Archive for January, 2017
PR1ME Mathematics: Singapore Mathematics in New Zealand for Homeschooling Families
January 15th, 2017Quick homeschooling announcement… If you’re homeschooling in New Zealand and interested in Singapore Maths, you will have no doubt noticed that getting the materials here is an expensive hassle. We have been buying the California standards edition materials from the U.S. and having them shipped over to New Zealand at astonishing expense. Thankfully, those days […]
‘Side Hustle’ as a Sign of the Apocalypse
January 14th, 2017Definitely related: L.A. Coliving: PodShare Via: Medium: “These days, everyone needs a side hustle,” starts the Uber commercial recruiting new drivers. And it’s got bouncy music and the dude is hip and it makes it sound like this is super fun and I’m sitting there thinking: Are they seriously trying to make a “second job” […]
Obama Expands Surveillance Powers on His Way Out
January 13th, 2017Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: With mere days left before President-elect Donald Trump takes the White House, President Barack Obama’s administration just finalized rules to make it easier for the nation’s intelligence agencies to share unfiltered information about innocent people. New rules issued by the Obama administration under Executive Order 12333 will let the NSA—which collects […]
Why Smart People Don’t Multitask
January 12th, 2017Via: CNBC: You may have heard that multitasking is bad for you, but studies show that it kills your performance and may even damage your brain. Every time you multitask you aren’t just harming your performance in the moment; you may very well be damaging an area of your brain that’s critical to your future […]
Facebook: Building 8
January 12th, 2017Wikipedia: Transcranial Pulsed Ultrasound: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is undergoing research to develop a helmet that could control the minds of soldiers through the use of TPU. It would have the potential to control a soldier’s stress and anxiety levels with the click of a remote controlled button.[5] Sound waves would target specific […]
European Parliament Considers Legal Status of Robots
January 12th, 2017Via: Guardian: The European parliament has urged the drafting of a set of regulations to govern the use and creation of robots and artificial intelligence, including a form of “electronic personhood” to ensure rights and responsibilities for the most capable AI. In a 17-2 vote, with two abstentions, the parliament’s legal affairs committee passed the […]
China Has Wealth of Data on What Individuals Are Doing at a Micro Level
January 11th, 2017Most of what sounds grim about this situation in China is the same in the U.S. Via: CBC: Living in China, it’s safe to assume pretty much everything about you is known — or easily can be known — by the government. Where you go, who you’re with, which restaurants you like, when and why […]
L.A. Coliving: PodShare
January 11th, 2017This looks like someone turned a Kafkaesque Japanese capsule hotel inside out and dressed it up with some hip millennial bullshit. Are young people sleepwalking into living like upper class bums and thinking that it’s somehow a cool thing? Children, gather around: This is bum living with running water and wi-fi. I have nothing against […]
Hand-Powered Ultralow-Cost Paper Centrifuge
January 11th, 2017Via: Nature: In a global-health context, commercial centrifuges are expensive, bulky and electricity-powered, and thus constitute a critical bottleneck in the development of decentralized, battery-free point-of-care diagnostic devices. Here, we report an ultralow-cost (20?cents), lightweight (2?g), human-powered paper centrifuge (which we name ‘paperfuge’) designed on the basis of a theoretical model inspired by the fundamental […]
Taiwan Scrambles Jets, Navy as China Aircraft Carrier Enters Taiwan Strait
January 11th, 2017Via: Reuters: Taiwan scrambled jets and navy ships on Wednesday as a group of Chinese warships, led by its sole aircraft carrier, sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the latest sign of heightened tension between Beijing and the self-ruled island. China’s Soviet-built Liaoning aircraft carrier, returning from exercises in the South China Sea, was not encroaching […]
