Archive for the 'Social Engineering' Category
Student-Loan Debt Surpasses Credit Cards
August 11th, 2010Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble: Look at overall inflation vs. college education inflation. Via: Wall Street Journal: Consumers now owe more on their student loans than their credit cards. Americans owe some $826.5 billion in revolving credit, according to June 2010 figures from the Federal Reserve. (Most of revolving credit is credit-card debt.) Student loans […]
The Ministry of Oil Defense
August 6th, 2010The article opens with: It’s not polite to say so, but if Americans understood just how many trillions their military was really spending on protecting oil, they wouldn’t stand for it. Oh really? How Many Millions are in a Trillion? from Econ4U on Vimeo. Tell us all another one about what “Americans” won’t stand for. […]
Feds Admit Storing Checkpoint Body Scan Images
August 4th, 2010Via: Cnet: For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.” Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial […]
And Now… A Vaccine Against Stress
August 4th, 2010Oh sure. Via: CBS News: Stressed out? There’s no app for that, but soon enough there might be a vaccine. Dr Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscience professor at Stanford, says after 30 years of studying stress, his team might be on the verge of a novel cure. “To be honest, I’m still amazed that it works,” […]
Erica Goldson: Coxsackie-Athens Valedictorian Speech 2010
August 2nd, 2010It’s definitely worth clicking through to read the whole thing. Via: America Via Erica: And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. […]
Brazil: Some Detergent Boxes Will Contain GPS Transmitters to Allow Company to Follow Consumers Home
July 31st, 2010Just wait until the detergent box costs more than the GPS transmitter. Via: AdAge: Unilever’s Omo detergent is adding an unusual ingredient to its two-pound detergent box in Brazil: a GPS device that allows its promotions agency Bullet to track shoppers and follow them to their front doors. Starting next week, consumers who buy one […]
University of California Will Offer Degree Programs Online
July 13th, 2010What the UC wants is to take in more fees. The End. Via: San Francisco Chronicle: Taking online college courses is, to many, like eating at McDonald’s: convenient, fast and filling. You may not get filet mignon, but afterward you’re just as full. Now the University of California wants to jump into online education for […]
Further Into the Depths of Overcrowded Urban Hell: Zombies Use Their iCrack Pipes to Find Open Parking Spaces
July 12th, 2010Yep, what people really need is the ability to leave notes about parking spaces with their mobile phones. HAHA. See: The Future Where Soda Cans Have Screens. Via: Engadget: Dubbed ‘Open Spot,’ this bloody brilliant Android (2.0 and up) application enables motorists to search for unclaimed spaces that have been reported by other Open Spot […]
The New “Convenient” Way to Buy Wine in Pennsylvania: Swipe Driver’s License, Look Into Camera, Blow Into Breath Sensor
July 9th, 2010Via: AP: Swipe your driver’s license, look into the camera, blow into the breath sensor and — voila! — you have permission to buy a bottle of wine from a vending machine. Pennsylvania, which has some of the most Byzantine liquor laws in the nation, recently introduced the country’s first wine “kiosks.” If the machines […]
Why Morning People Rule the World
July 6th, 2010Via: London Evening Standard: We are all morning or evening people. Scientists have established that our genes dictate around half of what they call our “chronotypes” — our natural preference for certain times of the day. Evolution has produced a range of humans capable of being alert to danger at every hour of the day. […]
