Fight Growing Over Online Royalties

from nytimes.com: The debate playing out in Washington has echoes of a presidential race. One side says businesses will suffer unless the government steps in to lower costs. The other accuses jet-set industrialists of a ploy that will cheat the middle class. These attacks, however, are not between candidates for the White House. They are being made in a battle over the obscure but increasingly vital issue of royalty rates for streaming music online. The issue pits the survival of Pandora Media and other Internet radio services against the diminished paychecks of musicians in the digital age.

Will.i.am's New Single Debuts On #Mars

Establishment Shill Rewarded for #Obamessiah, #ClimateControl Work*
from latimesblogs.latimes.com: For will.i.am, what started as a fascination with space turned into a history-making song that was transmitted earlier this week from the Mars rover Curiosity... Times Science Writer Amina Khan discussed how will.i.am came to write the song and how NASA came to use the music as part of the Mars mission. “There’s no words to explain how amazing this is,” the singer, of Black Eyed Peas fame, said to the gathered audience, standing on stage with NASA astronaut Leland Melvin, the agency’s associate administrator for education. The song, called “Reach for the Stars,” was beamed back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where will.i.am took the stage to answer questions from students from Boyle Heights, where he grew up. The song features a 40-piece orchestra and isn’t your standard urban hip-hop anthem, the singer pointed out, because it’s meant to weather the test of time and be easily translated across cultures. “I know that Mars might be far, but baby it ain’t really that far / Let’s reach for the stars (reach for the stars),” will.i.am sings on the track.

#DataDump: God Particle, Predictive Programming and more

CERN Physicists Claim Evidence of Higgs-Boson*

Video: What is a Higgs Boson? -
Physicist Michio Kaku Responds*
Theorist Peter Higgs lives to see his boson*
Video: Alan Alda's '#Flame Challenge' Illuminates Importance of Communicating #Science*
Life Imitating Art: Robot Avatar Body Controlled By Thought*
Video: Proof That 'Predictive Programming' Works*
DNSChanger Could Leave Thousands Stranded When Domains Go Dark on Monday*
Government Demands Growing for Twitter User Data*
L.A. Cops Embrace Crime-Predicting Algorithm*
Video: Dan Bull "Death of ACTA"*

Sci-Fi Cult Classic: 'Robinson Crusoe on Mars'

Robin Crusoe On Mars is a 1964 science fiction cult classic directed by Byron Haskin, who also directed War Of The Worlds. The plot revolves around Commander Christopher 'Kit' Draper (Paul Mantee), who must learn to survive on Mars after his ship, Mars Gravity Probe 1, is forced down in a near miss with a meteor. Draper conquers survival with help from companion, Mona a Wooly Monkey, whose animal instincts at times seem ahead of the Commander. Draper soon learns yellowish rocks he's been using as charcoal also provide breathable oxygen. An underground pool of water is accidentally found, when Draper falls through Martian surface near pool with edible plants that grow in it. The Commander suffers greatly from Martian isolation, decides to explore an interplanetary ship sighting, in belief, it's a rescue ship. Draper spots human slaves at work underneath powerful beams of alien ships mining rock. The alien mining ships closely resemble Martian war machines of the 1953 version of "War of the Worlds." The Commander meets up with escaping slave played by Victor Lundin, who is quickly given name 'Friday,' after character from original Robinson Crusoe story. Friday is taught English and shares his oxygen pills with the Commander, the two become fast friends. The black bracelets placed on Friday's wrists by the aliens, allows them, to track the two for much of the movie. Draper finally succeeds in removing the bracelets after arriving at a polar ice cap. A meteor strikes the cap and melts the ice, and in quick succession, they're rescued shortly after receiving a radio communication from Earth. The fantastic ending weakens an otherwise strong story. A song written and played at conventions by Lundin, "Robinson Crusoe on Mars," tends to confirm movie's strong following and cult status.

In Sweden, Cash Is King No More

from ap: Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it's come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them. "I can't see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore," says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970's pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash. The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money. In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether.

"There are towns where it isn't at all possible anymore to enter a bank and use cash," complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden's National Pensioners' Organization. He says that's a problem for elderly people in rural areas who don't have credit cards or don't know how to use them to withdraw cash. The decline of cash is noticeable even in houses of worship, like the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, where Vicar Johan Tyrberg recently installed a card reader to make it easier for worshippers to make offerings. "People came up to me several times and said they didn't have cash but would still like to donate money," Tyrberg says.

Bills and coins represent only 3 percent of Sweden's economy, compared to an average of 9 percent in the eurozone and 7 percent in the U.S., according to the Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella organization for the world's central banks. Three percent is still too much if you ask Ulvaeus. A cashless society may seem like an odd cause for someone who made a fortune on "Money, Money, Money" and other ABBA hits, but for Ulvaeus it's a matter of security.

9/29 defcon: cookies, retention & a heavenly palace

facebook tracks you even after logging out*

australian tech expert discovers faCIAbook cookies*
facebook to form its own political action committee*
after outcry, onstar backing down on vehicle data collection*
'retention periods of major cellular service providers':
secret memo reveals verizon stores your data the longest*
state dept employee faces firing for posting wikileaks link*
manning & assange nominated for nobel peace prize*
video: anonymous hacktivists go hip-hop*
video: ice official who 'fights' child porn arrested for it*
sun unleashes two massive x-class solar flares*
earth in cross-hairs of huge solar storm caused by sunspot 1302?*
'heavenly palace 1': china set to launch its own space station; mission: unknown*

5/26 defcon: stuxnet, square & born this way

senior defense official squirms on US involvement in stuxnet*
flashback: israel tested stuxnet at dimona*
senator blocks bill giving feds power to blacklist piracy sites*
brookings' darrell west: we don't need federal internet agency*
lady gaga fans crash amazon cloud for .99¢ album*
square tries to make wallets obsolete*
google faces lawsuit over mobile phone 'wallet'*

restored 'trip to the moon' debuts on cannes opening night

from hollywood reporter: Before CGI and 3D, there was French film pioneer Georges Melies, the forerunner of modern-day movie magic. His newly restored 1902 short A Trip to the Moon will precede Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris to open up this year’s Cannes Film Festival. A must for any film student or special effects lover, the 14-minute space fantasy was adapted by Melies from the work of Jules Verne, and shot in a studio he built in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. Filled with dazzling set pieces and uncanny visual trickery, the most iconic being an image of a rocket ship poking into the moon’s eye, the movie went on to achieve instant success both in France and the U.S.

The massive restoration, budgeted at E400,000 and jointly financed by Serge Bromberg’s Lobster Films (Henri-George Clouzot’s Inferno), the Groupama Gan Foundation and the Technicolor Foundation, began in 1993 when a rare, hand-tinted print was uncovered in Barcelona. In 1999, Lobster began digitizing the footage frame by frame, and over ten years and 13,000 frames later, the film can now be seen in a full-blown color version for the first time since its debut more than a century ago. Although silent film purists may gasp at the restorers’ choice to add a catchy soundtrack by French electro duo Air (Lost in Translation), Moon should continue its voyage after Cannes to play plenty of fests and film museums before it lands on DVD.

2001: a concert odyssey blasts off in london

from reuters: Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" made the timpani intro of Richard Strauss's "Thus Sprach Zarathustra" a cliche for a dramatic entrance and the crescendo of Gyorgy Ligeti's "Atmospheres" a cult classic. Now fans of one of the most influential soundtracks of all time can hear it in sound that will out-Dolby Dolby for an ambitious programme at London's Southbank Centre that combines a new print of Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi masterpiece with a large chorus and full orchestra playing the film music live. "It's absolute goosebumps," said Gillian Moore, head of contemporary culture at Southbank, where two concert showings of "2001: A Space Odyssey" will be given next week (April 7 and 8). "It's like an opera," added German conductor Andre de Ridder, whose job it is to coordinate the massive forces of the orchestra and chorus with a film that was never meant, unlike some silent films, to have a live musical accompaniment. "I would say it is the perfect marriage of sound, theatre, drama and visual art," he added -- covering all the bases.

what happened to telstar?

Whatever happened to Telstar? The first communications satellite (COMSAT) to relay television signals launched from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962. A video of the launch can be viewed here. Telstar's Wikipedia entry reveals the COMSAT was a victim of the cold war. "The day before Telstar 1 was launched, the United States had tested a high-altitude nuclear bomb (called Starfish Prime) which energized the Earth's Van Allen Belt where Telstar 1 went into orbit. This vast increase in radiation, combined with subsequent high-altitude blasts, including a Soviet test in October, overwhelmed Telstar's fragile transistors..." The satellite went out of service permanently on February 21, 1963. The AT&T-owned satellite inspired The Tornados to a number one hit in the UK and the US also named after the satellite, 'Telstar'.

related update: 3 russian satellites crash in pacific near hawaii