January 2011
16 posts
The Associated Press: Officials: US better at... →
techspotlight:
U.S. military and law enforcement officials say the government has made significant strides in figuring out who is responsible for complex cyber attacks, a fundamental but elusive first step to determine whether the U.S. should strike back, whom to strike, and how hard. U.S. authorities are using a mix of high-tech forensics and a greater emphasis on spying within the online...
The Final Days of Favre →
There may have been a point where Brett Favre played football because he loved it. But he kept playing it long after it made sense, because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. He never bothered to create another identity. The fact that others conspired to bestow this shallowness with meaning and virtue isn’t Brett Favre’s fault. I use my one question here to ask him about “life after...
Opium Wars →
The grim axiom defining today’s Afghanistan, 85 percent of whose citizens are farmers, is that its economy relies on two dueling revenue streams. One flows from Western aid, in the hopes that the country will renounce the Taliban. The other flows from opium trafficking supported by the Taliban, which use the proceeds to fund attacks on Western troops. Only recently has the Afghan government...
Syyn Labs' Chief East Coast Geek Builds Scrappy... →
Syyn’s usual performances on film are, by nature, misleading. It’s easy to mistake the single shot of continuous action in Syyn’s Google, Disney and OK Go machines as the norm. In fact, the OK Go device required 85 takes before the entire series of interactions made it to the end without failing. A rolling billiard ball would miss its target. A chair wouldn’t tilt over. Whatever the trigger, it...
The Growing Space Rivalry Between China and India →
itsfullofstars:
As per the words of the father of Indian space program, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai: “There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if...
It's Full of Stars: How Long Can a Human Live... →
itsfullofstars:
If you don’t try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your breath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have to watch out for when ascending, and you’ll have eardrum trouble if your Eustachian tubes are…
Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks →
So far, the WikiLeaks story has been represented as a struggle between WikiLeaks and the US empire: is the publishing of confidential US state documents an act in support of the freedom of information, of the people’s right to know, or is it a terrorist act that poses a threat to stable international relations? But what if this isn’t the real issue? What if the crucial ideological and political...
“Imagine it’s 1995: almost no one but Gordon Gekko and Zack Morris have...”
– The First Decade of the Future is Behind Us | Science Not Fiction | Discover Magazine (via arielwaldman)
The Challenge of Deciding Who to Feed →
The United Nations’ World Food Program tries to stop the poorest of the poor from going hungry. But its budget has dwindled during the crisis as donor countries focus on their own economic problems. Aid workers face the unpleasant task of deciding who gets food — and who doesn’t.
Social Animal →
We are living in the middle of a revolution in consciousness. Over the past few decades, geneticists, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and others have made great strides in understanding the inner working of the human mind. Far from being dryly materialistic, their work illuminates the rich underwater world where character is formed and wisdom grows. They are giving us a...
CollageWall →
chrisbowler:
This is a fantastic looking service for creating an artsy presentation of your photos. Upload and organize your photos on the online service, then they ship you everything needed to create the collage (includes your photos, a paper grid, painter’s tape, and pegs for the photos).
[ via Jorge Quinteros ]
Europol to Reveal Cybercrime Risk Level →
techspotlight:
With the internet expanding at an exponential rate and evolving in an organic way it is no surprise that the cyber criminals are matching, and often beating the security measures hastily jammed in place to protect it. One of the major issues at this time is the way that much of the net is moving to being coud based. If people’s data is floating around in the cloud, is there...
On the joy of jumping →
poptech:
In David Eagleman’s Sum, 40 tales about afterlife, he reshuffles and organizes all life’s experiences into a new order, grouping all like-moments together:
You spend two months driving the street in front of your house, seven months having sex. You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet. You take...
