Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Brian Eno describes new album as anthology of 'sound-only movies'
Brian Eno has revealed details of his new album for Warp Records, describing the collaboration with Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins as a collection of "sound-only movies". Small Craft on a Milk Sea is apparently an album of improvised electronic music, the product of years of intermittent sessions.
"Mostly the pieces on this album resulted not from 'composition' in the classical sense, but from improvisation," Eno explained. "The improvisations are not attempts to end up with a song, but rather with a landscape, a feeling of a place and perhaps the suggestion of an event. In a sense they deliberately lack 'personality': there is no singer, no narrator, no guide as to what you ought to be feeling."
According to Hopkins, many of the album's "more melodic pieces" were born out of randomness. "Brian [asked] Leo and myself to write down a series of random chords, which he would then write on a white board, along with a number – the number of bars we should stay on that chord for," he said. "Brian would then stand and point to chords at random, not knowing how (and if) they will link to each other, and Leo and I would lay down parts in the corresponding keys for the written number of bars."
These are the first substantive comments on the music of Small Craft, due for release on 15 November. Previously, Eno had only detailed the album's deluxe editions and paper stock. This week's description is rather more personal, with Eno recalling his experience of hearing Federico Fellini soundtracks before seeing the films. "Listening to [Nino Rota's music] I found I could imagine a whole movie in advance, and though it usually turned out to be nothing much like Fellini's version, it left me with the idea that a music which left itself in some way unresolved engaged the listener in a particularly creative way," he wrote.
Eno has tried to recapture this feeling with Abrahams and Hopkins, "gifted young player/composers whose work, like mine, is intimately connected to the possibilities and freedoms of electronic music". They created the album "over the last few years" – though Hopkins and Abraham have been making music together since they were teenagers.
"In the absence of [a] film," Eno said, soundtracks "[invite] you, the listener, to complete them in your mind. If you [haven't] even seen the film, the music [remains] evocative – like the lingering perfume of somebody who's just left a room you've entered." Small Craft on a Milk Sea, perhaps, will be the perfume of a film that never even was.
Sean Michaels @'The Guardian'
Privacy Tool for Iranian Activists Disabled After Security Holes Exposed
A highly lauded privacy tool designed to help Iranian activists circumvent state spying and censorship has been disabled after an independent researcher discovered security vulnerabilities in the system that could potentially expose the identities of anonymous users.
Users have been instructed to destroy all copies of the software, known as Haystack, and the developers have now vowed to obtain a third-party audit of the code and release most of it as open source before distributing anything to activists again.
Haystack is designed to encrypt a user’s traffic and also obfuscate it by using steganography-like techniques to hide it within innocuous or state-approved traffic, making it harder to filter and block the traffic. Despite its nascent status, Haystack got widespread media attention, including from Newsweek recently.
The tool is still in development, but an initial diagnostic version was being used by “a few dozen” activists in Iran when security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, a U.S. volunteer with WikiLeaks, discovered vulnerabilities in the source code and implementation of the system that could potentially place the lives of activists at risk.
Austin Heap, one of the tool’s developers, has faced sharp criticism from Appelbaum and others for failing to vet the tool with security professionals before distributing it for use. The media have also been criticized for failing to properly examine the system before praising it as an option for activists.
“The more I have learned about the system, the worse it has gotten,” Appelbaum said. “Even if they turn Haystack off, if people try to use it, it still presents a risk…. It would be possible for an adversary to specifically pinpoint individual users of Haystack.”
Heap told Threat Level that distribution of the test program had been highly controlled among a small group of select users, and that all of the participants, except one, had been informed beforehand that there were potential risks in using software that was still in development...
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DrSamuelJohnson The Goodfolk of Hampstead are safe now Hemp-haz'd Hellenic Highwayman Mister George MICHAEL goes unto Prison
Oxford scientist calls for research on brain change
Scientists believe it is too early to know whether modern technology's effect on the brain is a cause for concern. Photograph: Science photo library
Lady Greenfield reignited the debate over modern technology and its impact on the brain today by claiming the issue could pose the greatest threat to humanity after climate change.
The Oxford University researcher called on the government and private companies to join forces and thoroughly investigate the effects that computer games, the internet and social networking sites such as Twitter may have on the brain.
Lady Greenfield has coined the term "mind change" to describe differences that arise in the brain as a result of spending long periods of time on a computer. Many scientists believe it is too early to know whether these changes are a cause for concern.
"We need to recognise this is an issue rather than sweeping it under the carpet," Greenfield said. "We should acknowledge that it is bringing an unprecedented change in our lives and we have to work out whether it is for good or bad."
Everything we do causes changes in the brain and the things we do a lot are most likely to cause long term changes. What is unclear is how modern technology influences the brain and the consequences this has.
"For me, this is almost as important as climate change," said Greenfield. "Whilst of course it doesn't threaten the existence of the planet like climate change, I think the quality of our existence is threatened and the kind of people we might be in the future."
Lady Greenfield was talking at the British Science Festival in Birmingham before a speech at the Tory party conference next month. She said possible benefits of modern technology included higher IQ and faster processing of information, but using internet search engines to find facts may affect people's ability to learn. Computer games in which characters get multiple lives might even foster recklessness, she said.
"We have got to be very careful about what price we are paying, that the things that are being lost don't outweigh the things gained," Greenfield said. "Every single parent I have spoken to so far is concerned. I have yet to find a parent who says 'I am really pleased that my kid is spending so much time in front of the computer'."
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London and co-author of the book The Learning Brain, agreed that more research was needed to know whether technology was causing significant changes in the brain. "We know nothing at all about how the developing brain is being influenced by video games or social networking and so on.
"We can only really know how seriously to take this issue once the research starts to produce data. So far, most of the research on how video games affect the brain has been done with adult participants and, perhaps surprisingly, has mostly shown positive effects of gaming on many cognitive abilities," she said.
Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at Tufts University in Massachusetts and author of Proust and the Squid, said that brain circuits honed by reading books and thinking about their content could be lost as people spend more time on computers.
"It takes time to think deeply about information and we are becoming accustomed to moving on to the next distraction. I worry that the circuits that give us deep reading abilities will atrophy in adults and not be properly formed in the young," she said.
Ian Sample @'The Guardian'
Ohdearohfugndear!
Do ‘Environmental Extremists’ Pose Criminal Threat to Gas Drilling?
The Patterson-UTI Drilling Company LLC horizontal drilling rig in Chartiers Township, Pa., on April 9, 2010. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)As debate over natural gas drilling [1] in the Marcellus shale reaches a fever pitch, state and federal authorities are warning Pennsylvania law enforcement that "environmental extremists" pose an increasing threat to security and to the energy sector.
A confidential intelligence bulletin [2] sent from the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security to law enforcement professionals in late August says drilling opponents have been targeting the energy industry with increasing frequency and that the severity of crimes has increased.
It warns of "the use of tactics to try to intimidate companies into making policy decisions deemed appropriate by extremists," and states that the FBI -- the source of some of the language in the Pennsylvania bulletin -- has "medium confidence" in the assessment. A spokesman for the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The advisory, a copy of which was obtained by ProPublica [2], doesn't cite the specific incidents causing concern. It is also unclear from accounts from state law enforcement officials whether the incidents in Pennsylvania posed a substantial threat, or what effect the advisory might have on public gathering and the debate over drilling in the state.
Pennsylvania State Police said there have been only a few isolated crimes involving drilling facilities.
"We haven't had any incidents of any significance to date where we have identified a problem, or any environmental extremists," said Joseph Elias, a captain with the Pennsylvania State Police Domestic Security Division, which was not involved in issuing the bulletin.
An aide to Gov. Ed Rendell -- speaking on behalf of the state's Homeland Security Office -- said the advisory was based on five recent vandalism incidents at drilling facilities, including two in which a shotgun was reportedly fired at a gas facility.
"All this security bulletin does is raise awareness of local officials. It doesn't accuse anyone of local activity," said the spokesman, Gary Tuma. "Where the professionals detect a pattern that may pose a threat to public safety, they have a responsibility to alert local law enforcement authorities and potential victims."
Anti-drilling activists in the state say that public hearings and other events have been peaceful and that they see no evidence of violent opposition. Given the lack of evidence about "extremist" crimes, they say, the bulletin casts drilling opponents as criminals and threatens to stifle open debate.
"It may very well be designed to chill peoples' very legitimate participation in public decision making," said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney with Earthjustice, a national group pressing for stronger environmental protections [3]. "If people who have concerns fear that they are going to be treated as a security threat they may very well be afraid to go and express their views."
The advisory lists a series of public hearings on drilling permit issues across the state as potential flash points. It also mentions a Sept. 3 screening of the anti-drilling film "Gasland" in Philadelphia that went off without incident. Language describes "environmental activists and militants" on one side of the debate and "property owners, mining and drilling companies" on the other.
Finally, the bulletin groups the public hearings and film screening with protest rallies for anarchist clubs focused on "evading law enforcement," and with a Muslim advocacy group's rally for the release of suspects in an alleged terror plot at Fort Dix, N.J.
The advisory was sent to state law enforcement and local government groups, as well as businesses with a specific concern addressed in the bulletin. It was not intended to be distributed to the public.
In issuing such an advisory, the government has to walk a fine line between the need to respect the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and the need to keep the public safe, said Nathan Sales, an assistant law professor at George Mason University and a former policy development staffer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
"The question is how to accomplish the one with minimal consequences to the other," he said.
A pro-drilling group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition [4], characterized the vandalism in Pennsylvania as "directed at preventing our industry from safely delivering these resources to Pennsylvanians."
The group's president, Kathryn Klaber, said she supported civil debate over drilling, "but to the extent they go in the other direction, and potentially devolve in a manner that undermines our ability to keep our folks safe, then we will have a problem," she said.
Abrahm Lustgarten @'Propublica'
It is interesting to read the comments at the end of this article for their outrage in regard to the activities of the "fracking" companies and the lack of accountability as regards the destruction caused by these companies to residents in the vicinity of operations. There are concerns raised that residents immediately affected by "fracking" operations will be unable or too frightened to challenge such disastrous activity. Recent developments may see the disclosure of "fracking" chemicals but as yet the business keeps this a "business secret", further alienating residents capacity to complain and resolve issues. With this latest intervention by Federal authorities, people involved in challenging the "status quo" risk being labeled "environmental terrorists", all against a background of the most devastating environmental chaos perpetrated by "fracking" companies. So much for justice, truth, and the American way SuperMan...beeden
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Conversation - Sea Shepherd’s Paul Watson
Paul Watson doesn’t care what you think. The captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been putting himself between whales and harpoon ships for more than 30 years, preventing the killing of countless cetaceans. He’s been called a terrorist, a greater threat than Al-Qaeda, a liar. None of it bothers him.
“I am here to say things people do not want to hear and do things people do not want to see. I am here to piss people off – that is my job,” the 59-year-old Watson says in Ron Colby’s 2008 documentary Pirate for the Sea.
A Canadian, Watson was a co-founder of Greenpeace and instrumental in the campaign to ban the clubbing of Arctic fur seals. He has gained wider notoriety as a central character on the Animal Planet show Whale Wars, which chronicles Sea Shepherd’s skirmishes with Japanese whalers. He was also spoofed last year in a South Park episode called “Whale Whores.”
“Being lampooned on South Park is hardly something to complain about,” he says. “They brought the issue of the dolphin and whale slaughter by the Japanese to a very large audience. I could not really care less how I was portrayed.”
So where are you coming back from?
We got back from Antarctica about the seventh of March. We’re heading to the Mediterranean now to go against bluefin poachers. We took three ships down to Antarctica and lost one. For the first time we managed to save more whales than were killed, so that was a successful campaign. They have a quota of 935 minke whales, and they have 50 humpbacks on their permits. So 520 whales were saved, and 507 killed.
Let’s go back to your early days of eco-activism.
I was raised in an eastern Canadian fishing village right on the Maine border, called St. Andrews. I used to swim with these beavers in a beaver pond when I was 10. I went back when I was 11 and found there were no more beavers. I found that trappers had taken them all so I became quite angry and that winter I began to walk the trap lines and free animals from the traps and destroy the traps. So that was really my first venture into activism.
You’ve talked about a whale you made eye contact with as it bled to death after being harpooned. Tell me about the connection you felt with that whale...
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Michael Shapiro @'Earth Island Journal'
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Michael Shapiro @'Earth Island Journal'
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