On location from the coca fields of Colombia, it's..... **** ******** ******** ****** ******** ******** ** ** ** ** ******** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ******** ** ** ** ******** c i n t m c i e . v s i , s t Issue #40 August-something, 1989 Special I-got-the-blues Issue! Write to us: Activist Times, Inc. P.O. Box 2501 Bloomfield, NJ 07003 Ok, ok.... So it took more than 2 days since ATI39. Sorry! I got caught up in final papers and exams for summer courses, and other projects.. But anyway, on with ATI40. First up is Prime Anarchist, with his new feature called P.A.W.N., Prime Anarchist World News. Here we go! P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N*P*A*W*N* Prime Anarchist World News Greetings Fellow Humanoids: Did you know that one of the newest Cyberpunks was one of the oldest Pop artists? Yeah, Willian Burroughs longtime friend of peoploids like Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouak and Allen Ginsberg is featured all the time in RE:SEARCH magazine. So look out Tim Leary -- you're not the oldest hipster anymore. If you use a cellular phone where I'm at *98 and *97 are toll phree numbahs. Is this a global, national or regional phenomenon? If anyone's done any work with this numerical number assignment pattern, I'd appreciate hearing about it through either ATI or some other open meduim. What I'd like to know most is what stops payfones and home fones from responding to these star codes. A tone? A code? A cable pair? Everyone is by now aware of my feelings up to today about the People magaze article about Abbie Hoffman's death. Heck, I published that opinion EVERYWHERE. I thougt it was by far, the BEST handled Abbie article this side of the century, this side of the world. That's until I picked up the July issue of High Times magazine. Steven Bloom made an awesome compilation of discussions with a bunch of people who knew Abbie, and it was filled with good schtuff. David Peel, Paul Katner, Aaron Kay and Willian Kunstler made for the most interesting of the speels. Also reprinted was an interview John Holstrom did with Abbie around February last year. I'll bring forth some of the parts that really tugged at my heart. "Born on the Fourth of July" will star Tom Cruise as a Vietman vet who comes back to America and becomes a peacenik. John Tower is a lip service fag of the Ayatollah's "Satan America". The current 60's revival will only last 2 years. Now, because of Woodstock, next year because of Kent State, and NOT the following years because, "No one wants to remember 1971, I guarantee you. It was a mess". The Rutgers attempt (at a national student left conference last year) was too broad. Too wide open. Every faction of the world was at each others' throat. A great opportunity was lost. Better comprehension of electronic bulltin boards and computerizing is needed. Abbie Hoffman was a great mind. Many of us often picked for thoughts when we knew something was up but just couldn't prove it. Abbie could always get you proof. Abbie was a manic depressive -- for that we can be thankful. For it was from his mood upswings that we got entire novels or painfully truthful poems, lectures, movie roles, comedy acts or great events. Abbie was the only man alive in the early 80's capable of exposing the CIA's efforts in Iran, Nicaragua, Angola, and Guatemala. I'm not suggesting that Abbie's death was a fascist plot. I'm insisting it. I also noticed in this issue of High Times that marijuana is going for $120 an ounce these days. I can't believe my eyes! That's an outrage. I know we'll never go back to the days of 30-40 bucks for a 4-ounce, but c'mon. Stop paying the big piper. Grow your own. Well, that's all for this afternoon. More later promise. P.A.W.N. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ scienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALKscienceTALK Now, we have an article from The Unbeliever (201) (formerly The Mad Pirate): !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ******Light Speed... And why it's not possible.******** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok. I know what you're thinking. You have this big question. "Why isn't faster than light travel (For the sake of space, I'll call FTL, which stands for [F]aster [T]han [L]ight.) possible? What is so magic about the speed of light? If you keep accelerating an object, won't you eventually reach the 'speed of light'? Un huh. No way. That's what I'm going to explain right here. Most people believe that if force is applied to an object, it accelerates in the direction opposite of which the force is applied. As long as the force is applied, the object will continue to move faster and faster. Under ordinary conditions, there is no sign that this will change; no mysterious speed limit at which this object will stop accelerating, no matter what the force. Physicists are quite sure that as a force is applied to an object, the momentum of the object will increase indefinitely, and come ever closer to infinite. The same can be said of an object's kinetic energy. Since the common sense notion is that the mass of a body (easily defined as "the quantity of matter it contains") does not change with motion, it follows that momentum and kinetic energy must increase only because velocity increases. And if momentum and kinetic energy increase indefinitely as a force continues to be applied, that can only mean that velocity must increse indefinitely. There seems no way out of that syllogism, so what is all this junk about the speed-of-light limit. This "junk" started with Albert Einstein in 1905. It seemed to Einstein that the speed of light in a vacuum must always be measured at the same speed (just under 300,000 kilometers per second) no matter what the motion of the light source might be relative to the observer who was making the measurement. This consistancy of the speed of light did not seem to make sense. Ordinary objects, like a thrown rock, had speed that depended in part on the motion of the person or object throwing the ball, and it definitely seemed this rule should apply to everything, including light. Why should light have a special status? Einstein developed his 'Special theory of Relativity' to describe a universe in which light behaved in this unusual fasion. For light o behave as it does, Einstein showed that mass ought to increase in quantity for a moving object. It should increase, as a matter of fact, according to a set relationship: M = m/(sqr(1-v^2/c^2)) (The above is written in commodore style formulas, because the C64 doesn't support exponents and square root formulas.) Where v is the speed of the object, c is the speed of light in a vacuum, m is the mass of the object when it's not moving and M is the mass of the boject when it IS moving at velocity v. Until the begining of the 20th century, nothing had ever attained the speed of even 0.1 kilometers per second, or 1/3,000,000 the speed of light. Even if you add interplanetary rockets to the list, 15 kilometers pre second, or 1/20,000 the speed of light is all we have obtained. If we use Einstein's formula and imagine a 1 kilogram object moving at 15 kilometers per second, it's mass at that speed would be 1.0000000013 kilograms. It would have gained 1 1/3 micrograms, or a little over a billionth of it's rest mass. Imagine an object moving at the enormous speed of 30,000 kilometers per second. Such a speed is 1/10 that of light and by Einsteins equation, I 1 kilogram object moving at that speed would have a mass of 1.005 kilograms. It would have increased in mass by only approximately 0.5 percent. A 1 kilogram object with the velocity of 60,000 kilometers per second would have a mass of 1.021 kilograms. At 90,000 kilometers per second, it's mass would be 1.048 kilograms; at 120,000 kps it would be 1.091 kilograms; at 150,000 kps it would be 1.155 kilograms. 150,000 kilometers per second is half the speed of light. Even then, the gain in mass is only 15.5 persent. This doesn't seem very serious, but please note that the mass has been increasing at a faster and faster rate as the speed increases. By the time we reach a speed of 290,000 kps (97 percent the speed of light), the mass of the moving body is 3.892, almost four times the original mass. At 295,000 kps (98.3% speed of light) the mass equals 5.52 kilograms; at 299,000 kps (99.7% speed of light), 12.22 kilograms, at 299,999 kps (99.9997% speed of light) 383.5 kilograms. At the speed of light itself, if that could be reached, the mass would be infinite- as would be momentum and kinetic energy. A faster spped is impossible because neither mass, momentum or kinetic energy can be more than infinite. Besides, at infinite mass, no force, however great, can produce any acceleration, however small, so the speed cannot increase. So the speed of light is the limit which cannot be passed. And yet all this depends upon the validity of Einsteins equation, which in turn depends upon a correct deduction from Einstein's basic assumption. What if the equation is wrong, has been incorrectly deduced, or is based on faulty reasoning? Perhaps we would still be wondering about that, were it not that a decade before Einstein advanced his theory, subatomic particles had been discovered. These tiny objects move at large fractions of the speed of light. Their mass could be measures with considerable precision, and it was found not only does their mass increase with speed,but PRECISELY to the amount predicted by Einstein's equation. Whew! That was a long file! Well, that's all for now... Until next issue! (Most of the information for this I obtained from an essay about the speed of light written by Issac Asimov.) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And now, a few words on the flag and democracy by MAC??? (213) The USA member of The NATO Association gives his thoughts on burning the flag. by MAC??? The American flag, it can show you at a glance whether you are standing in a part of the world where saying you don't agree with something won't get you taken away in the middle of the night. A configuration of symbols that represent the freedom to say you don't agree with the government or the church. I am very glad I am an American and even though I would never burn our flag I realize that making a law that states that you can't burn it takes us a little closer to that middle of the night. It is true that much blood has been shed to make sure it can be safely put outside your house to wave in the breeze, but it does not just represent this, it represents your right to do with it as you wish. So when you see the flag know that you have a responsbility as well a a great burden upon you. The responsbility, making sure the flag is where it should be (whereever you think that place is). The burden, showing the world that the blood we shed to keep chaos back was worth it! NOTE: If you have any comments to the above I can be reached on The Red Phone. u!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Notes from Ground Zero..... Crack/AIDS connection: New York city public health officials have spoken about the new link between crack use and transmission of AIDS. It happens because crack users often resort to prostitution to get money for the drug. This has led to huge upswing in venereal disease cases. When intercourse takes place with open sores cause by venereal diseases, this allows for the blood-to-blood or semen-to-blood contact necessary for transmission of the AIDS virus. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers with Bobby Seale back in the 60's was shot to death in Oakland, Ca. this week. He was 47. Uncertain as to who killed him and why. Racism in the Garden State: The NJ Turnpike is seen as a key link in the transportation of drugs to New York and other points north. So NJ State troopers have taken to searching cars for drugs after stopping them for traffic violations. The problem is that the majority of those stopped are Blacks and Hispanics, stopped for very minor traffic infringments, (like an improper lane change) and treated in an extremely rude and abusive manner in many cases. This statistic speaks for itself: Blacks/minotities make up for only 30% of drug arrests nationwide, but the percentage of Black/minority drug arrests from car searches in the NJ Turnpike in the southernmost section near Philadelphia is 86%. In the section of the tunpike near New York, 89% of drug arrests from car searches are Black/minority. A clear case of race selection. (Source: WOR-TV News, Secaucus, NJ) Movie: "Rude Awakening" was an interesting movie, full of very funny moments. It's about 2 hippies who go to live in exile in the Central American jungle in 1969. But today, in 1989 they come across a killed CIA agent with papers that detail US plans to invade Central America. They decide to go back to New York to expose the papers to the media. They look up their old friends, who abandoned their radical 60's ways and became successful. I thought the movie was great, but the get-active-and-save-the-planet message in the end of the movie should have been more spread out. The movie should have integrated the hippies' awareness of the extreme new problems of the late 80's throughout the movie. I think the extreme swing to the right in the Reagan-Bush era should have been addressed also. But the movie did admirably demonstrate the apathy of today's college students. All in all, I recommend the movie. It's very entertaining! -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- That's all for ATI40. Look for ATI41 in about a week. Barring accidents! :) Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253 12yrs+