Archive for the 'Social Engineering' Category
The Absurd and Destructive Practice of Making Young Children Do Homework
March 8th, 2016Via: Salon: “There is no evidence that any amount of homework improves the academic performance of elementary students.” This statement, by homework research guru Harris Cooper, of Duke University, is startling to hear, no matter which side of the homework debate you’re on. Can it be true that the hours of lost playtime, power struggles […]
Virtual Reality and Zuckerberg’s, “Rictus Grin”
February 22nd, 2016Har! Via: The Verge: The image above looks like concept art for a new dystopian sci-fi film. A billionaire superman with a rictus grin, striding straight past human drones, tethered to machines and blinded to reality by blinking plastic masks. Golden light shines down on the man as he strides past his subjects, cast in […]
‘See Something Suspicious Online? Homeland Security Wants to Know About It’
February 18th, 2016Via: NextGov: The Department of Homeland Security wants an extra $1 million next year to develop a public-service campaign designed to increase awareness of online threats. The new initiative will be modeled on the “If You See Something, Say Something” effort rolled out after the Sept. 11 attacks. The new cyber PSA “will look to […]
‘Let Us Inspect Your Home For Dirty Dishes – Or We’ll Get A Warrant,’ City Says
February 16th, 2016Via: Off The Grid News: A Minnesota city is asking a court for a warrant to enter a rental home in order to check to see if the place is clean. If the city wins the case, then inspectors apparently would be able to enter such a building anytime they wish. The renters and tenants […]
Bloomberg Op-Ed Calls For An End Of Cash
February 1st, 2016Via: ZeroHedge: Bring On the Cashless Future Cash had a pretty good run for 4,000 years or so. These days, though, notes and coins increasingly seem declasse: They’re dirty and dangerous, unwieldy and expensive, antiquated and so very analog. Sensing this dissatisfaction, entrepreneurs have introduced hundreds of digital currencies in the past few years, of […]
Zika Virus: WHO Declares Global Public Health Emergency
February 1st, 2016Via: Washington Post: The World Health Organization designated the Zika virus a public health emergency of international concern Monday, an action it has taken only three times before and which paves the way for the mobilization of more funding and manpower to fight the mosquito-born pathogen spreading “explosively” through the Americas. Zika, which was first […]
And Now: “Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Join The Fight To Stop Zika Virus”
January 28th, 2016Here’s what happened in Brazil, where Oxitec has been conducting massive experiments with genetically modified mosquitoes. The chart below is from, Zika Virus, Explained in 6 Charts and Maps: Also, from 2012: Brazil Rolls Out GM Mosquito Farms: Brazil has opened its first-ever, large-scale genetically modified mosquito farm in an effort to reduce the incidence […]
There Is No Excuse for How Universities Treat Adjuncts
January 24th, 2016This is what Soviet-style systems do. The U.S. Government is the enabler via the student loan scam. Via: The Atlantic: Writing a few years ago for this publication, the Johns Hopkins professor Benjamin Ginsberg described colleges and universities as now being “filled with armies of functionaries—vice presidents, associate vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, provosts, associate […]
IBM Watson Head Mike Rhodin On The Future Of Artificial Intelligence
January 20th, 2016Did you ever read, The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson? Do you remember Nell’s copy of the Primer? But to call it a book does not really do it justice — it is really a massively parallel computer in which each page can dynamically rearrange itself to tell a story. Check this out, from the […]
Germany on the Brink
January 11th, 2016Via: New York Times: With the current migration, though, we’re in uncharted territory. The issue isn’t just that immigrants are arriving in the hundreds of thousands rather than the tens of thousands. It’s that a huge proportion of them are teenage and twentysomething men. In Sweden, for instance, which like Germany has had an open […]
