Topic: Technology

Technology: A powerful tool in Obama’s presidential campaign

By Terry McMoore | October 19, 2008 |

Your vote is your voice

I know you’ve all been volunteering tons of time for a long, long time now.  But, I just read something from Barack Obama that I think we should all take to heart!

“Don’t underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory …  I want everybody running scared. Over the next 18 days, other than your family and your job, I want you to make a decision that there is nothing more important than bringing about this change that we need.” — Barack Obama

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Big Brother lives: Photo ticket cameras could track drivers nationwide

By Bill Larson | September 18, 2008 |

When the discussion of installing red-light cameras in Clarksville began, one of the arguments against them was their potential use for tasks beyond ticketing red-light violators. This is commonly known as “mission creep.” Cameras are first installed for one reason, then, after they are in place, it’s simple to expand their use for other purposes. For example, while cameras in Clarksville initially won’t ticket for speeding, several City Council members have already expressed interest in getting the “whole package,” which would include speed enforcement as well.

Those who warned of the civil liberties issues with these cameras were 100% correct that they could be used to track and database the movement and associations of law abiding citizens. Why is this dangerous? Let’s say one day the government does something that you don’t like. Then, lawfully exercising your right to free speech and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievance, you protest it. Suddenly you have popped up on the government’s radar screen. The government can then check the voluminous records they have already started keeping on Americans, such as travel and flight records.

The government can go back and go through your call logs, Internet traffic, movement logs, and other electronic traces with a fine tooth comb looking for things that woud allow them to harrass or intimidate you.

There are millions of laws on the books, many of them complex and hard for the average person to understand and follow. How many of these laws are you aware of? How many of them have you inadvertently broken? How many others exist that you don’t even know about! «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News, Opinion, Politics, Technology | 1 Comment »

Cautionary “Words of warming” as the world heats up

August 14, 2008 |

In her periodic newsletter and update, Goddard College Professor Catherine Lowther circulates these “Words of warming”. With her permission, we pass this item to our readers.

James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute

As the world hots up, so does the market for books about climate change. Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, looks at the latest works on the crisis, and sizes up their solutions, from nuclear energy to genetically engineered trees.

(August 9) — Most of those interested in climate science nowadays access information online, and one of the most significant of such contributions was recently posted by James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute, and his colleagues, who have provided a partial explanation for these changes. They revisited a key piece of science underpinning the IPCC’s work - the findings about how much warming a given amount of atmospheric CO2 pollution would produce - and discovered that, when viewed over the longer term, Earth’s climate system is about twice as sensitive to CO2 pollution as is illustrated in the panel’s century-long projections. «Read the rest of this article»

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An anthropological introduction to YouTube

By Bill Larson | August 13, 2008 |

This is a presentation given by Mike Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, at the Library of Congress on June 23, 2008. He decided to forgo the standard PowerPoint presentation and instead worked with his students to prepare over 40 minutes of video for the 55-minute presentation. This is the result.

It’s interesting and highly entertaining to watch, and might give some people who support draconian copyright regimes reason to rethink their support.

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James Hansen on climate: What’s at stake?

June 27, 2008 |

What is at stake?

Warming so far, about two degrees Fahrenheit over land areas, seems almost innocuous, being less than day-to-day weather fluctuations. But more warming is already “in- the-pipeline”, delayed only by the great inertia of the world ocean. And climate is nearing dangerous tipping points. Elements of a “perfect storm”, a global cataclysm, are assembled.

Climate can reach points such that amplifying feedbacks spur large rapid changes. Arctic sea ice is a current example. Global warming initiated sea ice melt, exposing darker ocean that absorbs more sunlight, melting more ice. As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, Issues, Opinion, Politics | 1 Comment »

Rubber-stamped travel: Corporate cloning of America’s landscape

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 26, 2008 |

On the Road in America is an occasional and serendipitous column about people, places and observations, with publishing predicated on the random availability of internet access or lack thereof.

Being On the Road in America can sometimes be a bore.

Oh, there’s a great deal of beauty to be seen, from the Green Mountains of Vermont to the rolling farmlands across Ohio, from the rugged Rockies and the dramatic coastline of California’s 17-mile drive. That’s not the issue.

As implied in Josh Neuman’s Lemmings (right) ,what is troubling is the growing lack of identity, of uniqueness, of individuality, as one moves from state to state. North, south, east or west makes not a whit of difference. Commerce in America is cloning itself at breakneck pace, mass-producing blueprints for hotels, motels, box stores, shopping malls and restaurants that increasingly lack a sense of their own identity and certainly have no ties to community heritage or culture.

I’m on the road again, as Willie Nelson would sing, and I am heading for one of the few bastions of non-traditional development — via the central midwest to the rural northeast, home of green mountains, clothing optional backwoods beaches, interstate bike paths, and those perpetual golden arches relegated to the outermost borders of some cities. «Read the rest of this article»

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‘Promote Green’ offers eco-friendly marketing merchandise

June 23, 2008 |

Amanda Davis Weiss, owner and promotional marketing consultant, launched Promote Green this month in the Clarksville and the Fort Campbell/Hopkinsville, Kentucky areas.

Promote Green, a promotional marketing and logo merchandising firm, launches this month offering a full line of eco-friendly custom imprinted advertising specialties. Promote Green aims to give businesses an environmentally responsible alternative to the traditional promotional product.

While attending a local Earth Day celebration this April, Weiss remembers, “I heard the conservation message many times but saw little evidence of the message in the promotional products and giveaways handed out.” According to Weiss, reflection on the issue led to her realizing the need of a local entity enabling all businesses to easily purchase environmentally sound marketing products for everyday use. «Read the rest of this article»

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Caleb Wherry begins NASA internship

June 16, 2008 |

An Austin Peay State University computer science student will spend the summer and Fall 2008 semester as an intern in a highly competitive National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) program. Caleb Wherry recently accepted a position in NASA’s Undergraduate Student Research Program. He will receive a total stipend of $15,000 as an intern.

Wherry began June 3 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. On Sept. 2, he will begin the fall semester at NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., and remain there until Dec. 12. During the Langley internship, Wherry will work with atmospheric scientist Mike Pitts, whose research focuses on the formation and evolution of polar stratospheric clouds using data known as CALIPSO.

Langley Research Center has a new atmospheric trajectory model that staff would like to use to study how the clouds form and evolve with time. Wherry will help the center run the computer models for a number of different scenarios and possibly interface the model with the CALIPSO measurements. Wherry will return to APSU for the Spring 2009 semester.

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