Brave (web browser) - Wikipedia

Brave (web browser) - Wikipedia

https://www.brave.com/

f 2 tool for Wikipedia

f 2

whoCOLOR (alpha).

whoCOLOR creates an on-demand color-markup of the original authors of the text of any article on the (english) wikipedia.

whoVIS (alpha).

whoVIS is a graph visualization of editor disagreements in articles over time, based on the accurate authorship mining of WikiWho.

Automation and Technology Increase Living Standards

Automation and Technology Increase Living Standards

In particular, McAfee and Brynjolfsson worry about automation eliminating the jobs of unskilled and middle-skill employees. They agree technological progress creates opportunities for highly skilled employees who build and operate machines, but they fear that the economy will hold far fewer opportunities for less-skilled employees. As Brynjolfsson puts it:

There are lots of examples of routine, middle-skilled jobs that involve relatively structured tasks and those are the jobs that are being eliminated the fastest. Those kinds of jobs are easier for our friends in the artificial intelligence community to design robots to handle them.… [Technological advances are] always destroying jobs. But right now the pace is accelerating. It’s faster we think than ever before in history. So as a consequence, we are not creating jobs at the same pace that we need to.[15]

Labor market statistics do not support this concern. Productivity data show that the pace of automation has actually slowed in recent years. Over the past generation the earnings of less-skilled Americans have risen faster than the economy-wide average.

Slow Productivity Growth. Businesses do not appear to be automating human tasks at a faster rate than before. If they were, this would increase measured labor productivity growth. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates productivity by dividing U.S. economic output by the total hours worked in the economy. A substantial increase in the pace of automation would allow businesses to produce as many or more goods with fewer hours of human labor. This would appear in the labor statistics as faster productivity growth.

This has not happened. Chart 2 shows the year-over-year percent change in labor productivity for the non-farm business sector over the past four decades, as well as a four-year moving average that smooths annual fluctuations. Productivity growth increased noticeably in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. From 2003 onward, however, productivity growth trended downward. Average productivity jumped in 2009 as businesses going through layoffs tried to lay off their least productive employees. That surge immediately subsided. Since 2010, productivity has grown at an abnormally slow rate. In the most recent year of data, labor productivity actually fell 0.1 percent. Although employees are more productive now than in the past, overall productivity is increasing more slowly.

Concerns about rapidly accelerating computing power increasing productivity so much it reduces total employment are fears about a future possibility. Over the past decade, productivity growth has slowed even as computer power has increased exponentially.

The Earnings of Less-Skilled Employees Increase. Concerns about automation eliminating employment opportunities for less-skilled employees also do not show up in the data. Over the past generation their total compensation has increased rapidly.

The Congressional Budget Office measures total labor market compensation—cash wages, salaries, and non-cash benefits, such as health care and retirement contributions—for each quintile of the income distribution.[16] Chart 3 shows the percent growth in total inflation-adjusted labor compensation for non-elderly childless households between 1979 and 2011 (the most recent data available).[17]

Net Neutrality or Government Brutality? : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

Net Neutrality or Government Brutality? : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

Over the past six years or so, network neutrality, or “net neutrality,” has risen from an obscure techie buzz phrase to a bona fide political issue and rallying cry for some strange political bedfellows. The current debate comprises competing views on economics, regulation, free speech, property rights, and even the supposed rights of individuals and businesses to a certain Internet experience. Would a net-neutrality mandate protect the rights of some or merely trample the fundamental rights of others and stifle competition and innovation?
Much of the perplexity surrounding net neutrality stems from ambiguity and confusion over the very definition of the term. The concept concerns how information is transmitted over the Internet. Data are moved in “packets” through networks of computers and routers. Currently, these data are processed with little regard to what kind of information they are—be they important medical data, streaming video, or spam.
Generally speaking, net neutrality is the notion that all content, applications, and services should be treated the same by Internet service providers (ISPs). Net-neutrality proponents fear that network operators might someday discriminate against certain types of information by charging fees to particular content providers in exchange for guarantees of higher-quality service or by blocking some content completely.
Such a proposal may sound innocuous enough, but the problem is that the proliferation of things like streaming video and online gaming are taking up increasingly large amounts of bandwidth and are sensitive to delay. This Internet congestion can lead to the degradation of service for all Internet users. Slight delays may hardly be noticeable in e-mail or web-browser applications, but can be more serious for video-content providers or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which allows people to make phone calls over the Internet.
Then there is the question whether the government has any right to tell ISPs how to manage their own networks and pricing structures, which will be discussed in some detail below.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that net-neutrality advocates disagree over just how much control network operators should be allowed to maintain. Some believe that neutrality means data packets must be handled on a first-come-first-served basis without exception, while others would permit the existence of differing quality-of-service levels as long as there are no special fees (no price discrimination) for higher service levels. Still others would allow prioritization of data and differing quality levels (along with tiered pricing), provided that there were no exclusivity in service contracts. Or, in the words of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developer of the World Wide Web, “We pay for connection to the Net as though it were a cloud which magically delivers our packets. We may pay for a higher or a lower quality of service. We may pay for a service which has the characteristics of being good for video, or quality audio. But we each pay to connect to the Net, but no one can pay for exclusive access to me.”
Since the most restrictive definition is the one that is typically embodied in legislation and that raises the most serious issues, it is the one on which this article will focus.
The Birth of “Net Neutrality”
The idea of network neutrality originated during the late 1990s as some feared potential threats to the “end-to-end” nature of the Internet, although some trace the concept back to the age of the telegram, when Congress passed the Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860. The act subsidized a transcontinental telegraph line and stated that “messages received from any individual, company, or corporation, or from any telegraph lines connecting with this line at either of its termini, shall be impartially transmitted in the order of their reception, excepting that the dispatches of the government shall have priority.” The term “network neutrality” was coined by Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu in his 2002 paper, “Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination,” in which he promotes a “network anti-discrimination regime.”
There have been several efforts to pass net-neutrality laws at the federal and state levels, but they have thus far been rebuffed. That may change, however, particularly if Senator Barack Obama wins the presidential election in November. He has expressed support for net neutrality, dating back to a 2006 bill (S 2817). The prospect of imposing government regulation on what is essentially a free market might lead one to believe that Democrats are more likely to support net-neutrality mandates than Republicans (notwithstanding the fact that the GOP frequently acts in contradiction to its pro-market rhetoric), and, indeed, there is some truth to this.
Generally speaking, most members of the political left have tended to favor net-neutrality legislation and most on the right have tended to oppose it, but there are notable exceptions. Organizations like MoveOn.org, the American Civil Liberties Union, and a number of liberal bloggers have come out in favor of such legislation, for example, but former Clinton White House press secretary Mike McCurry is co-chairman of the Hands Off the Internet Coalition, which opposes it. On the other hand, most Republicans oppose net neutrality, but conservative groups such as the Christian Coalition and Gun Owners of America support it.
Even the most important innovators of the Internet are divided on the issue. Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol (IP) and vice president and “Chief Internet Evangelist” for Google, is for it. Bob Kahn, inventor of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which provides reliable delivery of a stream of bytes over the Internet, and David Farber, a computer science and public-policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University who is known as the “grandfather of the Internet,” are against it.
And then there are the corporate interests. Large web-content providers such as Google, Yahoo!, eBay, and YouTube support net-neutrality mandates because they fear the prospect of having to pay higher prices to ensure the quality of their content, while cable and telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Cox Cable oppose it because they feel they should have the freedom to operate their own networks and set their own prices without interference from the government.
In 2004 then-Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell outlined a set of nondiscrimination principles. Powell argued that the broadband industry should offer consumers freedom to access content, run applications, attach devices, and obtain service-plan information.
When AT&T and BellSouth merged in 2006, the FCC attached a net-neutrality provision as condition of its approval. Under the measure the company agreed “not to provide or to sell to Internet content, application, or service providers, including those affiliated with AT&T/BellSouth, any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth’s wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination.” AT&T agreed to the concession in order to break a 2–2 deadlock among the commissioners that had held up the merger for several months. The provision was narrowly tailored to AT&T, however, and included a 30-month expiration date. Moreover, current FCC chairman Kevin Martin and fellow Republican commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate warned that the measure “does not mean that the commission has adopted an additional Net neutrality principle. We continue to believe such a requirement is not necessary and may impede infrastructure deployment,” they wrote in a statement. Martin and Tate added, “Thus, although AT&T may make a voluntary business decision, it cannot dictate or bind government policy.”
Proposed Legislative “Solutions”
S 2817 was just one of many attempts to codify net-neutrality regulations in recent years. An attempt to attach a neutrality provision to the purportedly landmark 2006 telecommunications bill (S 2686) failed on an 11–11 committee vote, and S 2686 ended up failing in the Senate anyway. The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006 (HR 5252) contained neutrality provisions, which were stripped out before the bill ultimately died, as did the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006 (S 2360) and the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 (HR 5417). The Network Neutrality Act of 2006 (HR 5273) was defeated in committee. The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353), which would enforce the principles of the FCC’s AT&T–BellSouth merger deal on all broadband providers, is now pending, as are some older bills that have been reintroduced.
As with the neutrality debate in general, there are divisions over policy within the federal government. While Congress and perhaps the FCC seem to be moving toward increased government regulation, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opposed new regulation. As far back as 2002 the FTC noted the rapidly evolving nature of the high-speed Internet service market and argued that “broadband services should exist in a minimal regulatory environment that promotes investment and innovation in a competitive market.” More recently, a 2007 FTC report reiterated its position and asserted that since no “significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers” could be found, net-neutrality regulations “may well have adverse effects on consumer welfare, despite the good intentions of their proponents.”
The FTC’s conclusion is critical because one of the main justifications of net-neutrality laws is to prevent harm to consumers. That no harm has been found has led neutrality critics to dub the notion a “solution in search of a problem.”
To date, only a couple of cases of what could be called net-neutrality incidents have occurred. Madison River Communications blocked a web-based application when it prevented customers from using Vonage’s VoIP service. The FCC stepped in and ordered Madison River to stop the blocking and make a $15,000 payment to the federal government. In another case, America Online was accused of blocking e-mail to the website dearAOL.com, which was established to protest an AOL plan to charge users a higher price for a feature to block e-mail from unauthorized senders. AOL maintained that the blocking was unintentional and assured that access was restored after customers complained. No government involvement was necessary. Finally, there was an allegation that Comcast was blocking Internet traffic to certain peer-to-peer (file-sharing) websites that were consuming large amounts of bandwidth, but it was later revealed that Comcast was merely slowing down certain peer-to-peer uploads by reducing the number of simultaneous connections that users could have to the site.
Net-neutrality proponents contend that they want to use regulation to increase competition and innovation, but their remedies would have the opposite effect. The growth in demand for bandwidth-intensive applications, such as streaming video, multi-player online gaming, and telemedicine, will require vast capital investments. Broadband providers will not invest in such projects, however, if there is not a good chance they will be able to recoup their costs and turn a profit. This is not unlike how cable companies currently rely on richer customers paying for premium services so that they can invest in less-profitable ventures, such as providing infrastructure for services to rural areas. As Randolf J. May, president of the Free State Foundation, explained in testimony before the New York City Committee on Technology in Government on a proposed net-neutrality resolution,
If broadband providers are not allowed to differentiate their services because of regulatory straightjackets, their ability to compete in the marketplace will be compromised. Lacking the flexibility to find innovative new ways to respond to customer demand, they will lack incentives to invest in new network facilities and improve applications. This lack of new investment, in turn, will have the perverse effect of dampening competition among existing and potential broadband operators.
Net-neutrality advocates also tend to underestimate the amount of competition that already exists in the market for high-speed Internet services. There are multiple companies providing these services using multiple technologies, including wireline, cable, terrestrial wireless, and satellite. Wireless broadband services, in particular, have come to provide a strong source of competition. Recent FCC data show that wireless has gone from having no subscribers in the beginning of 2005 to 35 million subscribers and a 35 percent share of the market for high-speed lines by June 2007. Moreover, as of June 2006 there were two or more broadband providers in 92 percent of the nation’s zip codes, and four or more providers in 87 percent of the nation’s zip codes. With all of this competition, it simply would not be in the companies’ interests to degrade services to consumers because doing so would cause them to lose business to their more innovative rivals.
The costs of stifling competition and innovation through net-neutrality regulations would be significant. A May 2007 American Consumer Institute study estimated that regulation would cost consumers $69 billion over ten years. According to study author Stephen Pociask, “Despite proponents’ best intentions, net neutrality proposals would be a twofold problem for consumers. Innovations that require a guaranteed level of service won’t come to market, and consumers would have to pay more for the services they receive.”
The Usefulness of Price Discrimination
Price discrimination is another concern of neutrality advocates. Despite the negative connotation associated with the word “discrimination,” price discrimination is a common and efficient way of allocating scarce resources and satisfying consumer demand. Children and seniors get discounted ticket prices at movie theaters; people pay different prices for different seats at concerts and sporting events; and some toll roads charge different prices depending on the time of day and the resulting levels of traffic congestion. In response to an FCC Notice of Inquiry regarding broadband practices, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (of all things!) heralded the value of price discrimination in a September 2007 statement, noting the example of the U.S. Postal Service: “The U.S. Postal Service, for example, allows consumers to send packages with a variety of different delivery guarantees and speeds, from bulk mail to overnight delivery. These differentiated services respond to market demand and expand consumer choice.” The Department concluded, “Whether or not the same type of differentiated products and services will develop on the Internet should be determined by market forces, not regulatory intervention.”
In other words, the government should simply get out of the way and allow the market to work. Government should not try to pick winners and losers.
When neutrality proponents say that people have a right to “neutral” provision of information over the Internet, they are really saying that the public has some sort of right over the private property of the companies that provide the access to that information. Some have tried to justify this argument by claiming that the Internet was designed to be neutral, but it is the freedom from government restrictions that has encouraged innovation and allowed the Internet to flourish. Or as my Reason Foundation colleague Steven Titch has put it,
The legislated mandate for neutrality . . . is based on the supposition that neutrality was a founding doctrine of the Internet. That couldn’t be more wrong. The Internet and its commercial component, the World Wide Web, are what they are today due to the simple principle of free exchange through voluntary agreement. Engineering concepts such as “network neutrality” or meaningless slogans like “information should be free” had nothing to do with it.
Broadband providers have invested large sums of money in their networks and should be free to manage them as they see fit. Customers who feel their needs are not being met are free to switch to other providers. This freedom of contract and voluntary exchange are the cornerstones of a free-market economy. Supporters of net neutrality fear that without regulation, a relatively small number of companies will become the “gatekeepers” of the Internet, but the alternative is far worse: a monopolistic government gatekeeper whose incentives are to cater to political power, not consumer desires.
In addition to violating free-market ideals, net neutrality might also violate constitutional rights, specifically, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. As the Free State Foundation’s May explains,
[T]he de facto imposition of common carrier regulation through net neutrality mandates raises serious Fifth Amendment property rights issues under the Takings Clause. This is because the mandate to carry traffic that ISPs might otherwise choose not to carry, or to carry traffic at faster speeds than the service providers otherwise might prefer, or to refrain from charging more to those who impose greater capacity demands, is not costless. . . . Government mandates that impose such costs, but which, at the same time, restrict ISPs’ freedom to recover such costs, implicate the ISP’s property rights.
Net neutrality also brings up First Amendment concerns on both sides of the debate. Some grassroots groups, such as the Christian Coalition and Gun Owners of America, fear that broadband providers might someday decide to block access to their web content for ideological reasons. This, they argue, would constitute a violation of their free-speech rights.
This analysis is erroneous for a couple of reasons. First, the Constitution prohibits the government from restricting one’s speech, not other private parties. As Brian Costin of the Heartland Institute writes, “[F]ree speech rights for an individual or group end where another’s property rights begin.” Second, a government regulation such as net neutrality that forced a private party to provide access to forms of speech with which it disagrees would violate the free-speech rights of the broadband provider. As noted previously, ISPs have an economic incentive not to block access to content, but they would be within their rights to do so if they saw fit.
The Right Tool for the Job
While network-neutrality advocates claim to want to ensure fairness and competition, the government regulation they propose will result in anything but those things. In the free market, competition ensures that customers receive the services they demand. Government control, by contrast, ensures that they receive whatever services the politicians and bureaucrats in power at the time deem appropriate (not to mention the inevitable and endless litigation about who could offer what services when and for how much).
The concept of the “tiered” Internet is not something to be feared. On the contrary, it could be a means of enhancing services to broadband customers, providing revenue for ISPs to invest in accommodating increasing demand for bandwidth-intensive and delay-sensitive applications and making further improvements to data delivery, and of increasing fairness by ensuring that content providers responsible for the most Internet congestion pay the higher costs of assuring a high quality of service for Internet users. Choking off this potential revenue stream through net-neutrality mandates will only ensure that instead of an Internet with regular lanes and “fast lanes,” all consumers will be stuck in the slow lane.

I Can Destroy Your Reputation and Career in Two Minutes - Rachel Alexander - Page full

I Can Destroy Your Reputation and Career in Two Minutes - Rachel Alexander - Page full

There are even more disturbing ways cyber thugs are going after conservative activists. Donna Cruse, a vocal Tea Party activist, had one of these hateful people photoshop her Facebook page to make it look like she said something racist related to her credit union employer and how they give out loans. The screenshot was then posted publicly by Americans Against the Tea Party, and the credit union was contacted to complain about her.
The problem? They should have contacted the credit union first. The bank told the anonymous coward that she hadn’t been employed there since 2010! Her alleged comment makes no sense in 2014. Unfortunately, her current employer watched as the cyber storm occurred on the credit union’s site, and due to the frenzied public reaction to this hoax, she was immediately suspended and has been placed on indefinite, unpaid suspension. She is now receiving death threats. Her previous co-workers are afraid to associate with her, possibly out of fear for their jobs. Even more outrageous, Donna has many black friends - who I happened to notice in photos with her on her Facebook page - and last year, she shaved all her hair off her head to show her support for an ethnic friend who was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
Nevertheless, her current employer launched an investigation into her and found what they believed to be another Facebook profile of hers, but it was actually a dormant account of a leftist troll who simply changed the name and added a stolen photo, causing further investigation into her personally. In other words, Donna has become “the criminal” in the story. This is how they terrorize people on the right to the point of suicide.
I am fairly good with photoshopping, and know how simple it would be to superimpose a fake comment onto a screenshot of someone’s Facebook page. I photoshopped a screenshot of Barack Obama’s Facebook page to say he was becoming a Republican in less than two minutes. How this tactic could be used to take out conservatives is frankly terrifying. The best way to prevent it is to spread the word and explain how the photoshopping works. Someone loves Hitler? Someone wants to kill Obama? Someone is a white supremacist? Someone hates gays? Photoshopped sex photos? The possibilities are endless. The left is excellent at making this kind of thing go viral and getting activists to call and make complaints.

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Password

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Password

via Lifehacker on 10/19/12

Cracking Wi-Fi passwords isn't a trivial process, but it isn't difficult. Learn how it works so you can learn how to protect yourself. More »

RJS Security – Hoaxicane Sandy

Link: http://blogs.rjssoftware.com/rjssecurity/?p=281 (via shareaholic.com)
FotoForensics and TinEye used to analyze a hoax

FotoForensics

Link: http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=0d00c0af9c4ba03ca250f45477e328c04e20b947.72077 (via shareaholic.com)

Did a Romney supporter wear a "Put the white back in the White House" t-shirt?

If so, it was Photoshopped.

Ship locations map

Link: http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml (via shareaholic.com)

Just plain cool.

Enigma/Paper Enigma - Franklin Heath Ltd Wiki

Link: http://wiki.franklinheath.co.uk/index.php/Enigma/Paper_Enigma (via shareaholic.com)

Although the Enigma cipher as a whole is quite complex (it's complexity is comparable to modern cryptographic algorithms) the individual transformations within it are relatively simple. In fact, they are simple enough that you can decipher an Enigma message with just a paper model.
Our model is three-dimensional, to illustrate the wiring of a real Enigma machine. It needs only common household items to construct, and is completely compatible with all settings of a real Enigma machine (models I, M1, M2 and M3).

Khan Academy for iPad Puts World-Class Educational Lectures in Your Hand

Khan Academy for iPad Puts World-Class Educational Lectures in Your Hand [Ipad Downloads]

via Lifehacker by Adam Pash on 3/12/12

iPad: The Khan Academy provides over 3,000 free educational videos, exercises, and lectures covering the span of everything from math, physics, finance, and history. It's one of our favorite places to get a free education online, and now its complete library is available on-the-go on your iPad.

On Twitter, Conservative (or Liberal) by Association - NYTimes.com

Link: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/on-twitter-conservative-by-association/ (via shareaholic.com)

Network analysis can do a great deal.

Active users of Twitter are revealing their political leanings even if they are careful not to post about politics, a group of researchers at Duke University says.
Their research stems from an effort to rank 2010 primary candidates by political ideology. The researchers — David B. Sparks, Frank J. Orlando and Aaron S. King — analyzed whom politicians were following on Twitter, and who followed them. They then ranked the politicians on a political spectrum from the far left to the far right; the results dovetailed with ideological ranking systems based on the politicians' voting records.

The research, which will be presented in April at the Midwest Political Science Association conference, also ranked public individuals and media organizations. Kelsey Grammer's Twitter account, for instance, consist largely of reposted messages from people calling for a reunion of the television show "Frasier." But the analysis still identified Mr. Grammer, who supported George W. Bush and has more recently thrown his energy into a conservative television network, as right of center. It plotted Katie Couric of CBS News as only slightly less liberal than the Daily Kos, a blog for Democratic political strategy. You can see the complete rankings of Congressional candidates, media figures and political organizations here.

This strategy did not prove useful when applied to corporations like Wal-Mart or Starbucks (or The New York Times) because their connections were too broad and not personal enough, Mr. Sparks said. But for individuals, he said, it can be quite telling.

Protecting Your Privacy at International Borders

Protecting Your Privacy at International Borders

via Schneier on Security by schneier on 1/11/12

The EFF has published a good guide.
My own advice is here and here.

How To Plot A Coordinate Dataset In Google Maps [Aardvarchaeology]

How To Plot A Coordinate Dataset In Google Maps [Aardvarchaeology]

via ScienceBlogs Select by Martin R none@example.com on 12/14/11

As an archaeologist I often need to plot coordinates on maps and plans. At every scale, really: from individual finds on the plan of an excavation trench to the distribution of something across Europe. Just dots of varying shapes and colours on various background maps. Most often, it's GPS data from field walking and metal detecting. My colleagues in contract archaeology and academe use ArcInfo for these things, but I've never had incentive or opportunity to learn to use it. Also, once you know the software, you still need a map to plot stuff on, and those are expensive. So I've been wondering if I could somehow plot my coordinate data via Google Docs in Google Maps. Free software, free maps, free updated aerial photographs.
Turns out, you can. And today I figured out how. I believe it was David Petts who nudged me in the direction of Google's "Fusion Tables". And Hans Persson (who is an inveterate geocacher) asked me to write my findings up on Aard.
1. Data formatting
Convert your coordinate data to decimal lat & long after the WGS84 datum and with a decimal dot, not the Swedish decimal comma. For instance, my house is at lat 59.289576 long 18.258234. Call the northings column "Latitude" and the eastings column "Longitude". (There are Excel macros to do coordinate conversions. For the Swedish systems, I find Robert Larsson's on-line conversion utility handy, though it doesn't do batch jobs.)
You may also want to add a "Text" column to describe what each point marks, and an "Icon" column that takes entries like "small_red" and "large_blue".
(The Map function is pretty smart and also happily works with street addresses or place names if you put them in a "Location" column.)
2. Where to put the data
Stick this data into a spreadsheet in Google Docs. Save and close the spreadsheet.
3. Plot your dots
Now click the Create button on the start page of Docs and select "Table (beta)". Tell the software to grab the data from the Docs spreadsheet you just created. (At this stage you can also tell it to disregard any extraneous data columns.) I don't quite know how to conceptualise the distinction between these tables and standard Docs spreadsheets. But for practical purposes, tables are useful because (unlike spreadsheets) they have a Visualize menu including a Map alternative. Use it and zoom in on your area of interest.
4. Colour your dots
At first, all of your dots will be small and red. To get the software to use the data you entered into the "Icon" column, (such as "large_blue"), click "Configure styles", change the "Marker icon" settings to "Column", and select "Icon".
Tell me how you're doing with this, Dear Reader, and I'll update the entry as I learn more. The first thing I want to find out now is how to create a dynamic link between my spreadsheet and the map, so that any changes to the data appear automatically on my maps. At the moment I have to make a new table every time I change the spreadsheet. Also, the only way I currently know of to get maps out of the software is screen grab, which doesn't make for great resolution.

Opposition to GM Organisms Hard to Justify

The basic theme of "Frankenstein" is, "There are things Man was not meant to know". The American Spectator : Opposition to GM Organisms Hard to Justify

Opposition to GMO's usually falls into one of three categories: (1) Biotech and "Big Agribusiness" want to make money at the expense of poor farmers; (2) GMO's are unnatural, and hence, undesirable; and (3) GMO's should not be made until proven safe for humans and the environment.

While #1 might be true, it is a matter of business ethics, not science. #2 is the biological equivalent of the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) argument; it is based entirely on emotion, not facts. Besides, all agriculture is "unnatural." The only truly "natural" way for people to eat is to be hunter-gatherers. Most people probably aren't ready for that lifestyle change.

#3 is the only scientific argument, but it has been mostly addressed. GMO's are already known to be completely safe for human consumption. The vast majority of corn and soybeans in the US are genetically modified. (And corn and soybeans are used in a lot of different foods found in the grocery store.) The concern for the environment is legitimate, but evidence already indicates that GM crops have few adverse effects on the environment. Of course, GM crops need to be carefully monitored for their ecological safety over the long-term, but this is not a sufficient cause to block their use right now.

There might be a case for concern over rogue scientists concocting a The White Plague, but the technology to do this already exists, and scientists out to develop a plague aren't going to register it with the EPA.

---

Google's book database

Google's book database

With little fanfare, Google has made a mammoth database culled from nearly 5.2 million digitized books available to the public for free downloads and online searches, opening a new landscape of possibilities for research and education in the humanities.

Recording Technology

Radley Balko has a piece on technology that can be used to record public officials out in public, in the course of their duties. How to Record the Cops - Reason Magazine

Some folks are already proposing life recorders, which would record everything going on in a person's environment (storage cost is 200 GB/year for audio, 700 GB/year for video). It won't be long before the fact of life is, if you're in the presence of another person, you're being recorded.

Fwd: A New Breed of Debt Collectors

Megan McArdle writes about:

 A New Breed of Debt Collectors

The last decade or so has given rise to a new version of an old phenomenon:  the bottom feeding debt buyer.  It's often thought of as being linked to the bad economy, and perhaps it is, a little bit--businesses in trouble are probably more willing to look to their old collections as a source of revenue. But it's also a result of increasing improvements in computer technology.  It's easier to aggregate very small amounts--say, hundreds of unpaid co-pays from a doctor's office.  Those debts can be unloaded at pennies on the dollar to firms which then use the interwebs to find their victims debtors and dun them for cash.


Often these firms don't bother with the abusive high-pressure tactics that are used for large sums--the hourly wage on collecting $29.99 just isn't a good use of resources.  But that's small comfort, because instead, they file blizzards of lawsuits against people who they can't find, resulting in default judgements against someone who may not owe the money, or may not realize they owe.  And those hundreds of aggregated small debts hit the credit reports of people who probably didn't intend to skip out on a $15.87 termination fee when they cancelled some utility, but now can't get a car loan because there's a black mark on their credit.

Moreover, there's a booming market in old debt, which may be purchased for a penny on the dollar.  These collectors aren't merely behaving badly; they're breaking the law.  There are good reasons for statutes of limitations, which is why we have a whole law, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which says that you cannot attempt to collect any debt older than seven years.  (Unless you're the IRS or a student loan lender, because why on earth would Uncle Sam have to follow the laws it makes for everyone else?)

....

So as a public service, here are some tips for anyone who gets contacted about a years-old debt they didn't even know existed.  I can't vouch for them personally, but they are the accumulated lore of many years of personal finance reporting:

1. You have a right to validation of the debt.  Demand that they provide documentation that the debt is legitimate--and no, a name and an account number do not count as "documentation" of a debt; they are documentation that they have a name and an account number.  Demand this in writing, with a certified letter return receipt requested.  They have thirty days to provide validation; if they fail to, they may not legally continue to collect the debt and must remove it from your credit report.
2. It is illegal to collect a debt after the statute of limitations has run out in your state.  This varies by state, but you can find out what it is online.
3. Debt collectors are not allowed to contact your neighbors or your employer (unless they have an order for garnishment).  They can contact you at work, but once you have told them that they can't contact you there, they are bound by law to honor that.
4. Debts must come off of your credit report seven years and six months after the date they were incurred--not the date that the latest bottom-feeder reported them.  It is illegal to report a debt after that date.
5. It is illegal to threaten you with anything other than a judgment.  They can't tell you they'll take your car or whatever.
6. Here's the fun part:  if you report them to the FTC, they get fined at least $1,000 for each violation (that would be one phone call to your office after you've told them not to call there).  Most debt collectors aren't very well trained, and will repeatedly violate the FDCPA without even knowing it.  (Or, frankly, caring)
7. You can also sue them in small claims court, secure a judgement, and maybe even sell that judgement to . . . another collections agency.
8. You are perfectly free to record your calls as long as you inform them of this; if they won't consent to the recording, say, "I'm sorry, but I don't talk to anyone unless they consent to recording" and hang up.  In many states, it is illegal to record someone without their consent, so don't do this unless you know that one-party consent is legal in the state where you live, and the state where they are calling from.  In general, the hang-up is your best friend; use it liberally, along with certified cease-and-desist notices when they violate your rights.

 

 

The Singularity Goes Mainstream

 

 

Sent to you by Karl via Google Reader:

 

 

The Singularity Goes Mainstream

via Hit & Run by Ronald Bailey on 6/14/10

The guardian of conventional wisdom, the New York Times, published on Sunday a full two-page article in its business section on the coming technological Singularity. The best-known Singularity theorist/promoter, inventor Ray Kurzweil, defines the concept as follows:

Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.

Kurzweil figures prominently in the fairly respectful Times article. The report focuses on the Singularity University where leading figures in nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, energy, biotech, robotics, and computing interact with a select group of CEOs, inventors, and investors trying to parse out the future. The regular course costs $15,000 and students in the ten-week graudate course at Singularity University shell out $25,000. Some tidbits fromt the Times article below:

[X Prize technocelebrity Peter Diamandis told participants]: "My target is to live 700 years." The students chuckled. "I say this seriously," he retorted. ...

Mr. Diamandis champions the idea that large prizes inspire rapid bursts of innovation and may pave a path to that 700-year lifetime.

"I don't think it's a matter of if," he says. "I think it's a matter of how. You and I have a decent shot, and for kids being born today, I think it will be a matter of choice." ...

Other lecturers talk about a coming onslaught of biomedical advances as thousands of people have their genomes decoded. Jason Bobe, who works on the Personal Genome Project, an effort backed by the Harvard Medical School to establish a huge database of genetic information, points to forecasts that a million people will have their genomes decoded by 2014.

"The machines for doing this will be in your kitchen next to the toaster," Mr. Bobe says.

Mr. Hessel describes an even more dramatic future in which people create hybrid pets based on the body parts of different animals and tweak the genetic makeup of plants so they resemble things like chairs and tables, allowing us to grow fields of everyday objects for home and work. Mr. Hessel, like Mr. Kurzweil, thinks that people will use genetic engineering techniques to grow meat in factories rather than harvesting it from dead animals.

"I know in 10 years it will be a junior-high project to build a bacteria," says Mr. [Andrew] Hessel [former research manager at the biotech company Amgen]. "This is what happens when we get control over the code of life. We are just on the cusp of that."

Go here for my column, "Will Our Robot Overlords Be Friendly?," on the 2009 Singularity Summit. And go here for the whole Times article, "Merely Human? So Yesterday." 

On Tuesday my regular science column will be a report on the first day of the Humanity + Summit held at Harvard held over the past weekend. Unfortunately, my schedule wouldn't allow me to stay for the second day.

Disclosure: I am still hoping to hear that the Personal Genome Project has accepted me as a participant.

 

 

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Immortal avatars: Back up your brain, never die - life - 07 June 2010 - New Scientist

This has already featured in a story in Analog. A woman with ALS programs her avatar to handle routine tasks for her, and respond to input as if it were the woman. That way, she need only focus her limited energy on things that needed her personal touch. Eventually, it became impossible to distinguish between the avatar and the woman. And after she died, her avatar maintained her presence in cyberspace. Immortal avatars: Back up your brain, never die - life - 07 June 2010 - New Scientist.

Life imitating art?