Marinations introduces the work of two Northern California poets, Jayne McPherson and (host) Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli. McPherson interweaves intense personal recollection with a highly-charged physical metaphor, exploring the psyche in the rolling landscapes of healing. Skolnick-Bagnoli invites us into the making of her anthology, Shiny Objects, a distillation of 30+ years of poetic and visual art that touches on socio/politics, the souls journey through space-time, and the many ways we reach for things that shine.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Marinations Program 15
Visiting with designer-writer Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli in this episode of Marinations, visual artist Bert Arenson describes the mysterious ways in which he manifests a painting. Then Julie Motz, explorer in the twin arenas of human psychology and wellness, shares glimpses of her journey and her penetrating work in healing.
Marinations is a nutritious stew of nature, culture and ideas. Produced in Marin County California, the show airs on San Rafael's Community Media of Marin channel 26 on the second Thusday and fourth Thursday of the month at 7:30pm and is webcast live at that time. We interview artist, writers, scientists, documentarians, dancers, teachers, journalists, musicians and other creative people.
Marinations is a nutritious stew of nature, culture and ideas. Produced in Marin County California, the show airs on San Rafael's Community Media of Marin channel 26 on the second Thusday and fourth Thursday of the month at 7:30pm and is webcast live at that time. We interview artist, writers, scientists, documentarians, dancers, teachers, journalists, musicians and other creative people.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Marinations: Show 14 Fran Quittel and the IndyMac story
In this Marinations program we interview Fran Quittel about how she and a group of people who found each other on the web used internet tools like Google Groups, Blogs, etc. combined with ; conventional organizing techniques to recover over $ 270 million for some 9500 depositors. Thanks to the Community Media Center of Marin and the volunteers who made this video program possible.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Net Neutrality debates
A friend wrote that the struggle for "net neutrality" appears to be loosing in the U.S. as the FCC and the new Republican majority make noises about compromises that look a bit more like capitulation. The debate goes to the folks who intentionally confuse network traffic management with the place where open exchanges of free thought lifts our collective consciousness throughout the world. Since the growth of web traffic is still accelerating as video becomes the dominant packet on the internet, some allocations, some prioritization is needed and the question is can we preserve freedom of speech even as we manage the system.
A friend wrote that the struggle for "net neutrality" appears to be loosing in the U.S. as the FCC and the new Republican majority make noises about compromises that look a bit more like capitulation. The debate goes to the folks who intentionally confuse network traffic management with the place where open exchanges of free thought lifts our collective consciousness throughout the world. Since the growth of web traffic is still accelerating as video becomes the dominant packet on the internet, some allocations, some prioritization is needed and the question is can we preserve freedom of speech even as we manage the system.
Monday, November 29, 2010
This morning, our cat Carol hopped up onto the tile counter by the sink, purring and looking me in the eyes.
Clearly she formed an intent.
When she was sure that I was watching,
she proceeded to pantomime drinking water from the sink spout.
I turned on a tiny stream of cold water from the tap,
and she twisted her head to align her tongue with the stream and began lapping it up.
No words, yet effective communication.
Then I told her to get down and
wiped down the counter where she sat as she sought a drink of water.
Clearly she formed an intent.
When she was sure that I was watching,
she proceeded to pantomime drinking water from the sink spout.
I turned on a tiny stream of cold water from the tap,
and she twisted her head to align her tongue with the stream and began lapping it up.
No words, yet effective communication.
Then I told her to get down and
wiped down the counter where she sat as she sought a drink of water.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The recent reports on the news about the Stuxnet computer virus that has Iran complaining is quite a technical masterpiece, and a far cry from the usual Trojans and botnet attacks that are the usual source of grief for us all. Indeed it seems that someone went to considerable effort to ensure that this virus didn't harm any ordinary industrial systems.
The virus has been discussed in this Ars Technica story: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/clues-suggest-stuxnet-virus-was-built-for-subtle-nuclear-sabotage.ars with new details provided that inform this cometary.
First, the virus checks to see if it is in a very specific context, and targets systems that may be supporting a very particular type of control system that would be regulated in the U.S. as non-exportable as it would be controlling more than 33 variable speed drives capable of high frequency motor control. It checks to see if there are Iranian modules on the system, or one other type of module that could be employed in isotope enrichment plants. If it doesn't find these specific conditions, the virus doesn't affect the system that it infects (though it may try to spread further in an effort to land in a system that meets it's targeting criteria).
Since Uranium enrichment with centrifuges typically uses cascades of thousands of units, each making incremental progress at separating the rare atoms that would be useful in a reactor or weapon from the vast bulk of the material that is essentially inert, messing with the process can contaminate the "pure" product and compromise the effectiveness of the cascade.
The virus is designed to be hard to detect, and it doesn't try to destroy equipment. Indeed for the imputed purpose of this virus, it is more important to delay the production of weapons grade material than to cause a splash in the press.
From the information provided, it appears that the virus effectively delayed to some degree the Iranian military in it's quest to build a weapon. For this I am grateful, and appreciate the amazing operation that managed to get this computer virus into the system. It took knowledge of how the enrichment process works, knowledge of how the Iranian system is built, as well as substantial knowledge and skill in constructing the code that could implement this tactical objective.
Now that the existence of the virus is known, the resultant publicity serves to educate the rest of the system players to the vulnerabilities that we may have in various parts of our infrastructure. I hope that this publicity will spur industrial controls engineers to take a new look at security in our existing systems and to build in more robust security features when new systems are designed. Ideas as to how this may be done are the subject of another article (in press).
Thanks to whoever thought up this important operation, it achieves what a conventional kinetic operation could not and makes a concrete contribution to counter proliferation in a world that is dangerous enough without Iranian nuclear weapons.
The virus has been discussed in this Ars Technica story: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/clues-suggest-stuxnet-virus-was-built-for-subtle-nuclear-sabotage.ars with new details provided that inform this cometary.
First, the virus checks to see if it is in a very specific context, and targets systems that may be supporting a very particular type of control system that would be regulated in the U.S. as non-exportable as it would be controlling more than 33 variable speed drives capable of high frequency motor control. It checks to see if there are Iranian modules on the system, or one other type of module that could be employed in isotope enrichment plants. If it doesn't find these specific conditions, the virus doesn't affect the system that it infects (though it may try to spread further in an effort to land in a system that meets it's targeting criteria).
Since Uranium enrichment with centrifuges typically uses cascades of thousands of units, each making incremental progress at separating the rare atoms that would be useful in a reactor or weapon from the vast bulk of the material that is essentially inert, messing with the process can contaminate the "pure" product and compromise the effectiveness of the cascade.
The virus is designed to be hard to detect, and it doesn't try to destroy equipment. Indeed for the imputed purpose of this virus, it is more important to delay the production of weapons grade material than to cause a splash in the press.
From the information provided, it appears that the virus effectively delayed to some degree the Iranian military in it's quest to build a weapon. For this I am grateful, and appreciate the amazing operation that managed to get this computer virus into the system. It took knowledge of how the enrichment process works, knowledge of how the Iranian system is built, as well as substantial knowledge and skill in constructing the code that could implement this tactical objective.
Now that the existence of the virus is known, the resultant publicity serves to educate the rest of the system players to the vulnerabilities that we may have in various parts of our infrastructure. I hope that this publicity will spur industrial controls engineers to take a new look at security in our existing systems and to build in more robust security features when new systems are designed. Ideas as to how this may be done are the subject of another article (in press).
Thanks to whoever thought up this important operation, it achieves what a conventional kinetic operation could not and makes a concrete contribution to counter proliferation in a world that is dangerous enough without Iranian nuclear weapons.
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