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Monday, November 11, 2002 |
China partially blacks out BBC and CNN
(New Delhi TV)
Exhibiting their usual sensitivity over topics considered
taboo, Chinese authorities intermittently blacked out broadcasts by CNN and
the BBC on Sunday on satellite feeds to hotels and foreign compounds in the
capital.
The brief, strategically deployed disruptions were apparently intended to
limit exposure to issues or comments considered politically explosive,
although most ordinary Chinese lack access to such international news
channels.
The disruptions came as Communist leaders hold a weeklong party congress
that is expected to anoint a new generation of leaders, as senior leaders
led by 76- year-old President and party secretary Jiang Zemin step aside.
. . .
Government censors can do that because of a delay of several seconds
between the times the signal is received by the government's satellite,
Sinosat, to the time it is relayed to earth stations and viewers in hotels
and compounds for foreigners.
Sinosat carries state-run China Central Television and all other channels
licensed for broadcast in China. The government recently required all
foreign satellite broadcasts in China be carried via Sinosat.
The Chinese government bans public dissent and has sought to extend
controls over state-run media to include news obtained over the
Internet.
(If that link doesn't work, try drilling down from this
portal.)
(thanks, Declan!)
3:56:59 PM 
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News from Japan: One
in five major firms monitor e-mails by staff (The Japan Times Online).
According to a recent Kyodo News survey,
The survey of 100 major Japanese companies found that 22 of
them routinely check e-mail messages . . . .
The firms did not disclose how they monitor their employees' e-mails, but
experts say employers commonly install a system that automatically
identifies e- mails that contain designated words, such as "classified" or
"top secret," as well as the names of new products or
technologies.
3:56:55 PM
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From Phil Agre, four links on digital libraries:
1:56:50 PM
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GOP Revises Agenda Of Extensive Tax Cuts: Leaders Pursue More Modest Proposals. By Jonathan Weisman and Dana Milbank, Washington Post.
There are discussions of, 'Let's take the most popular tax cuts and make the Democrats go on record,' said Daniel J. Mitchell, a tax specialist with the Heritage Foundation. If they oppose it, you get 2004 [campaign] issues out of it. And if they support it, you get the tax cuts.
Beyond such political gamesmanship, the hottest tax items for 2003 are modest: moving forward by one year a tax rate cut now scheduled to take effect in 2004; immediately raising the per-child tax credit to $1,000 from the current $600; and raising the contribution limits for retirement savings accounts. A White House official said the administration looks favorably on a proposal by outgoing House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) for a new round of tax rebates, this time aimed at lower-income workers who earn too little to owe income taxes.
1:56:47 PM
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And more Stephenson. The ju-jitsu genius of Global Neighborhood
Watch: Stopping street crime in the global village.
In part: [T]echnology is supposed to solve real problems, not
just enable us to download digitized photographs of Ken and Barbie in a
coprophilic ménage à trois with Barney.
Thus was born the Global Neighborhood Watch concept. The plan is, with
Wired's help, that we get little video cameras and aim them at those parts
of my neighborhood where most crime happens. We will digitize the output of
those cameras. We will include motion detectors so that the cameras will
spit bits only when something is actually happening (maybe 0.1 percent of
the time). We will hook the neighborhood computers into the Internet,
probably through an ISDN connection (available for cheap over existing
phone wires). We'll use CU-SeeMe shareware to send the video out.
11:56:30 AM
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amazon.co.uk gives a March, 2003 expected date for Quicksilver . . . in
paperback.
11:56:25 AM
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Hunting a Deadly Soviet Legacy: Concerns About 'Dirty Bomb' Drive Efforts to Find Radioactive Cesium. By Joby Warrick, Washington Post.
In the 1970s, scientists in the former Soviet Union developed scores of powerful radioactive devices and dispatched them to the countryside for a project known cryptically as Gamma Kolos, or "Gamma Ears." Its purpose: to deliberately expose plants to radiation and measure the effects.
Some of the tests were aimed at simulating farming conditions after a
nuclear war. In rugged eastern Georgia, researchers bombarded wheat seed with radiation to see if the plants would grow better. All the experiments used a common source of radiation, a lead-shielded canister containing enough radioactive cesium 137, U.S. officials now say, to contaminate a small city.
. . . . Where's the cesium now?
10:56:32 AM
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It doesn't give a source, but my InformationWeek Daily this morning quotes
David Bowie, giving advice to young musicians:
Music itself is going to become like running water or
electricity. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring,
because that's really the only unique situation that's going to
be left.
10:56:29 AM
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Since we're speaking of Neal Stephenson . . .
Spew: Are you on the trail of the next unexpoilted market niche
- or just on a nookie hunt? Fiction by Neal Stephenson from WIRED 2.10.
10:56:26 AM
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Discussion of 'Operation Candyman' on Forum.
Forum discusses the problems, policies, and politics of policing the
Internet, as raised by last year's FBI Operation Candyman.
Host: Angie Coiro
Guests:- Mike Heimback
- Steve Silberman
- Larry
Magid
10:56:23 AM
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According to the publisher in July,
release dates for Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson:
0380977427 QUICKSILVER 1 07-31-03
0060523867 QUICKSILVER 2 02-15-04
0060523875 QUICKSILVER 3 07-15-04
Though amazon.com now gives Qu
icksilver (Stephenson, Neal. Baroque Cycle, V. 1.): This item will
be published in September 2003. You may order it now and we will ship it to
you when it arrives.
That's not so far away. Even with some slippage, that would make
Quicksilver, v. 1 a holiday purchase for next year, and probably the
other two volumes in the trilogy available in 2004, still. Yum.
10:56:20 AM
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