Iran and the Bomb

T he brinksmanship between the West and Iran over that country’s nuclear ambitions appeared to enter a new and dangerous phase earlier this month, when the Iranians did not accept the West’s latest offer to set aside further economic sanctions if the Iranians immediately stopped enriching uranium. Representatives of six Western nations had given Iran until Aug. 2 to reply to their offer. Iran allowed the deadline to pass, then responded 48 hours later with little that was new. In the interim it deployed a new long-range weapon it said was capable of striking U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. In return, the United States and its allies have said that they will pursue additional economic sanctions. Meanwhile, Israel, which fears that a nuclear Iran would wipe Israel off the map, continues to prepare its Defense Forces for a strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities.

Such an attack would be a catastrophe. Among other things, it is impractical, as an attack would likely only delay the Iranians, not stop them. The principal elements of Iran’s nuclear program are spread out among numerous locations and population centers, decreasing the likelihood that an Israeli strike would eliminate the nuclear threat and increasing the likelihood of Iranian civilian casualties. Also, an Israeli attack would invigorate Iranian nationalism, silence the moderate voices in Iranian politics and rally support for the Tehran regime. Lastly, Iran would almost certainly retaliate by striking targets in Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, choking off the world’s oil supply. The Bush administration should make it clear to Israel that a military strike would be a perilous and unacceptable escalation.

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Ancient Greek Computer Set Dates For Olympics

The world is preparing to turn its eyes to Beijing for the Summer Olympics, a fortnight of sporting competition that pits the best athletes against one another. The Games start on the somewhat ominous date 8/8/08 — but that’s something the ancient Greeks could’ve predicted as far back as the end of the 2nd century, B.C., using a mechanical brass calculator to predict solar and lunar eclipses and likely set the dates for the Olympic games.

The calculator, dubbed the Antikythera Mechanism, was discovered in 1901 at the site of a shipwreck off a Greek Island with the same name. The breakthrough in determining the mechanism’s true purpose, however, has come only recently with advances in modern technology.

Using three-dimension, X-ray technology, the researchers working with the device were recently able to decode tiny inscriptions buried inside the fragmented brass pieces, Reuters reports. The Antikythera Mechanism is comprised of bronze gearwheels, dials and inscriptions.

The connection between the lunar and solar eclipses was an important part of setting the date of the ancient Olympics. The beginning of the ancient games marked the beginning of what the Greeks called “The Olympiad,” a four-year time span that began on the full moon closest to the summer solstice.

As researches began to unravel the astronomical function of the Antikythera Mechanism, x-ray technology dropped another clue in their lap. Amongst the inscriptions on the ancient computer were the names “Nemea” and “Olympia” — both of which were sites that hosted the ancient Olympics.

Like a well thrown shot-put, the pieces began to fall into place for researchers.

“It really surprised us to discover that it also showed the four-year cycle of ancient Greek games, including the Olympic Games,” Tony Freeth, a researcher at the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project who worked on the study, told Reuters.

The Antikythera Mechanism wasn’t done surprising the people studying it either. When it was originally discovered, at the site of a shipwreck in 1901, it was found with other items from the Eastern Mediterranean. This led researches to believe that ancient brass computer originated in that region.

But as researches employed the technology that allowed them to read the inscriptions on the device, they found that the names of the months used were of Corinthian origin — indicating the Mechanism found its origins on the other side of the Greek world, most likely Corfu or Sicily, in the Northwest part of the country.

The technology used in the Antikythera Mechanism was so advanced for its time that it wouldn’t be seen again in the Western world until the invention of clocks in medieval cathedrals.

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Netflix Will Stream TV, Movies To LG Blu-Ray Player

LG Electronics on Thursday said it would sell this fall a high-definition Blu-ray disc player that can stream to a TV more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes from Netflix.

The LG BD300 player will rely on a wired broadband connection and a queue-based user interface to display on a TV a variety of content selected by the Netflix subscriber. Once selected, movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds, the companies said.

Netflix members will be able to use the player’s remote control to browse and make selections on their TV screens, as well as read synopses and rate movies. They will also have the option of fast-forwarding and rewinding the video stream.

“The BD300 is another LG industry first and provides consumers with an advanced high-def disc player with unparalleled flexibility and networked access for services such as Netflix,” Teddy Hwang, president of LG Electronics USA, said in a statement.

The LG-Netflix deal is not exclusive, so LG could add similar services from Netflix rivals in the future. Netflix has said that its long-term goal is to get Sony, Panasonic, and LG to integrate Netflix services into their digital TVs.

The partnership was expected. LG and Netflix said at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January that they would provide a device for streaming content from the Web to the TV in the second half of the year. Pricing was not disclosed.

While the BD 300 supports high-definition content, Netflix does not offer HD content for streaming. It does offer HD movies via its by-mail service.

Netflix has offered subscribers the option of streaming movies to their PCs at no additional cost. The company is hoping to stay ahead of the curve as the Internet matures as a distribution mechanism. Netflix rival Blockbuster is also expanding its digital offerings.

LG is not the only Netflix partner for streaming content. The DVD rental firm this month unveiled a partnership in which it would stream movies through Microsoft’s Internet-based Xbox Live service.

Under the deal, people with Xbox 360 videogame consoles can download Netflix movies at no additional cost and watch them on TVs. The service, which is expected to launch in the fall, will only be available to subscribers of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Gold service.

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Scrabble on Facebook Crashes, and EA Blames Hackers

Facebook’s online Scrabble application came up blank Wednesday as an apparent hacker attack pulled down the application. Game maker Electronic Arts, partnering with Hasbro, the publisher of Scrabble, released a statement that read in part, “”We’re working with our partners to resolve this issue and have Scrabble back online and ready to play as soon as possible.”

The shutdown of the game came directly after Facebook took Scrabble knockoff Scrabulous offline amid threats of a lawsuit from Hasbro. Scrabulous is a product of an independent software company based in India. The Indian company continues to offer its Scrabble clone outside the U.S. and Canada.

‘Tech Problems’

When attempting to load the Scrabble beta application in Facebook, users received the following screen message:

“We’ll be back up shortly …

“We’re working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible! We appreciate all the great feedback we’ve received over the past week and as a result we’re making changes to Scrabble for its official launch in mid-August, including a streamlined app with the option to turn off animations for faster game play and full keyboard functionality for those who prefer this way to play.”

Observers are speculating about whether disgruntled Scrabulous users hacked the system or bugs in the software caused the outage — or a combination of both. While EA claims outside hackers were at fault, some observers believe that may be a cover to save face. Scrabble beta was still out of commission as of Wednesday afternoon.

Evidently former Scrabulous users were angry about the loss of their game. It’s estimated the Scrabulous application had nearly half a million U.S. users before Facebook pulled the plug and substituted the licensed Scrabble beta.

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U.S. not prepared for possible asteroid strike, group says

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National Astronomy and Iconosphere Center

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico hunts near-Earth objects. Funding for the telescope is in danger in next year’s federal budget.

On the 100th anniversary of the devastating Tunguska event in Siberia, scientists and an Orange County congressman urge the government to take further defensive measures against near-Earth objects.

A group of scientists, joined by a member of Congress, used the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid event this week to draw attention to their belief that the United States is not doing enough to defend the planet against the dangers posed by near-Earth objects.
“We are not prepared at this time to prevent the massive death and destruction that would occur if an object from space hit the Earth as it did in Tunguska,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) at a news conference at the Pasadena offices of the Planetary Society.
If an asteroid the size of the one believed to have exploded in the air above Tunguska, in Siberia, were to explode over Los Angeles, he said, the destruction would range over an area from Catalina Island to San Bernardino.
Although no one is positive what caused the Tunguska event, which flattened trees over an 800-square-mile area on June 30, 1908, most scientists believe an asteroid about 150 feet across exploded above the remote river valley in eastern Russia. No one was killed.
NASA has established a Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge to monitor potentially dangerous asteroids. The most scrutinized is Apophis, which has about a one-in-45,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2036, according to Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office. Apophis is about five times the suspected size of the Tunguska object.
But Alan Harris, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., said the greatest danger does not come from the objects we know about but from the ones we haven’t identified.
In one example of the lack of attention the issue is receiving in Washington, Rohrabacher said, funding for the Arecibo, Puerto Rico, radio telescope, which hunts near-Earth objects, is in danger in next year’s budget.
If scientists are able to identify a potential killer asteroid, the deeper question is how to deflect it. Theorists have proposed a variety of possible solutions, including using a nuclear weapon to blow it up or sending a spacecraft that would use gravity to drag the object off its destructive path.