Links for 16 September 2008:

Links for 16 September 2008:

• Noam Chomsky: Towards a Second Cold War? – The typical reactions recall Orwell’s observations on the “indifference to reality” of the “nationalist,” who “not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but … has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
• Moscow Journal – At Chocolate Factory Site, a New Kind of Luxury Box – Their marketing presentations carefully explain that lofts are unusual residences without interior walls, pioneered by “the king of Pop Art, Andy Warhol.”
• First 3-D processor runs at 1.4 Ghz on new architecture – Many in the integrated circuit industry are talking about the limits of miniaturization, a point at which it will be impossible to pack more chips next to each other and thus limit the capabilities of future processors’. He says a number of integrated circuit designers anticipate someday expanding into the third dimension, stacking transistors on top of each other.
• New method identifies meth hot spots – The study examined statistics from four sources then identified five counties with the most meth-linked incidents per capita, such as deaths, poisonings and places where meth is made.
• India’s use of brain scans in courts dismays critics – International Herald Tribune – India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.
• Fears over privacy as police expand surveillance project | UK news | The Guardian – A national network of roadside cameras will be able to “read” 50m licence plates a day, enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists.
• A Killer Paint Job (nanoclaims) – A new type of paint for walls and ceilings may, when exposed to fluorescent light, be able to kill “superbugs,” antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to preliminary studies.
• CIA recruited cat to bug Russians – Telegraph – In one experiment during the Cold War a cat, dubbed Acoustic Kitty, was wired up for use as an eavesdropping platform. It was hoped that the animal – which was surgically altered to accommodate transmitting and control devices – could listen to secret conversations from window sills, park benches or dustbins.
• Mystery of the Real 3D Mandelbrot Fractal – When Mandelbrot first saw the shape’s outline – that was in itself a curiosity – but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he zoomed in. The edge of the basic Mandelbrot shape gave way to millions of intricate details, which after further zooming, unveiled elaborate shapes of every type and description.