Tuesday, November 29, 2011

I-495 study focuses on adding jobs - West - The Boston Globe

Cities and towns along Interstate 495 could more than double the region’s workforce if officials and developers channeled growth to town centers and vacant industrial parks while also preserving forests, farms, and orchards, according to specialists who have studied the transportation corridor.

But everyone might have to wait a century before the region achieves its maximum potential for hiring if current building patterns that encourage sprawl continue, authorities on the subject warned. The problem, they said, is the sprawl-related costs of new roads, water lines, and traffic congestion undermining the benefits of development.

“We see the Route 9/495 corridor as really being the sprawl frontier,’’ said Heidi Ricci, senior environmental policy specialist at the Massachusetts Audubon Society, one of the members of the 495/MetroWest Development Compact. “We know at some point development will pick up again. Will it follow the same pattern or can we chart a better path?

I-495 study focuses on adding jobs - West - The Boston Globe

Wild dogs that commute from suburbs to scavenge in city | The Sun |News

STRAY dogs are commuting to and from a city centre on underground trains in search of food scraps.

The clever canines board the Tube each morning.

After a hard day scavenging and begging on the streets, they hop back on the train and return to the suburbs where they spend the night.


Wild dogs that commute from suburbs to scavenge in city | The Sun |News

Why Your Brand Should Use Google+



Why Your Brand Should Use Google+
by

At least once a day, I’m asked by some casually-curious user for my opinion on whether or not Google+ will beat out Facebook. It’s one of those hypothetical questions that makes me roll my eyes and take slow, deep breaths.

As someone who has been following the growth of both networks almost religiously for the past four months now, hearing the same drum beating over and over has begun to wear on my nerves. In fact, I’d wager that the companies at the focus of this question are also tired of being forced to lament over this same debate.

One of the key reasons this social network rivalry is the subject of such intense critique, however, is because the dissection of both platforms is actually incredibly important to the way marketers of the future need to think. With new networks and tools being introduced nearly every day, it is absolutely vital for social media strategists and business developers alike to stay on top of what’s current, what’s trending, and what has the potential to go viral — and all with profitability, bottom lines and ROI in mind.

Technology powering individuals: Sheryl Sandberg on the future of privacy | The Economist

Technology powering individuals: Sheryl Sandberg on the future of privacy | The Economist

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook Is The Luke Skywalker of Privacy - Forbes

Earlier this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg sat down with PBS’s Charlie Rose to talk all things Facebook. The grand finale of the hour-long talk was, of course, privacy.

Sheryl Sandberg came to the interview armed with a metaphor, an old joke about a man who loses his keys and insists on looking for them only in a circle around a lamppost. “Someone says, ‘Why are you only looking under the lamppost? They’re clearly not here,’” says Sandberg. “He’s like, ‘Well, this is the only place I can see.’”

“We are focused on privacy. We care the most about privacy,” she continued. “We’re the light.”




Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook Is The Luke Skywalker of Privacy - Forbes

Tarr hosts visit as cold fusion inventor comes to Boston


This information was provided by Sen. Tarr's office.

Responding to an invitation from Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester), the Italian scientist who claims to have developed the world’s first nuclear cold fusion reactor was to visit the State House today to explore the prospects of developing the device and producing it in Massachusetts.

Andrea Rossi, an engineer who has captured the attention of the scientific world with two successful tests of his “E-Cat” cold fusion reactor, arrived at the State House on Tuesday morning for two days of meetings with government officials and representatives of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts and Northeastern University.

“Mr. Rossi’s reactor, if successfully proven and developed, has the potential to change the way the world deals with energy,” said Tarr, “and I’m pleased that he’s willing to discuss basing its production in Massachusetts.”


Read more: Tarr hosts visit as cold fusion inventor comes to Boston - Gloucester, MA - Wicked Local Gloucester http://www.wickedlocal.com/gloucester/news/x1514729230/Tarr-hosts-visit-as-cold-fusion-inventor-comes-to-Boston#ixzz1f5WkYNG6


Tarr hosts visit as cold fusion inventor comes to Boston

Flying Robotic Farmhands Being Developed in Oz : Discovery News

Say you're out repairing the Dingo fence in Australia's outback when, blimey, you realize you forgot your box of Gripples back at the outpost. Rather than waste time back-tracking, why not just have your flying boomerang-sized robot retrieve them for you?



Flying Robotic Farmhands Being Developed in Oz : Discovery News

Cubesats Move Out Of The Classroom | AVIATION WEEK


Cubesats — the small, cheap spacecraft popular with engineering students due to their hands-on appeal as teaching tools — are attracting attention beyond the academy as their capabilities grow and launch opportunities proliferate.

“It really is a technology; it’s not simply a cheap platform,” says Mason Peck, director of the Space Systems Design Studio at Cornell University. “There’s a lot more going on than that.”

Peck has been selected to be NASA’s chief technologist in January, and stresses that until then he speaks as an engineering professor at Cornell. But in that role he has seen the nascent cubesat industry mature to the point that commercial companies are offering cubesat components, allowing students to be as creative as they might once have been with a pile of Lego building-block toys.


Cubesats Move Out Of The Classroom | AVIATION WEEK

Addressing the world: How geocodes could help billions start using the mail

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

James Cartledge examines the need for better address systems across the world, and how geocodes could provide a universal post code system to help developing countries “leapfrog” to a higher level of economic activity

While the world’s postal industry may be losing a whole raft of its customers to the Internet at the moment, potential does exist for many more new users to join the physical delivery network.

A fascinating symposium held by the Global Envelope Alliance last month in Washington DC heard that as many as four billion people in the world cannot use the mail, because they simply do not have an address



Addressing the world: How geocodes could help billions start using the mail

Cisco's War on White Space Broadband

If They Can't Develop the Technology...No One Can
by Karl Bode Thursday 17-Nov-2011
The last few years have seen no limit of often ridiculous efforts to try and shelve white space broadband, which uses the unlicensed spectrum vacated by the shift to digital television for a new wireless broadband technology. Those efforts have largely involved broadcasters using celebrities like Dolly Parton and cartoon characters to overstate the technology's interference potential. Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld has a long but interesting read on how Cisco has been waging war on white space broadband for years, in large part because they missed the boat in terms of bringing comperable technology to market:
Broadband DSL reports

Vecna’s “Nerds” Ready BEAR Robot for First Field Test at Georgia Army Base

Ryan McBride 3/26/09
Imagine a soldier is wounded in the middle of a violent firefight in the streets of Mosul, Iraq. With bullets whizzing in every direction, it’s almost guaranteed that a medic would be shot in a rescue attempt. Enter the BEAR robot, which rolls up to the wounded soldier, scoops her up in its arms, and spirits her away to safety. This scenario, still hypothetical at this point, is the initial aim of the BEAR (Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot).
Xconomy

Robotic prison wardens will patrol South Korean prison

by Edwin - on November 28th, 2011
I know that in Terminator Salvation, you had these machined guards making sure that no humans were able to indulge in some hanky panky to escape from their prisons, but that is still a very, very far scenario in the future – and hopefully for humanity’s sake, not one that will happen. After all, to be enslaved by a race of robots is not an idea that is worth thinking about, no? Well, we have some semblance of what future prisons would look like – hailing from South Korea, what you see on the right would be a prison guard robot prototype that will go on trial in March next year. 
Coolest Gadgets

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Tesla Bills

Nikola Tesla is one of the genuine heroes of the hacker world, being an inventor, an engineer, and a true hacker of the 19th and 20th centuries. That's why we've moved heaven and earth to get our hands on the only currency in the world that honors his existence.
2600 Quarterly

Cops just can't keep up with latest designer-drug threats




  • Article by: JAMES WALSH , Star Tribune
  • Updated: November 21, 2011 - 2:53 PM
The government didn't see this coming. Now the DEA is scrambling to play catch-up.

DULLES, VA. - Day after day, inside a tightly guarded federal lab, chemist Arthur Berrier probes packages of dangerous new synthetic drugs in search of secrets he can share with criminal investigators before the substances kill or seriously harm someone else.
It's a constant game of catch-up. As soon as he tips off law enforcement officials to the kinds of chemical compounds turning up in the drugs, another form of them emerges.
Manufacturers of the drugs can choose from an almost endless menu of chemicals that they can concoct, putting the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration at a disadvantage as it tries to help states crack down.
"They're keeping ahead of us," Berrier said.
Star Tribune

Homemade drug labs fuel dangerous craze

  • Article by: JAMES WALSH , Star Tribune
  • Updated: October 12, 2011 - 4:29 PM
Synthetic drug makers are working like modern-day moonshiners to cash in on the booming market.


FAIRDEALING, MO. -- Inside a backwoods mobile home, Rodger Seratt pulled a handwritten recipe from the front pocket of his jeans and went to work on a new batch of bath salts.
Wearing no gloves, the burly 61-year-old dipped a kitchen spoon into one bag of white powder after another, weighed the ingredients on a plastic scale, then dumped them into a metal mixing bowl. He was making 80 grams of what he called "White Tusk." A woman in the rusting trailer kept busy tracking orders. Two other workers labeled bags and jars.
Seratt has no background in chemistry. All he knows is what he's learned on the Internet -- and that's all the expertise he needed to make $2,400 worth of the drug in a half hour.
Star Tribune

America's middle class has relatively brief history | The Republic

America didn't always have a middle class.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the foundling nation had wealthy landowners, but everyone else was pretty close together, both physically and economically, said historian Stuart Blumin.

A retired history professor at Cornell University and author of the 1989 book "The Emergence of the Middle Class," Blumin said the more egalitarian society of the nation's first 50 years had a lot to do with how goods were created.

Most products were made by artisans who often had apprentices living in their households and who lived near their wealthier customers.


America's middle class has relatively brief history | The Republic

WikiLeaks wins major journalism award in Australia

kwikset: “The Walkley Awards are the Australian equivalent of the Pulitzers: that nation’s most prestigious award for excellence in journalism. Last night, the Walkley Foundation awarded its highest distinction — for “Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism” — to WikiLeaks, whose leader, Julian Assange, is an Australian citizen. The panel cited the group’s “courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency,” and hailed it for having “applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup.” As I’ve noted before, WikiLeaks easily produced more newsworthy scoops over the last year than every other media outlet combined, and the Foundation observed: “so many eagerly took advantage of the secret cables to create more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a lifetime.” In sum: “by designing and constructing a means to encourage whistleblowers, WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange took a brave, determined and independent stand for freedom of speech and transparency that has empowered people all over the world.”
~Read More: Salon

Friday, November 25, 2011

TEDxSantaCruz: Roger McNamee - Disruption and Engagement

Correspondence schools

You may remember them, the schools that advertised in magazines, comic books, matchbook covers. The ones that told you that you could be an artist, or gun smith, or lock smith, or private eye...

All you had to do was send away for their course work. The premise was; if you can read, you can learn a trade. You didn't really require the feedback of an instructor, or supervision during study.

Of course, there were also technical schools, that offered enrollment in branch campuses (often office spaces or store fronts). You might not get a degree, but you'd be certified in a trade.

And then, things changed......

At first, it was simply the VHS tape. Courses of instruction lectures could be recorded for viewing at home, or to supplement the instructor in class. Audio recordings allowed lectures to follow anywhere a cassette or CD player could be carried. Then, the personal computer entered the picture...

The University of Phoenix was the big breakthrough of this change, taking the spotlight of a new form of correspondence. Learning via internet video, telepresence in class rooms. Another breakthrough was the CD course. Rosetta Stone taught language, other CDs taught computer skills using an interactive powerpoint presentation.

Others began to see the market for this new method of education... Old institutions like colleges and universities began to allow a virtual auditing of courses. You might not get accreditation for the work, but you'd be able to prepare for the actual courses by listening to lectures, seeing the syllabuses.

Other technical schools fell in line, adopting computers to the classrooms. Continuing education became a diversity of options, to better meet and adapt to the student's personal requirements of time and place...

Wu Tangs RZA Reveals His Inner Geek

What is Steampunk?

What is Steampunk?

CNN: The Corporate Takeover of the Internet

More Internet Restrictions : Have you Been Cyber Tagged? Big Brother Wat...

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy | Naomi Wolf | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."



The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy | Naomi Wolf | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

3D printing: Difference Engine: Making it | The Economist

JAY Leno, the most popular talk-show host on American television, has one of the best collections of old cars and motorbikes in the United States. He keeps them in a large garage in the San Fernando Valley, down the road from the NBC studios in Burbank, California, where “The Tonight Show” is taped.

Mr Leno is an admirable collector. His vehicles are not trophies for show, but curious examples that he likes to put in running order—so he can drive or ride them himself and enjoy the essence of a bygone age. A crew of professional mechanics is on hand to help restore and maintain the vehicles. Parts that have become obsolete are fabricated on the premises, using a battery of computerised tools that any machine shop would be proud to possess.

In a monthly column he writes about his motoring passion for Popular Mechanics, Mr Leno recently described how his “Big Dog Garage Team” fabricated a feedwater heater for his 1907 White Steamer. The aluminium part had become so porous with age that steam could be seen seeping through. Being heavily impregnated with oil, patching it up by welding a plate in place was impossible. The answer was to fabricate the part anew.

3D printing: Difference Engine: Making it | The Economist

Migration and business: Weaving the world together | The Economist

Mass migration in the internet age is changing the way that people do business

IN THE flat world of maps, sharp lines show where one country ends and another begins. The real world is more fluid. Peoples do not have borders the way that parcels of land do. They seep from place to place; they wander; they migrate.

Consider the difference between China and the Chinese people. One is an enormous country in Asia. The other is a nation that spans the planet. More Chinese people live outside mainland China than French people live in France, with some to be found in almost every country. Then there are some 22m ethnic Indians scattered across every continent (the third Indian base in Antarctica will open next year). Hundreds of smaller diasporas knit together far-flung lands: the Lebanese in west Africa and Latin America, the Japanese in Brazil and Peru, the smiling Mormons who knock on your door wherever you live.

Migration and business: Weaving the world together | The Economist

Ayn Rand: A Leading Lady of the Classical Liberal Tradition

Lenny Bruce and George Carlin - Bullpucky

Lenny Bruce, a marked man

Is Cuevana the New Napster?


You know a website is popular when its downtime is newsworthy enough to make it to Twitter’s trending topics – and that’s exactly what happened to Cuevana.tv a couple days ago. So what is Cuevana and why may it soon be in trouble?

When you first look at Cuevana, a free movie and TV streaming platform in Spanish, you may accidentally mistake it for one of Netflix‘s main competitors in Latin America. However, it wouldn’t be fair play, since the vast majority of the content it links to has been illegally uploaded.

Is Cuevana the New Napster?

Google + Now Open to Businesses

The move marks Google+’s latest move into territory originally staked by rival Facebook, which has allowed businesses to create pages for quite some time. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported on Facebook’s growing role in brand marketing strategy.



The Silver age of magazines


 In a Playboy interview, Stephen King once admitted that he had often daydreamed of the day when he'ed be interviewed by Playboy. I must admit, that I, too, often daydream of being interviewed. It's an exercise in self-examination that allows me to take ideas, floating around in my mind, out and turn them around & see what they look like.
 Perhaps it's fortunate that I grew up in the time that I did.. If we examine the magazine publishing industry during the last fifty years, we'ed have to note the proliferation of magazines covering a multitude of subjects for a vast and diverse audience.
Let's look at the "Golden Age" of magazines, which is probably the period approximately from 1920 to 1960. The 'pulp' era, where you have the introduction of titles like The New Yorker, Time, Life, Newsweek, Amazing Stories, Argosy, Astounding Science Fiction, Black Hood Mystery, Esquire, Ellery Queen Mystery... And the introduction of many specialized magazines covering specific fields of interest. Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, National Geographic (which had been around for years, but became popular due to the introduction of photography..). A boom time for publications competing with each other, studying each other's successes and failures. Street & Smith, Conde Nast, Rodale press, Fawcett publications all became big names during this time.
The names we began to become aware of: John W.Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Norman Rockwell, Virgil Findlay, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Robert E. Howard, John D. MacDonald, Margaret Bourke-White....
Many of these people, these publications, became institutions unto themselves. A plateau of success had been reached, then entrenchment and withdrawal to set boundaries. The "wild west" of the early days were over. I'd say the last introductions of note from this period were Famous Monsters of Filmland, by Forrest J. Ackerman, & Playboy, by Hugh Hefner. This was interesting, as the former was a movie fan magazine dedicated not to popular celebrities, but to a genre of films that had been marginalized by critical opinion and the general public. The latter was a public transition from underground pornography to the slick 'lad's mags' that Esquire had established.
During this Golden age, and during the brief lull before the next proliferation period, there was an 'underground' of a self-published press that was not distributed by news stands, but by mail subscription. Fan press that distributed information among themselves. In house trade magazines covering corporations, unions, specific sports and events.
So, what then was the 'Silver Age'? From the 1960s to the 1980s, another explosion of magazines that exploited burgeoning new markets, mined new ground in old ones, began to be marketed....
Low Rider, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, People (a slick, less offensive version of the supermarket tabloid), Penthouse, Entertainment Weekly, The Monster Times, Starlog, Omni, National Review, US News & World Report, Hustler, Tiger Beat, Seventeen, National Lampoon, Spy.... Old titles began to breathe new life with new talent. The Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek and Time.
Magazines weren't just printing news, but also becoming sources for other reporters. And often becoming the news themselves by reporting controversial stories. Time magazine asked:"Is God dead?"
Then there were the talents; Hunter S. Thompson, Helen Gurley Brown, Tina Brown, P.J. O'Rourke, Ben Bova, Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison....
There were changes in popular culture. Movie directors and producers became pop stars, and magazines covered it. Movies began to become part of the conversation of politics and culture, and magazines opined. 'The Exorcist' or 'Rosemary's Baby' were no longer just the subject of Famous Monsters, but the magazines in your dentist or doctor's office. Cosmopolitan began to push forward an editorial agenda that a woman's sexual satisfaction was just as important as a man's, and Playboy heartily agreed... Health magazines, following popular trends about exercise and nutrition, espoused a new ethic of fitness. Running, dieting, became not just topics of articles, but subjects for magazines of their own.
So, what does this have to do with today? Think of the fertile ground this fount of information provided the first internet generation. Armed with the ability to research and disseminate this information among itself, this equalized the knowledge of each member of the group.
Take a look at what we bloggers often do: we share links to articles. The magazine business is morphing into the wire news service of old, and we bloggers are personalizing the news feeds to our target audiences.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Navy to Lay Off 3,000 Sailors | NBC San Diego


Imagine joining the Navy ten years ago with a career in mind. Now, sailors with that career plan are getting pink slips as the military looks for places to save money.

Since June, 16,000 mid-career sailors have been waiting to find out if they will be forced out early.

Last week, the Navy began its layoffs when the first of two rounds of personnel cuts were announced.



Source: Navy to Lay Off 3,000 Sailors | NBC San Diego
Navy to Lay Off 3,000 Sailors | NBC San Diego

Future Atlas» Blog Archive » Toward UAV Journalism

Another step toward journalistic use of unmanned aerial vehicles: Polish media have been using mini-helicopters tocover protests.

As I’ve said before, it is highly likely that UAV journalism will expand to include sustained, sometimes-live coverage of otherwise inaccessible news, such as massacres in the Congolese jungle.

Facilitating conditions are likely to include:

  • situations with no one in charge — Somalia or eastern Congo, for instance, where there is only nominal government authority
  • places where great powers are sympathetic — even if a government objects to “illegal” use of UAVs within its borders, if powers such as the US disapprove of a regime, media organization are likely to get away with their use; the Libyan uprising is an example

It is also simply unclear how adept even great-power militaries will be at finding and destroying small, stealthy, cheap UAVs.

Some of the same issues apply to use of UAVs for human rights work.


Future Atlas» Blog Archive » Toward UAV Journalism

BBC News - India to open market to global supermarket chains

BBC News - India to open market to global supermarket chains

Can astronauts cook scrambled eggs in outer space?

FRANKLIN

While some local high schoolers are learning algebra and biology, one group of students at a local vocational school is coming up with ideas on how to make eating in space easier and more convenient for astronauts.

At Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School, juniors Jacqueline Tedesco and Betsy Walsh, with the help of advisers at MIT, are working on an idea for a food mixer that can be used in space.

"I thought of how we bake a cake. I did research and when the MIT professor came and talked, he helped me re-do parts," Tedesco said.

Tri-County engineering teacher Mohammed Bakr is pleased with his charges.

"The idea of being able to give astronauts a way to make scrambled eggs fresh is huge," he said. "(NASA engineers) are very excited."



Read more: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/education/x1141720959/Can-astronauts-cook-scrambled-eggs-in-outer-space#ixzz1efberEDu

Can astronauts cook scrambled eggs in outer space?

The religion of an increasingly godless America | The Great Debate


Listening to the national discourse, one could be forgiven for imagining that America is becoming an ever more religious place. The amount of God talk in the public square has dramatically increased in a generation. Prior to the 70s, the concept of “the religious right” had barely existed, but now it’s a powerful lobbying force with multiple groups from Focus on the Family to Concerned Women for America, all sitting on more money than most liberal special interest groups could ever hope to accumulate. Republicans, especially, claw over each other to demonstrate fealty to a very narrow, fundamentalist view of Christianity that forbids gay rights, reproductive rights, and requires you to believe that evolution never happened. A generation ago, most people outside of evangelical Christian circles had never heard of things like “megachurches” or “the Rapture”, but now even people living in the most secularist urban enclaves are familiar with these concepts, if still less than approving. Americans seem not just more religious, but more drawn to reactionary religion than ever before.

That is, until you start to dig into the actual facts. If you poll actual Americans, you’ll find that the trend is not towards more religiosity, but towards less. Much less, in fact. Recent research from the Pew Research Center on politics and generational differences shows that interest in religion is actually declining from one generation to the next, and not only that, but interest in mixing religion and politics is on the decline. When asked which factors are the key to America’s success, fewer than half of Millennials say they believe that religious faith and values are important. They are the first generation to respond in such a way, as a majority of all older generations cite religion as an important factor. Even the generation known for cynicism, Generation X, has 64% of respondents citing religion as an important factor in our nation’s success, a full 18 points over the Millennial generation. Despite myths that people become more religious or more conservative as they age,previous Pew research shows that Xers and Boomers held roughly the same opinions on religion in their youth as they do now.

The religion of an increasingly godless America | The Great Debate

Fujoshi, explained. - J-List Tumblr

Fujoshi, explained. - J-List Tumblr

How to Talk About Same-Sex Marriage at Thanksgiving

How to Talk About Same-Sex Marriage at Thanksgiving

Putin slams 'arrogant world powers' at China meeting - The National

Nov 8, 2011

MOSCOW // The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, lashed out yesterday at "arrogant world powers" as he hosted his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, for a regional security summit Moscow bills as a counterpart to Nato.

Mr Putin, Russia's likely new head of state after next year's presidential elections, accused western nations of hypocrisy for backing revolutions in North African countries that previously enjoyed their strong support.

"It really is just like you said -these are arrogant world powers," Mr Putin said in response to remarks from the Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, made during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Saint Petersburg.

"They also supported the old North African regimes," news agencies quoted Mr Putin as saying, in a clear reference to European powers and the United States.

"But what is interesting, they also supported the North African revolutions as well, the ones that overthrew the old regimes," Mr Putin added.


Putin slams 'arrogant world powers' at China meeting - The National

Illegal Downloading: Internet Providers Can't Be Forced To Install Filters, Court Rules

LUXEMBOURG -- An EU court says Internet service providers cannot be required to install filters that would prevent the illegal downloading of files.

The ruling is a blow to artists who had sought to have their intellectual property rights protected that way.

SABAM, a Belgian company representing writers, composers and editors, established in 2004 that users of an Internet service provider called Scarlet Extended SA were illegally transferring files. A Belgian court ordered Scarlet to install at its own expense a system to make that impossible.

But the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled Thursday that this would require monitoring of all electronic communications of all of Scarlet's customers, infringing on their rights, and violated EU law.


Illegal Downloading: Internet Providers Can't Be Forced To Install Filters, Court Rules

Sarkozy Worried About The Internet 'Stealing Audience Share' From 'Regulated' TV Services | Techdirt

from the a-series-of-tubes dept

Earlier this week Techdirt reported on the surprisingly forthright statements of Neelie Kroes concerning the failure of the copyright system in the digital world. She made her remarks at theForum d'Avignon in France, which was about "strengthening the links between culture and the economy".

Of course, Kroes was not the only speaker there. Another participant was the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who used the occasion to present his by-now familiar tirade against the "lawless" Internet and its dire effects on creativity. His speech was a classic compilation of his greatest hits in this respect, as captured in the impressive live-blogging of the English translation by David Weinberger.



Sarkozy Worried About The Internet 'Stealing Audience Share' From 'Regulated' TV Services | Techdirt

Evil social networks - Charlie's Diary


"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."

In the past I've fulminated about various social networking systems. The basic gist is this: the utility of a social network to any given user is proportional to the number of users it has. So all social networks are designed to tweak that part of the primate brain that gets a dopamine reward from social activity — we are, after all, social animals. But providing a service to millions of customers is expensive, and your typical internet user is a cheapskate who has become accustomed to free services. So most social networks don't charge their users; they are funded indirectly, which means they've got to sell something, and what they've got to sell is data about your internet usage habits, which is of interest to advertisers.

Evil social networks - Charlie's Diary

The Pale Blue Dot - A Tribute to Carl Sagan

Forget the Murdoch family drama – media power needs checking | Media | The Guardian

In the end President Nixon resigned. Which, of course, provided a useful bookend for the film All the President's Men. One hesitates to state the obvious in a column purporting to offer insight, but without an ending there can be no movie. Which is why, according to Chris Bryant MP, there can't yet be any Hollywood treatment of the phone-hacking saga. It doesn't matter how many times the culture, media and sport select committee has met to discuss the same thing; we are not yet at the climax. Indeed, given how long it may take to conclude any hacking-related trials, we could be several years from the finale.

Forget the Murdoch family drama – media power needs checking | Media | The Guardian

GlobalSecurity.org - SITREP Situation Report | The rotten cost of non-lethal weaponry comes home

GlobalSecurity.org - SITREP Situation Report | The rotten cost of non-lethal weaponry comes home

mStrategy Blog | Is augmented reality such as Layar Vision the future of print?


Layar Vision could be pivotal for the future of print, helping to keep print strong while combining the medium with the ever omnipotent virtual world.

The app allows readers to access further information from key parts of the magazine without the original design or layout requiring any changes or adaption. Layar functions by recognising real world objects and displaying digital experiences on top of them, increasing the reader's access to information and enhancing their experience.

mStrategy Blog | Is augmented reality such as Layar Vision the future of print?

Neil Gaiman’s audiobook record label

Neil Gaiman’s enthusiasm for audiobooks is no secret. The best-selling author has narrated many of his own titles, including “The Graveyard Book,” which won the Audiobook of the Year award (from the Audio Publishers Association) in 2009. He’s even narrated books by other authors on occasion.

Recently, Gaiman kicked his advocacy up a notch by agreeing to hand-select and produce a line of audiobooks in partnership with the audio download retailer Audible.com. Neil Gaiman Presents released its first five titles last month; they include the novel “Land of Laughs” by Jonathan Carroll and “You Must Go and Win” by musician-turned-essayist Aline Simone. Future releases will include books by the early 20th-century American author James Branch Cabell (the target of a once-notorious censorship suit for writing an “offensive, lewd, lascivious and indecent book”) and “Dimension of Miracles” by Robert Sheckley, a work Gaiman likens to “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” and which will be narrated by television personality John Hodgman.


Neil Gaiman’s audiobook record label

Copyright isn't working, says European Commission | ZDNet UK

People have come to see copyright as a tool of punishment, Europe's technology chief has said in her strongest-yet attack on the current copyright system.

Digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes said on Saturday that the creative industries had to embrace rather than resist new technological ways of distributing artistic works. She added that the existing copyright system was not rewarding the vast majority of artists.

Copyright isn't working, says European Commission | ZDNet UK

Wary Of SOPA, Reddit Users Aim To Build A New, Censorship-Free Internet - Forbes

Users of the social news and community site Reddit don’t like the way the government seems to be muscling in on the Internet. So they plan to build a new one.
Redditors have flocked over the last week to a new subgroup on Reddit.com they’re calling the Darknet Plan–or sometimes Meshnet, as the name seems to still be in flux–with the aim of building a mesh-based version of the Internet that wouldn’t be subject to the control of any corporation or government, with a focus on anonymity, peer-to-peer architecture and strong resistance to censorship.
Wary Of SOPA, Reddit Users Aim To Build A New, Censorship-Free Internet - Forbes

Apps to Beat the Black Friday and Cyber Monday Rush - Forbes

Apps to Beat the Black Friday and Cyber Monday Rush - Forbes

Ask the Religion Experts: Is religion alive and well or struggling to survive in Canada?

Ask the Religion Experts: Is religion alive and well or struggling to survive in Canada?

Software Bugs are a Regular Part of Smartphone Life for Windows Phone and Android users - Forbes


Our parents had that new car smell. We have something else. After the unboxing videos are filmed, and we tell the world on Facebook we have the latest smartphone, people settle down at their computers and hit the “update smartphone” button. Over a gentle coffee and our first read of the manual, the bugs, flaws, and errors that have been found in the OS between the phone being packed in the factory and picked up in the store are overwritten by the latest build of the OS being downloaded.


Software Bugs are a Regular Part of Smartphone Life for Windows Phone and Android users - Forbes

AT&T to Take $4 Billion Charge for T-Mobile Deal - WSJ.com

AT&T Inc. signaled for the first time Thursday that its $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA is more likely to fail than to succeed, saying it will set aside $4 billion in this year's final quarter to cover the cost of breaking up the deal.

The move came after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said this week he would seek a rare, trial-like hearing on the merger, a blow that would add months of arguments and another big hurdle for the controversial deal.

AT&T and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom AG responded Thursday by pulling their application for merger approval at the FCC in order to focus on their fight with the U.S. Justice Department, which itself has sued to block the acquisition.

Both agencies need to clear the merger.


AT&T to Take $4 Billion Charge for T-Mobile Deal - WSJ.com

Halifax County man dies after being shot with stun gun :: WRAL.com

A 61-year-old Halifax County man died Tuesday, a day after police shocked him with a stun gun while he was riding his bike, family members said.

Scotland Neck Police Chief Joe Williams said they received a call Monday night about a man who fell off of his bicycle and injured himself in the parking lot of the BB&T bank, 1001 Main St. The caller was concerned that the man was drunk.

When Officer John Turner arrived, he saw Roger Anthony pedaling away along 10th Street. He followed Anthony in his patrol car, briefly put on his sirens and lights and yelled out of the window for him to stop, but Anthony continued to ride away, police said.

Williams said Turner then saw Anthony take something out his pocket and put it into his mouth. At that time, Turner got out of the car and yelled for Anthony to stop. When Anthony didn't stop, the officer used a stun gun on him, causing him to fall off of his bike.


Halifax County man dies after being shot with stun gun :: WRAL.com

NASA Prepares To Launch Largest Mars Rover Ever Created

NASA Prepares To Launch Largest Mars Rover Ever Created

When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking - NYTimes.com

Published: March 26, 2009

The rapper 50 Cent is among the legion of stars who have recently embraced Twitter to reach fans who crave near-continuous access to their lives and thoughts. On March 1, he shared this insight with the more than 200,000 people who follow him: “My ambition leads me through a tunnel that never ends.”


When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking - NYTimes.com

Guy Kawasaki Discloses Ghost Writers, Defuses Issue | davefleet.com

I’ve written several posts on ethics and ghost blogging recently, so it’s hardly surprising that when I spotted a post suggesting one of the biggest names in social media has other people write under his name, I paid attention.

Guy Kawasaki Discloses Ghost Writers, Defuses Issue | davefleet.com

The Uncanny Valley (HUNGRY BEAST)

Cosplayer Nation @ Anime USA 2011 (Booty Shaking FRIDAY PREVIEW)

Can Monti Save Italy? The Trouble With Technocrats - The Daily Beast

Legend has it that Alexander Hamilton, the greatest technocrat among America’s Founding Fathers, described the fledgling nation’s people as “a great beast.” They “are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right,” he said on another occasion. Generally speaking, the first secretary of the Treasury of the United States was a lot more comfortable with the thought of bankers running things and the rich reining in what he called the “unsteadiness” of the masses.
Can Monti Save Italy? The Trouble With Technocrats - The Daily Beast