Something Cool: Live television from Space

haha, no I'm not out of my mind. Americans may know it but not many here locally so here goes.

NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration) has a online TV channel. During shuttle missions and important ISS missions, they'll broadcast directly from Johnson Space Centre (Houston) and Kennedy Space Centre, so we're getting direct satelite feeds from space. Cool!

NASA TV

Strange Things...I'm listening to Classical!!

Until recently I was listening to all sorts of stuff that people of my age will listen to, loads of pop (in particular JPOP like Utada Hikaru) and some rock. But upon the advice of Stereophile that I had been reading (hoping to pick up tips on improving my desktop system actually...), I picked up some classical, and I actually liked them :). Here's what I've been listening to, and if you think there is a better version out there let me know i.e. a very good pianist or conductor or orchestra

Vivaldi - 4 Seasons
JS Bach - Goldberg Variations (1955 Gould)
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata, Diabelli Variations
Mozart - Requiem

A Journey through earphones: Beyond the humble earbuds.

Well, about 2 years ago I got into this whole Head-Fi, headphone affectionado thingy. The very strange bit is how that begun. See, it was a period when I was feeling really down and I was listening to plenty of generally sad sad music... So I saw this magazine review of something thats alien to me....something called in ear monitors. It was a review of Westone UM1 with Creative Zen Aurvana. At that point I already abandoned the cheapo included earbuds and had a pair of absolutely wonderful sounding Sennheiser MX400 and I thought: how much better could it be? So I took a plunge and bought the Westone. So here I am quite a few hundred bucks poorer but aurally more satisfied, here's a quick look at the stuff that I went through

Sennheiser MX400: Great little earbuds, cheap but with a full bodied sound thats typical sennheiser. Highly recommended

Westone UM1: Very comfortable, my first real IEM. Great fit and isolation, flat sound thats very musical at the same time. Good build quality. Recommended

MiPro E8P: Not available commercially and normally sold as part of a wireless in ear monitor kit. Got mine off EBay (seller is Zolton) for a cheap cheap price. Bargain of the year. Fantastic sound with great treble extension and plenty of visceral bass(and IMHO better than the more expensive Westone). Like Westones very good fit (once the memory wire is fixed) and comfort. Problems: Only comes in one colour (skintone beige) and wires are thin (caution!!!). Highly Recommended

KOSS Plugs: AVOID at ALL COST. Muddy with poor bass definition. Nuff said lest I get sued :P

Ultimate Ears Super Fi 3: Great sound, peaky with bass and mid treble spikes. Very suitable for pop/rock tracks but less so for classical. Awkward form factor, although goodies like replaceable wires are a big big plus. Recommended

Audio Technica ATH-M20: Limited treble extension, slightly muddy. But oh so comfortable.

AKG Acoustics K55: Fantastic treble with superb high end sparkle. Just that the damn fit is annoying and causes discomfort in longer listening sessions. Recommended

Audio Technica ATH-Pro6: fantastic bass and treble extension, slightly bass biased, smooth non fatiguing sound but at the expense of ultimate treble definition. Extremely comfortable with more adjustments than I can use, but gets a little warm under the cups. Highly recommended

Freedom of Speech & Expression: When is boom a bane?

heh heh, this is one of those controversial stuff again ain't it? And as a political science student (and soon to be practitioner of this black art) this is one issue that I've heard over and over (along with classics like democracy or dictatorship; agency or structure....you get the idea.) Like a lot of people I do value the freedom of expression and speech. So do many around the world. However, the question that always bugs national leaders and thinkers alike is how much is too much, is absolute too much?

But first, a little explanation...see I realised that everywhere I look on the internet people are expressing their views hidden behind anonymous nicks indiscriminately expressing their every conviction and prejudice. Inevitably when censure occurs those whom offend often decry the death of freedom of expression, and cloaking their actions behind noble ideals. Now, here's my two fingered reply to such hypocrisy (okay, now I must stress this is a personal point of view and that you are of course free to differ, but remember what I will say next before you angrily reply).

First of all, lets look at some premises of this freedom. Some see it as a right, in other societies it is more of an privilege (cultural factors apply....your town may differ from mine). Which means that this 'right' is not a natural state of being(and therefore is not to be shoved down the throats of others, just because they don't believe this doesn't make them any less human) although I will not argue that its the ideal ultimate condition of human society.

So far so good. However, as you can see in the real world, there are some problems. Some one is bound to say something that pisses people off so bad/or motivates people in a way that something may happen in the real world. Take for instance the messages that Al Qaeda posts which translates into real attacks...or the publication of the comics in Denmark that resulted in protests and violence. Therefore what I can conclude is that the freedom of expression is perhaps unrealistic due to some very fundamental flaws in our society. Therefore, whilst freedom of expression is what we aspire to, perhaps it may remain an unachieveable ideal.

Huh? Okay, the thing is to avoid those ills above, there are a few necessary condition, things like a complete education of society. Why? Because education teaches a person to think, to be rational . In this case, to be rational will bestow responsibility in our speech, the ability to exercise proper judgement in what we say and do. For example, even with things we might not agree with, we may express our difference in a logical manner that creates (hopefully) conviction of the other party

From here on, everything above goes down the drain. Here's why, despite what we'd like to think of our own superiority as human beings, we are but ruled by our emotions and prejudices (Just ask George Dubbya what he thinks of Saadam). We like to think our actions are justified when its rarely so in the absence of perfect information and in the circumstance of personal biases. Therefore, what we say or do is always shaped by illogical forces. Second, human beings thrive on emotions. What does this mean? It means that all our past glories, all our future achievements as a species is driven by emotions, the desire to suceed, the will to move on and beyond our current state of being. Therefore, as long as we remain so, we will say or do whatever we like thinking it was for the genuine advancement of the fellow man (again, ask George). As we can see so far, humans are illogical and irrational. And, freedom of speech itself requires a degree of rationality to function as it should. Plus the problem of the inability of education to be wide reaching as well as complete (we are all familiar with the failures of education so....) All this adds up to an impossible dream.