Archive for December, 2013
The Criminalization of Everyday Life
December 10th, 2013Via: Tom Dispatch: If all you’ve got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. And if police and prosecutors are your only tool, sooner or later everything and everyone will be treated as criminal. This is increasingly the American way of life, a path that involves “solving” social problems (and even […]
Nobel Winner Declares Boycott of Top Science Journals
December 10th, 2013Via: Guardian: Leading academic journals are distorting the scientific process and represent a “tyranny” that must be broken, according to a Nobel prize winner who has declared a boycott on the publications. Randy Schekman, a US biologist who won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine this year and receives his prize in Stockholm on […]
Bloomberg Wants Mandatory Flu Vaccinations for New York City Schoolchildren
December 10th, 2013Via: Politicker: On Wednesday, with just three weeks to go until he leaves office, Mr. Bloomberg’s controversial Board of Health is set to vote on new rules that would force children as young as six months old to be immunized each year before December 31 if they attend licensed day care or pre-school programs.
Darpa’s Giant Folding Spy Satellite Will Dwarf All Other Space Telescopes
December 10th, 2013Via: Wired: Spying could become much easier if a new lightweight, folding satellite concept gets off the ground. Darpa, the military’s futuristic research agency, says it has plans to “break the glass ceiling” of space telescopes by shooting a new design into orbit that’s made of plastic and unfolds into a mammoth satellite that would […]
Putin Dissolves State News Agency, Tightens Grip on Russian Media
December 9th, 2013Via: Reuters: President Vladimir Putin tightened his control over Russia’s media on Monday by dissolving the main state news agency and replacing it with an organization that is to promote Moscow’s image abroad. The move to abolish RIA Novosti and create a news agency to be known as Rossiya Segodnya is the second in two […]
World of Spycraft: NSA and CIA Spied in Online Games
December 9th, 2013Via: ProPublica: Not limiting their activities to the earthly realm, American and British spies have infiltrated the fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft and Second Life, conducting surveillance and scooping up data in the online games played by millions of people across the globe, according to newly disclosed classified documents. Fearing that terrorist or criminal […]
Fukushima: Outdoor Radiation Reading 25 Sieverts Per Hour
December 9th, 2013Via: news.com.au: WELCOME to Fukushima, where the radiation’s so bad it can be fatal within 20 minutes. The tsunami may have happened some 33 months ago, but the fallout just keeps getting worse. Japanese media is reporting that the intensity of radiation levels in the nuclear powerplant devastated by the earthquake – and subsequent tidal […]
Vast, Nonrenewable Freshwater Reserves Found Beneath the Oceans
December 9th, 2013So let’s just get this straight: The same expensive equipment that’s used to drill for oil would be used to drill… for water. Man, sometimes, I just love coming to work at Cryptogon for the comedy factor alone. Oh yeah, these are nonrenewable aquifers and prone to damage by drilling operations. Maybe buy some canned […]
By 2017 Nearly 45% of All New Servers Will Be Bought by Cloud Providers
December 9th, 2013Via: Computerworld: IT managers want to cut the number of servers they manage, or at least slow the growth, and they may be succeeding, according to new data. IDC expects that anywhere from 25% to 30% of all the servers shipped next year will be delivered to cloud services providers. In three years, 2017, nearly […]
Police Collecting Cellphone Data
December 9th, 2013Via: USA Today: The National Security Agency isn’t the only government entity secretly collecting data from people’s cellphones. Local police are increasingly scooping it up, too. Armed with new technologies, including mobile devices that tap into cellphone data in real time, dozens of local and state police agencies are capturing information about thousands of cellphone […]
