One Fifth Of American Adults Don’t Use The Internet
… according to a Pew study discussed in an insightful manner by Erick Schonfeld on TechCrunch. He is asking the fundamental question: Who are these people?
For me, since I happen to be able to remember a world without the internet, I remember first trying Mosaic in 1994 and thinking to myself this will change everything (hence my 2001 monolith image). Is it a matter of access or are there people who will never get online?
The Pew research center put out survey results on broadband adoption and Internet use in America. There was one data point that I found startling. According to the survey, 21 percent of American adults say they don’t use the Internet. One fifth of all Americans.
This isn’t just people who do not use broadband (which is 66 percent of American adults). It also includes people who don’t use dial-up (another 5 percent). These people don’t use the Internet…
Psywar: The Real Battlefield is the Mind (Video)
Via American Pendulum:
Psywar: The Real Battlefield is the Mind explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States, with an emphasis on the “elitist theory of democracy” and the relationship between war, propaganda and class.
Includes original interviews with a number of dissident scholars including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips (“Project Censored”), John Stauber (“PR Watch”), Christopher Simpson (“The Science of Coercion”).
The German Military Believes ‘Peak Oil’ May Bring About the End of Democracy and Free Markets
Hubbert peak oil plot. Chart: Hankwang (CC)
Der Spiegel reports that a German military think tank believes ‘peak oil’ may occur this year, and that is could cause the collapse of both democracies and free markets within 30 years.
The political and economic impacts of peak oil on Germany have now been studied for the first time in depth. The crude oil expert Steffen Bukold has evaluated and summarized the findings of the Bundeswehr study. Here is an overview of the central points:
- Oil will determine power: The Bundeswehr Transformation Center writes that oil will become one decisive factor in determining the new landscape of international relations: “The relative importance of the oil-producing nations in the international system is growing. These nations are using the advantages resulting from this to expand the scope of their domestic and foreign policies and establish themselves as a new or resurgent regional, or in some cases even global leading…
BP Warns Congress About Ban On Offshore Drilling
BP’s executive vice president, David Nagel, stated “If we are unable to keep those fields going, that is going to have a substantial impact on our cash flow.” BP is trying to lift their ban on offshore drilling in order to maintain enough money to clean up the spill AND donate to charity programs surrounding the April explosion. The New York Times reports”
BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company says a ban would also imperil the ambitious Gulf Coast restoration efforts that officials want the company to voluntarily support.
BP executives insist that they have not backed away from their commitment to the White House to set aside $20 billion in an escrow fund over the next…
Why Christwire Rocks
Depending on your religious beliefs and affiliations, you may or may not be aware of the megapopular Christwire. The New York Times explains why it’s such a joke:
Since 2008, Christwire.org has emerged as the leading Internet sites for ultraconservative Christian news, commentary and weather reportage. “Hurricane Earl Projected Path, Gay East Coast of America,” Christwire opined last Monday. One headline in late August proclaimed, “Warning! Black Music Infiltrates the Minds of Future Homemaking White Women.” Last week, referring to Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman who came out of the closet last month, Christwire asked, “Why does Ken Mehlman think that choosing the homosexual lifestyle is more important to him than the Republican values he once held so dear?”
Christwire has lately reached new levels of popularity, in part thanks to an Aug. 14 column, “Is My Husband Gay?” Written by Stephenson Billings, the piece is a 15-point checklist to help wives…
The Importance Of Being Idle
Does daydreaming have a purpose? Neuroscientists have recently become enraptured with the workings of the brain at idle moments. Referred to as “default mode network,” letting the mind wander is in fact a busy, critical state that is the key to maintaining one’s sense of self and personality. The Los Angeles Times reports:
In the span of a few short years, [scientists] have come to view mental leisure as important, purposeful work — work that relies on a powerful and far-flung network of brain cells firing in unison. Neuroscientists call it the “default mode network.”
Understanding that setting may do more than lend respectability to the universal practice of zoning out: It may one day help diagnose and treat psychiatric conditions as diverse as Alzheimer’s disease, autism, depression and schizophrenia — all of which disrupt operations in the default mode network.
Beyond that lies an even loftier promise. As neuroscientists study the idle brain, some…
First Medical Marijuana Television Ad
Cheech and Chong films showed the recreational use of marijuana, now television ads in California are showing the medicinal aspect. Via ABC News:
Meet Billy the Human Billboard: Boxer Pays the Bills With Tattoo Sponsorships
This is a hell of a way to pay the bills. Joe Peacock writes on AOL News:
I’m an avid collector and appreciator of tattoos, so I tend to run into news that revolves around that culture quite often. That’s how I came to know about Billy Gibby — also known as Billy the Human Billboard — an amateur boxer out of Alaska who is living his dream of being a fighter and paying the bills by selling spots on his body for permanent tattoos featuring the logos of corporate sponsors.
As with everyone else who encounters Billy the Human Billboard for the first time, the thoughts that went through my head were “[vulgar expletive], what is he thinking?” followed by a quick feeling that there’s no way this could be for real, followed by the realization that it had to be real. It’s just too weird not to be.
Imagine my surprise, only a few days ago, when I found an e-mail in my in-box from him. He was reaching out to me to see if, as a fan of tattoos, I’d be interested in buying space on his body myself. And while I wasn’t really in the market to buy an ad on Billy the Billboard, I did take that opportunity to speak with him about his unique method of paying the bills.
New York City’s Water Filled With Tiny Shrimp
Consumerist discusses the disconcerting news that New York City’s tap water is filled with microscopic shrimp-like creatures, such as the one pictured below. Called copepods, they’re entirely harmless, but raise the question of whether NYC tap water is kosher.
“Building What?” Campaign to Raise Awareness of Building 7
Via BuildingWhat.org:
More than eight years after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, New York Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner was hearing arguments in a courtroom less than a mile from Ground Zero about a ballot initiative to launch a new investigation of the 9/11 attacks. When the lawyer for the plaintiffs sponsoring the initiative explained that the 9/11 Commission report left many unanswered questions, including “Why did Building 7 come down,” the Judge replied quizzically, “Building what?”
Like Judge Lehner, millions of people do not know or remember only vaguely that a third tower called World Trade Center Building 7 also collapsed on September 11, 2001. In any other situation, the complete, free fall collapse of a 47-story skyscraper would be played over and over on the news. It would be discussed for years to come and building design codes would be completely rewritten. So, why does no one know about Building 7? And what made Building 7 come down?
The answers to these questions have far-reaching implications for our society. The goal of the “BuildingWhat?” campaign is to raise awareness of Building 7 so that together we can begin to address these questions.
Korean Artist Imagines a Tomorrow of Sentient Machines
Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two predicted this was the year when humanity would make contact with an alien intelligence. But if you’ve seen the work of U-Ram Choe, you know the shocking truth: They’re already here.
The brainchild of the South Korean sculptor, “New Urban Species” is an art show disguised as a natural history exhibit from the future, and it’s one of the most engaging displays on tour this year.
U-Ram Choe builds art that comes from a not-to-distant-tomorrow, where organic life and mechanized objects have become one. His kinetic sculptures are not only creepy-fun marvels, they also create a compelling dialog about machine consciousness and the coming Singularity.
In his book Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, brain researcher Valentino Braitenberg demonstrates how human beings invest the increasingly complex behaviors of mechanical devices with a range of values and abilities including aggression, creative thinking, personality and free will, and how we project…
DNA Tests Show Hitler ‘Had Jewish and African Roots’
I have heard this before but looks like genetic testing is finally shedding some light on that idea. Heidi Blake writes on the Telegraph:
Saliva samples taken from 39 relatives of the Nazi leader show he may have had biological links to the “subhuman” races that he tried to exterminate during the Holocaust. Jean-Paul Mulders, a Belgian journalist, and Marc Vermeeren, a historian, tracked down the Fuhrer’s relatives, including an Austrian farmer who was his cousin, earlier this year.
A chromosome called Haplogroup E1b1b1 which showed up in their samples is rare in Western Europe and is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.
“One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised,” Mr Mulders wrote in the Belgian magazine, Knack. Haplogroup E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6…
Was California’s Bobblehead Election Rigged?
MoeZilla writes:
Fans waited in line for two hours to claim a California baseball stadium’s 1,250 bobblehead dolls representing the two candidates vying to replace Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. But “when the wacky give-away was concluded, the stadium announced its even wackier results — and reading the comments at a Sacramento newspaper site, you’d have to conclude that the election was rigged.”
After many snafus, candidate Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, won the “bobblehead election” at a California baseball stadium. But ironically, some of her dolls are now being sold on eBay! “The last time California elected a new governor was in 2004, after a very wild recall election,” notes this article. “Movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger defeated 150 other candidates, including Gary Coleman and porn star Mary Carey.
“Let’s hope this November’s election goes more smoothly than the battle of the bobbleheads.”
Eternal Vigilance: The Cost of Freedom
Nathan Janes writes on Pupaganda.com:
“Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.“— Bertrand Russell, 20th Century Philosopher & Nobel Prize Winner
The most widespread form of slavery today is of the mind. Individuals are controlled and managed by the Establishment on a level that can be hard to recognize. Disinformation is continuously spread by the mass media. Children are schooled by the State yet never receive education. The traditional family is in danger of extinction. Our food and water is full of toxins. We have adapted to incremental changes that amount to significant threats to our personal freedoms, independent…
Stephen Hawking: God Was Not Needed To Create The Universe
Stephen Hawking says the Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe — reported in the Telegraph:
The scientist has claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.
In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”
He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”…
Speed Cameras, ANPR and Project Columbus
Photo: Kaihsu Ta (CC)
Photo: Kaihsu Ta (CC)
- The expansion of automated checkpoints around the UK
Data Protection expert Chris Pounder of Amberhawk Training[1] has warned that moves by UK local authorities to remove speed cameras could lead to an increase in Automatic Number Plate Recognition or ANPR cameras. In a recent blog post ‘Data Protection and surveillance: swapping the speed camera for ANPR?’[2] Pounder suggests that as speed cameras are removed, more accidents could occur so that over time, there will be increased public pressure to do something to counter the rising accident rate, and he says: “ANPR installations (which only need a few cameras) will be the technological fix of choice”. Pounder goes on:
In this way, specific surveillance of an accident black spot by a speed camera (which only captures the image of speeding cars breaking the law) is replaced by general surveillance of all vehicles passing the cameras (where records of date,…
William Gibson on ‘Google’s Earth’
It’s probably not entirely coincidental that William Gibson chose to pen this op-ed for the New York Times the week before his new book Zero History is released, but nonetheless you have to pay attention when the author of Neuromancer shares his thoughts on the future landscape of computing and artificial intelligence:
Vancouver, British Columbia
“I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” said the search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, in a recent and controversial interview. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” Do we really desire Google to tell us what we should be doing next? I believe that we do, though with some rather complicated qualifiers.
Science fiction never imagined Google, but it certainly imagined computers that would advise us what to do. HAL 9000, in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” will forever come to mind, his advice, we assume, eminently reliable — before his malfunction. But HAL was a discrete entity, a genie in a bottle, something we imagined owning or being assigned. Google is a distributed entity, a two-way membrane, a game-changing tool on the order of the equally handy flint hand ax, with which we chop our way through the very densest thickets of information. Google is all of those things, and a very large and powerful corporation to boot…
Italian Man Arrested for Aunt’s Body Found in Freezer
The chilling story of what a man would do to collect 2,000 euros a month pension from his aunt, even if she’s no longer alive. The Telegraph reports:
Reports alleged that Gaetano Adragna, 43, a part-employed computer technician, relied on the pension for most of his rent and living expenses.
When they visited the apartment in Catania, in Sicily, they found her frozen body in a large white freezer.
The scam was revealed when neighbours of Annita Bonnici, 95, a widow of a former general in the Italian army, became suspicious after not seeing her for several months.
Mr Adragna had visited his elderly great-aunt twice a week.
Neighbours said they would often meet him on the stairs leading up to his great-aunt’s flat but that he started to tell contradictory stories about her state of health.
Continues at Telegraph …
Oil Rig Explosion in Gulf of Mexico
I’m starting to think that oil and the Gulf are not a good combination. From USA Today:
An off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded early Thursday, sending its crew of 13 scrambing into the water and creating a sheen of spilled oil.
The oil could be seen in a mile-long plume with a width of about 100 feet, Coast Guard Petty Officer Thomas Blue said. The slick was reported by the rig’s owner, Mariner Energy of Houston, and had not been confirmed by the Coast Guard, Blue said.
An oil industry vessel that was nearby plucked the crewmembers out of the water and brought them to a nearby platform, Blue said. Coast Guard helicopters were in the process of flying them to a hospital. One of the workers suffered a minor injury, Blue said.
The crew had donned brightly colored survival gear known as “Gumby suits” that helped them float and…
Hierarchy Of Robot Needs
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is one of psychology’s most important theories regarding the search for happiness and self-actualization. Via Flickr, here it is adapted for robots:
Police Kill Discovery Channel Hostage-Holder, Ending Standoff
The lunatic who took hostages at Discovery Channel’s headquarters was killed by police. He did have a point about their crappy programming, let’s admit. From the New York Times:
Police officers shot and killed a gunman with a history of protesting against the Discovery Channel, the authorities said, ending a nearly four-hour ordeal on Wednesday at the company’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. The gunman, apparently wearing explosives, had taken two employees and a security guard hostage, officials said.
The company had identified the gunman…as James J. Lee. A Web site run by Mr. Lee, SaveThePlanetProtest.com, was established in January 2008. The Web site complains that the Discovery Channel produces programs about the environment for profit, not for humanitarian reasons.
Apple Launches New Music Social Network: Ping
In case there weren’t enough social networks, Apple’s Ping is the network for music, not friends. From NY Times:
On Thursday morning, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, showed off a new social network for music called Ping. It runs inside the newest version of Apple’s iTunes software. Ping also works on the latest software for iPhones and iPod Touches. (Apple hasn’t made it available for iPad this time around.)
Ping, Mr. Jobs said onstage at the announcement event in San Francisco, lets its users answer three burning questions: “What are my friends listening to? What are my favorite artists up to? What concerts are my friends going to?” And, he said, it resolves the driving need, “I’ve got to share this with my friends!” (It also answers the question: “Can I buy that song right now?”)
How does Ping work? Mr. Jobs describes it as “sort of like Facebook and Twitter meet…
World’s Oldest Champagne Found In The Baltic Sea
Divers investigating a 200 year-old shipwreck in the Baltic Sea found what is thought to be the world’s oldest champagne. And it’s sill drinkable! From New Tang Dynasty Television:
