January 2012
2 posts
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We The Lobby →
A crowd-sourced effort by common people to entice Congress the same way that corporations do: monetary compensation. Even assuming it doesn’t work in a direct way to help convince Congress to drop SOPA/PIPA outright, it does point out the absurdity of treating corporations as people.
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NYT: Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante? →
This has an obvious answer… [via MeFi]
December 2011
3 posts
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“Broadening its challenge to the United States, the Chinese government on...”
– NYT: China Unveils Ambitious Plan to Explore Space.
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Mother Jones: OWS Occupies Movie-Set Replica of... →
Best part: it was a Law & Order set.
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November 2011
4 posts
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explore: Polar Bears Webcam →
In the fall, polar bears apparently wait at the southwestern edge of Hudson Bay (the Canadian one) for it to freeze over. This is a webcam of that area. Sweet idea. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a polar bear yet, even though I think I am watching during peak viewing hours… [via io9]
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“Arvind Kejriwal, Hazare’s top deputy, told me, “Gandhi said that whenever you do...”
– NYT: India and America, Two Peas in a Pod. Kejrival has hit upon what I think is the core weakness of the Occupy movement in the eyes of many: we don’t know what they are protesting for and whom they are protesting to about it.
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WatchExplosive Breach of Condit Dam (by Andy Maser). Somehow, I was more struck by what happened upstream of the dam… [via kottke.org]
September 2011
7 posts
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VOA: Scientists Disarm AIDS Virus’ Attack on... →
Still in the laboratory but the researchers seem to have found more information about the virus. Promising. [via Slashdot]
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Reuters: Particles found to break speed of light →
Neutrinos were the particles going faster than the speed of light. If this study is confirmed as being properly executed, it would be quite a break from our current Einsteinian understanding of the universe… Exciting.
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Shorpy's: Morningside Park 1904 →
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The Conversation: Diamond planets, climate change... →
Author is one of the co-discoverers of the diamond planet around a pulsar. He notes how different the reaction has been to his discovery of a diamond planet in comparison to how climatologists’ discoveries are received by the media. Sad.
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Techdirt: EU Officially Seizes The Public Domain,... →
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August 2011
1 post
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NYT: Buffett - Stop Coddling the Super-Rich →
July 2011
5 posts
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Engadget: AT&T becomes the first telco to use... →
Haven’t heard a lot about the Bloom Boxes for a while… But it seems like they are slowly getting a foothold in larger companies.
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Ars Technica: Major ISPs agree to "six strikes"... →
Like the article says, this has come many years too late but still, this is a far more reasonable approach to the whole copyright infringement thing than anything else that has been tried so far.
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WaPo: Grieving relatives of British soldiers may... →
News of the World seems to have hired private investigators to hack into cellphones of terrorism victims’, dead soldiers’, and kidnappees’ families and friends… Classy. News of the World is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Guess what else he owns: Fox News and WSJ.
June 2011
5 posts
4 tags
Atlanta Journal Constitution: GA’s farm-labor... →
Georgia passed a law similar to Arizona’s pull-over-and-scare-illegal-immigrants law. Now, Georgia finds that there is noone in the state willing to harvest the crops at the superb wages offered for their labor…
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Rolling Stone: Michele Bachmann's Holy War →
In case anyone thought Michele Bachmann is not a crazy fundamentalist…
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Rolling Stone: Climate of Denial →
Al Gore’s piece on how we are, generally, going down a path in public discourse where the importance of truth is shrinking. Best quote, from Adorno: The conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false.
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May 2011
3 posts
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The Crossing - Abbey Road Studios →
A live webcam of the famous crosswalk. Apparently, people take the same picture pretty often.
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Guardian: Renewable energy can power the world,... →
Of course, we would require public policy shifts in all countries in order to enact such a change in our energy production. Let’s hope we can do it.
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The Atlantic: Outside the White House, A... →
If people haven’t heard, Osama bin Laden is dead. He was killed resisting capture by American soldiers in Abbottabad, Pakistan. President Obama gave a speech about it last night after which a spontaneous celebration arose around the White House (among many other places). Something didn’t sit right with me about the form of celebration. Even this article doesn’t quite do it...
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April 2011
5 posts
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Hypercities Beta 2 →
Historical maps placed on top of current Google Maps. Really cool. I am afraid I could spend hours on this website… [via Subtraction.com]
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The White House: Key Points of the President's... →
I appreciate the framework he has laid out, especially the tax reform section. It is obvious to anyone who spends more than 5 minutes thinking about it that, in order for the US to continue having a functioning government, we need to have a better tax system. I only wish he had gone further. But I imagine this was the least favorite part of the speech for his political advisors…
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Zeit Online: Tell-all telephone →
A German politician, Malte Spitz, sued Deutsche Telekom for six months of his phone data and, upon receiving it, posted it online. It is rather impressive how closely the cellular companies can track us. I am not sure whether to be more impressed or scared… [via Information is Beautiful]
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Technology Review: Pioneer Anomaly Solved By 1970s... →
The Pioneer Anomaly has seemingly been resolved by the same technology used to render graphics in real-time in video games. Impressive.
March 2011
7 posts
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Firefox 4 Download Stats →
Cool real-time visualization of Firefox 4 downloads. [via Flowing Data]
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“I rise in opposition to a bill that repeals the scientific finding that...”
– Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), in response to House Republicans voting down an amendment acknowledging that anthropogenic global warming is unequivocally occurring. Scientific American: House Repubs Vote That Earth Is Not Warming.
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February 2011
9 posts
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“It [the report] joins a series of investigations by the British House of...”
– NYT: Scientists Are Cleared of Misuse of Data. While this will satisfy most people, it clearly was not enough for Senator James Inhofe (R - Oklahoma), who seized upon a mishandling of a 2007 FOIA request to criticize the NOAA. For Mr. Inhofe, it seems that the honesty and good works of the entire...
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NYT: Saudi King Offers Aid Package to Citizens →
$35B to a population of 18M… That’s ~$2000/person. I wonder what brought about this sudden warm-hearted gesture. Amusing. While it is politically motivated, it’s still money being provided to the poorer people in Saudi Arabia during a bad time. Of course, based on some reactions cited in the article, it is unclear whether it will actually be able to appease the Saudi Arabian...
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NYT: Koch Brothers’ Money Fuels Wisconsin Fight →
Somehow, not surprising…
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The New Yorker: Those Non-Profit Packers →
I generally don’t care about football but, today, I heard that the Packers had an interesting ownership system, so I was rather happy when I found a bit in The New Yorker (via daringfireball.net) about their ownership structure:
In 1923, the Packers were just another hardscrabble team on the brink of bankruptcy. Rather than fold they decided to sell shares to the community, with fans...
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WatchEverton v Blackpool (2011-02-05). Awesome game. Video shows who won (in case people don’t like spoilers) but more than that, it was a thrilling game.