This Week in Web #6

Oscar Nominated Short 'We Can't Live Without Cosmos' by Konstantin Bronzit
Oscar Nominated Short ‘We Can’t Live Without Cosmos’ by Konstantin Bronzit. Courtesy oscars.go.com

In Awe of Space

I’m taking a bit of a departure from the world of just the internet, but I’m betting you have an interest in space too. Who doesn’t have a personal connection with the night sky, and all of the wonder and mystery that it possesses? The awe of the scope of existence, which is constantly being pushed with discoveries, is the backdrop for endless curiosity.

First up is the Oscar Nominated short ‘We Can’t Live Without Cosmos’, by Konstantin Bronzit and Melnitsa Animation Studio. It’s part of a solid lineup of shorts up for an Academy Award this year, but it’s the most human of them that I’ve seen.

Two best friends have dreamed since childhood of becoming cosmonauts, and together they endure the rigors of training and public scrutiny, and make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their shared goal.

The eight minute film can be watched for free on The New Yorker site The Scene.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory published even more extraplanetary travel and tourism posters that hearken to mid-century exotic travel ads, while looking beyond our atmosphere. The series is titled “Visions of the Future” and will make you want to pack your bags for that trip to Kepler-B16.

Making the rounds today is news that Einstein’s general theory of relativity had one of the final pieces yet to be confirmed measured by the team behind the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. The LIGO discovery came a century after the warping motion of gravity pushing against space-time was described by Einstein, following a project under development for the past forty years. The New York Times piece linked above has some great background on the scientists who were a part of the discovery, and what it means for astrophysics.

Caltech released a video on Youtube today that describes the find and how it was measured with a simplified visual of the LIGO system.

On a semi-related note, so I can take the moment to lump lots of stuff that I enjoy together: The music for that LIGO demonstration video is by Austin Wintory, an excellent composer who seems to have an infatuation with space as well. While working on the newsletter I was listening to his original “Spirit of the Cosmos” on BandCamp, where you can become a member of his fan club by subscribing to all of his current and future music, including the original works, film scores, and video game soundtracks.


The Trouble With the TPP, Day 29: Cultural Policy Innovation Uncertainty

Michael Geist

If you have any interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was signed after years of deliberation last week, Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, has been doing a great job of giving in-depth analysis of many of the problems that the agreement has as relates to internet commerce. It’ll take a while to catch up if you intend to read all of it, but the gist is that the among the many ideas that can inhibit innovation (as opposed to the rose-tinted flourishing world of individuals who are only currently being stopped from creating due to the lack of protections on their IP) data transfer blocks can make it harder for the internet to function as it always as: a way to connect people anywhere in the world.


The Trolley Problem

I think that way too much emphasis in the discussion of self-driving cars is put onto The Trolley Problem, and the utilitarian philosophy that will potentially drive algorithms that determine who lives and dies. I think the debate clouds the discussion around the real answer, which is that with reliable self-driving cars taking over automotive duty for everyone, a whole lot more people are going to live.

That said, be transported in time to the heady graphics and gameplay of a Commodore 64, and complete The Trolley Problem yourself in a game by Pippin Barr.


With Quartz’s App, You Don’t Read the News. You Chat With It

Margaret Rhodes, Wired

The web-native reporting and journalism at Quartz is top notch, and I am excited to try out their first mobile app (when it comes to Android, anyway), which allows you to read through news stories as if having a discussion with a friend. I mentioned last week how I thought that chatbots are the future of some interfaces on the web, and this looks to be a good step in that direction, with a tool that is conversational, niche enough to have to be manageable, while broad enough to have impact.


New Bill Aims to Stop State-Level Decryption Before It Starts

Brian Barrett, Wired

Big surprise, California Congressman Ted Lieu – one of four members of Congress with a computer science degree – is in favor of shutting down the grandstanding and egomania driving the state legislators who think that they can stuff the genie of end-to-end encryption back into its bottle. Besides pointing out that there are other holes that are more easily accessed to do things like dump thousands of FBI and DHS employees’ information thanks to social engineering and compromised email,Lieu also noted that any state law would be easily circumvented and nearly impossible to enforce in even the most narrow of cases.

I can’t imagine any state legislator thinking that their bill would cause any actual change, but I can easily imagine those same legislators pandering to voters by showing how tough on crime they are, ignoring that the right to privacy and security is in no way a crime.


That’s it for this week, remember that you can submit links for next week’s newsletter!


Posted

in