Category Archives: History

Russia’s manipulation of Twitter much larger than believed previously

Gillian Cleary, Senior Software Engineer, Symantec: Twitterbots: Anatomy of a Propaganda Campaign. “Internet Research Agency archive reveals a vast, coordinated campaign that was incredibly successful at pushing out and amplifying its messages.”

“While this propaganda campaign has often been referred to as the work of trolls, the release of the dataset makes it obvious that it was far more than that. It was planned months in advance and the operators had the resources to create and manage a vast disinformation network.

It was a highly professional campaign. Aside from the sheer volume of tweets generated over a period of years, its orchestrators developed a streamlined operation that automated the publication of new content and leveraged a network of auxiliary accounts to amplify its impact.

The sheer scale and impact of this propaganda campaign is obviously of deep concern to voters in all countries, who may fear a repeat of what happened in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

A growing awareness of the disinformation campaigns may help blunt their impact in future.”

Link via MetaFilter.

‘Jaw dropped’

BBC News: Long-lost Lewis Chessman found in Edinburgh family’s drawer. “A medieval chess piece that was missing for almost 200 years had been unknowingly kept in a drawer by an Edinburgh family.”

“They had no idea that the object was one of the long-lost Lewis Chessmen – which could now fetch £1m at auction.

The chessmen were found on the Isle of Lewis in 1831 but the whereabouts of five pieces have remained a mystery.

The Edinburgh family’s grandfather, an antiques dealer, had bought the chess piece for £5 in 1964.

He had no idea of the significance of the 8.8cm piece (3.5in), made from walrus ivory, which he passed down to his family.

They have looked after it for 55 years without realising its importance, before taking it to Sotheby’s auction house in London.”

Previously.

Religionsfreiheit in Deuschland

Deutsche Welle: Gastkommentar: Ist nur ein unsichtbarer Jude ein sicherer Jude in Deutschland? “Dass ausgerechnet der Antisemitismus-Beauftragte der Bundesregierung Juden rät, auf die Kippa zu verzichten, ist ein Skandal. Wenn Felix Klein recht hat, hat die deutsche Gesellschaft ein Problem, meint Michel Friedman.”

““Wehret den Anfängen” ist ein Standardsatz, den deutsche Politiker und Politikerinnen mit Blick auf den Antisemitismus seit Jahrzehnten vor sich hertragen. Dabei sind sind wir längst mittendrin. Viel zu lange haben viel zu viele die Anfänge übersehen. Viel zu lange haben viel zu viele nicht auf die Anfänge reagiert und die gesellschaftspolitische Debatte nicht geführt. Jeder Einzelne muss sich da an die Nase fassen – in Vereinen, in der Familie, im Beruf. Wie oft hat man Judenwitze, die der Chef, der Vater, der Vereinsvorsitzende en passant fallen ließen, einfach überhört und nicht reagiert. Wer aber auf die Anfänge nicht reagiert, macht sich mitschuldig. Verändert auch sein eigenes Koordinatensystem.
[…]
Wenn es tatsächlich stimmt, dass Juden in Deutschland, sobald sie sichtbar sind, nicht ohne Bedrohung ihren Alltag leben können, dann steckt diese Republik in einer Demokratie-Krise.”

13 Minutes to the Moon

BBC: 13 Minutes To The Moon: new BBC Podcast tells the story of the people behind the Apollo 11 moon landing.

“On 13 May 2019, the BBC will be launching 13 Minutes To The Moon, a 12-part series covering the Apollo programme through the final dramatic 13-minute descent of the Apollo 11 mission, when everything came close to going badly wrong. Communication was breaking down, technology was failing and fuel was running out.
[…]
The final episode will be recorded live at Houston’s Rice University, where U.S. President John F. Kennedy made his speech in 1962, famously announcing his ambition to take humankind to the moon. It will be released on the exact 50th anniversary of the moon landing, 20 July 2019.”

I’ve only found this today, but the first two episodes as well as some trailers are already available for download.

The moon and the detection of collisions of black holes

NPR History: 50 Years Later, Looking Back At Apollo 10, Precursor To The Moon Landing. “It’s the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 10 mission. NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with General Thomas Stafford, who led the Apollo 10 mission.”

“MARTIN: So I think you’ve raised something I was going to ask you about, is these missions are happening at a time when there was the space race going on with the Soviet Union. So I guess a lot of people wanted to know, well, it’s like, were you jealous, or were you mad that you weren’t going to land? What I think I hear you saying is no, everybody was kind of doing their part. Everybody just wanted to do their part. Would that be fair to say?

STAFFORD: Well, you’re absolutely right. We’re doing our part. And Deke Slayton called me, and he said, Tom, he said, you’re going to be the backup for 7. You’re going to turn around and fly 10. He called Neil in, he says, Neil, you’re backing up 8. You’ll fly 11. Called in Pete Conrad, said you’re backing up 9. You will fly twelve. And between the three of you, if the systems go right, somebody should have a chance to land.”

NPR Science: Billion-Dollar Gamble: How A ‘Singular Hero’ Helped Start A New Field In Physics.

“Imagine spending 40 years and more than a billion dollars on a gamble.

That’s what one U.S. government science agency did. It’s now paying off big time, with new discoveries about black holes and exotic neutron stars coming almost every week.

And while three physicists shared the Nobel Prize for the work that made this possible, one of them says the real hero is a former National Science Foundation staffer named Rich Isaacson, who saw a chance to cultivate some stunning research and grabbed it.

“The thing that Rich Isaacson did was such a miracle,” says Rainer Weiss, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the 2017 Nobel laureates. “I think he’s the hero. He’s a singular hero. We just don’t have a good way of recognizing people like that. Rich was in a singular place fighting a singular war that nobody else could have fought.”

Without him, Weiss says, “we would’ve been killed dead on virtually every topic.” He and his fellow laureate Kip Thorne recently donated money to create a brand-new American Physical Society award in Isaacson’s honor.”