Archive for July, 2009
Sarah Palin: The ‘Runner’s World’ Spread
Will this be the Poster (a la Farrah Fawcett) on every budding conservative’s wall?
“It doesn’t matter your background, your demographics, your race, your political affiliation, it’s such a uniting, healthy, fun, awesome activity. It cracks me up going to some running event and seeing some dude who campaigned so hard against me, or a lady who’s been blogging some mean comments about me. But we’re all there together and we’re smiling and we’re having a good time because we’re going to do something healthy and active. We need more of that.” —Sarah Palin
Does Google Know Too Much About You?
Ian Paul, PC World: Do you trust Google? If you use its multitude of online services on a daily basis you might, but is that assumption wise? For some, Google is a wonderful company with a broad selection of useful online tools that make life easier, but for others Google is a looming, unregulated monster just waiting for the moment to drop the ‘don’t’ from the company’s unofficial motto, “Don’t be evil.”
Recently, at the Aspen Ideas Festival, WNYC talk show host Brian Lehrer asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt if Google’s constantly growing importance to users in the United States and around the world meant that Google needed to be regulated as a utility by the Federal Government. The surprise wasn’t in Schmidt’s response (which was “no”), but the fact that everyone in the room laughed at Lehrer’s suggestion.
But is it that funny? Google tracks your online behavior to deliver relevant…
Saudi ‘Genie’ Sued For Harassment
A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a “genie” to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say.
They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said.
The family have lived in the same house near the city of Medina for 15 years but say they only recently became aware of the spirit. They have now moved out.
A local court is investigating. In Islamic theology, genies are spirits that can harass or possess humans.
Wendell Potter Speaks About How For-Profit Insurers Stand in the Way of Healthcare Reform
With almost 20 years inside the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter saw for-profit insurers hijack our health care system and put profits before patients. Now, he speaks with Bill Moyers about how those companies are standing in the way of health care reform.
The Montauk Monster Is Back
Just in time for 4th of July weekend, the Montauk Monster has made its return to the shores of Long Island washing up at Gurney’s Inn. (Oceanside resort located in Montauk, NY) The initial discovery was made by PJ Monte and friends while walking on beach property owned by Gurney’s Inn. (July 2nd 2009 at 6:15 PM) The dead and bloated carcass washed up during an elegant oceanfront wedding. With gorgeous views of the Atlantic Ocean it’s no surprise that the Montauk Monster decided to crash the party!
As for the wedding party, the carcass went undetected as PJ Monte and friends moved it to a different location and the photography session began shortly after. Now you are probably wondering how once again I made it to the eye of the storm to cover the breaking news. Allow me to give you the play-by-play.
…
Robot Teaches Itself to Smile
Hadley Leggett, WIRED: A robot has taught itself to smile, frown, and make other human facial expressions using machine learning.
To get the incredibly realistic Einstein robot to make facial expressions, researchers used to have to program each of its 31 artificial muscles individually through trial and error. Now, computer scientists from the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego have used machine learning to enable the robot to learn expressions on its own.
“The robotic approach is the ultimate in helping us understand learning and development,” said social development expert Daniel Messinger at the University of Miami, who was not involved with the Einstein research but collaborates with the group on another project. “There’s so much we can learn by actually trying to make it happen instead of just watching kids try to move their faces — it’s like having a baby as opposed to just watching a…
Robot Teaches Itself to Smile
Hadley Leggett, WIRED: A robot has taught itself to smile, frown, and make other human facial expressions using machine learning.
Arctic Summers Could Be Ice-Free And Teeming With Life By 2030
Catherine Brahic, New Scientist: “Teeming with life” may not be the description that springs to mind when thinking of the Arctic Ocean, but that could soon change as global warming removes the region’s icy lid.
A study of what the Arctic looked like just before dinosaurs were wiped off the planet has provided a glimpse of what could be to come within decades.
Alan Kemp of the UK National Oceanography Centre in Southampton and colleagues used powerful microscopes to inspect cores of mud extracted from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. They found successive layers of tiny algae called diatoms. The pattern of the layers and the distribution of the diatoms provides strong evidence that the Arctic was free of ice during the summer and, contrary to recent studies, frequently covered in ice during the winter.
Ice-free summers and icy winters are precisely what glaciologists fear could happen in the Arctic within decades.…
The Fable of Mouseland
Mouseland was a story told first by Clarence Gillis, and later and most famously by Tommy Douglas, leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and, later, the New Democratic Party of Canada, both social democratic parties. It was a political fable expressing the CCF’s view that the Canadian political system was flawed in offering voters a false dilemma: the choice of two parties, neither of which represented their interests:
John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar: Forced Abortions, Mass Sterilizations Needed To Save The Planet
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.
The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?
These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar…
Bill Maher: Democrats Are The New Republicans
Bill Maher’s “New Rules” from June 19, 2009: Check out his last statement that explains his criticism of Obama to the Right, who were seemingly willing to embrace him. “There are NO liberals on TV” as he states, and if you think Obama is a liberal, listen to what his “liberal” platform is missing (according to Bill Maher):
‘Anti-Sec’ Hackers Infiltrate Imageshack
Mashable.com: ImageShack, one of the web’s largest image hosts, was attacked tonight by a movement called “Anti-Sec”. The result of the attack has been to replace all ImageShack hosted images with a manifesto for the movement:
“Anti-Sec” Hackers Infiltrate Imageshack
Mashable.com:
ImageShack (ImageShack), one of the web’s largest image hosts, was attacked tonight by a movement called “Anti-Sec”. The result of the attack has been to replace all ImageShack hosted images with a manifesto for the movement (below).
Were The Middle Ages Better Than Today?
Annalee Newitz, io9.com: Futurist and media maven Douglas Rushkoff has just published Life, Inc., a book about how corporations control and permeate our lives. In a recent interview, Rushkoff says the middle ages were better than our corporate-controlled future.
Peggy Nelson interviewed Rushkoff for the blog Reality Sandwich, and summed up one of the major themes of Life, Inc. by referring to science fiction:
“An over-arching theme I found in the book is how the common-sense stuff of our reality, the economy and money and shopping and working, is really science fiction; we don’t live inside a “natural” economic structure — we made it up.”
She’s right: One of Rushkoff’s criticisms of corporate life is that it divides us from the real world around us in a way that the economy didn’t a thousand years ago.
Early in this terrific, funny interview, Nelson asks Rushkoff whether the Middle Ages perhaps weren’t so bad after all,…
Bush’s Domestic Spying Program Was Based On A Flawed Analysis
Pam Benson and Terry Frieden, CNN:
The highly controversial no-warrant surveillance program initiated after the September 11 terrorist attacks relied on
a “factually flawed” legal analysis inappropriately provided by a single Justice Department official, according to a report to Congress on Friday.
The report was compiled by the inspectors general of the nation’s top intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the Justice Department.
The report, mandated by Congress, provides fresh context to information previously leaked in press accounts and buttressed by both congressional testimony and books written by former officials involved in the surveillance effort.
The 38-page unclassified version of the document reaches a cautious conclusion, stating that any use of the information collected under the surveillance program “should be carefully monitored.”
The program, launched by President Bush in the weeks after the September 11 attacks, allowed for — without court approval — the interception of communications into and out of the United States if there was…
Final Word: The Fake Left
There has been much discussion as of late that needs to be expanded beyond the 140-character limit so beloved of my generation. To summarize, my friends largely separate, politically speaking, into two groups. Those who see capitalism as something inherently destructive, exploitative, and oppressive that needs to be done away with in the same way that feudalism and slavery were done away with.
And on the other side there are those who seek a reconciliation with the “progressive” political forces which seek to reform capitalism into something less brutal. It is not my intention in this article to make the case for socialism per se. Rather, I would like to show why I find the assertion that a “middle ground” between capitalism and socialism should / can be pursued is not only deluded and false, but actively destructive, historically speaking.
Those pursue a course of reform within the confines of the currently…
Fox News: Americans ‘Marry Other Species’, Finns and Swedes ‘Pure’
While its obvious to most that Fox News is home of the lunatic fringe of the punditocracy, every once in a while they manage to out-fox themselves. Below is one such example:
Tap Water Safer Than Bottled?
What they don’t say in this report is that tap water is full of chemicals like fluoride. Google fluoride conspiracy…
Environmental groups have for years claimed that bottled water is less safe than tap water — and now the federal government has stepped in to say that’s true.
Food and Drug Administration safety and consumer protections that apply to bottled water often are less stringent than comparable Environmental Protection Agency regulations for tap water, the Government Accountability Office found.
In a new report, the GAO says “state requirements to safeguard bottled water often exceed FDA’s, but still are often less comprehensive than state requirements to safeguard tap water.”
Not only is it disturbing that the FDA’s standards apparently are low regarding consumer safety of bottled water, but also that consumption has skyrocketed.
Over the past decade, per-capita consumption of bottled water in the U.S. has more than doubled. Reports estimate that use equates to 200…
What Can DNA Tell Us? Place Your Bets Now!
From Newton to Hawking, scientists love wagers. Now Lewis Wolpert has bet Rupert Sheldrake a case of fine port that: “By 1 May 2029, given the genome of a fertilised egg of an animal or plant, we will be able to predict in at least one case all the details of the organism that develops from it, including any abnormalities.” If the outcome isn’t obvious, then the Royal Society will be asked to adjudicate. Watch this space…
