Archive for December, 2012
How the Internet Became a Closed Shop
December 22nd, 2012Via: Sydney Morning Herald: A LITTLE over a decade ago, just before the masses discovered the digital universe, the internet was a borderless new frontier: a terra nullius to be populated by individuals, groups and programmers as they saw fit. There were few rules and no boundaries. Freedom and open standards, sharing information for the […]
Delta Air Gets 22,000 Applications for 300 Attendant Jobs
December 22nd, 2012Via: Bloomberg: Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL), the world’s second-largest carrier, received 22,000 applications for about 300 flight attendant jobs in the first week after posting the positions outside the company. The applications arrived at a rate of two per minute, Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson told workers in a weekly recorded message. Applicants will […]
Military Turns to ESPN to Help Analyze Drone Footage
December 22nd, 2012Via: USA Today: Can SportsCenter teach the military something about combating terrorists? After rapidly expanding the number of drones around the world, the Air Force is now reaching out to ESPN and other experts in video analysis to keep up with the flood of footage the unmanned aircraft are transmitting. “They’re looking at anything and […]
‘American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals’
December 22nd, 2012Via: Bloomberg: Generation Y professionals entering the workforce are finding careers that once were gateways to high pay and upwardly mobile lives turning into detours and dead ends. Average incomes for individuals ages 25 to 34 have fallen 8 percent, double the adult population’s total drop, since the recession began in December 2007. Their unemployment […]
NYPD to Use Internet to Try to Stop Mass Shootings
December 22nd, 2012Mmm hmm. Via: New York Times: Top intelligence officials in the New York Police Department met on Thursday to examine ways to search the Internet to identify potential “deranged” gunmen before they strike, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said. “The techniques would include cyber-searches of language that mass-casualty shooters have used in e-mails and Internet […]
MIT Discovers a New State of Matter, a New Kind of Magnetism
December 21st, 2012Via: ExtremeTech: Researchers at MIT have discovered a new state of matter with a new kind of magnetism. This new state, called a quantum spin liquid (QSL), could lead to significant advances in data storage. QSLs also exhibit a quantum phenomenon called long-range entanglement, which could lead to new types of communications systems, and more.
Obama Named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’: ‘Architect of This New America’
December 20th, 2012Where does one even start? Via: Stuff: US President Barack Obama has been named Time magazine’s “person of the year” for 2012. “We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America,” Time Editor Rick Stengel told NBC’s […]
Congress Uses School Massacre Hysteria as Distraction to Restore Indefinite Detention for Americans
December 20th, 2012Via: Huffington Post: Congress stripped a provision Tuesday from a defense bill that aimed to shield Americans from the possibility of being imprisoned indefinitely without trial by the military. The provision was replaced with a passage that appears to give citizens little protection from indefinite detention. The amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of […]
The Economic Return of Iceland Has Proved That the Joke Was on Ireland
December 20th, 2012Via: Irish Independent: WAY back in the autumn of 2008, the joke in financial circles was that the only difference between Ireland and Iceland was a letter and six months. Now, with the Icelandic banks preparing to issue foreign currency bonds once again, it turns out that the joke was on us. Remember when the […]
And Now… ‘Time to Profile White Men?’
December 20th, 2012Via: Salon: Yesterday, during a cable news discussion of gun violence and the Newtown school shooting, I dared mention a taboo truism. During a conversation on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes,” I said that because most of the mass shootings in America come at the hands of white men, there would likely be political opposition […]
