As you read that word, did you think of someone taking control of your computer, getting into your online life, draining your bank account, & countless other endgame scenarios? You are not alone. The original meaning of the word hacker, before the media turned it into a pejorative, is “A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary”. This site is a bountiful example of all the hacks going on in tech-world that you’ll hear about in the next 2-5 years, while, in stark contrast, this article uses the same word to terrify, without giving any examples or evidence.
Romney-Biden?
The Washington Examiner’s Phlip Klien writes about a wild possibility where Romney could be the next President with Joe Biden as his Vice-President.
IgNobel
The Noble Peace Prize has, to my small mind, lost its once hallowed position as an award. Consider this: Barack Obama won it four years ago, apparently as an incentive to get the world together, after the havoc that his predecessor wreaked across the world. The Nobel Committee has publicly declared its regret for not awarding it to Mohandas Gandhi. And this year, despite the economic strife playing out in Europe, the European Union has been awarded the Prize, inviting derision rather than applause.
Choice quotes: “This goes to show that the Norwegians really do have a sense of humour. The EU may be getting the booby prize for peace because it sure hasn’t created prosperity. The EU has created poverty and unemployment for millions.” – Nigel Farage, UKIP
“The Nobel peace prize was devalued when it was given to newly elected Barack Obama. By giving the prize to the EU, the Nobel committee has undermined the excellent work of the other deserving winners of this prize. Twenty years ago this prize would have been sycophantic but maybe more justified. Today, it is downright out of touch.” – Martin Callanan, the Tories’ leader in the European parliament.
They seem to award the peace prize to those they are hoping to nudge in the right direction these days. All the EU leaders are now going to have to make nice speeches about how cooperative they are all going to be. – a comment on a newspaper article
An Interview with the inventor of the Internet
A walk through the mind of the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Megacities
Humankind’s fascination with rapid growth, nay, eternal growth is an accepted tenet, to the extent that we don’t even think twice about it. But what about the impact it has on how we live? The world recently passed a milestone (or is that a millstone?) – more people live in urban areas than in the countryside. This report explores the health challenges that megacities pose. Also check out this picture of how many megacities there are in the world
How to Create Time
Most of us struggle with time. There are far too many things to do than there are hours in the day to do them. There are millions of helpful tips, & here’s another to add to the heap – how to create time.
Food
While technology & politics are two very common themes in these links, an imbalanced intake can cause serious repercussions. To improve the diet, I’ll be sharing a few links in the next few days, some that you may find rather disconcerting, maybe even shocking. Not food porn (the stuff that seems to be fascinating to most people, clicking pictures of “great-looking” meals), but the actual “industry” that food production has become. Begin with watching a documentary called “Food Inc“. What are you going to do about what you eat?
Interaction
In less than a decade (for those of us old enough to remember), the way we interact with computing devices has been revolutionized. Forget the mouse & keyboard, touch-screens no longer have the “wow” factor to most of us, pinching our mobile/tablet screens not unlike pinching ourselves when touch-screens first came around. What does the future look like?
Investigative Journalism
ProPublica “is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest… by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.” The effort led by this group to make public (called “Free the Files“) the amount of behind-the-scenes lobbying money that is spent by non-profit groups (called super-PAC’s) on TV advertisements to prop up their candidates, is entirely voluntary. You may be surprised with some of the findings (25% of the files reveal an astounding $264m in TV ad spending, with the Obama camp buying the biggest share so far!)
Protectionism
The US industry loves to dictate terms to the rest of the world, through its ‘legal’ department, also known as the US Congress. Now that overseas manufacturing (a beast of the US industry’s own making) has beaten them at their own game, they want to change the rules. A recent example: US has slapped higher tariffs on Chinese manufacturers of solar cells (250%). Another example: US agriculture is one of the most subsidized in the world (the recipients of these subsidies being large companies that operate farms, yet they want ‘developing’ countries to stop protecting their food industry.