Page F30: July 2009

Panel recommends more deep space missions instead of landings

Friday, July 31, 2009

Good! This is a subject I write about quite a bit. You can also read it in the New York Times here. The basic idea is that NASA extend human missions to other parts of the inner Solar System without necessarily needing to land on the Moon or Mars, which requires quite a bit of extra funding for the propulsion necessary for the trip back. Asteroids and small moons are small enough that landing is more the equivalent of a docking, so landing and exploring one is also quite easy.

One mission I would like to see would be a Venus flyby. Though there isn't all that much that can be seen from orbit, it would still be the easiest planet for humans to fly by, and considering its status as Earth's sister planet it would also be psychologically interesting. Not to mention the fact that the cloudtops of Venus can be colonized and that might bring the subject to the fore where it belongs.

However, the easiest mission in the meantime would probably be a simple landing on an asteroid as it approaches the Earth, as that would only take a few weeks and would be a quick return to Earth as well. None of these ideas are particularly new (that Venus flyby idea was originally proposed for the 1970s), but if budget realities result in NASA deciding to go with flyby missions in new locations instead of colonization of areas like the Moon, then perhaps it could be beneficial in the end. It's been a long time since humanity has sent people to a completely new destination.

Asteroid Watch: NASA's new page on near-Earth asteroids

You can see it here. Apparently this page was created in response to the large interest in objects passing by Earth. There haven't been any notable close approaches over the past month or two though. March of this year was probably the most interesting with the two asteroids passing within the distance from the Earth to the Moon and some other interesting objects somewhat farther away.

NASA's best page for finding out exactly what objects will be approaching us is this one, which remains unchanged. Don't forget that sometimes an asteroid will remain invisible to us until it's almost upon the Earth, so that list isn't necessarily a complete list of all the asteroids that will approach us this year. For all we know there's an asteroid bearing down upon us as we speak.

Iranian protesters on 30 July / 8 Mordad: "we can win this"

That's from part of an article here summarizing yesterday's protests, where there seemed to be much less security than expected, or perhaps security is just getting tired of fighting with protesters, hard to say. Last time a large protest was arranged security made an iron wall around Tehran University to keep people from entering and that's what drove them onto the streets and alleys instead, but this time they were able to enter the cemetery and protest there as intended. Plus everywhere else afterwards.

Here's an image that apparently is from yesterday: it's a bus with death to/down with Khamenei spraypainted on the back. Tagging buses like this is easy and effective.

You can read a writeup by the Christian Science Monitor on the mourning cycle here.

51 talks on Ted.com translated into Persian

You can see them here. The talks on Ted.com have been translated into many more languages (even Estonian for two of them) so it's not just Persian either. You may have noticed if you've spent any time abroad to learn a language that sometimes it's also helpful to watch a movie/tv show/speech/etc. on TV in English with the subtitles below, which is not only mentally relaxing but also helps out in showing you the equivalent for a number of expressions you might have wanted to use yourself.

So the next time you happen to see a video on Ted.com, check to see what languages it's been translated into, and if you are watching a ted.com video uploaded to another site you should probably go to the main Ted.com site instead to see them.

It also works for embedded videos too, which is great. Here's one that might be interesting - haven't watched it yet but the subject is pertinent to Iran and the election. I plan to watch it tomorrow.

29 July 2009: John Bolton on the Daily Show

John Bolton was on the Daily Show today for the third time, and is a nice reminder of the foreign policy that the United States has thankfully left behind. There's something odd about a former ambassador that is simply incapable of seeing any sort of minutiae in a situation like the current one in Iran, in the way he keeps presenting theoretical situations: either Iran gets a nuclear bomb or Israel comes in and stops them. Anyone paying attention to the situation within the country knows that the protests are showing no signs of abating, rifts within hardliners are growing, Ahmadinejad is looking weak and may not even get a cabinet through the Majlis, and who knows what the scope of the protests will be on the 3rd (when Khamenei is to officially endorse AN) and the 5th (when AN is supposed to be inaugurated).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Joke of the Day

The idea that Iranians would simply shrug their shoulders at a strike from Israel is also laughable. I think it's far too late for Iranians to rally behind the regime (that might have happened before the election) in such an event, but it would certainly serve to change the subject for at least a few months, and that would be a terrible result.

Also, note that the US isn't necessarily opposed to Iran acquiring nuclear power, just as long as the government is thought to be sane and stable enough. After all, the US certainly didn't mind before.

And no, it wasn't simply from the Shah being so close to the US - Pakistan has not just nuclear power but also nuclear weapons, and they are receiving US aid. I suspect a theoretical Iran headed by Montazeri, with Mousavi as President and let's say Shirin Ebadi as VP (that's my ideal situation) could certainly develop nuclear power and the world wouldn't care all that much, especially if there happened to be some progress in relations with Israel.

30 July (8 Mordad): protests in Iran on the 40-day anniversary of the first crackdowns on protesters

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Right now it's 3 pm in Iran and the protests are scheduled to start at 6 pm:

In the meantime you can read an article here on what might happen today. I don't agree with the article though that protesters have been "whittled down"; they've simply changed strategies. Protesters in large groups at pre-arranged locations have been shown to be no match for armed police and thugs, and so the last few protests have been more sporadic, with shouting of slogans for a while, then breaking up when security shows up, only to regroup somewhere else.

More updates later.

Okay, here come the reports.

Mousavi has been forced to leave the cemetery where the protest was scheduled, but the LA Times has just reported that protesters have overwhelmed security forces and have been able to enter. Apparently security made Mousavi return to his car, and if he's still there perhaps he'll still be able to enter later on.

Also, take a look at Twitter's trending topics right now. There's #Iranelection right at the top where it belongs.

Lots of videos available now. Here are two from the cemetary.

And a video of protesters on Valiasr Avenue:

This video also from Valiasr is probably the most memorable one today. Note especially the unarmed young man fighting back against the armoured goon at 0:20.

First electric taxi starts service in Japan, in Kashiwazaki, Niigata (新潟県柏崎市)

From here in Japanese on July 24th, which is also the date that the taxi went into service for the first time. The place where it went into service is a city called Kashiwazaki in Niigata Prefecture, which is northwest of Tokyo. The car is a Mitsubishi i MiEV, costs 4.6 million yen ($48,500 USD) and cost starts at 660 yen ($7) for customers to ride it, same as other small taxis.

This article says that electric taxi service will start in Ehime Prefecture as well in August, which is located on the island of Shikoku. Prices are cheaper there, starting at 550 yen.

Methane present on Mars could be created by methanogens like Methanosarcina barkeri

That's the gist of an article here on the subject. The methanogen featured in the article is kind of like an extremophile in that it can survive in harsh environments, but not at all the same in the sense that it doesn't need them to survive, and has a much larger range of environments in which it can thrive. It seems that Methanosarcina barkeri could possibly also survive on the surface of Mars.

Scientists will not be in a rush to transport life to the planet though until they have been able to make a thorough search in order to make sure once and for all that there is no life anywhere, because once life is brought over from Earth it could make subsequent discoveries suspect if they happen to be similar to the life brought over from Earth. The discovery of pre-existing life elsewhere in the Solar System is certainly more worthwhile in the beginning than transporting it from Earth.

The real "divine assessment" from Iran's election on June 12th

Here's a comic I just made. Enjoy.

(and click on the image to see it in full size)

If you're tuning in late and not sure what the term divine assessment is about, see here.

Comparing the discovery of the laws of physics to the rules of chess according to Richard Feynman

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Short and interesting video here from 2007.

German and Latin written together - Der erschreckliche und recht wunderseltzsam-geschwäntzte Comet, discovered in 1680

More interesting stuff from history that I found in the German Wikisource. Here's what German and Latin used to look like written together. Note the different font used every time a Latin word is used; reminds me of Katakana a bit. This document is from 1681 and describes an awesome comet that was seen the year before - this one, the first comet to ever be discovered by a telescope before becoming visible to the naked eye.

Click on the images to see them close up, whereupon the text can be read.

28 July 2009: Virgin Galactic unveils its space plane, WhiteKnightTwo

And you can see the video here.

Plus an article here if you want.

In private space development right now there are three companies that are particularly exciting to watch, and those are SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, and Virgin Galactic. The first because reducing the cost to go to space will make it more accessible than ever before, the second because Bigelow Aerospace's modules are of revolutionary design, and the third because giving regular people (very wealthy, but still normal people) the opportunity to go to space will result in an explosion in the number of people that have experienced space, even for a brief time. At the moment the total number of people that have ever been to space is a bit over 500, number that will be extremely easy to surpass by Virgin Galactic once it begins operations.

The price is steep enough that even I probably wouldn't sign up (it is after all only a few minutes in space), but for those with more money than they know what to do with it's definitely a bargain. I myself would be most excited at the prospect of being able to make a trip to the Moon, around a few times and then back to Earth, and that's something I would gladly blow my live savings on.

Mousavi's speech on 27 July (5 Mordad) after meeting with the Islamic Association for the Teachers of Iran

Mousavi made a really strong speech on the 27th of July (just over a day ago) that has been mentioned on his Facebook page here, along with an English translation of excerpts of the speech. Here's one of the best parts:

A video of the speech has just been released, and shows the view from one of the cameras placed on the side so Mousavi is always looking in the other direction, but nevertheless it's the full speech so that's good enough. Unfortunately for students of Persian, the full transcript doesn't seem to be available (let me know if you find it).

His reference to all the varied ways of protesting that people have come up with is similar to this article from Time which mentions a few. There is always another day of celebration or remembrance to be used for more protests, and even when not available it's easy enough to conduct flash protests that last for a few minutes, chant marg bar diktator or what have you, get nearby cars to start honking in support, and then disappear before security has the opportunity to show up.

Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan aren't really landlocked countries

Kind of a random subject but worth thinking about if you haven't before. At the moment the world has 44 landlocked countries, as you can see in this map.

Landlocked simply means that a country doesn't border an ocean, and in that sense it's technically correct for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. In practice though, a landlocked country usually implies all the disadvantages that come from a lack of access to the sea, meaning the inability to create a maritime industry, difficulties in international trade, etc. Countries like Switzerland, Liechstenstein, Nepal and Bhutan are clearly landlocked and have to work within those confines. Azerbaijan and the other two though are quite different, for two reasons.

The first is obvious: they do have access to a sea - the Caspian Sea. Technically it's the world's largest lake, but in terms of size, historical status and use it's a sea. It's a bit of a microcosm of an ocean in that it provides access to other countries as well, even if it's just four (the three mentioned above plus Russia and Iran).

Thanks to the access to the sea, these technically landlocked nations are able to have a thriving maritime industry and culture. It has a lot of caviar, oil, fish, etc. In terms of transport as well it's quite useful as it is the quickest way to go from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan (both energy-producing countries), and there is quite a bit of ferry traffic as well. So these landlocked nations certainly aren't suffering there.

The second reason is a bit less obvious: those three nations actually do have access to the sea, by going through Russia. Note the Volga River there as it flows into the Caspian from the northwest. It's actually connected to the Don River, which flows into the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea, which is connected to the Mediterranean, which is connected to the Atlantic...

Ships of up to 5,000 tons capacity can pass through the canal connecting the two rivers, which means ships even a bit larger than this one. Not too shabby.

Having direct access to the sea in this way is not only helpful in trade, but also in international relations, as could be seen last year in the war within Georgia over South Ossetia, when a number of nations sent ships into the Black Sea to help out one side or the other. I don't remember any ships being sent from the Caspian Sea there, but it's technically a possibility, so a ship docked at the Caspian Sea technically could set sail and make its way to the Black Sea or beyond.

You can see a map here from a company that trades in the area that shows how you get from the Caspian into the larger seas and oceans to the west.

Out of the three nations though, Azerbaijan is certainly the one that feels the most maritime. Kazakhstan's capital and largest city lie way off to the east. Turkmenistan feels a little less isolated from the water with its smaller size and a capital much closer to the sea than Astana. Azerbaijan, though, has its capital and largest city (Baku) right on the Caspian, and has an economy largely centred on the oil that comes from the Caspian. Since Azerbaijan wouldn't be Azerbaijan without the Caspian Sea, it feels a bit weird to call it a landlocked country when a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo isn't landlocked simply for having a tiny strip of land that borders on the ocean.

There's no need to redo the definition of a landlocked country, it's simply worth bearing in mind that these "landlocked" countries can vary immensely.

Quebec not happy with Ottawa's new visa restrictions for Mexico and Czech Republic

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

One of the possible negative effects from the sudden visa restrictions on citizens of Mexico and the Czech Republic is the ammunition it could give the Bloc Quebecois when making the case for an independent Quebec in the upcoming election, since in their current state Quebec has no choice but to go along with the visa rules Ottawa has put in place. The Jean Charest government has protested the new visa rules, as can be seen here in French from Radio Canada. Note at the end that the PQ has already criticized the move so the Quebec government's move here may be in response to that. Here's the gist of the article.

In a letter obtained by The Canadian Presse, the Charest government is opposed to Ottawa's decision to impose visa restrictions on Mexican and Czech visitors.

Addressed to the federal Minister of Immigration, Jason Kenney, it shows Quebec's discontent with the new rules. The letter was signed by the ministers Yolande James of Immigration, Pierre Arcand of International Relations, Nicole Ménard of Tourism, and Claude Béchard of Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs.

The ministers there note that about 35% of asylum seekers make their way to Quebec. They stress that the imposition of visas will have negative effects on tourism, as well as complicating entry to Canada by business people and Mexican investors. It will "create malaise in political relations with this partner in NAFTA".

In reference to tourism, the Quebec ministers argue that "the reintroduction of obligatory visas, especially in the full summer season, will certainly have a demotivating effect" on Mexican tourists. They are of the opinion that not having to obtain a visa helped facilitate the arrival of business people and Mexican investors.

...

Last week, PQ member Louise Beaudoin criticized Quebec's silence on the issue.

You can see Louise Beaudoin's statement from last week here. Part of that:

"Ottawa has made this decision unilaterally without any consultation with the government of Quebec, a decision with profound effects on the relationship between Quebec and Mexico. Beyond the negative impact on our tourism industry, it's also Quebec's image that is greatly affected in those two countries, especially Mexico, by the decision made by Canada. Why is the Quebec government silent on this issue?"

The federal government argued that the significant growth of refugee volume from those two countries is the reason for this serious measure restricting the movement of people...

(her response to that point):

"Was there really a danger in delay? The latest data indicate the opposite for Quebec. In 2008, Quebec barely received 4520 refugees in all regions, 24% less than in 2007. That's far from a movement of refugees among us."

Iran: night protests in Tehran from 27 July (5 Mordad) and upcoming protests on July 30th (8 Mordad)

First, three videos of night protests in Tehran from yesterday. The headline on the newspaper is referring to this article from Karroubi's newspaper on how 150 Iranian companies are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Mousavi's call for protests on the 30th is receiving quite a bit of attention, and it should, because not only is he calling for the protests but it's also the 40th day since protesters have been killed in the crackdown and the mourning that takes place on the 40th day is apparently what ended up bringing down the Shah - protests then as well would seem to die down for a bit but then would flare up on the 40th day, which would bring about another crackdown, then more martyred protesters, which meant another protest 40 days after that, and so on. Here are some articles on these events:

Los Angeles Times - Mousavi calls for more street protests

Times - Mousavi steps up pressure on Ahmadinejad. Also note the bit at the end about Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi calling for those who did not commit "serious crimes" to be freed, and for human rights violations to be investigated.

Washington Times on Ahmadinejad's struggle for legitimacy. The National Iranian-American Council tells us that Ahmadinejad is one minister away from having to go get approval from the Majlis for his new cabinet, because a president can only change up to 50% of existing ministers in a new cabinet without parliamentary approval, and because of this he is avoiding accepting the resignation of the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

Al-Jazeera on another fresh blow to Ahmadinejad as the industry minister has been found guilty of fraud.

An article on Ahmadinejad's death watch can be seen here. Note the part about his increasing pensioners' checks during the election, and subsequently reducing them as soon as it ended.

Google digitalizes 35,000 copyright-free books in the Catalan language

From an article in Spanish here. Google has digitalized 35,000 books from the Library of Catalunia, a project that began in 2007. All the books are free of copyright and can be seen at http://books.google.cat. Most of these books are from the 19th century. It looks like the plan is to upload a total of 100,000 books from the library, and then go on to four other libraries in Catalunia that have agreed to participate.

According to the article, thanks to initiatives like this one Catalan has an online presence beyond its demographic weight, and Catalan is the 14th most used language on Google Books. I should also mention that the Wikipedia in Catalan is now near the top in terms of article quality.

You can also read a discussion on the article from Meneame (where I found it) here.

Proposition to make Corsican the official language of Corsica rejected

You can read the article in French here (it's from 21 July). The proposition was rejected with 28 opposed and 19 for, on the grounds that 1) Corsican isn't spoken by enough people properly yet to make it the official language, and 2) considering this, Corsica shouldn't rush to stir up trouble with the central French government.

Pet food and equipment market in China explodes with economic growth

Monday, July 27, 2009

I wrote a post today about cats in Korea, and coincidentally found this article in Korean on pets in China too that is also pretty good news for pets in general. Here's a bit.

The pet market in China has increased from 4.6 billion yuan in 2006 to 7 billion in 2007, and 10 billion ($1.1 billion) in 2008, and the number of pets in 2008 is now 100 million. According to the Japanese Forbes, by 2010 there are expected to be 150 million pets, and the pet market should reach 40 billion yuan ($5.9 billion).

Richard Dawkins' horribly titled new book for 2009

I'm not sure when the title and cover design for Dawkins' new book came out, but I just noticed it for the first time today. It has a horrible title. Take a look for yourself.

There are two good parts to the cover: the cover design is quite nice, and the first part of the title (The Greatest Show on Earth) is also very good. Now for the problems with the book:

- "Bestselling Author of The God Delusion" on the top. We can only assume that since this book is presenting the evidence for evolution that it's for people that don't already accept it, and that would mean mostly biblical literalists, Christian fundamentalists. If that's the intended audience, what's the point of including a book called The God Delusion right on the top? It would be like writing a book called "The Evidence Against Evolution" and including on the top that it's by the "Bestselling Author of Atheism is Insanity", and then expecting atheists to buy the book in droves and change their opinions on religion.

- "The Evidence for Evolution". That's playing into creationist hands a little bit IMO, since it seems a little bit like it's taken until 2009 for someone to come forth and present the evidence, when evolution has been mainstream for a long time now.

Ideally it would have been best if Dawkins could have co-written this with a Christian scientist (Protestant is better since fundamentalists often don't think of Catholics as being the same religion), and given the book a different title under The Greatest Show on Earth...can't think of anything particularly catchy right now but something that references how animals have changed over billions of years to adapt to pretty much every environment on Earth would be nice. In fact, the word evolution doesn't even need to be on the cover. Assuming the audience is to be composed of those that believe the Bible to be the complete and infallible truth in a very literal way (and probably very opposed to the idea of evolution), it would be best if the book began with subjects that they could agree with, and not begin the "creationism is bunk" part until a few chapters in. Begin with "the universe and Earth and animals are amazing and mysterious", and get to the creationism is bunk bit later on.

As it is right now, it is very well titled to be a best-seller among his fans.

Korea is on the verge of becoming a cat-loving country

If you haven't talked to Koreans all that much before you may not know this, but a large number of Koreans are actually afraid of cats. Not just cats on the street, but fluffy sleepy cats that hang around and yawn and play with string and come up to you to smell your hand. I even remember meeting a guy in his late 20s in Vancouver once who told me with a straight face that he would be less afraid of a spider of the same size. Part of the reason for that is that cats are often portrayed as being supernatural creatures of the night, and even on mainstream news you can see portrayals of cats being edited in ways to make them look scary. One piece of news for example on an island with a lot of cats edited the image of a yawning cat with the sound of a cat being noisy at night in order to make it look like they were animals that howled at the Moon or some nonsense. If you can read Korean then you can read about it here. It's especially unfortunate because the cats they featured on the news there are on an island called Geomundo (거문도) where there are quite a few stray cats, which the residents of the island generally fear, after which they often try to wipe out the cats, but they always come back. As the blogger writes, what is needed there is a capture-neuter-release program, as when cats are killed it simply results in easier hunting of mice and the rest for those that escape the killing, and then they live well and have more kittens, and eventually the population goes back up again.

He also does a nice comparison of that island to a small island in Japan where the cats are very happy.

In the cities, however, Korea is rapidly becoming used to the idea of cats as pets. The temple I visit every day has a number of cats, and most of them aren't too afraid of humans, while a few simply aren't afraid at all. One of the cats I know there isn't afraid of anything and due to that has become quite the popular cat at the temple as hundreds of people that pass by him every day marvel at how the cat just doesn't care about all the people around him (that's still a pretty rare thing to see in Korea), and he was even on TV last month due to this. Plus because he doesn't eat any meat, just dry cat food. Here he is playing with an empty binocular case.

Owning cats has become quite popular in Korea mostly among the young and the well-off, and especially among women. Most independent women in their 20s and 30s here will like cats, and may have one or two of their own. As cat popularity begins to spread you can see it more and more among people of other ages too, and IMO sites like YouTube have been a big part of this. The Korean internet is remarkably isolated from the rest of the online world since not only is the language different but you need either a Korean resident number (주민등록번호) or a scan of your passport to register for sites, but videos have helped to bridge that gap and you can now see tons of cute cats online when searching for them in Korean too. Here's one.

And thanks to the success of YouTube, now you can see cat videos hosted by similar services in Korea too. Here's a family of cats in a Korean home.

Another documentary on cats from EBS is coming out in September, and will apparently be a two-hour special taking place over two days. I talked to some of the people making the documentary when they visited the temple last month. According to the director, it's often said that countries often begin to see dogs as pets when the GDP per capita reaches around $10,000 a year, and cats when it reaches $20,000, since you do need a certain amount of wealth of your own before you can start to think about sharing it with an animal in your own house, and dogs are admittedly more useful than cats (unless they're really small), such as in this example. Plus, with higher GDP you have more access to the internet and that means more lolcats. Cultural norms make a big difference though, which is probably why Korea has taken so long to reach this point, whereas a country like Japan has liked cats for a long time, even way back when:

That's the author Natsume Sōseki, who died in 1916 and whose most famous book (吾輩は猫である,) has a cat as the main character.

I predict that it shouldn't take more than ten years for Korea to become a more or less cat-loving country, as there is a certain momentum that can't be stopped when enough humans begin to like cats, as the more humans there are that like cats the more street and other cats will be fed and petted by people passing them by on the street, and the more good experiences cats have with humans the cuter and more friendly they will be. Also, when enough people begin to like something it begins to place pressure on those that don't like it, and there will be a kind of societal pressure to like cats where those that still dislike or fear them are seen as boorish and uncultured. It's this compounding effect that makes me so optimistic.

26 July 2009 (4 Mordad): protests in front of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting

A relatively small but vocal protest has been uploaded to YouTube and thus far has almost no views, but deserves much more attention given that assuming the date is correct it is proof that protests happened on the street yesterday as well.

The location given is in front of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (AKA Sima or Seda) on Vali Asr avenue, which is right here:

View Larger Map

As for the kind of news being broadcast by IRIB - it continues to do little more than stick its head in the sand and pretend that what's actually happening isn't happening. President says this, Iran as it is is awesome that, Supreme Leader says do this, etc. Here are their headlines for today.

Some other videos from the same protest:

Finally, night chants from yesterday.

The headline being shown on the newspaper there can be seen here, and proves the date (3 Mordad 1388 = 26 July 2009).

Sheer buildings can be climbed with vacuum gloves

From the BBC:

CNN coverage on the Global day of action on Iran, 25 July 2009 (3 Mordad)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

There are a few videos online of CNN coverage of yesterday's worldwide protests, which actually got more coverage in the mainstream media than I had expected. Protests took place within Iran on the same day with a few thousand people, but by and large most of the action for that day took place outside the country with the following number of events per continent:

North America 46
South America 03
Europe 47
Arica 02
Asia 08
Australia 04
TOTAL: 110

Those numbers come from this video.

Another video from CNN can be seen below, and this features an interview with a reporter in London. I don't really agree with her though on her statement that Iranians have been afraid to take to the streets recently - it actually seems that there's quite a bit less fear than there was in the first few days after June 20th, it's just that people are coordinating the protests a bit better than before and are staying in small groups at night when no large event has been planned, and when there is an event planned they show up just as much as before. It seems to be more of a changing of tactics than anything based on fear. The second reporter notes that Germany is a major trading partner with Iran, so it has a lot of clout that most other countries simply don't have.

According to this article, Iran's main trading partners are UAE, Germany, and China.

Edit: here's a video of some of the protests within Iran on the 25th. They've received little attention but that's because most have gotten used to the idea of protests within Iran. Don't forget that the very idea of something like this happening was unthinkable just three or so months ago.

Bill Gates quits Facebook, citing too many friends

You can read about it here. IMO someone like Bill Gates doesn't really need Facebook as a personal tool, so if that's all he was using it for then it makes sense to quit. For the promotion of a cause though Facebook and Twitter are extremely useful, and even moreso if the cause happens to be global. Bill Gates does have his own causes to promote, though when you're a person whose mere resignation from a site makes the news it's probably more worth it to simply make a press statement and watch people write about it for you, both on the news and on sites like Facebook and Twitter. See:

So he doesn't really have to do any promotion online himself.

It would be interesting to see an algorithm comparing one's social/media status with the effectiveness of using an online platform to promote one's own cause. At the very bottom rung you would have people with no sway in the media whatsoever and complete anonymity, who have no way to promote their cause without online tools, and at the top are people like Bill Gates who are better off using their time for other causes as their actions themselves make more news than if they were to do something online themselves. It's kind of like the saying back in the 90s that if Bill Gates were to drop a $500 dollar bill it wouldn't be worth his time to pick it up.

For politicians this is naturally quite different as they need to continue to maintain support from the people they represent, so it's a constant battle with entropy for them. Plus, as a politician you always have the opposition trying to misrepresent things you might or might not have said, and any letting up lets them frame the situation in their own words, and you don't want that.

Green scroll being displayed in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower on 25 July is seriously f*&king long

Quite the scroll this one. You can see it live here, and after it's over I'm sure it will be available on YouTube (and hopefully sped up). BBC Persian has also been showing parts of the footage already.

The procession started an hour and a half ago and I have no idea how long it's going to go on for, but apparently it's 2 kilometres long which is a LOT of people that have signed up to write that Ahmadinejad is not the president of Iran. Very, very impressive. It's very late here in Korea and there's no way I'm going to get to see it all before the night is over. A lot of people on Twitter are saying that after Iranians get the government they deserve they should send a part of this scroll to every city in the country.

Edit later on: okay, here are a few videos from yesterday. It turned out the scroll was just far too long to hang from the Eiffel Tower.

And yes, there were also protests within Iran as well yesterday. Here's a video of one near Mellat Park.

Shirin Ebadi speech 25 July 2009 in Amsterdam

A partial video (okay, just the tail end) of Shirin Ebadi's speech today has just been uploaded, and I'll add more if a video of the previous portion of the speech goes up. She is speaking in Persian and the interpreter is to her left, though the speech seems to have been written in both languages ahead of time.

Edit: here are two videos that I think show the whole speech. I can't listen to them at the moment but it seems to be about the right length.

Icelanders - time to start pestering Google to add Icelandic to Google Translate

Skilti fyrir utan höfuðstöðvar fyrirtækisins í Mountain View í Kaliforníu.

A lot of languages added to Google Translate have been done so because of intense long-term persistence (Turkish) or sometimes political reasons (Persian), and even Maltese has been available for a while, with a population not much greater than Iceland (400,000+ compared to 300,000+). The three largest Scandinavian languages are available too, but for some reason Icelandic is still out in the cold.

Perhaps it's time to start pestering Google. This thread might be a good one to add to. I just did myself.

Since Icelanders are usually proficient in English as well as Danish or other related languages it isn't a strict necessity as it was with Persian, but without Google Translate it can be hard for people in other countries to follow along with internal media, and due to that sites like this one can be one of the only sources of information on what is being written there. Ideally though people should be able to sift through news at their own pace without having to wait for it to be translated by another person, so being added to Google Translate would be ideal. Not to mention the aid it would provide to students of Icelandic since Google Translate works quite well as a dictionary as well.

25 July 2009 (3 Mordad): Worldwide protests against Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the election in Iran

Saturday, July 25, 2009

That's today! At the moment it's still pretty early in Iran and other parts of the world (except Australia and other parts of Asia). In the meantime here are two videos that are both interesting for those protesting the election and those studying Persian. First a video message from Shirin Ebadi:

One reason for the plea to the UN is because the UN is, along with the EU, one of the only bodies that has any pull with Iran. Russia and China have quite a bit of pull with Iran as well but they are much less likely to care, so the UN and the EU is the way to go. Note though that countries like the US can contribute in ways like this; it just doesn't really have any direct diplomatic influence.

The other interesting video is about the efforts in gathering together the huge green scroll to be presented today in front of the Eiffel Tower. Apparently the response has been overwhelming and the total length is now 2 kilometres.

The scroll has even been signed in languages like Korean, as you can see here:

The message is the same: Ahmadinejad is not Iran's president (아흐마디네자드는 이란의 대통령이 아닙니다).

24 July 2009: Iran VOICE Act passes in the US Senate

You can read about it here. I agree with the first poster that usually whenever an elected body passes some act to try to "help" it often makes the matter worse, but this bill is 100% positive. Why, it's even good for those studying Persian.

Here's what it does in short:

- Gives $30 million to expand Persian-language broadcasting by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty's Radio Farda and VOA's Persian News Network, and this funding can be used to counteract Iranian government attempts to jam signals etc. as well.

- Gives $20 million for a fund that will aid the development of technologies that will aid the ability of Iranian people to access and share information, avoid detection online, plus something about "education programs and other exchanges with Americans online", which is the only unclear part of that second paragraph.

- The third part seems to be a reaction to Nokia and Siemmens, as it requires a report by the President on companies outside Iran that have aided them in censoring the Internet.

- Finally, the Secretary of State gets $5 million to further collect information about human rights in Iran.

It's basically the "we're watching you and you can't watch us (or Iranian protesters)" act.

Abdullah Abdullah gaining popularity in Afghan presidential election campaign

About a month ago it was being said that Karzai would probably win the upcoming elections in August but that there were two other possible serious contenders, and today's article here in the New York Times seems to suggest that the field has pretty much been narrowed down to two, and that former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah (a very easy name to remember BTW) is gaining in popularity and may even win the elections...but with a very big caveat that nobody is really capable of making any predictions in Afghanistan electionwise.

Since I don't know as much about Afghan politics as I should take this with a big grain of salt, but I would prefer to see Abdullah win the election. First because after eight years of Karzai and little progress (plus even Karzai's brother being linked to opium smuggling) it may be time for a change, and the signal it would send to Iran (assuming it's still the way it is now with protests and an ineffectual government doing all it can just to stay in power) would be very interesting. It would be a big slap to the face of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad if it turned out that Afghanistan was better at conducting fair elections than Iran.

We still have almost a month to wait though (August 20th is election day), so the situation both in Afghanistan and Iran could be completely different by the time election day comes around.

From Earth to Mars in 39 days by ion engine: VASIMR finally gets some media attention

Yay! This is an article from New Scientist explaining a successful test of the VASIMR engine on July 2. You can see a short video here explaining how VASIMR works.

This short video of the test alone is great too. Quite the sound it makes too (assuming the sound has something to do with the engine itself).

If you can't or don't feel like watching the first video, here's the general concept: it heats up argon atoms until the electrons boil off, this creates plasma, and then these ions are heated to about a million degrees, after which they are used for propulsion. It's kind of like a second-generation ion drive engine where the force produced is still pretty small compared to chemical engines, but much greater than the ion drive engines we've been using so far, and this will result in greatly decreased travel times.

39 days to Mars would turn it from sheer impossibility to something now within the realm of possibility (but still phenomenally difficult), and it's only with a system of propulsion like this that I would want to give my first conditional support to a manned mission to Mars...but nevertheless, if we are going to head out in that direction Ceres would still be a better target, and in any case the Moon comes first no matter what. You simply can't beat not having to wait for a launch window, the mere 1.5 seconds or so it takes to transmit a signal to the Earth, the possibility of sending supplies directly from the Earth if an emergency arises, the possibility of integrating tourism into the venture (a mission from Earth to lunar orbit and then back to Earth is doable; Mars is not), and many other reasons. Plus, if we do manage to get a VASIMR-powered craft working, we're still going to need to make use of what we learn on the Moon to live off the land on Mars, if that's where we want to go next.

Along with the possibility of manned missions, the ability to use VASIMR to power a craft that could perhaps carry out a sample-return mission to areas like Europa and Titan is also quite exciting. The difference between the present situation and having VASIMR technology to power spacecraft will IMO be nearly as big a game-changer as the current situation vs. discovering other Earth-like planets. The latter will change the way we see the universe, the former will for the first time give us a way to truly explore our corner of it.

Neanderthal appears to have been killed by human with spear

Friday, July 24, 2009

Scientists have drawn a rough conclusion that a Neanderthal skeleton from some 50,000 - 75,000 years ago has been killed by a human spear. That conclusion is based on the premise that humans at the time had projectile weapons that Neanderthals didn't, although the article mentions near the bottom that Neanderthals developed projectile weapons as well. The Neanderthal that was stabbed with the spear didn't die right away but rather a few weeks later.

It's possible that this could be an example of interspecies violence, and it does feel a bit weird to think of our ancestors wiping out a whole other species that looked so similar to us, but for all we know this case could have been something else - perhaps the spear was thrown due to a mistake in thinking the Neanderthal to be something else, or it could have been a simple bad throw. For all we know the Neanderthal and the human could have been best friends.

After all, these two seem to be best friends too and they don't resemble each other at all.

Sarkozy gets Google bombed with "trou du cul du web"

See!

(While you can)

Google has killed other Google bombs such as the previous one where miserable failure led to George Bush's official site when he was president.

Trou du cul du web means "asshole of the web" in French. There are quite a few articles on this, such as this one. Google bombing with this terms isn't all that impressive though, considering that I doubt almost anyone ever used this search term before. Miserable failure is much more impressive.

New undersea cable to South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique brings high-speed internet to Eastern Africa

Finally, it's done! This has been a long time coming; I remember writing about the cables under construction back in February. For most websites dialup just doesn't cut it anymore, and high-speed internet is just about the difference between having access and no access at all. Simply playing a video on YouTube for example requires a fairly fast connection that Eastern Africa just didn't have until now.

According to the article, companies such as Tanesco (electricity), TTCL (communications), Tanzania Railways and Universities of Dar es Salaam and Dodoma are already benefiting from the new connection.

A part of the article also mentions that though prices have gone down for businesses from $3000 a month to $600 a month, ISPs are not lowering prices for average consumers but are instead offering increased bandwidth. Whether they can keep this up for long is hard to say, because the idea of lowering prices to average consumers as well may just be too tempting to one and this would cause the others to follow suit. We'll see what happens in the next few weeks/months.

The comments below the article are particularly interesting so be sure to take a look at them. Many have already begun to see an improvement in service, but certainly not all.

Post-election events in Iran: 24 July (2 Mordad)

Hi - if you're here from a Twitter update, check the bottom of the post.

Reza Aslan a bit over a day ago on the worldwide protests scheduled for tomorrow:

You can read a USA Today article on the protests here.

Interestingly, Press TV has had quite a few articles lately not only on Mousavi's statements, but also criticism of state media. This may be just a wild guess, but considering the pushback Press TV has been making against the BBC and other news outlets, they may have become most concerned about being seen as a legitimate source of news.

Nothing on Twitter has really changed, with #Iranelection managing to maintain a position on the lower rung of the trending topics most of the time:

Here's a video apparently from 31 Tir (22 July) that shows people protesting in the street at night, chanting just about every slogan we've heard so far - death to/down with the dictator (مرگ بر ديكتاتور), freedom of thought not out the window (آزادي انديشه از پنجره نميشه), etc. The text on the video says that they gather every night at 10 pm and walk around chanting slogans.

There's another video here from the 16th from the same place - Apadana, Tehran.

July 23 2009: Dow Jones breaks 9000

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Just happened a few minutes ago.

Yes, it's a largely meaningless number, but I do remember site after site complaining back in March of the Dow going below 7000 - here's one saying that it might go below 2000. Here's another one, a post that also makes the claim that the market is a leading indicator.

Kyrgyz election poster - "Bakiev of course"

The presidential election in Kyrgyzstan is underway right now and the opposition candidate (and former president) isn't happy about alleged voting irregularities. I don't know enough about the election to add anything to the debate, but this election poster is interesting:

You can see on the poster that it says "Albette Bakiev" or "Bakiev of course", which is the same word used in Turkish and Persian and most (maybe even all) Turkic languages as well. In my opinion it's only a matter of time before all Turkic languages eventually switch over to the Latin alphabet, and the most recent countries to have done so have been Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The three largest languages still yet to switch over to the Latin alphabet are Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uyghur, and Tatar would if they could but Russia has made this illegal so the only place where Tatar can be written in the Latin alphabet is online. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan intend to switch over but as far as I know there is no exact date set as yet. The Kazakh Wikipedia can be read in both Latin and Arabic letters as well as Cyrillic.

Buzz Aldrin and the monolith on Mars' moon Phobos

Interesting video yesterday from CSPAN with Buzz Aldrin talking about not just the Moon but also Mars' moon Phobos, and the mysterious-looking monolith on the surface there:

The monolith he is talking about looks like this.

So what is it? Well, luckily we might not have to wait long. Russia is planning to launch its Phobos-Grunt probe in October, and it's a sample return mission that will also spend a few months in orbit around Phobos beforehand, and may be able to send us something back a little clearer. If it still looks mysterious after that then maybe we'll have to send a dedicated and/or manned mission.

Edit: there's also a "baby" monolith close to this one that you can see here. The line there isn't part of the original image.

Post-election events in Iran: 23 July (1 Mordad)

Hi - if you're here from a Twitter update, check the bottom of the post.

Yesterday there was no one single event or protest that could be called the news of the day, but the reformist side continues to press their case with as much if not more confidence than before, such as this statement by Khatami saying that it would not be in the interest of the regime to reject a referendum on the election. And then of course there is Mousavi's statement yesterday that a new Ahmadinejad government would bring about both domestic and international problems for Iran, citing among other things that not only does the elite not want to work with the government, but the government also does not want their help either. You can see a lot of Ahmadinejad's views on the elite here in his debate with Rezaei, where he constantly tries to make the point that a president should be good at everything, whereas Rezaei said that a president needs to surround himself with qualified people in order to make good decisions.

Time has a good article here on the protests two days ago and the attempts to create a blackout that day, which apparently worked in an eastern suburb of Tehran (Pars) but not the rest of the city. The article says that the government has yet to announce a date for Ahmadinejad's swearing-in but everywhere else says that it's been scheduled for August 2nd.

Green Brief #35 can be seen here. The most interesting parts IMO are the accounts of some security forces getting tired of fighting against crowds and beginning to curse their superiors, the continued squabbling over Ahmadinejad's VP pick, and Russia's dig against Airbus in defending their airplanes.

Roger Cohen had another good op-ed yesterday on the current situation and the absurdity of the election, and the line being taken by many reformists that Ahmadinejad and the current situation has been turning Iran into a bit of a laughingstock on the world stage. This is similar to a line Mousavi often used during the election too when he said that thanks to the government an Iranian passport is now little better than one from Somalia. For a discussion on the same article en français you can see a blog entry from Cyberpresse here.

Here's a small comic in Persian that I found here saying (with Nokia) "no one is ever alone" (با نوکیا هیچکس تنها نیست).

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

© Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP