‘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” sound like a sexy thing!? “it’s not my second job, it’s my mistress occupation.” Next, we’ll just start saying bipolar people have a side personality.
And WTF has happened to our culture when we just take it as fact that everyone needs to have multiple jobs and work as a cab driver and rent out every square inch of space in their apartment and be a task rabbit gopher who waits in line for tickets when they’re not walking dogs or temping and we all just chalk it up to “progress”??? In the old days, this meant your life was falling apart. Now it just means you’re part of “the sharing economy.”
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 information under that authority with little oversight, transparency, or concern for privacy—share the raw streams of communications it intercepts directly with agencies including the FBI, the DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security, according to a report today by the New York Times.
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 success at work.
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 areas of the brain to stimulate activity in regions only a few cubic millimeters in size. This would allow them to target very specific areas of the brain with great accuracy and without inflicting damage to its surroundings. A prototype of this device is currently being worked upon to better the ability and potential of soldiers.
Via: Inverse:
Facebook has some big plans for the future of social networking. A series of job postings discovered Thursday suggest the company wants to use non-invasive techniques to measure users’ brain waves, with artificial intelligence decoding the data. The listings are all for the company’s Building 8 lab, a secretive organization headed by the former head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
One listing seeks a brain-computer interface engineer for a two-year project in the lab focused on advanced brain technologies. The candidate will be responsible for the “application of machine learning methods, including encoding and decoding models, to neuroimaging and electrophysiological data.” In other words, Facebook wants to apply artificial intelligence to brain scan data.
Another listing, for a neural imaging engineer, sheds some light on how Facebook might actually scan people’s brains. The company wants someone to design methods based around “optical, RF, ultrasound, or other entirely non-invasive approaches.”
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 report, which outlines one possible framework for regulation.
“A growing number of areas of our daily lives are increasingly affected by robotics,” said the report’s author, Luxembourgish MEP Mady Delvaux. “In order to address this reality and to ensure that robots are and will remain in the service of humans, we urgently need to create a robust European legal framework”.
The proposed legal status for robots would be analogous to corporate personhood, which allows firms to take part in legal cases both as the plaintiff and respondent. “It is similar to what we now have for companies, but it is not for tomorrow,” said Delvaux. “What we need now is to create a legal framework for the robots that are currently on the market or will become available over the next 10 to 15 years.”
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 you see your doctor.
Big Brother doesn’t even need to be watching with his own eyes.
There is an entire network — the internet inside China’s Great Firewall — designed to gather the information. And there’s an industry of private and state-owned high-tech enterprises serving it.
“You could go so far as to make the argument that social media and digital technology are actually supporting the regime,” says Ronald Deibert, the director of The Citizen Lab, a group of researchers at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. They study how information technology affects human and personal rights around the world.
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 people for living like bums. I’ve done it. It can be a good tactical move. What I’m curious about is how, between the early 2000s and now, living like a bum became something for cool kids to do?
Well paying jobs are gone and not coming back. It’s getting more expensive to survive. Collapse. Etc.
Have we moved beyond calling it what it is?
I was talking about this PodShare thing with my wife, and how I found it inexplicable that young people could possibly like this. She theorized that it might have something to do with Facebook. They’re so used to disgorging such ridiculous amounts of personal information over social media that living in a place with no privacy, and Bob farting in the next bunk over, might seem normal to them.
I don’t know.
Anyway, behold…
Via: Kirsten Dirksen:
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 mechanics of an ancient whirligig (or buzzer toy; 3,300 bc). The paperfuge achieves speeds of 125,000?r.p.m. (and equivalent centrifugal forces of 30,000?g), with theoretical limits predicting 1,000,000?r.p.m. We demonstrate that the paperfuge can separate pure plasma from whole blood in less than 1.5?min, and isolate malaria parasites in 15?min. We also show that paperfuge-like centrifugal microfluidic devices can be made of polydimethylsiloxane, plastic and 3D-printed polymeric materials. Ultracheap, power-free centrifuges should open up opportunities for point-of-care diagnostics in resource-poor settings and for applications in science education and field ecology.
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 in Taiwan’s territorial waters but entered its air defense identification zone in the southwest, Taiwan’s defense ministry said.
As a result, Taiwan scrambled jets and navy ships to “surveil and control” the passage of the Chinese ships north through the body of water separating Taiwan and China, Taiwan defense ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi said.
Taiwan military aircraft and ships have been deployed to follow the carrier group, which is sailing up the west side of the median line of the strait, he said.
Bitcoin Slides as China’s Central Bank Launches Checks on Exchanges
January 11th, 2017Via: Reuters:
China’s central bank launched spot checks on leading bitcoin exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai, ratcheting up pressure on potential capital outflows and knocking the price of the cryptocurrency down more than 12 percent against the dollar.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said its probe of bitcoin exchanges BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin was to look into a range of possible rule violations, including market manipulation, money laundering and unauthorized financing. It did not say if any violations had been found.
Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to stem capital outflows and relieve pressure on the yuan.
