Group items tagged

During one of these meetings I asked directly whether the government would move to close down the Guardian's reporting through a legal route - by going to court to force the surrender of the material on which we were working. The official confirmed that, in the absence of handover or destruction, this was indeed the government's intention. Prior restraint, near impossible in the US, was now explicitly and imminently on the table in the UK. But my experience over WikiLeaks - the thumb drive and the first amendment - had already prepared me for this moment. I explained to the man from Whitehall about the nature of international collaborations and the way in which, these days, media organisations could take advantage of the most permissive legal environments. Bluntly, we did not have to do our reporting from London. Already most of the NSA stories were being reported and edited out of New York. And had it occurred to him that Greenwald lived in Brazil?

The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred - with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

Whitehall was satisfied, but it felt like a peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age. We will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won't do it in London. The seizure of Miranda's laptop, phones, hard drives and camera will similarly have no effect on Greenwald's work.

The state that is building such a formidable apparatus of surveillance will do its best to prevent journalists from reporting on it. Most journalists can see that. But I wonder how many have truly understood

Sarah Harrison is a lawyer that has been staying with Snowden in Hong Kong and Moscow. She is a UK citizen and her family is there. After the miranda case where the boyfriend of the reporter was detained at the airport, can Sarah return safely home? Will her family be pressured by the secret service? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23759834

according to the normal website (http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/): "The UK Space Agency website will officially launch on 1 April 2010. Until then, the BNSC website will be in a state of transition " the guys above i think just take the piss coz theres no official website. Mission statement: TOGETHER WE ARE GOING TO EMBARK ON A JOURNEY INTO SPACE. ..........................THE MISSION IS......MARS................................."

I've just read a blog entry about this on New Scientist, and while the entry itself is not interesting, I learned from it where the UKSA and ESA's UK establishment are going to be based. Answer: it's even more in the middle of nowhere than Plymouth! BTW does anyone (Leo?) know what is the basis on which new ESA establishments locations are chosen (if this info is classified, you can send it on priv ;) [Edit] Esa has released a news item about it... Whatever one can say about the British Space Agency, they certainly have a fantastic logo!

Make sure you have a look at the gallery: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15293922 Some are pretty interesting...

"Giving people the right to roam freely over publicly funded research will usher in a new era of academic discovery and collaboration, and will put the UK at the very forefront of open research".

haha, seems super small !!!

Intersting 4 years UK joint project on abserving for 4 years the behavior of robots that are programmed to imitate each other somehow. kind of mirror neurons? who knows..

NASA validates the EmDrive (http://emdrive.com/) technology for converting electrical energy into thrust. (from the website: "Thrust is produced by the amplification of the radiation pressure of an electromagnetic wave propagated through a resonant waveguide assembly.")

I have to join the skeptics on this one ...

The UK company developing an engine for a new type of spaceplane says it has successfully demonstrated the power unit's enabling technology.

very nice project - though I would not call it a "major UK space mission" ..

Not sure if you can view it outside UK, but here you go... To Tobby and his followers ;-)

The "Biological Economics" thing is a hyping (or misunderstanding) of the BBC article. The work it refers to seems to be an application of Complex Networks theory to financial networks. I found what appear to be some of the related publications: Andrew G. Haldane (April 2009) Rethinking the financial network (further references in the footnote to page 10) Erlend Nier, Jing Yang, Tanju Yorulmazer and Amadeo Alentorn (April 2008) Network models and financial stability Funny how these issues have been repeatedly popping up at the ACT in recent weeks. This connects both with the discussions on information spreading in networks, and with roadmaps' robustness.

http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00555/tyche3_555342a.pdf Icarus' paper: http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1004/1004.4584v1.pdf

Bad Astronomy's take on the subject: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/14/no-theres-no-proof-of-a-giant-planet-in-the-outer-solar-system/

well, he kind-of falls into his own trap: confusing/discussing "evidence" with "likelihood", and "there is" with "it may". He should have made more efforts in his writing, what he says is a bit pointless! (just put the Icarus' paper)

weekend readings for Francesco ...

Excellent photo gallery.

Thanks for sharing! Most pics are very very nice, but a few are actually pretty mediocre I must say... "Wildlife" photography is always a rather tricky topic, as demonstrated by this famous story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8470962.stm

Some more stuff: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15359263

The Pirate Party isn't related to the Pirate Bay torrent site, but it wants to legalise internet file-sharing and protect people's privacy on the net

not sure what to make of this. seems like an odd change of direction "Spaceports will be key to us opening up the final frontier of commercial space travel," said Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander at the announcement of the new sites. Mr Alexander hinted that the plans could lead to Scotland becoming the home of the UK's commercial space ambitions, even as the Scottish government warns that only independence will secure a successful space industry for the country.

I Knew!!! I Knew!!! They are all around. I always though Marek was one :) "I believe in Father Frost. But not too deeply. But anyway, you know, I'm not one of those people who are able to tell the kids that Father Frost does not exist"

His rival putin on the other hand... He got into an ultra-light aircraft to guide birds during their migration - from the video it seems that only very few birds think he is credible (as a guide). --> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/9524900/Flying-Vladimir-Putin-leads-birds-on-first-ever-migration-in-latest-publicity-stunt.html

Yup. My structural perfection is matched only by my hostility.

long live the sys admins!

careful, NSA is listening... you are now in their blacklist

"Annual Security Inspection at ESTEC"... ... What exactly is this P.R.I.S.M. process that is running on Sophia?

We just need some chocolate....

this is a gold mine :D Portugal, a bankrupt country in crisis where the Most Searched How to... is "Como emagrecer" (how to lose weight?). Netherlands, where the Most Searched How to... is "Hoe overleef ik" (how do I survive?) UK where the most Trending What is... is "What is love?" and Italians... please explain how come the top Trending How to... are 1. Come fare Sesso 2. Come fare un Clistere !?!? Respect for Austria though, where the top trending What is... are: 1. Was ist ACTA 2. Was ist SOPA any other interesting finds?

From Ghana "What is...?": What is a Constitution What is Government [edit] Some top Science searches in the US: Hemorrhoid, Pregnancy Syndroms. Any potential for Ariadna? [edit] ... and finally, for the sake of my shield, top search from Poland in the Music category