Musica Universalis
Dr. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy posted a video by Alex Parker, an astronomy PhD student, at the University of Victoria in Canada. The video entitles Supernovae Sonata is an attempt to put music to the universe. This concept is not new and greatly appeals to the romantic in me. The idea that there is a music to existence is appealing. It does give a sort of meaning to things, and as a human I often look for meaning in my life, and in the universe. The idea of the “Music of the Spheres”, or Musica Universalis is an old one dating back, in some form, to Ptolemy.
Supernova Sonata from Alex Parker on Vimeo.
I find the video a pretty cool way of visualizing, and audiolizing (new word?), aspects of the universe.
It’s pretty interesting how things seem to happen in life though. I just heard Jennifer Oullette mention the concept in a talk at TAM9. She included the Saturn clip from Cassini as an example. I find that clip slightly disturbing at times, but also compelling with it’s own beauty. It is the sound of the universe, in this case the dance of the rings of Saturn as they circle the planet.
I’ll end on a lighter note with this Doctor Who clip.
Off to TAM
Shortly I’ll be heading off to Las Vegas to attend TAM 9. TAM - The Amazing Meeting is an interesting meeting of skeptics and scientists to discuss all sorts of topics. There will be a nice mix of speakers to, some controversial and some minor celebrities. I’ll try and post while I am there. I intend to take many pictures too!
If anyone else is going drop me a line! I look forward for the chance to meet some people like PZ Meyers, Phil Plait, Jen McCreight, Bill Nye, and a whole lot more people.
What is Age on the Internet?
I was linked to this post via Making Light regarding the affects of COPPA on children who use the internet extensively. And I think on this day, July 4th, it is very relevant. Children in the USA occupy an interesting space regarding how they are treated across the board. They are used by corporations, parents, politicans, and the legal system for all sorts of purposes – most of them selfish. If you look at the Internet though you can see the effect magnified to a large degree. Unfortunately the main view on the internet is driven by fear and exploitation of children, not by those evil predators lurking on every website, but by corporations and politicians looks for an angle. COPPA represents this. I won’t even call it well meaning because it is just stupid in its purpose and execution.
What is COPPA? COPPA is the Children’s Online Protection and Privacy Act. It was passed in October of 1998 with the goal of protection children under the age of 13. The FTC is who enforces it. Now there is one obvious and glaring flaw here. How the hell can you truly verify age on the internet? Unless you require a copy of ID to be sent directly there is no actual way without doing some sort of background check. Now who is going to background check for a forum login? For access to a photo sharing site? No one, because it is expensive, and frankly idiotic to require it.
So what you have is a law that will never be realistically followed, that will only penalize the people who are honest, and will setup yet another arbitrary requirement for access. Now there are those who say “well can’t the parents give consent”? Of course they can but the hoops to obtain it are prohibitive for most sites. Here is a list of methods that make it ok. Not this must be reobtained if the terms of the site change as well. This is the COPPA compliance page.
- getting a signed form from the parent via postal mail or facsimile;
- accepting and verifying a credit card number in connection with a transaction;
- taking calls from parents, through a toll-free telephone number staffed by trained personnel;
- email accompanied by digital signature;
So unless it is a for pay site the costs incurred include processing paperwork, or a possible toll-free line. The final method requires training on the parents end. Unfortunately digital signing of an email is not yet mainstream, nor is it 100% full proof.
What is the net effect of this policy? Mostly it sets up an arbitrary system with a laughable practice of adding a checkbox to a page saying “I am over 13″. For children though it sends a different message. What it really does is tell them they have to lie about their age if they want to participate. The way the whole thing is setup makes it easier to lie than to tell the truth. It makes it so parents will go along with the lie in many cases as well. So it sends a second message that it is ok to lie when the requirements are stupid or ill thought out. The correct response would be to instead change the requirements to be more realistic. There is a final thing here, but that is a whole other topic. How fear is used to manipulate people on the internet to create this sort of thing “for the children”.
Reading
