The Sama Gazette

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Sunday Roundup: Free Revok, Chernobyl, SETI…


Sunday Roundup is a rendezvous on Max Dana’s Blog. It sounds like our weekly Friday Digest which Max said it inspired her but we have to admit her news roundup is far more detailed than ours!

You can also read this post on Max Dana’s Blog.


For once (kind of) I will start with some graffiti news. This may not be the biggest news of the week for most of you but it is for any #Graffiti art fan. ‘Revok, one of Los Angeles’ best known graffiti writers, was arrested as he prepared to board a plane to Ireland at Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported.’ The article on the Los Angeles Times explains: ‘Authorities claim Revok is a member of the graffiti crew Mad Society Kings, or MSK. Officials from the sheriff’s department were notified that there was an outstanding warrant against Revok for failure to repay victims of previous vandalism incidents‘…

As soon as #da-eYe heard about the news, he decided to support one of his favorite graffiti artist. You can see on his website the work he did titled ‘Free Revok‘ to support #Revok. I think it is time to redefine the word ‘vandalism‘. The outrageous amount of $320,000 bail amount set for his release raised some concerns; San Gabriel Valley man arrested for allegedly molesting teenage boy he met online – Bail set at $25,000; Ex-L.A. County deputy charged with felony gun threat, break-in -Bail set at $50,000. More here. Graffiti Art a.k.a ‘vandalism‘ is the most expensive crime!

Street art in Chernobyl. io9 website posted about The unlikely graffiti of Chernobyl. ‘It’s been 25 years today since the Chernobyl disaster, but that doesn’t mean people don’t drop by the ghost town of Pripyat. One sign of human visitation is the graffiti street artists leave behind […] Even though Pripyat is by no means a hopping town, people are still dismayed by the street artists‘. Photographer Alex Cheban has taken numerous photos of Chernobyl’s graffiti you can see on his website. Jeez, those vandals are everywhere!

Good news: Ryan Gosling Wants To Raise Hope For Congo. TakePart writes: ‘The Blue Valentine star recently returned from a trip to eastern Congo with The Enough Project, and shared the images he captured for the video above to help promote the Raise Hope For Congo campaign. And he’s telling encouraging everyone to join the Enough Project in pressuring the world’s 21 biggest electronics companies to stop using minerals mined from the conflict zones in the smartphones, laptops and other gadgets that power our daily lives‘. Conflict-free products are not a reality yet and #conflict minerals are still widely used by electronics companies. ‘The bottom line here is this: if you demand conflict-free products, they will supply them, just like with the blood diamonds campaign that ended that deadly trade and helped stop three wars in West Africa,” Gosling wrote at The Huffington Post. As for #blood diamonds, I wouldn’t be so sure we got rid of them… Read the next paragraph.

I have often talked about the relationship between #China and many African countries, and according to this article on CNN, international isolation has forced #Zimbabwe to ask for help to their Chinese friends. ‘Since 2002, the European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions on the mineral-rich southern African country amid reports of human rights abuses, political violence and the controversial land reform policy targeting white farmers. China has moved to occupy some of the void created by the exodus of Western businesses and now Zimbabwe’s once-empty stores are filled with Chinese products‘. And of course: ‘China has been silent on the issue, choosing rather stick to its policy of non-interference in the internal matters of other countries‘. What about also redefining the word ‘non-interference’ and its consequences?

Talking about ‘non-interference’. Mark Leon Goldberg on UN Dispatch gives 3 Reasons Why Libya Provoked A Stronger International Response than Syria. ‘Syria is in the cross-hairs of the Human Rights Council today after members agreed to an American request for an emergency session on the violent suppression of protests in several Syrian cities.  The Council is poised to approve a western sponsored resolution which condemns the Syrian government and calls for an investigation into the violence‘. Goldberg adds: ‘So what is to account for the difference?  Given the circumstances, comparisons are obvious.  Here’s why I think Libya provoked a much more robust response from the international community than we can expect on Syria.’ Suddenly, non-interference seems to have two sets of rules. No wonder why the world is so confused when it comes to manage the rising crisis…

Our world may be confused but space is too. Budget crunch mothballs telescopes built to search for alien signals. This article published on the Scientific American website caught my attention, as a staunch support of SETI for years: ‘The hunt for extraterrestrial life just lost one of its best tools. The Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a field of radio dishes in rural northern California built to seek out transmissions from distant alien civilizations, has been shuttered, at least temporarily, as its operators scramble to find a way to continue to fund it.’ You can help fund the search: http://www.seti.org/keplerworlds.

From the infinitely large to the infinitely small. @PhysicsUpdate tweeted about a rumoured encounter with the Higgs boson, also known as the “God particle”. Published on The Independent, the article says: ‘Finding the Higgs is one of the main goals of the LHC, a 17-mile underground tunnel. The Higgs was proposed in the 1960s to explain why matter has mass and is the missing piece of the standard model of particle physics. Speculation has now run wild on the internet after an anonymous note was posted on the blog of Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit. The memo revealed that one of the LHC detectors had picked up a signal consistent with what Higgs is expected to produce. The scientists noted that “the present result is the first definitive observation of physics beyond the standard model”.’ This is a big news, or maybe it’s not, could be a hoax… An official statement would be better than a leaked memo or a rumoured encounter.  But still, it is great the experiences are going on and doing well. Very exciting in fact.

Last week I mentioned the Spinning Hat Typescreen which gives you all modern functionality of an iPad with the sleek classic feel of retro typewriters, and this week the Sama Gazette retweeted about another way to re-use old typewriters. @_omr provided a link to a great Etsy Store: USB Typewriter. Antique typewriters have been modified to work as a USB Keyboard for PC, Mac, or even iPad. I have to get one, seriously ^_^

Last but not least: #Nintendo officially announced a Wii successor for 2012, ‘Wii 2‘ which will be unveiled during the E3 next June in Los Angeles. Wait & See!




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