October 2011
9 posts
Torture In Bahrain Aided By Nokia Siemens | Vernon... →
Piracy and Copyright Challenges in 1841 Mirror... →
infoneer-pulse:
Technology has come a long way since 1841, but the copyright debate at the time was strikingly similar to what we’re witnessing today. 170 years ago a new copyright bill was being discussed in the United Kingdom, one that would extend the rights of book authors to sixty years after their death. While some favored the plan, some feared that this lengthy “copyright monopoly” would...
“When Britons remember their dead empire, they tend to concentrate, with pride or...”
– Bagehot: The tiger under the table | The Economist
“Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via...”
– The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science | Mother Jones
Propaganda 2.0 and the rise of 'narrative... →
The Veiled Tyranny of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi |... →
Berlusconi’s regime exemplifies, instead, a degeneration of democracy into the power of a demagogue who controls a corrupt electorate. Like classic demagogues, Berlusconi has displayed, since the beginning of his political career, a remarkable ability to fascinate the masses with political theater that exalts his image. At the same time, he has an impressive ability to win over the Italian...
Constellation: The Internet ≅ Islam « Snarkmarket →
If that’s the case — if we can use the history of Islam to think about the internet, and vice versa, then what are the lessons? What are the porential consequences? What interventions, if necessary, are possible? (We have to confront the possibility in both cases that any intervention might be ruinous.)
7 tags
“The same foreign isolation from Afghan lives, which led us to fail, made it very...”
– Rory Stewart (He has a new book out that looks excellent)
“I read a bit of Reamde. It is well crafted, unlike most of Stephenson’s work,...”
– by Tyler Cowen - Tyler summed up my thoughts on this work perfectly in a single sentence. This was the best written Stephenson book I have read and also the first one that I did not bother finishing.
September 2011
5 posts
British Documentary Presents Game Footage as "IRA... →
dbreunig:
Rock, Paper, Shotgun writes:
Hey, everyone, please join in with the rest of the internet and laugh at ITV. They’ve only gone and made a documentary about Gadaffi’s links with the IRA, and then used footage from Arma II to illustrate it. “IRA Film 1988″ it says over a dodgy Frapsing of Arma II. No, they actually did that.
5 tags
What do Facebook’s policies actually say about... →
1. Facebook collects information about your visits to others sites with Facebook buttons:
2. Under Facebook’s privacy policy, they could share this information with anyone (with the exception of identifying information), but Facebook has undertaken separately to limit the retention and use of this information.
5 tags
An Arab Fling: The West and International Justice... →
It was so promising. Everyone appeared to be on board when, last February, the international community decided that the situation in Libya should be investigated by the International Criminal Court. Not only did the UN Security Council refer the situation in Libya to the Court, but it did so unanimously. However, despite hefty rhetoric about the importance of bringing the Libyan leader to justice,...
10 tags
Predators and Robots at War →
Whether we like it or not, war has often been a powerful goad to technological innovation. Now technology is on the verge of supplanting the human soldier altogether—with consequences that can only be guessed. The question in the case of military robotics, even at this relatively early stage, is the extent to which we will manage to retain control over the process. Whether we are ready or not, the...
6 tags
Why watch Zambia? →
Zambia held presidential elections this week, a contest that’s had interesting implications beyond the borders of that southern African nation. When I speak about international news, I’m often asked about stories I think people should be following – this election is a great example of an important and underreported story. A quick update on what happened, and then three reasons why it’s important...
August 2011
21 posts
5 tags
The Riots and the Human Rights Act →
Britain and the EU: Britain changes its mind about... →
5 tags
“It should be admitted…that the Israeli left has utterly and abjectly failed to...”
– if your narrative sucks, you can’t keep saying the same thing and expect people to listen just because you are right. ( via The Browser )
5 tags
“Why did you decide to call the next version Train Simulator 2012? Are you...”
– RockPaperShotgun - Amazing (and wonderful) that there is a million-user market for hyper-realistic train simulators
“What Caused The Riots?
Criminality; police inaction; police overreaction; not...”
– (via Heresy Corner) - As I said on Facebook, its amazing how many people who had no idea that the riots would happen are nonetheless falling over themselves to explain to you why they validate their strongly-held political beliefs.
The world of perfect video game emulation |... →
“Take the case of DICE, the digital integrated circuit emulator. Here is an emulator that works at the transistor level for absolutely perfect recreation of the very first video games ever created. To run Pong at about 5-10fps, DICE requires a 3GHz processor. Yes, you read that right: no computer processor at this time that can run Pong at the circuit level at full speed. It’s not that...
British Seek to id rioters as iran id'ed... →
Why Did Japan Surrender? | Gareth Cook | Boston... →
An interesting article that argues that the dropping of the nuclear warheads on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not that important in causing the Japanese to surrender. The argument makes sense but the “implications” that the author draws from it ( that nuclear weapons are not infact an effective deterrent) are much weaker, if nukes had remained the small scale rare weapons of WW2 their deterrent...
4 tags
What If Europe Held an Election and No One Cared? →
5 tags
“For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide...”
– http://www.congress.org/news/2011/01/24/more_troops_lost_to_suicide
(via kottke)
5 tags
“At 71 members strong, Uganda has the third largest cabinet in the world after...”
– http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/marginalrevolution/hCQh/~3/JgxiYAofsn0/uganda-fact-of-the-day.html
10 tags
African Cyberpunk, DNA Hacking, and the Problems... →
7 tags
“The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who...”
– http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html
4 tags
A big week for copyright in the courts →
I need to read these judgements in full, because nearly all of them went the opposite way to the judgement I would have liked, and all have potentially profound implications for the UK copyright environment.
8 tags
“Obama, in the last analysis, had no choice but to surrender. Hostage-taking was...”
– The US Debt Deal (by Sean Coleman)
Doctorow’s Definition of “Techno-Optimism” Is Full... →
Spot on analysis:
Or as I am fond of putting it - for 99% of users, the iPad is the most open computing platform ever. Open is not about theoretical freedom but technology that actually empowers it’s users.
Uzbekistan: Parliamentarian Calls for Fight... →
source: @evenymorozov
emergentfutures asked: Hi
As there is not a capacity to reply to your reply on Tumblr I have put up another blog post with your reply in it. I would be interested in your full critique if you have time to put one up.
Cheers
Paul
As there is not a capacity to reply to your reply on Tumblr I have put up another blog post with your reply in it. I would be interested in your full critique if you have time to put one up.
Cheers
Paul
July 2011
26 posts
Watchverbalresistance:
Syrian Tank Assault on Hama kills 45
At least 95 civilians have been killed after army tanks stormed Hama at dawn on Sunday, according to reports. The city is a stronghold of anti-government resistance in Syria.
The above footage is amateur video released by the Shams News Network, a loosely organised anti-Assad group based in and out of Syria. Shams posts video and still...
3 tags
“What we have today are not problems, but meta-problems. Let me explain.
We all...”
– steelweaver: A speech I will probably not be giving at Uncivilisation unless someone asks me to so I thought I’d better get it up here instead
Though, of course, Indymedia is as much an alternate reality as the Daily Mail.
5 tags
“The punditocracy knew who was responsible. It wasn’t pretty to see the righteous...”
– rejectamentalist manifesto:
5 tags
blog.mobilephonesecurity.org: Voicemail hacking... →
The best explanation I have seen as to what “actually happened” during the phone hacking scandal. Unsurprisingly it turns out that the “hacking” was not that sophisticated or difficult
6 tags
“No, Anders Breivik does not tell us anything about Norway. No, he does not tell...”
– The last thing Norway needs is illiberal Britain’s patronising | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian
Econometric Paper on the Isreali-Palestinian... →
Ending violent international conflicts requires understanding the causal factors that perpetuate them. In the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israelis and Palestinians each tend to see themselves as victims, engaging in violence only in response to attacks initiated by a fundamentally and implacably violent foe bent on their destruction. Econometric techniques allow us to empirically test the degree...
UN considering "Green Helmet" troops to assist... →
This sounds like a great idea that will help fight climate change. Whereby “great” I mean a terrible idea that is nevertheless worth pursuing just because it might cause rush Limbaugh to spontaneously combust on hearing about it.
Public Diplomacy Fail | Paul Karl Lukacs | Nomad... →
Public Diplomacy Fail | Paul Karl Lukacs | Nomad... →
The three-year-old United States Embassy in Beijing is a disgrace.
Rarely have I seen a building that so aggressively wants people to stay away. A blank concrete wall is one of the most callous expressions in architecture, and the embassy has plenty. From street level, the compound – which consumes one of Beijing’s massive Stalinist blocks – is all reinforced barriers and security walls....
“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.”
– Albert Camus (via unabellagiornata)
The press's rotten values were embraced by the... →
It’s not often that I agree with Deborah Orr, but she is absolutely correct here. Not a hard point but a clear one nonetheless
4 tags
Is My Cell Phone Full of Rape. →