YouTube Ban Lifted in Pakistan, for 3 Minutes

After months of criticism of the ban, the government decided to allow Pakistanis to have access to YouTube again, saying steps had been taken to ensure that offensive content would not be visible. But those efforts apparently failed, and the authorities quickly backtracked.

The ban was imposed on Sept. 17 following violent protests in response to the video, which was made in the United States and ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad. The government then ordered all telecommunications companies to block Internet material deemed offensive to Muslims and urged people to report such material.

But the ban on YouTube came to be seen as censorship, and a growing number of the estimated 25 million Internet users in the country complained.

“This is purely a naked power play by the government and one that we should resist,” an editorial in The Express Tribune, an English-language daily newspaper in Karachi, Pakistan, said Friday. “This is about controlling our behavior and denying us access to the Internet.”

“We need to make it clear that we do not wish to regress to a dark age when a centralized authority controlled all access to information,” the editorial, observing the 100th day of the ban, went on to say. “Retreating to such an era would essentially mean that we were no longer living in a democracy.”

By Friday evening, Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, indicated that the ban would be lifted over the weekend. Mr. Malik said firewalls by government technicians were being installed to block pornographic and blasphemous material.

On Saturday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority directed local Internet service providers to make YouTube accessible. But by the afternoon, Geo, a private television news network that wields immense influence, reported that anti-Islam and blasphemous material was still available on YouTube. The criticism was led by Ansar Abbasi, a right-leaning journalist who often speaks out on morality and religion.

Yielding to the criticism, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf then ordered providers to again block access to the video-sharing site.

The flip-flop drew an immediate rebuke from users and led to a flurry of jokes on Twitter about the government’s dithering and backtracking.

“YouTube is a huge convenience for users, who benefit from it for educational as well as entertainment purposes,” Zubair Kasuri, the editor of Flare, a Karachi-based telecommunications magazine, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Kasuri expressed surprise over the government’s failure to install an effective firewall mechanism despite having months to do so.

Maria Shriver to 60 Minutes — You Tick Tick Tick Me Off!!!

Maria to '60 Minutes'
You Tick Tick Tick Me Off!
Get this ..."60 Minutes" did its interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger without ever contacting Maria Shriver -- to get her take on the things he said in his autobiography ... and she's not happy about it.

Sources very familiar with the situation tell TMZ ... a "60 Minute" producer made calls Monday to friends of Maria -- AFTER Arnold's interview was shot -- to see if she had a general comment about the book ... but the producer never gave specifics about what Arnold said in the interview or the book.  We're told the piece was already in the can, and Maria had "no interest" in commenting -- especially because it's ridiculous to wedge a comment of hers in a long piece.

One source says, "The piece is a blow *** for Arnold.  Lesley Stahl just fawned over him," adding it was no surprise Maria's point of view was never solicited before Stahl sat down with Arnold.

As we first reported, Arnold never offered an advance copy of the book to Maria.  A close friend of hers tells TMZ, "She knows the book is a big PR stunt to get back in the public's good graces."

As for whether Maria will read the book, we're told she has no burning desire  One of Maria's friends told us, "What Maria has already been through ... nothing surprises her anymore."

“Seven Minutes of Terror” Video Grabs Online Audience for NASA

“We’ve got literally seven minutes to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of Mars, going from 13,000 miles an hour to zero,” Tom Rivellini, a NASA engineer, tells the camera with a grim face and deadpan delivery. “If any one thing doesn’t work just right, it’s game over.”

Posted last month on YouTube, the video has succeeded in an area where NASA has a mixed track record: using social media and other tools of the 21st century to whip up interest in space exploration.

Despite minimal publicity, “Seven Minutes” has been racking up views and attracting droll commentary on the impending arrival of the rover, which goes by the name of Curiosity.

“Come on, NASA,” one person said in a comment on YouTube, “All that is missing in this blockbuster trailer is Megan Fox as the chief scientist.”

Maybe NASA can get Mr. Moviefone to do the mission commentary.

Much of the space agency’s public utterances are dry stuff; recent news releases include “NASA Selects Contracts for Environmental Remediation Services” and “NASA Awards Five Universities Funding for Learning Opportunities.” Like other federal agencies, it is not allowed to spend money to toot its own horn.

“We don’t try to market,” said Robert Jacobs, a NASA spokesman. “We don’t try to sell anything. Our job is to clean the windows to give the American public a better view of their space program.”

And yet the space officials have tried to add a measure of cute and playful.

Three years ago, NASA ran a contest to name a module on the International Space Station. But the comedian Stephen Colbert co-opted it, exhorting his viewers to vote for “Colbert.” That name ended up winning, with more than 230,000 votes.

NASA put aside the results and named the module Tranquility, commemorating the landing site of Apollo 11. But the space agency did later name an exercise treadmill on the space station after Mr. Colbert.

As part of the educational program for the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to Hubble that has been troubled by delays and cost overruns, NASA created a game in which players create their own space telescope, but to underwhelming reviews.

“Too bad this game is not totally realistic so as to let people play with schedule and cost,” wrote Keith Cowing, a frequent critic of the space agency, on his Web site NASAWatch.com. “This way they’d REALLY learn how NASA satellites are built (or not built).”

This time, NASA seems to have a hit. The “Seven Minutes” video, viewed more than half a million times, starts with a computer-generated animation of a capsule falling toward the Red Planet, then uses stark lighting, thumping music, fancy graphics and dramatic narration to tease the landing of the Curiosity, a $2.5 billion mission that aims to see if the building blocks of life existed on early Mars.

On the East Coast, the landing will happen in the wee hours of Monday, Aug. 6 — or nighttime on Aug. 5 on the West Coast — and it will be competing for mindspace with the Summer Olympics. That is not stopping the Atlanta Science Tavern, which organizes popular science talks, from going all out for an evening that starts with five talks on planetary science and segues into “full-fledged party mode” at midnight when NASA television coverage of the landing starts. The festivities will conclude at 3 a.m.

Already 173 people have signed up. “It’s science,” said the group’s director, Marc Merlin, “but it’s also a public celebration of scientific achievement.”

Mr. Merlin said he was thinking of bringing a model of the Mars rover that would descend on a rope à la the lighted ball in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. “That would be the decoration I would like to do,” he said.

Technically, the seven minutes of terror will be more like 21 minutes of suspense. The capsule containing the Curiosity will hit the top of the Martian atmosphere just before 1:11 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 6. The rover will be on the surface about seven minutes later. The only uncertainty is whether the rover will be in one piece or in smithereens.

On Earth, no one will know the outcome for almost 14 minutes as the spacecraft’s radio signals travel 150 million miles from Mars.

“When people look at it, it looks crazy,” says Adam Steltzner, a NASA engineer, in the “Seven Minutes” video as he describes the Rube Goldberg-esque landing process — heat shield, parachute, rocket engines and finally a hovering crane that lowers the rover to the surface.

Text flashes across the screen: “6 vehicle configurations,” then “76 pyrotechnic charges.”

“Sometimes when we look at it, it looks crazy” Mr. Steltzner goes on to say, before asserting more confidently, “It is the result of reasoned engineering thought.” Pause. “But it still looks crazy.”

The slick video is “definitely a step up,” said Reid Gower, a 26-year-old Canadian who was so frustrated by NASA’s previous efforts that last year he put together NASA snippets into a promotional video that he thought the space agency should be making. “That’s along the lines of what I feel they could be doing, something that’s education but also engaging. It’s not static and dry. It has emotional content in it.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 12, 2012

An article on Wednesday about a dramatic NASA video that is drawing attention to the expected landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars next month misstated the time the capsule carrying the rover is predicted to enter the Martian atmosphere. It is 1:11 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 6 — not 12:11 a.m.

“Seven Minutes of Terror” Video Grabs Online Audience for NASA

“We’ve got literally seven minutes to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of Mars, going from 13,000 miles an hour to zero,” Tom Rivellini, a NASA engineer, tells the camera with a grim face and deadpan delivery. “If any one thing doesn’t work just right, it’s game over.”

Posted last month on YouTube, the video has succeeded in an area where NASA has a mixed track record: using social media and other tools of the 21st century to whip up interest in space exploration.

Despite minimal publicity, “Seven Minutes” has been racking up views and attracting droll commentary on the impending arrival of the rover, which goes by the name of Curiosity.

“Come on, NASA,” one person said in a comment on YouTube, “All that is missing in this blockbuster trailer is Megan Fox as the chief scientist.”

Maybe NASA can get Mr. Moviefone to do the mission commentary.

Much of the space agency’s public utterances are dry stuff; recent news releases include “NASA Selects Contracts for Environmental Remediation Services” and “NASA Awards Five Universities Funding for Learning Opportunities.” Like other federal agencies, it is not allowed to spend money to toot its own horn.

“We don’t try to market,” said Robert Jacobs, a NASA spokesman. “We don’t try to sell anything. Our job is to clean the windows to give the American public a better view of their space program.”

And yet the space officials have tried to add a measure of cute and playful.

Three years ago, NASA ran a contest to name a module on the International Space Station. But the comedian Stephen Colbert co-opted it, exhorting his viewers to vote for “Colbert.” That name ended up winning, with more than 230,000 votes.

NASA put aside the results and named the module Tranquility, commemorating the landing site of Apollo 11. But the space agency did later name an exercise treadmill on the space station after Mr. Colbert.

As part of the educational program for the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to Hubble that has been troubled by delays and cost overruns, NASA created a game in which players create their own space telescope, but to underwhelming reviews.

“Too bad this game is not totally realistic so as to let people play with schedule and cost,” wrote Keith Cowing, a frequent critic of the space agency, on his Web site NASAWatch.com. “This way they’d REALLY learn how NASA satellites are built (or not built).”

This time, NASA seems to have a hit. The “Seven Minutes” video, viewed more than half a million times, starts with a computer-generated animation of a capsule falling toward the Red Planet, then uses stark lighting, thumping music, fancy graphics and dramatic narration to tease the landing of the Curiosity, a $2.5 billion mission that aims to see if the building blocks of life existed on early Mars.

On the East Coast, the landing will happen in the wee hours of Monday, Aug. 6 — or nighttime on Aug. 5 on the West Coast — and it will be competing for mindspace with the Summer Olympics. That is not stopping the Atlanta Science Tavern, which organizes popular science talks, from going all out for an evening that starts with five talks on planetary science and segues into “full-fledged party mode” at midnight when NASA television coverage of the landing starts. The festivities will conclude at 3 a.m.

Already 173 people have signed up. “It’s science,” said the group’s director, Marc Merlin, “but it’s also a public celebration of scientific achievement.”

Mr. Merlin said he was thinking of bringing a model of the Mars rover that would descend on a rope à la the lighted ball in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. “That would be the decoration I would like to do,” he said.

Technically, the seven minutes of terror will be more like 21 minutes of suspense. The capsule containing the Curiosity will hit the top of the Martian atmosphere just before 12:11 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 6. The rover will be on the surface about seven minutes later. The only uncertainty is whether the rover will be in one piece or in smithereens.

On Earth, no one will know the outcome for almost 14 minutes as the spacecraft’s radio signals travel 150 million miles from Mars.

“When people look at it, it looks crazy,” says Adam Steltzner, a NASA engineer, in the “Seven Minutes” video as he describes the Rube Goldberg-esque landing process — heat shield, parachute, rocket engines and finally a hovering crane that lowers the rover to the surface.

Text flashes across the screen: “6 vehicle configurations,” then “76 pyrotechnic charges.”

“Sometimes when we look at it, it looks crazy” Mr. Steltzner goes on to say, before asserting more confidently, “It is the result of reasoned engineering thought.” Pause. “But it still looks crazy.”

The slick video is “definitely a step up,” said Reid Gower, a 26-year-old Canadian who was so frustrated by NASA’s previous efforts that last year he put together NASA snippets into a promotional video that he thought the space agency should be making. “That’s along the lines of what I feel they could be doing, something that’s education but also engaging. It’s not static and dry. It has emotional content in it.”