…and after. Satelite images of New Orleans.

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The number of journalists killed in Iraq has already passed the number for the whole of the VietNam War. The number arrested, held without trial, continues to rise.

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Hollywood, Microsoft align on new Windows — Day by day, bit by bit (pun intended), we are losing control of what we are alowed to control.

For the first time, the Windows operating system will wall off some audio and video processes almost completely from users and outside programmers, in hopes of making them harder for hackers to reach. The company is establishing digital security checks that could even shut off a computer’s connections to some monitors or televisions if antipiracy procedures that stop high-quality video copying aren’t in place.

The company [Microsoft] is quick to say that this has not been a case of studios dictating policy to programmers.

But if the implication fits…

I have no problem with the idea of the studios protecting their works, but this method is sure to create problems in unintended ways, ownership and use issues aside.

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Irish project aims to bring art to space, and space to Earth

Space Synapse, an Irish project at the cutting edge of both art and scientific research, wants to install an interactive work of art on board the International Space Station within the next two years. Its aim — to give the world a means of communicating with astronauts through what it calls a “symbiotic sphere” — may on first hearing sound as plausible as a Jules Verne sci-fi novel.

The astronauts “will be able to focus the cameras on the interior or the exterior of their passenger booth, to communicate by speech, writing or by gestures with the sphere,” she explains. The futuristic globe will also collect, and immediately transmit, recorded data by means of electrodes and transducers fixed to the side of the astronauts’ bodies.

Back on earth, their correspondents will be comfortably installed in a “cosmic egg,” an audio-visual cabin equipped with a reclining seat specially designed for the venture by Oculas, Space Synapse’s partner company which also makes Formula 1 racing seats for MacLaren.

Could be interesting as long as it comes equiped with a barf bag. Also hope the final product has more than a small LCD monitor. Think Imax.

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a reader sent me this link to a fascinating new device

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So much for all the idealism

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One of the great challenges in the field of nanotechnology is optical imaging–specifically, how to design a microscope that produces high-resolution images of the nano-sized objects that researchers are trying to study. For example, a typical DNA molecule is only about three nanometers wide–so tiny that the contours of its surface are obscured by light waves, which are hundreds of nanometers long.

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The greatest lineof printers I have seen for years because of one great new feature…

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Heartless racist captions on Yahoo found

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Three Canadian warships were steaming through Arctic waters yesterday as Ottawa displayed a new and almost bellicose determination to protect the sovereignty of its northernmost boundaries.

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This may be the best single photo slideshow so far..astonishing pics

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A great cache of Katrina photos for the curious…

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A classic piece of folklore being passed around the net.

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Great pic of “modern” piggy bank

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Since our society can’t stop arguing about the cause, perhaps we should devote a few minutes to talk about how we are going to deal with the changes that ARE happening and the changes we will have to make to survive in a globally warming world. An example is Peru which is having to deal disappearing glaciers. Here is an article on the same subject from two years ago.

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