ACLU Action Alert: Stop Wrongful Executions, Support a National Moratorium! ‘Senator Russell Feingold
(D-WI) has introduced the “National Death Penalty
Moratorium Act of 2001″ (S. 233). This legislation would
impose a moratorium on federal executions while
creating a National Commission on the Death Penalty to
review fairness in the administration of capital
punishment.’ One-click fax support for Feingold’s bill.

Hubble Spies Huge Clusters of Stars Formed by Ancient Encounter

Studying galactic interactions is like sifting through the forensic evidence at a crime scene. Astronomers
wade through the debris of a violent encounter, collecting clues so that they can reconstruct the celestial
crime to determine when it happened. Take the case of M82, a small, nearby galaxy that long ago bumped
into its larger neighbor, M81. When did this violent encounter occur? New infrared and visible-light pictures
from the Hubble telescope reveal for the first time important details of large clusters of stars, which arose
from the interaction. Space Telescope Science Institute (StScI)

Several letdowns in today’s New York Times:

Bush Tells Seoul Talks With North Won’t Resume Now. In one fell swoop, Dubya reverses two years of careful building toward reconciliation and misses what experts call a narrow window of opportunity before North Korea retreats to a hardline stance. New York Times

Parkinson’s Research Is Set Back by Failure of Fetal Cell Implants “A carefully controlled study that
tried to treat Parkinson’s disease
by implanting cells from aborted
fetuses into patients’ brains not only
failed to show an overall benefit but
also revealed a disastrous side effect,
scientists report.

In about 15 percent of patients, the cells apparently grew too well,
churning out so much of a chemical that controls movement that the
patients writhed and jerked uncontrollably.

The researchers say that while some patients have similar effects
from taking too high a dose of their Parkinson’s drug, in this case the
drugs did not cause the symptoms and there is no way to remove or
deactivate the transplanted cells.” Sad news; this technique had excited high hopes for Parkinson’s patients and their doctors, as well as those with other neurodegenerative conditions. New York Times

The problems of preserving dance legacies. Trademark and copyright complications prevent the performance of the works of some choreographers after their death… until they’re too far from living memory to pass on the nuances of their work any longer. Martha Graham’s work is hopelessly entangled, for example. Boston Globe

The Next Wave: ‘What’s got people in the industry buzzing these days really could
be the next great leap forward in broadcasting. Within months,
radio audiences around the world will be able to install
appliances — whether for Internet radio or for satellite radio —
in their homes and automobiles that will dissolve borders and
allow listeners to tune out commercials, silence, moronic
talk-show callers and processed music for good.

True, the technology won’t be free. But for many listeners, a
few bucks a month is a small price to pay for real choice.

“We’re going to flip people’s concept of radio on its head,” said
Joe Capobianco, a senior vice president for New York-based
Sirius Satellite Radio at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show.’ Chicago Tribune

Potter fans rally to boycott film: “Warner’s legal wizards have alienated
children by cracking down on fan Web
sites. ” Ottawa Citizen

Arnold Schoenberg: guilty as charged? Is it just to blame him for all that’s wrong with modern music? Independent And: The madness of art: “Robert Schumann spent the last two and a half years of his life
wretchedly incarcerated in a mental asylum. The composer’s
psychiatric condition had never been robust and his fate has
been considered an accident waiting to happen by those who
shake their heads over the angular themes and complex
harmonies in his later works or the gloom of the Manfred
overture.

Generations later, an American academic has taken up his
cause, contending that this was a brutal and unnecessary fate
for a man who was not so much deranged as depressed.
Schumann was not only denied his freedom, but at times even
denied the paper on which to compose. He confronted that
most horrifying of fates: being the one sane man in a house of
the mad. ” The Times of London

Descramble That DVD in 7 Lines. “A new, slimmed-down version of DVD descrambling now exists: a mere
seven lines of Perl code. It’s so lean, you too can attach it to your
e-mail signature file. Hello, movie industry lawyers… The probable spread of qrpff on business cards, on T-shirts, and bumper stickers closely
resembles the distribution of encryption code in signature files and T-shirts a few years ago.
Such civil disobedience flouted U.S. export laws in a kind of global keep-away game. “

Here you go:

$_=’while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=(
$m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16
-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271);if((@a=unx”C*”,$_)[20]&48){$h
=5;$_=unxb24,join””,@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[–$h+84])}@ARGV;s/…$/1$&/;$
d=unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d8^($f=$t&($d12^$d4^
$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e8^($t&($g=($q=$e14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9,$_=$t[$_]^
(($h=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x”C*”,@a}’;s/x/pack+/g;eval

Wired