The Foresight institute’s Nanodot blog has posted a link to a really interesting discussion from the National Press Club’s meeting about nanotechnology (NanoWorld: Toward a Policy for the Human Future, see here for a press release). Andrew Kimbrell, director of the International Centre for Technology Assessment, gave a speech (from about an hour into the conference) where Nanodot’s blog characterised him as someone who “opposes nanotech”.
Andrew Kimbrell Speaking at NanoWorld ›
May 31st, 2006Controlling The Future ›
May 30th, 2006More4 (UK) screened a doc on TV the other night entitled “Tank Man”, covering the protestor who stood in front of a line of tanks at Tiannemen Square in 1989. (A homepage for the film can be found at PBS’s Frontline).
Korea’s recovered history ›
May 30th, 2006The Washington Post recently reported on US war crimes during the Korean War. In 1999, an AP story about refugees being shot by US soldiers at No Gun Ri was investigated by the Pentagon, which concluded it was “an unfortunate tragedy”, and “not a deliberate killing.” But a recently discovered memo from then-US Korean Ambassador John J. Muccio refutes this claim. Addressed to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, it states:
If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot.
Charming stuff. Wonder if that’ll get into the school history books.
BBC Doc Looks at Big Brother Ltd. ›
May 26th, 2006Great doc just screened on BBC called Is business the real Big Brother?
“As we move throughout cities, throughout our jobs and lives, there are technologies and devices everywhere which capture our movements, capture our activities, which are then stored on databases as evidence of what we’ve been doing.”
- Dr Kirstie Ball, Open University
You can download it here. (I just started reading Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID. Excellent, expect a review soon, but definitely read this book).
Military Social Hacking with Games? ›
May 26th, 2006There’s no love lost between the US and Venezuela. The country’s leader, Hugo Chavez, was overthrown by a US-backed military coup which quickly backfired when a populist uprising returned him back into power. Chavez recently kicked out the US-based New Tribes Mission accusing them of being involved in “true imperialist infiltration, the CIA, they take away sensitive, strategic information” and “exploiting the Indians”. The US, for their part, have repeatedly warned against Chavez, with Condolezza Rice accusing him of a “Latin brand of populism that has taken countries down the drain”.