November 2008

Indian Moon Shot

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From the front page of Wikipedia we learned today that

Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 successfully lands the Moon Impact Probe on the lunar south pole.

This is major news. India is now the 4th country to put a spacecraft on the lunar surface (after the Soviet Union, US, and Japan).
Searched the front page of the New York Times online for this story and it's not there. Great paper: the Iraq War, Tom Friedman... Let's repeat: Wikipedia had this story and the Times didn't.

Update: My sources saw this item in one or more of the financial papers and in the science trades. I've seen no mention of it in the NY Times online edition on Nov 14-15 (haven't looked at the print editions for those days). Possibly the Times has a bias against stories that go against the grain of the "American exceptionalism narrative." Anyway, congratulations to India, that's an impressive achievement.

Update 2: On Nov. 16 the Times ran a one-paragraph AP story, dated Nov 14, about the landing. The headline was several stories down in the Science section. Way to cover 'em, Gray Lady!

"Iceworld"

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"Iceworld" [mp3 removed]

Finished most of this a few days ago but was stuck. Listening to that tracker music for 24 hours provided some ideas for how to resolve it. The gritty quality here is not low sample rate but possibly a blown amp on the Mutator filter distorting an already gnarly stretched-out and gated sample. It needed a pretty, "icy" melody floating on top to pull it together--or almost pull it together; the incongruity is important.

Current Financial Crisis: More Explanation

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Long but well-told explanation by Michael Lewis of the mass cognitive dissonance that led to the current financial crisis. Lewis wrote the book Liar's Poker, about his experiences as a trader during the '80s financial madness. He thought the insanity had ended but now says current events make that period seem quaint. Junk bond shenanigans again--but this time in connection with even more dubious financial instruments based on home lending. What--house prices wouldn't keep going up forever? Who knew?

[hat tip backspin]

Sick of Lieberman

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The Senate seems incapable of stripping Joe Lieberman of his Homeland Graft committee chairmanship--this after he actively campaigned against the President-elect and "endorsed and supported every last radical Bush policy to expand executive power and surveillance activities," per Glenn Greenwald.

It's obvious Senate collegiality and bonhomie trumps the popular will regarding this unsavory sociopath. They're all so afraid of Lieberman--he must give them bruising eye contact in person and threaten to get really, really mad.

Update: Senate capitulated to Lieberman's ego and allowed him to stay in his Homeland Graft slot. That's change we can believe in. Yes we can.