Character Amnesia
August 26th, 2010Via: AFP:
Like every Chinese child, Li Hanwei spent her schooldays memorising thousands of the intricate characters that make up the Chinese writing system.
Yet aged just 21 and now a university student in Hong Kong, Li already finds that when she picks up a pen to write, the characters for words as simple as “embarrassed” have slipped from her mind.
“I can remember the shape, but I can’t remember the strokes that you need to write it,” she says. “It’s a bit of a problem.”
Surveys indicate the phenomenon, dubbed “character amnesia”, is widespread across China, causing young Chinese to fear for the future of their ancient writing system.
Young Japanese people also report the problem, which is caused by the constant use of computers and mobile phones with alphabet-based input systems.
There is even a Chinese word for it: “tibiwangzi”, or “take pen, forget character”.
A poll commissioned by the China Youth Daily in April found that 83 percent of the 2,072 respondents admitted having problems writing characters.
As a result, Li says that she has become almost dependent on her phone.
“When I can’t remember, I will take out my cellphone and find it (the character) and then copy it down,” she says.
Zeng Ming, 22, from the southern Guangdong province, says: “I think it’s a young people’s problem, or at least a computer users’ problem.”
One notoriously forgettable character, Zeng says, is used in the word Tao Tie — a legendary Chinese monster that was so greedy it ate itself.
Still used as a byword for gluttony, the Tao Tie is one of many ancient Chinese concepts embedded in the language.
“It’s like you?re forgetting your culture,” Zeng says.
Character amnesia happens because most Chinese people use electronic input systems based on pinyin, which translates Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet.
The user enters each word using pinyin, and the device offers a menu of characters that match. So users must recognise the character, but they don’t need to be able to write it.
In Japan, where three writing systems are combined into one, mobiles and computers use the simpler hiragana and katakana scripts for inputting — meaning users may forget the kanji, a third strand of Japanese writing similar to Chinese characters.
“We rely too much on the conversion function on our phones and PCs,” said Ayumi Kawamoto, 23, shopping in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district.
“I’ve mostly forgotten characters I learned in middle and high school and I tend to forget the characters I only occasionally use.”
Computers that Read Minds Are Being Developed by Intel
August 26th, 2010This is from, Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart, published in 1978 (look around online and you can find it for substantially less than the used copies are going for on Amazon *wink*):
In 1975 a primitive “mind-reading machine” was tested at the Stanford Research Institute. The machine is a computer which can recognize a limited amount of words by monitoring a person’s silent thoughts. This technique relies upon the discovery that brain wave tracings taken with an electroencephalograph (EEG) show distinctive patterns that correlate with individual words—whether the words are spoken aloud or merely subvocalized (thought of).
The computer initially used audio equipment to listen to the words the subject spoke. (At first the vocabulary was limited to “up,” “down,” “left,” and “right.”) At the same time the computer heard the words, it monitored the EEG impulses coming from electrodes pasted to the subject’s head and responded by turning a camera in the direction indicated. After a few repetitions of the procedure, the computer’s hearing was turned off and it responded solely to the EEG “thoughts.” It moved a television camera in the directions ordered by the subject’s thoughts alone!
This “mind-reading machine” was the creation of psychologist Lawrence Pinneo and computer experts Daniel
Wolf and David Hall. Their stated goal was eventually to put a highly skilled computer programmer into direct communication with the computer. Their research indicated that a nonsymbolic language—brain-wave patterns—did exist. By teaching computers this language, the timeconsuming practice of speaking or writing computer instructions could be abandoned. Faster programming would result in an information explosion whose effects could cause a transformation of our civilization unlike anything that has happened since the Industrial Revolution.Many beneficial effects of the Stanford “mind-reading machine” may eventually accrue. Physically handicapped people may be able to use mini-computers to interpret signals from their environment and compensate for the loss of some bodily functions. The deaf may be able to hear; the blind to see; the paralyzed to walk.
Military applications of a “mind-reading machine” will someday allow faster computer input and output of information, remote control of war machines, and even the creation of animal or human robots to do the bidding of the military.
And now…
Via: Telegraph:
New technology could allow people to dictate letters and search the internet simply by thinking, according to researchers at Intel who are behind the project.
Unlike current brain-controlled computers, which require users to imagine making physical movements to control a cursor on a screen, the new technology will be capable of directly interpreting words as they are thought.
Intel’s scientists are creating detailed maps of the activity in the brain for individual words which can then be matched against the brain activity of someone using the computer, allowing the machine to determine the word they are thinking.
Mexican Military Finds 72 Bodies At Ranch
August 26th, 2010Via: NPR:
Mexican marines uncovered 72 bodies in what they say could be the largest mass grave ever discovered in the country’s deadly drug war.
The marines were manning a roadblock in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas on Tuesday when a man who’d been shot asked for medical help. They said the man told them about a nearby ranch that served as a base for one of the drug gangs. As the marines attempted to investigate, a firefight broke out. One soldier and three alleged cartel gunmen were killed.
After the gunfight, the marines found the bodies of 58 men and 14 women at the remote ranch about 90 miles south of the Texas border.
Navy Vice Adm. Jose Luis Vergara said the wounded survivor reported that gunmen who identified themselves as Zetas kidnapped him and other migrants and took them to the ranch in San Fernando. Vergara said Wednesday that investigators believe the migrants were from Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras.
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions
August 26th, 2010Thank you.
Eileen $80
DR NZ$50
MS CA$25
The U.S. Government Can Attach GPS Transmitter to Your Vehicle, Track Your Movement; No Warrant Necessary
August 26th, 2010Absolute maniac fascism.
Via: Time:
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.
It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.
…
The court went on to make a second terrible decision about privacy: that once a GPS device has been planted, the government is free to use it to track people without getting a warrant. There is a major battle under way in the federal and state courts over this issue, and the stakes are high. After all, if government agents can track people with secretly planted GPS devices virtually anytime they want, without having to go to a court for a warrant, we are one step closer to a classic police state — with technology taking on the role of the KGB or the East German Stasi.
U.S. Scans Afghan Inmates for Biometric Database
August 25th, 2010Via: Wired:
Every detainee who comes into Parwan leaves basic information with the Detainee Services Branch during in-processing: Name; father’s name; residence. A mark of any identifying scars, marks or tattoos. Residence of record. After a shower and a medical exam, the DSB scans their irises and collects prints from all of their fingers, rolling their thumbs for a 360-degree view. Its cameras snap five photographs of every detainee’s face. All of this information goes into a military database called the Automated Biometric Information System.
Troops in the field can access the system through a set of portable consoles that the DSB has on hand. The Biometrics Automated Toolset, or BAT, allows troops who detain insurgents on the battlefield to get a quick biometric identification of who they’ve captured, all through talking to the database. One clunky component of it, the Handheld Interagency Identity Detection System (HIIDE), which looks like a big black FunSaver, takes pictures of a captive’s irises, facial features and fingerprints. BATS and HIIDE were used in Iraq, where counterinsurgents like David Kilcullen praised the devices for allowing troops to quickly and positively identify known insurgents during the surge.
WikiLeaks Release: CIA Red Cell Special Memorandum – What If Foreigners See the United States as an ‘Exporter of Terrorism’
August 25th, 2010This document is ridiculous.
The CIA created al-Qaeda (1, 2, 3). Now, WikiLeaks reveals an allegedly leaked SECRET CIA document that perpetuates the boneheaded, mainstream al-Qaeda legend. The cave people are recruiting home grown American terrorists, don’tchaknow…
Does CIA’s “Red Cell” know about OPERATION CYCLONE? Curiously, that, uh, unfortunate business isn’t mentioned in the big leak below.
The document states, “This report examines the implications of what it would mean for the US to be seen increasingly as an incubator and ‘exporter of terrorism.'” However, it doesn’t go on to mention the U.S. state sponsored terrorist activities of the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG):
Specifically, the plan “recommends the creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception. For example, the Pentagon and CIA would work together to increase human intelligence (HUMINT) forward/operational presence and to deploy new clandestine technical capabilities.” The purpose of P2OG would be in “‘stimulating reactions’ among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction, meaning it would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing them to ‘quick-response’ attacks by US forces.”[2] In other words, commit terror to incite terror, in order to react to terror.
See also: Two British SAS Soldiers Dressed as Arabs, Shoot at Iraqi Police.
Look into the CIA-ISI-al-Qaeda nexus and P2OG before you move on to the PSYOP payload from the CIA below.
Via: WikiLeaks:
This CIA “Red Cell” report from February 2, 2010, looks at what will happen if it is internationally understood that the United States is an exporter of terrorism; ‘Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin. This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for US citizens.’ The report looks at a number cases of US exported terrorism, including attacks by US based or ?nanced Jewish, Muslim and Irish-nationalism terrorists. It concludes that foreign perceptions of the US as an “Exporter of Terrorism” together with US double standards in international law, may lead to noncooperation in renditions (including the arrest of CIA officers) and the decision to not share terrorism related intelligence with the United States.
Keep in Mind: WikiLeaks Founder, “Constantly Annoyed that People Are Distracted by False Conspiracies Such as 9/11?
New Home Sales at Record Low in July
August 25th, 2010Via: Reuters:
New U.S. single-family home sales unexpectedly fell in July to set their slowest pace on record while prices were the lowest in more than 6-1/2 years.
Morgan Stanley Says Government Defaults Inevitable
August 25th, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
Investors will face defaults on government bonds given the burden of aging populations and the difficulty of securing more tax revenue, according to Morgan Stanley.
“Governments will impose a loss on some of their stakeholders,” Arnaud Mares, an executive director at Morgan Stanley in London, wrote in a research report today. “The question is not whether they will renege on their promises, but rather upon which of their promises they will renege, and what form this default will take.” The sovereign-debt crisis is global “and it is not over,” the report said.
Borrowing costs for so-called peripheral euro-region nations such as Greece and Ireland surged today, resuming their ascent on concern that governments won’t be able to narrow their budget deficits. Standard & Poor’s downgraded Ireland’s credit rating yesterday on concern about the rising costs to support nationalized banks.
Mares said debt as a percentage of gross domestic product is a false indicator of an economy’s health given it doesn’t reflect governments’ available revenue and is “backward- looking.” While the U.S. government’s debt is 53 percent of GDP, one of the lowest ratios among developed nations, its debt as a percentage of revenue is 358 percent, one of the highest, the report said. Conversely, Italy has one of the highest debt- to-GDP ratios, at 116 percent, yet has a debt-to-revenue ratio of 188, Mares said.
U.S. Military’s Top Secret X-37B Shuttle ‘Disappears’ for Two Weeks, Changes Orbit
August 25th, 2010Via: news.com.au:
AMATEUR astronomers are enjoying a cat-and-mouse game with the US military in keeping track of its secret space plane, the X-37B.
The X-37B was launched in April amid much publicity, but scant detail about its true use.
Built by Boeing’s Phantom Works division, the X-37B program was originally headed by NASA.
It was later turned over to the Pentagon’s research and development arm and then to a secretive Air Force unit.
Only a very select few in the US military know what it’s for, but observers on Earth believe they’re putting together the puzzle piece by piece.
Several sources claim quote arms control advocates who say it’s clearly the beginning of the “weaponisation of space”.
In May, avid skywatcher Ted Molczan studied the X-37B’s orbit from his home in Toronto and said its behaviour suggested it was testing sensors for a range of new spy satellites.
Since then, the X-37B been arguably the least-secret secret project on the planet, as fellow backyard astronomers joined in the scrutiny, aided by how-to video guides and apps such as the Simple Satellite Tracker.
That is, they did until July 29, when the shuttle disappeared, causing all kinds of consternation and conspiracy theories about its fate.
It took amateur skywatcher Greg Roberts of Cape Town, South Africa, who noticed that it failed to appear as scheduled above his base on August 14, another five days to find it.
When he did, he noticed it was some 30km higher and on a different trajectory, according to calculations from other colleagues in Rome and Oklahoma.
The X-37B’s new track takes it on a six-day orbit of the Earth, as opposed to its original four-day orbit.
Mr Molczan believes this may be another small piece to the puzzle about what role the shuttle may play in US military operations.
“This small change of orbit may have been a test of OTV-1’s manoeuvring system, or a requirement of whatever payload may be aboard, or both,” he said in a release paper about Roberts’ X-37B find.
The shuttle has been in orbit now for 124 days. It uses a solar array once in space for power, which theoretically will allow it to stay airborne for up to 270 days.
But the additional presence of large fuel tanks and a rocket motor allows it to change orbit, as evidenced by the latest sudden change of course.
According to the The Register, this is a key component of its surveillance-related capabilities, along with the fact it can land in a much more versatile fashion than other shuttles.
Using its “cross-range” wings, it can duck off elsewhere once its entered the Earth’s atmosphere rather than follow its oribital track to a pre-specified landing pad.
This means the X-37B can get up and down from space in one orbit, as its wings allow it to compensate for the slight turn in the Earth and bend it back to its original launch pad.
The Register says that capability would make it difficult to track, as it would only pass over a region once.
Theoretically, it could drop a spy satellite on one run, then pick it up on the next without the satellite having ever been detected.
Other observers claim the X-37B can carry a payload roughly the size of a medium-sized truck bed, or enough to hold a spy satellite.
According to the Pentagon, a second X-37B is under construction, so expect the guessing game to continue for some time about what the US military is really up to in space.
Until now, all that remains known about the X-37B is that is it has at least one trick – the ability to hide from skywatchers for two weeks.
