The Two Towers … of Dubai in Time Lapse Video
Wonderful time lapse video of the two towers of Dubai. Any HD movie set to Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis works in my book any day.
Archive for January, 2012
Jan 31
A Legal Defense Fund for Climate Scientists
It’s a relief to see something like this happening in the world. A legal defense fund, the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, has been set up to help scientists who are stuck in litigation battles with politicians, or other (conservative) political entities, who look to tie up their climate research work. Their focus is centered on:
Litigation: The Climate Science Defense Fund is taking an active interest in litigation. Currently several climate scientists have litigation in the courts. The Climate Science Defense Fund will play an active role in helping raise funds for their defense, serving as a resource in finding pro-bono representation, and providing support during difficult litigation proceedings.
Education: The Climate Science Defense Fund will work to educate the scientific community about their rights and their responsibilities with regard to legal issues surrounding their work.
Knowledge Bank: The Climate Science Defense Fund will serve as a clearinghouse for information related to legal actions taken against scientists. Our goal is to provide lawyers representing scientists with information about past cases and strategies.
I would hope something similar to CSLDF would take up the cause of suing politicians who use taxpayer money to fight ideological battles. Aren’t there more pressing issues in the world like, say, drugs, human trafficking, murders, insider trading, fraud and other things to focus on?
Apple's product line gray area in China
When a company reports the kind of numbers Apple did last week in it’s latest quarterly earnings report, it’s only a matter of time until damning critique of its business practices come to light in the New York Times or other top news agencies.
As a long time Apple user, it’s difficult to read such an article. For me, the money sections were:
When news arrives that Apple is interested in a particular product or service, small celebrations often erupt. Whiskey is drunk. Karaoke is sung.
Then, Apple’s requests start.
Apple typically asks suppliers to specify how much every part costs, how many workers are needed and the size of their salaries. Executives want to know every financial detail. Afterward, Apple calculates how much it will pay for a part. Most suppliers are allowed only the slimmest of profits.
So suppliers often try to cut corners, replace expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or push their employees to work faster and longer, according to people at those companies.
…
You can set all the rules you want, but they’re meaningless if you don’t give suppliers enough profit to treat workers well,” said one former Apple executive with firsthand knowledge of the supplier responsibility group. “If you squeeze margins, you’re forcing them to cut safety.”
Many major technology companies have worked with factories where conditions are troubling. However, independent monitors and suppliers say some act differently. Executives at multiple suppliers, in interviews, said that Hewlett-Packard and others allowed them slightly more profits and other allowances if they were used to improve worker conditions.
“Our suppliers are very open with us,” said Zoe McMahon, an executive in Hewlett-Packard’s supply chain social and environmental responsibility program. “They let us know when they are struggling to meet our expectations, and that influences our decisions.
…
But ultimately, say former Apple executives, there are few real outside pressures for change. Apple is one of the most admired brands. In a national survey conducted by The New York Times in November, 56 percent of respondents said they couldn’t think of anything negative about Apple. Fourteen percent said the worst thing about the company was that its products were too expensive. Just 2 percent mentioned overseas labor practices.
…
And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.
There is a bit of irony in all of this. In the Steve Jobs biography, by Walter Isaacson, Jobs had an obsession in opening up a Macintosh and NEXT factory in Fremont in the early and late 80s partly in an attempt to impress his father. Jobs went to great lengths to create a beautiful factory with much expense spent on aesthetics and even the chairs workers would sit in. Clearly economics changed Jobs’ position on all of this as the demand was just too great to support in United States factories.
I have come to rely quite heavily on the iPhone, and the question that arises is whether the only ethical thing to do is dump it for something else? I know I can’t do that, at least at this point, especially when other companies are complicit as well, although perhaps not as strongly as it is with Apple.
Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China – NYTimes.com.
Reading List for January 23-29, 2012
This week I learned just how big Newt Gingrich’s ego can be and perhaps it better to plan for a permanent manned base on his ego. It must be easy to say what you want in front of people who want to hear it and not giving much thought to how disappointed those people will be when you don’t do what you say you want. Newt should probably read Ryan Lizza’s article on just how constrained a president can be when they occupy the Oval Office and not be the transformational president they want to be. The easy part is coming up with the dream. The difficult part is knowing how to make it a reality. And speaking of the moon, how timely it was for Scientific American to release an article on the fire that destroyed the Apollo 1 test capsule and what NASA and the country learned from that tragic disaster. I also learned that German astronauts (Weltraumnaut?) had a penchant for cowl-neck sweaters, at least on screen anyway. And the price of Stradivarius instruments continue to rise and rise, making it more and more impossible for a performer to own one of these instruments on their own without the help of a wealthy patron. And you might want to remember those that died and suffered in producing that electronic device you’re using, not just those made by Apple, but by every other company.
- The Obama Memos: The making of a post-post-partisan Presidency, by Ryan Lizza – New Yorker
- A Beloved Set of Strings Goes to a Good Home, by Daniel J. Wakin – New York Times
- For a Moon Colony, Technology Is the Easy Part, by Kenneth Chang – New York Times
- Close Read: Newt, A Harsh Moon, And A Mistress, by Amy Davidson – New Yorker
- In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad, by Charles Duhigg & David Barboza – New York Times
- Apollo 1: The Fire That Shocked NASA, by Amy Shira Teitel – Scientific American Blogs
- Not Everyone’s in Tune Over Precious Violins, by Daniel J. Wakin – New York Times
Citizen King – PBS Documentary on Martin Luther King: A must see
This is truly a great documentary on Martin Luther King. I believe it is a must see for everyone. All 13 parts are available on YouTube starting with part one here. The other 12 parts should be accessible from this video or from the video’s page on YouTube.
Writing the 2012 State of the Union Address on Vimeo
While perhaps not as detailed as watching an episode of the West Wing about how a president’s State of the Union speech is written, this is still quite interesting, and not to mention in the “real world.”
via Behind The Scenes: Writing the 2012 State of the Union Address on Vimeo.
40 years since Apollo 11 landing, 40 years more to Fritz Lang
It’s hard to imagine that man landed on the moon over 40 years ago! To some that may seem like ancient history and to others a seminal and vivid moment even today. And just 40 years prior to the 1969 moon landing, Fritz Lang’s movie “Woman In The Moon” (“Frau Im Mond” or also known as “By Rocket to the Moon”) was released in theaters around the world. With the 40 year gaps in time between Apollo 11 and Lang’s movie, that doesn’t make this movie seem so old, despite it’s fantastical view of a moon launch and the fact that it’s a silent film. It’s also amusing to see German astronauts’ penchants for cowl-neck sweaters.
It was in this movie that the notion of a “countdown to zero” was first introduced and still in use by NASA today, although not by the Russian space program.
Fritz Lang – Woman In The Moon – 1929. Countdown 3/3 – YouTube
Bernard Greenhouse's Stradivarius Cello Sells for More Than $6 Million
Unless you’re Itzhak Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma, long gone are the days when a professional classical musician could actually own a Stradivarius, Guarneri, Amati and so forth. With sales of these instruments now ranging in the millions of dollars, it is left to wealthy patrons to buy these instruments and hopefully loan them out to deserving players. Sometimes this happens and sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, it often sits in the house of the buyer collecting dust or is simply put on display in a museum where it is played perhaps once a year.
The most recent example is the sale of Bernard Greenhouse’s cello, a Stradivarius known as the “Countess of Stainlein” and built in 1707. The buyer, “a patroness of the arts from Montreal,” as the Times states, purchased the cello for $6 million and has now loaned it to Stéphane Tétreault,
The purchaser was a “patroness of the arts from Montreal,” who declined to be identified further, Mr. Reuning said. He said she has decided to lend the cello, known as Countess of Stainlein, ex-Paganini of 1707, to Stéphane Tétreault, an 18-year-old player from Montreal with a budding career.
Here’s to hoping Mr. Tétreault isn’t an avid iPhone user.
via Stradivari Cello Sells for More Than $6 Million – NYTimes.com.
Odd photos of odd people…
Sometimes you’ve just got to wonder what people were thinking when they allowed someone to take a picture of themselves in the most unflattering of situations.
New Brahms piano work debuted on BBC3
A recently discovered piano work by Johannes Brahms, “Albumblatt”, has received its world premier on BBC3 and performed by the pianist András Schiff. The work, written in 1853, was found inside an old book that used to belong to the director of music at the University of Göttingen in Germany and who Brahms probably knew well. The manuscript was found inside this book last year by the conductor and musicologist Christopher Hogwood in a library at Princeton University.
Some of this piece eventually found its way into Brahms’ Horn trio written 12 years later. But this work was written by a young Brahms around the age of 20, and was most likely a small gift to the director. Brahms was notorious for burning compositions of his that he felt were not fit for publication, and troves of his work, as well as letters to Clara Schumann, other friends and colleagues are lost forever. It is a rare occasion to a find a lost composition from a great composer such as Brahms.
The complete audio of the two minute and 16 second work can be found on the BBC’s website, although it seems that it is currently limited to people inside the UK only. Hopefully this will be available to people outside the country soon, unless one catches a repeat performance of it on the BBC3 Radio website.
