China’s Education Plan … From Finland’s Playbook
September 17th, 2013Via: CNBC:
If you think the business competition from China is hard now, brace yourself. It will likely get tougher in about 20 years or so. And how is China doing it? By borrowing a page from Finland.
At first blush, though, it would appear that China is simply lightening up.
“The Ministry of Education plans to lessen the heavy workload,” said CCTV, China’s state television network explained in a post on the English version of its website.
Under the proposed guidelines, which are still under discussion, “primary schools may no longer set any form of written homework for students in grades one to six,” said CCTV, “Instead, schools should work with parents to organize extracurricular activities and after-school assignments, including museum tours and library study.”
In addition, the new system would revamp scoring systems and reduce the number of mandatory exams.
Related: Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? by Pasi Sahlberg
‘Your Pulse Could Be Your New Password’
September 17th, 2013Via: CBS:
Passwords, pin numbers, and credit cards could soon be a thing of the past.
Soon, your heart and your body might be used to keep track of just about everything if new technology is able to unlock “pulse passwords”.
Your heartbeat reveals more about you than your health, Bionym chief executive officer Karl Martin explained.
“There’s actually unique characteristics that relate to the size of the heart, the position of the heart, and the physiology surrounding the heart,” he said.
Our heartbeats are as unique to us as our fingerprints and now they are being used to replace passwords, key cards, and bank cards, CBS 2?s Kristine Johnson reported.
“It’s like your personal pin number is your heartbeat,” Mashable.com’s Lance Ulanoff said.
The technology could allow you to open a door without a key or have tech gadgets like smartphones and tablets unlock the second that you walk into a room. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but experts say it is the wave of the future.
“It’s going to be a way for us to interact with the world around us without having to constantly identify ourselves,” Ulanoff explained.
Bionym, a Canadian company, developed a wristband to recognize the pattern of an individual pulse. The wristband transmits information that allows the user to do things like withdrawing money without a bank card.
“You don’t have to remember anything. You don’t have to do anything special,” Ulanoff said.
Bionym isn’t the only company developing concepts that use the human body as a form of identification. Motorola is working on a temporary tattoo that contains a computer chip and an antenna.
A pill that dissolves and turns the entire body into a transmitter is also in the works.
Security experts say traditional passwords don’t offer much protection from identity thieves.
“If they’re alpha numeric, and usually they are because they have to be easy to remember, they’re also correspondingly easier to break into,” security expert Rohit Sethi explained.
The new technology could pose considerable roadblocks for hackers because heartbeats cannot be replicated.
“You’re not going to have a piece of paper in your pocket with your password. You’re going to have it as part of your body so that is safer,” Ulanoff said.
Bionym’s wristband is so in tune with its owner that if somebody did steal it, it would not work. The wristband costs about $100 and is expected to hit stores in 2014.
‘Dartmouth Researchers Discover How and Where Imagination Occurs in Human Brains’
September 17th, 2013“Understanding these differences will give us insight into where human creativity comes from and possibly allow us to recreate those same creative processes in machines.”
Via: Dartmouth University:
Philosophers and scientists have long puzzled over where human imagination comes from. In other words, what makes humans able to create art, invent tools, think scientifically and perform other incredibly diverse behaviors?
The answer, Dartmouth researchers conclude in a new study, lies in a widespread neural network — the brain’s “mental workspace” — that consciously manipulates images, symbols, ideas and theories and gives humans the laser-like mental focus needed to solve complex problems and come up with new ideas.
Their findings, titled “Network structure and dynamics of the mental workspace,” appear the week of Sept. 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our findings move us closer to understanding how the organization of our brains sets us apart from other species and provides such a rich internal playground for us to think freely and creatively,” says lead author Alex Schlegel , a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. “Understanding these differences will give us insight into where human creativity comes from and possibly allow us to recreate those same creative processes in machines.”
Revealing Pictures From 1972 Rothschild Illuminati Ball
September 17th, 2013Via: Vigilant Citizen:
On 12/12/72 Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, member of the most powerful elite family in the world, held a Surrealist Ball at Château de Ferrières, one of the family’s gigantic mansions. While these events are usually extremely secretive, photographs of this particular Ball surfaced on the web. In short, it is a mix of an “Eyes Wide Shut”-style masked ball mixed with a Lady Gaga-style pop video.
Research Credit: cgroove69
Directed Energy Device Disables Vehicles
September 16th, 2013The same company is developing, “High altitude electromagnetic pulse weapons.”
Via: Telegraph:
An energy beam that can be fired to disable vehicles and electronic devices has been developed by Nato scientists.
The device uses an intense pulse of electromagnetic energy that can be directed at a moving vehicle to interfere with the electronics on board.
Tests conducted by Nato scientists who have been developing the device in Norway show that it can stop a car approaching a roadblock and could be used to thwart suicide bomb attacks.
It can also be carried in the back of a vehicle to disable other vehicles that are in pursuit.
The researchers, who are working as part of Nato’s Science and Technology Organisation, have also demonstrated it can disable jet skis and drones.
…
The device has been compared to the satellite weapon that features in the James Bond movie Golden Eye. In this an electromagnetic beam is fired from a satellite in orbit to disable electronic equipment.
While the latest device cannot work on the same scale, it has the potential to disable almost any electronic device.
It is, however, unlikely to work against older vehicles that rely upon purely mechanical equipment.
Electromagnetic pulses create an intense magnetic field that damages electronic circuitry.
Details of how the new device works are still secret but it is likely to use microwaves or radio frequency energy.
Images released by Nato show pressure transmitters that are used to generate electrical signals.
The new device has been developed in collaboration with defence company Diehl, which has also been working on high altitude electromagnetic pulse weapons.
Recovery: Widest Gap in Employment Rates Between Rich, Poor in a Decade
September 16th, 2013Via: AP / Newser:
The gap in employment rates between America’s highest- and lowest-income families has stretched to its widest levels since officials began tracking the data a decade ago, according to an analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press.
Rates of unemployment for the lowest-income families _ those earning less than $20,000 _ have topped 21 percent, nearly matching the rate for all workers during the 1930s Great Depression.
U.S. households with income of more than $150,000 a year have an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, a level traditionally defined as full employment. At the same time, middle-income workers are increasingly pushed into lower-wage jobs. Many of them in turn are displacing lower-skilled, low-income workers, who become unemployed or are forced to work fewer hours, the analysis shows.
Aaron Alexis: Washington Navy Yard Shooting
September 16th, 2013Update: SWAT Team ‘Stood Down’ at Mass Shooting Scene
Is this the most obviously staged mass shooting ever?
Sent in by afterhours.
Via: BBC:
One of the first teams of heavily armed police to respond to Monday’s shooting in Washington DC was ordered to stand down by superiors, the BBC can reveal.
A tactical response team of the Capitol Police, a force that guards the US Capitol complex, was told to leave the scene by a supervisor instead of aiding municipal officers.
The Capitol Police department has launched a review into the matter.
Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
“I don’t think it’s a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene,” a Capitol Police source familiar with the incident told the BBC.
A former Navy reservist, Alexis was working as a technical contractor for the Navy and had a valid pass and security clearance allowing him entry to the highly secure building in south-east Washington DC.
About 8:15 local time (12:15 GMT), Alexis entered Building 197, headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy, and opened fire.
Armed with a shotgun and a pistol he took from a guard he had shot, he sprayed bullets down a hallway and fired from a balcony down on to workers in an atrium.
He fired on police officers who eventually stormed the building, and was later killed in the shootout.
Multiple sources in the Capitol Police department have told the BBC that its highly trained and heavily armed four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team (Cert) was near the Navy Yard when the initial report of an active shooter came in about 8:20 local time.
The officers, wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons, arrived outside Building 197 a few minutes later, an official with knowledge of the incident told the BBC.
According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC’s main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman.
When the Capitol Police team radioed their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.
The gunman, Aaron Alexis, was reported killed after 09:00.
Several Capitol Police sources who spoke to the BBC asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
Capitol Police Officer Jim Konczos, who leads the officers’ union, said the Cert police train for what are known as active shooter situations and are expert marksmen.
“Odds are it might have had a different outcome,” he said of Monday’s shooting and the decision to order the Cert unit to stand down. “It probably could have been neutralised.”
—
Update: “My ELF Weapon”
Sent in by bretwalda.
Via: Washington Post:
Aaron Alexis carved bizarre phrases on the stock of his shotgun before he killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, and investigators are hoping the words provide clues to what prompted the shooting, two law enforcement officials said.
The phrases were “Better off this way” and “My ELF weapon,” according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
—
Update: Alexis Described Gang Stalking Scenario
My position on gang stalking is a bit unusual: While I think that most people who claim to be victims of gang stalking are very obviously suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the U.S. Government has been involved with the development of systems that COULD be used in gang stalking scenarios for decades. As a single example, see something like, The Microwave Scream Inside Your Skull. See any of the dozens of gang stalking sites for hundreds of more references along these lines.
I’ve personally dealt with people who claimed to be victims of gang stalking and they always refuse to involve an objective third party in their investigations. An objective third party, armed with a video camera and an RF meter, could gather quantitative evidence of the gang stalking phenomena. The people I’ve dealt with never follow my advice to focus on gathering quantitative evidence which would be present if the situation was really happening.
So, yes, paranoid schizophrenia is a terrifying condition that explains a lot in the world of gang stalking. And, yes, the U.S. Government has developed directed energy weapons for mind control.
As for what really happened with Aaron Alexis, I have no idea.
Via: The Smoking Gun:
Six weeks before going on a killing spree at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis told Rhode Island police that he was being followed by individuals who were using a “microwave machine” to send vibrations into his body that kept him from falling asleep, according to a bizarre police report.
On August 7, Alexis summoned Newport cops to a Marriott hotel where he was staying. During a 6:30 AM interview, the 34-year-old–who said he was a “naval contractor” who traveled often–told officers that voices were harassing him through a hotel wall, adding that he was fearful he could be harmed.
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Update: ‘Military’s Background Check System Failed to Block Gunman with a History of Arrests’
Via: Washington Post:
The military’s beleaguered background check system failed to block suspected Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis from an all-access pass to a half-dozen military installations, despite a history of arrests for shooting episodes and disorderly conduct.
Alexis, a military contractor working on a computer project, used his secret-level clearance to gain entry to the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, where officials said he gunned down a dozen people before being killed by police.
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Update: Multiple Shooters?
Via: Yahoo:
There were multiple fatalities Monday morning following a shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, officials said. One gunman died in the shooting, and police are seeking two other possible shooters.
The Navy Yard was placed on lockdown after multiple shots were fired inside a building on the base, the U.S. Navy said. At least 10 people were injured in the shooting, including eight civilians, one Washington Metro police officer and one base officer, D.C. Metro Police said. According to the Associated Press, six people were killed. It’s unclear if that figure includes the gunman.
—
Via: CBS:
The U.S. Navy says one person is injured after a shooting at a Navy building in Washington.
Police and emergency crews gathered Monday morning outside the heavily-guarded Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters building, where the shooting was reported.
The Navy says three shots were fired and that that about 3,000 people work in the building. People inside the building have been directed to stay in place.
CBS affiliate WUSA in Washington, D.C., reports there were multiple shootings.
In a press release, the Navy said the shooting happened at approximately 8:30 a.m. ET.
Naval Sea Systems Command is the largest of the Navy’s five system commands and accounts for a quarter of the Navy’s entire budget.
It builds, buys and maintains the Navy’s ships and submarines and their combat systems.
Teach People About Food Atrocities with an App?
September 16th, 2013Via: Chipotle Mexican Grill – Scarecrow The Game:
Related: The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation
Research Credit: ottilie
Israeli Settlers Torch Hebron Family’s Property for Eighth Time
September 16th, 2013Via: International Solidarity Movement:
On Sunday, July 28, Israeli settlers severely burned land belonging to Hani Abu Haikel and his family in Hebron. Occupation soldiers, though at first trying to help stop the fire, ended up blocking the road so that Palestinian firefighters were delayed in reaching the scene. Several very old olive trees were destroyed in the fire which swept over immense swathes of land very quickly. In the video below, Hani Abu Haikel speaks about the incident and how Israeli settlers, soldiers and police work together to pressure Palestinian families to leave the Israeli-controlled H2 district of occupied Hebron.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
No Child Left Untableted
September 16th, 2013A division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is supplying tablet computers and curricula to students in the U.S.
In other words, the world’s most diabolical propagandist is receiving public money (Department of Education’s Race to the Top program—no joke) to provide screen based education to thousands of students in the U.S. This could expand to millions of students in the near future.
The Slashdot post on this contains many related and disturbing links.
Via: New York Times Magazine:
One afternoon, we watched a half-dozen students from nearby schools eat chips and test games on Amplify tablets. The raptly tender way they touched, pinched and stroked the screens awoke in me an urge to yank the gadgets and junk food out of their hands and lead them to a library or a good climbing tree.
