and/or people. And if one adds a vacuum shell, it is now a Hyperloop Pod which can travel at 600+ miles per hour, the site explains.

The Hyperloop is another idea from Musk that is set to revolutionize transportation. It promises to connect individuals around the globe, making long-distance travel both speedy and remarkably affordable.

Initially discussed in 2013, the transport system would use a propulsion based on electromagnetism that could propel pods forward in vacuum-sealed steel tunnel atunprecedented speeds.

Cities in Europe, America, and the Middle East have expressed interest in adopting their own Hyperloop tracks, and study groups are at work making the concept a reality.While he doesnt have a company working directly on Hyperloop technology, Musk has been behind several initiatives to turn it into a reality. Now, with The Boring Company, Musk is building a platform to launch and test the various Hyperloop efforts he helped put into motion.

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A Teen Created the World’s Lightest Satellite & NASA Is Going to Launch It – Futurism

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In Brief A teenager from India recently won a satellite-design competition co-sponsored by NASA. His winning invention, probably the world's lightest satellite, will be launched by NASA this June for a sub-orbital test flight. Tiny Space Cube

Not very many people can claim that theyve sent something they made into space. Oneof those who will soon be sending his own invention a 64-gram (0.14-lb) satellite into sub-orbital flight is an 18-year-old named Rifath Shaarook. His satellite design won a competition hosted by an organization called I Doodle Learning, which issponsored by NASA and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, called Cubes in Space.

The main challenge was to design an experiment to be flown to space which would fit into a four-meter cube weighing 64 grams, Shaarook told Business Standard. He named his tiny winning satellite the KalamSat, after Indian nuclear scientist and former president, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Its set to embark on a 4-hour sub-orbital mission, launching from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on June 21. We designed it completely from scratch, Shaarooksaid, It will have a new kind of on-board computer and eight indigenous built-in sensors to measure acceleration, rotation, and the magnetosphere of Earth.

Cubes for Space is an example of how NASAs been actively seeking out talents and minds outside of just the agency. NASAs also launching a device developed by another teenager to the ISS, to test space-fairing microbes. Apart from getting helped by young inventors like Shaarook, NASAs also been corrected by a teenager who pointed out an error in some of the agencys data on energy levels.

NASA also has a program called Open Innovation, where it employs the help of the public for outside-the-box thinking about human space exploration challenges. Such crowdsourcing efforts seem to be fruitful for the space agency, and the KalamSat is just one proof.

The KalamSat will spend about 12-minutes in a micro-gravity environment of space, where it will test the durability of its extremely light casing, 3D-printed from reinforced carbon fiber polymer. The main role of the satellite will be to demonstrate the performance of [3D-printed] carbon fiber, Shaarook explained to the Times of India. The success ofthe satellite could lead to the development of similar technology: such lightweight payloads would certainly be morecost-effective for NASA. The space agency is seeking innovative ideasfor payload service, too: back in March, they wrapped up an open call forpayload concepts for a mysterious mission.

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Elon Musk: People Skeptical of Autonomous Cars Are Essentially Killing People – Futurism

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Swaying Public Opinion

Since Autopilot was first added to eachTesla vehicle in September 2014, Elon Musks company has continued to improve the already impressive autonomous driving system. Step by step, Autopilots software and hardware have been incrementally advanced. It has learned from human driver behavior, leading to the creation and improvement ofits Auto Lane Change, Autopark, Autosteer, Summon, and Traffic-Aware Cruise Control features. The ultimate goal? Level 5 autonomy, the ability to navigate the roads with zero interaction from a human driver.

More than one million people die in traffic accidents every single year due to human error, and in March, a Morgan Stanley analyst stated that Teslas Model 3 and its Autopilot system may be an order of magnitude safer than every other car on the road. However, many of us humans remain unconvinced when it comes toself-driving cars. Some people fear new technologies generally, while others just see autonomous cars as a potential threat, even when the data stating otherwise is staring them in the face.

According to Musk, human-driven cars are the obvious threat to safe transportation, and every time a critical voice speaks out against the technology, they impede the inevitably safer roads that will follow the widespread adoption of autonomous systems. In 2016, he didnt mince words when he told the press that vocal self-driving vehicle skeptics and members of the press who unfairly focus on the flaws of such systems are essentially killing people.

In 2015, the United Statessaw a 50-year record high in roadway deaths and injuries 38,300 fatalities and 4.4 million injuries, to be exact. Yet a single U.S. crash in a Tesla Model S one being operated improperly, with the human driver watching a movie led to intense scrutiny and an investigation into the system.

Human error causes about 95 percent of all traffic fatalities, and 41 percent of all human error fatalities are caused by recognition errors. According to the Department of Transportation (DOT), those include inattention, distraction, or inadequate surveillance on the part of the driver. Barring outright failure or computational aberration, self-driving vehicles just dont have these problems, and usage of autonomous systems in lieu of human drivers takes these potentially fatal driving flaws out of the equation.

Musk believes that humanitys future includes self-driving cars. How we feel about those autonomous systems wont stop that future from arriving. A continued stubborn preference for a far more dangerous system that we already know without any doubt results in accidents, injuries, and deaths means pain, suffering, and lost money, time, and lives. Maybe its time to listen to Musk and let our best drivers take the wheel for us.

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What’s Going on August 21st | Astronomy.com – Astronomy Magazine

Posted: May 17, 2017 at 2:28 am

August 21st, the world will experience the first total solar eclipse to only be visible within US borders. In roughly an hour and a half less time than it takes to watch a movie the Moons shadow will cross from Depoe Bay, Oregon to McClellanville, South Carolina. And in its path, professional researchers, eclipse-chasers, and citizen scientists are preparing for the big event. Heres a short sample of the hundreds of experiments happening:

Radiowaves & Lightening

What: At Austin Peay State University (APSU) in Clarksville, Tennessee (across the state border from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the point of greatest eclipse), Dennis L. Gallagher from NASA Education and Public Outreach is partnering with college students to observe the very low frequency (VLF) radio noise lightning around the world makes. Gallagher says teenagers at Space Camp will then analyze the data, hypothesiz[ing] how radio noise might be influenced by the moons shadow crossing overhead.

Why: Gallagher says the eclipse provides the opportunity to examine the frequency content of this natural radio noise from about 300 Hz to 12 kHz and to measure the total noise content in a VLF frequency band, which differs from normal conditions.

Cool Score: For the cross-generational and weather components, 8.

Animal Behavior

What: Dr. Rod Mills and Dr. Don Sudbrink from APSU are partnering with NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies to observe animal behavior during the eclipse. Mills is watching cows and Sudbrink is studying crickets. Both men hope to learn more about how animals react to rapid changes in lighting, temperature, and wind.

Why: Why not? More specifically, though, Mills is following up on research conducted during the 1999 eclipse over England.

Cool Score: Theres not much new science here, but since the eclipse cuts across rural American farmland, were glad someones studying livestock: 4.

Retesting Relativity

What: Citizen scientist Don Bruns is heading to Casper Mountain, Wyoming, where he hopes to become the first to prove Einsteins theory of relativity using Finlay-Freundlichs method from the ground.

Why: In order to prove general relativity, you have to show how sunlights gravitational pull creates a shift between the apparent and actual position of stars. Since the moon will completely cover the sun, the total solar eclipse gives Bruns the complete darkness he needs to measure the shift in positions.

Cool Score: Modern photography divides an image into digital pixels, so when light falls between two pixels, the image is pushed into one pixel or the other, changing results. Since Bruns has found a way to correct this that others couldnt: 6.

Citizen CATE

What: Citizen scientists across America are coming together to study the solar corona. NASA says, more than 60 identical telescopes equipped with digital cameras [are] positioned from Oregon to South Carolina to image the solar corona. The project will then splice these images together to show the corona during a 90-minute period, revealing for the first time the plasma dynamics of the inner solar corona.

Why: This experiment will give us new information about the inner corona. But because eclipse excitement has gone mainstream, its also a chance to involve the public in science. Volunteers from 20+ high schools, 20+ colleges, 5 national research labs, and astronomy clubs across the country are participating.

Cool Score: For uniting scientists of all ages, expertise, and backgrounds, we give it a 10. Turn this experiment up to 11 by joining CATE here: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/citizen-science

Bonus Info: Padma Yanamandra-Fisher from the Space Science Institute is taking part in CATE at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale, Illinois. Carbondale is the point of greatest duration this August, and its also in the path for Americas next total solar eclipse April 8, 2024. Out of all the experiments we found, Yanamandra-Fishers is the only one taking advantage of two eclipses from the exact same spot.

For more opportunities to get involved in citizen science--eclipse and otherwise--check out NASAs list here: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/citizen-science

Terena Bell is a freelance journalist writing on all things Great American Eclipse. Her family farm outside Hopkinsville, Ky is within radius of the point of greatest eclipse.

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Music, astronomy collide at multimedia Bienen performance – The Daily Northwestern

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Members of a Bienen orchestra perform A Shout Across Time in Nichols Concert Hall on Monday. The event merged science and music with the goal of exciting people about astronomy.

Colin Boyle/Daily Senior Staffer

Colin Boyle/Daily Senior Staffer

Members of a Bienen orchestra perform A Shout Across Time in Nichols Concert Hall on Monday. The event merged science and music with the goal of exciting people about astronomy.

Ava Polzin, Reporter May 16, 2017

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Second-year graduate student Kyle Kremer (Bienen, Weinberg 12) said he finds all the inspiration he needs in the sky.

Kremer helped bring his inspiration to an audience of more than 100 people to combine music and astronomy in a multimedia performance called A Shout Across Time at Nichols Concert Hall on Monday.

The event was part of Kremers Cosmos in Concert initiative, which aims to educate and excite the public about astronomy through live classical music and public outreach events.

Kremer said a large part of his motivation comes from the reactions he sees from community members. Wonder is inherent to his science, he said.

Were lucky as astronomers, Kremer said. Its one of the most awe-inspiring of all the sciences, so people already love it. Its not very hard to get people excited.

At the event, Bienen students performed two works: Eclipse and the title piece A Shout Across Time. Each arrangement celebrated a different event in modern astronomy, Kremer said.

Eclipse, arranged by Kremer and performed by Bienen quintet Lake Shore Brass, honors the upcoming solar eclipse on Aug. 21, he said. The piece was broken into themes covering the sun, moon and Earth. Kremer encouraged the audience to observe the eclipse because a total solar eclipse of this breadth has not been seen since 1918.

Evanston resident Lynn Clark said she left the performance wanting more. She particularly enjoyed the vivid imagery and how it related to the music to make a unified work of art, she said.

This was fantastic, Clark said. I just never expected to have such a holistic experience; it was wonderful There need to be more performances.

A Shout Across Time was intended as a celebration of Albert Einstein to commemorate the centennial of his theory of general relativity, which was confirmed last year with the detection of gravitational waves. The piece was composed by Ira Mowitz and originally performed at Montana State University.

The performance traced the universe, or the beautiful mystery that inspired Einstein, to the discovery of gravitational waves caused by the merging of black holes.

Toward the end of A Shout Across Time, the audience heard a simulated black hole collision. Evanston resident Bob Lounsbury said he enjoyed the opportunity to hear this particular effect.

I was trying to listen a few months ago to the sound of the black holes colliding, and now I have a better sense of what was going on, he said. I probably need to see this several more times to really get it, though.

Communication junior Noah LaPook, a Dearborn Observatory host and artist, said he feels inspired by the intersection of science and art.

LaPook said he liked that the performance reinforced the message that there is music in the universe.

Theres something in thinking about the universe that is so baffling that there often arent the words, LaPook said. The music made me feel something that I cant verbalize when I look at the sky.

Email: avapolzin2018@u.northwestern.edu Twitter: @avapolzin

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Assoc. astronomy professor named new director of Echols Scholars Program – University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

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NEWS Kelsey Johnson to succeed Michael Timko in leading College undergraduate honors program by Hannah Gavin | May 15 2017 | 05/15/17 11:59pm

The College of Arts and Sciences announced May 8 that Assoc. Astronomy Prof. Kelsey Johnson will be the next director of the Echols Scholars Program. She will take on her new position at the end of May, succeeding Biology Prof. Michael Timko.

Johnson has been with the astronomy department since 2004 and teaches the popular course Unsolved Mysteries in the Universe.

The Echols Scholars Program, which provides selected undergraduates with academic opportunities and Echols-only housing, was established in 1964 with a few dozen College students. The program has expanded to approximately 10 percent of College students as of 2012.

Johnson will lead the program as multiple reforms are being considered on the future of the Echols program, including changes to the selection process and grouping of Echols Scholars in the Balz-Dobie and Tuttle-Dunnington residence halls.

Johnson served on the Colleges General Education Committee and is a member of the College Fellows, which designed the new Engagements courses for incoming first-years next year.

The Engagements courses are a first-year student experience that has been developed from scratch with the goal of providing a framework to help students flourish in the 21st century, Johnson said, which will help develop ones intellectual framework regardless of specific discipline.

Johnson said she has specific goals for expanding opportunities to Echols Scholars. As director, she said she hopes to encourage students academic curiosity.

I would like to help create more options for Echols students to push themselves to explore topics both more deeply and more broadly, Johnson said in an email to The Cavalier Daily. Options might include dedicated Echols seminars, intensive mentoring with Echols alumni or topical fieldwork.

Johnson said she looks forward to being the next director of the Echols Scholars Program for the important challenges it provides undergraduates as well as for the challenges it will provide her.

Im excited to help facilitate a deep acquisition of knowledge and understanding with the Echols students and to push myself to keep up with them, Johnson said. I believe that environments with a strong foundation of trust and respect are essential for having rigorous debates and intellectual growth, and Im thrilled to be part of a program that embraces this ideal.

College Dean Ian Baucom said Johnsons professional style qualifies her for leading the Echols Scholars Program.

[Johnson] brings great energy, creativity and collegiality to the Echols Scholars Program, Baucom said in a release from the College. As a leading research scientist and a sterling teacher, she offers unique and valuable insight in this important leadership role.

He also said Johnson has exceptional experience in both the classroom and the research sphere, making her a great candidate for the position.

I think that combination of teaching passion and research excellence will make her a sterling Director for the vibrant intellectual community of Echols Scholars, Baucom said. Im particularly hopeful that she will find ways to strengthen faculty mentoring opportunities for Echols Scholars across their years on Grounds and know that she shares that priority.

Johnson was recently named one of four ACC Distinguished Professors. At the University, she has received the Center for Teaching Excellences All-University Teaching Award and the Z Societys Distinguished Faculty Award.

Johnsons academic focus is galaxy evolution and, more specifically, ancient star formation. She is the founding director of Dark Skies, Bright Kids, an outreach program where University astronomers, graduate students and volunteers work with elementary school students from rural areas.

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Assoc. astronomy professor named new director of Echols Scholars Program - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

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