Worse Off Than a Medieval Peasant?
September 2nd, 2013Via: Reuters:
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.
As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.
U.S. Spy Agencies Mounted 231 Offensive Cyber-Operations in 2011
September 1st, 2013Via: Washington Post:
U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Washington Post.
That disclosure, in a classified intelligence budget provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, provides new evidence that the Obama administration’s growing ranks of cyberwarriors infiltrate and disrupt foreign computer networks.
Additionally, under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, U.S. computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious U.S. control. Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed “covert implants,” sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions.
The documents provided by Snowden and interviews with former U.S. officials describe a campaign of computer intrusions that is far broader and more aggressive than previously understood. The Obama administration treats all such cyber-operations as clandestine and declines to acknowledge them.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
July and August Earnings
September 1st, 2013Thanks to everyone who sent contributions and conducted business via Cryptogon’s affiliate links in July and August.
In July, earnings totaled $882.52.
Amazon $462.32
Amazon GBP9.40
Amazon.ca CA$4.29
Pookie $75
AM $50
MW $25
NM CA$20
DS $30
CM $25
BlueHost $90
Eileen $87.5
In August, earnings totaled, $1141.96.
Amazon $788.91
Pookie $75
DM $15
MS $20
JM $50
CS GBP10
BlueHost $90
Eileen $87.5
We missed the $1000 goal for July, but beat it in August. Add both months together and divide by two and we wind up with $1012.24 per month over the period. As you can see on the U.S. Amazon total for August, there was a wildcard situation. The person responsible for a very large purchase wrote in to let me know about it, and it’s because of that one off deal that I’m not missing the earnings goal two months in a row…
Somehow, we’re barely making it month to month. Barely. Thanks again to all of you helping to keep the lights on here.
There has been a disturbing development with regard to amazon.de.
I have a boilerplate email from amazon.de that says my affiliate account was terminated due to (unspecified) violations of paragraph 14 of the terms and conditions (English):
14. Term and Termination
The term of this Operating Agreement will begin upon our acceptance of your Programme application and will end when terminated by either you or us. Either you or we may terminate this Agreement at any time, with or without cause, by giving the other party at least 7 days’ written notice of termination.
In addition, we may terminate this Operating Agreement immediately at any time upon written notice to you for Cause. “Cause” means any of the following: (a) you are in material breach of this Operating Agreement or you are in minor breach of this Operating Agreement but you do not remedy it within 7 days; (b) we believe that we may face potential claims or liability in connection with your participation in the Programme; (c) we believe that our brand or reputation may be tarnished by you or in connection with your participation in the Programme; (d) we believe that we are or may become subject to tax collection requirements in connection with this Operating Agreement or the activities performed by either party under this Operating Agreement; or (e) we have terminated the Programme as we generally make it available to participants. For the avoidance of doubt and without limitation for purposes of the foregoing subsection (a) any violation of Section 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 or 13 will be deemed a material breach of this Operating Agreement.
In other words, “At our whim, we terminated your affiliate account.”
I appreciate the support that I have received over the years from readers in Germany who have used the amazon.de affiliate links on Cryptogon.
Unfortunately, I am in a position where the existence of Cryptogon is dependent on Amazon.com (U.S.) affiliate commissions. (This has actually been the case for years.) If they also pull my U.S. account, Cryptogon is finished.
Will Robots Replace Rent-a-Cops?
August 31st, 2013Via: Motherboard:
Has a fear of robotics ever kept anyone from robbing banks? I’m not talking about the surveillance systems, laser-armed tripwires, noisy alarms, or automated locks on the doors. I’m talking about actual robots—an evolution of the ROOMBA Vacuum cleaner, but with legs, not cute, and definitely not something you want to rob.
Now, an EU-funded, £7.2 million ($11 million USD) collaborative project, called Strands, is underway in England to develop 4D, artificial intelligence for security and care applications. It aims to produce intelligent robo-sentinels that can patrol areas, and learn to detect abnormalities in human behavior. Could their project eventually replace security guards with robots? It looks possible.
Arbitrage on Equities in Millisecond Time Frames
August 30th, 2013The “national best bid and offer” prices—Aren’t.
Via: Fortune:
Here’s how Hendershott’s latency-arbitrage strategy worked: Redline allowed him to use its “direct market access” — cables that run directly from exchange servers to its own. Redline’s server was co-located with that of BATS Exchange so that the “latency” on information and orders coming from BATS was cut down to barely one thousandth of a second. As a result, some of the quotes on public feeds such as the crucial “national best bid and offer” feed were a few milliseconds behind those Hendershott could see on his direct link with the exchanges. With a half-decent trading algorithm, Hendershott would have had ample time to buy Apple at a stale price with a guarantee that he could sell at a profit. Every couple of seconds. All day. Risk on the trades: zero.
How Poverty Taxes the Brain
August 30th, 2013Via: The Atlantic Cities:
Human mental bandwidth is finite. You’ve probably experienced this before (though maybe not in those terms): When you’re lost in concentration trying to solve a problem like a broken computer, you’re more likely to neglect other tasks, things like remembering to take the dog for a walk, or picking your kid up from school. This is why people who use cell phones behind the wheel actually perform worse as drivers. It’s why air traffic controllers focused on averting a mid-air collision are less likely to pay attention to other planes in the sky.
We only have so much cognitive capacity to spread around. It’s a scarce resource.
This understanding of the brain’s bandwidth could fundamentally change the way we think about poverty. Researchers publishing some groundbreaking findings today in the journal Science have concluded that poverty imposes such a massive cognitive load on the poor that they have little bandwidth left over to do many of the things that might lift them out of poverty – like go to night school, or search for a new job, or even remember to pay bills on time.
In a series of experiments run by researchers at Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Warwick, low-income people who were primed to think about financial problems performed poorly on a series of cognition tests, saddled with a mental load that was the equivalent of losing an entire night’s sleep. Put another way, the condition of poverty imposed a mental burden akin to losing 13 IQ points, or comparable to the cognitive difference that’s been observed between chronic alcoholics and normal adults.
The finding further undercuts the theory that poor people, through inherent weakness, are responsible for their own poverty – or that they ought to be able to lift themselves out of it with enough effort. This research suggests that the reality of poverty actually makes it harder to execute fundamental life skills. Being poor means, as the authors write, “coping with not just a shortfall of money, but also with a concurrent shortfall of cognitive resources.”
This explains, for example, why poor people who aren’t good with money might also struggle to be good parents. The two problems aren’t unconnected.
Homeschooling in Germany: Children Seized in Shocking Raid
August 30th, 2013Via: HSLDA:
At 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, August 29, 2013, in what has been called a “brutal and vicious act,” a team of 20 social workers, police officers, and special agents stormed a homeschooling family’s residence near Darmstadt, Germany, forcibly removing all four of the family’s children (ages 7-14). The sole grounds for removal were that the parents, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, continued to homeschool their children in defiance of a German ban on home education.
The children were taken to unknown locations. Officials ominously promised the parents that they would not be seeing their children “anytime soon.”
HSLDA obtained and translated the court documents that authorized this use of force to seize the children. The only legal grounds for removal were the family’s continuation of homeschooling their children. The papers contain no other allegations of abuse or neglect. Moreover, Germany has not even alleged educational neglect for failing to provide an adequate education. The law ignores the educational progress of the child; attendance—and not learning—is the object of the German law.
Judge Koenig, a Darmstadt family court judge, signed the order on August 28 authorizing the immediate seizure of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich’s children. Citing the parents’ failure to cooperate “with the authorities to send the children to school,” the judge also authorized the use of force “against the children” if necessary, reasoning that such force might be required because the children had “adopted the parents’ opinions” regarding homeschooling and that “no cooperation could be expected” from either the parents or the children.
…
Authorities even took the children’s passports, making it impossible for the family to escape—a violation of a number of human rights guaranteed to them by the European Convention of Human Rights, said HSLDA Chairman and Founder Michael Farris.
Black Budget: $52.6 Billion
August 30th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses the money or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.
Shocker: Israel One of the Top Spying Threats Facing U.S. Intelligence Services
August 30th, 2013The U.S. will probably punish Israel by giving it another $115 billion.
Via: The Hill:
The Obama administration views Israel as one of the top spying threats facing its intelligence services, leaked documents reveal.
A secret budget request obtained by The Washington Post from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden lumps Israel alongside U.S. foes Iran and Cuba as “key targets” for U.S. counterintelligence efforts. The document suggests Israel does not believe U.S. assurances that its interests are aligned with Israel’s on crucial issues such as Iran and peace talks with the Palestinians.
“To further safeguard our classified networks, we continue to strengthen insider threat detection capabilities across the Community,” reads the FY 2013 congressional budget justification for intelligence programs. “In addition, we are investing in target surveillance and offensive CI [counterintelligence] against key targets, such as China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba.”
People Leaving Ireland at Fastest Rate Since 1980s
August 30th, 2013Via: Financial Times:
Ireland’s rate of emigration is continuing to increase and at one stage one person was leaving the country to live abroad every six minutes – the highest number since modern records began in the late 1980s.
New figures published on Thursday show 397,500 people have emigrated since Ireland’s financial crisis began in 2008, with most travelling to the UK, Australia and Canada in search of work.
During the same period 277,400 people have returned or moved to Ireland, giving a net outward migration figure of 120,100. In a 12-month period from April last year, 10 people left every hour.
