Archive for April, 2010
Cultivated Play: Farmville
April 19th, 2010Related: The Future Where Soda Cans Have Screens Via: Future of the Book: Farmville is a free, browser-based video game that is played through one’s Facebook account. Users harvest crops, decorate their farms, and interact with one another, in what is ostensibly a game about farming. While this may sound like a relatively banal game, […]
Goldman Lawyers Advised Lehman
April 19th, 2010Via: Telegraph: The US law firm supporting Goldman Sachs against fraud allegations was Lehman Brothers’ legal adviser as it crashed into bankruptcy two years ago. Rodgin Cohen, the senior chairman at Sullivan & Cromwell, was the man who made the fateful call on Sunday September 14, 2008 to Dick Fuld, the boss of Lehman, to […]
100 Years of U.S. Medical Fascism
April 19th, 2010Via: Ludwig Von Mises Institute: As far as other conservative Republicans go, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has repeatedly stated that he sees “some good things” in Obamacare, especially the expanded use of Medicaid. Voters naïve enough to think they will get a complete repeal from the Republican Party appear to be in for a […]
Crime Prediction Software Is Here and It’s a Very Bad Idea
April 18th, 2010Via: Gizmodo: There are no naked pre-cogs inside glowing jacuzzis yet, but the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice will use analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents, putting potential offenders under specific prevention and education programs. Goodbye, human rights! They will use this software on juvenile delinquents, using a series of variables to […]
The Game That Goes On and On: a Swiss Bank, a President, and the Permanent Government
April 18th, 2010Flashback: Backbone of Complex Networks of Corporations: The Flow of Control Via: Smirking Chimp: Last August, the presidential press corps followed Barack Obama and his family to Martha’s Vineyard for their brief vacation. The coverage focused on summery fare–a visit to an ice cream parlor, the books the president had brought along. Nearly everyone mentioned […]
“Plastic Soup” Found in Atlantic Ocean
April 18th, 2010Via: CBS / AP: Researchers are warning of a new blight on the ocean: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over thousands of square miles in a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The floating garbage – hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents – was documented […]
Tattooing Patients With UV Ink Could Protect Pacemakers From Hackers
April 18th, 2010Oh sure. Via: Popular Science: More and more implantable devices, like pacemakers or defibrillators, are turning to wireless signals as a means to communicate with external devices, but in doing so they open themselves to security breaches. Several solutions are in the works that tackle this problem by upping device defenses, but by piling on […]
Feds Indict Ex-Blackwater President
April 17th, 2010Via: AP: The former president of Blackwater Worldwide was charged Friday with using straw purchases to stockpile automatic weapons at the security firm and filing false documents to cover up gifts given to the King of Jordan. The federal indictment charges Gary Jackson, 52, who left the company last year in a management shakeup, along […]
Venice Was a Quiet Mena
April 16th, 2010Via: Mad Cow Productions: “Venice was a kind of quiet Mena (Arkansas),” stated a former drug pilot for The Company. “Jackson Stephens built this huge headquarters next to the airport. And he was in charge. But I do remember seeing Porter Goss around the airport a lot.” The airport where three of the four terrorist […]
Goldman Sachs Charged with Fraud Related to Subprime Securities
April 16th, 2010Via: AP: The government has accused Goldman Sachs & Co. of defrauding investors by failing to disclose conflicts of interest in mortgage investments it sold as the housing market was faltering. The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a civil complaint Friday that Goldman failed to disclose that one of its clients helped create — […]
