jmcmichael

Build yourself a Drone NOW (before they become illegal)

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:26:43 -0600

Build yourself a Drone NOW (before they become illegal):

Build yourself a drone. Before they are made illegal.

Why?

One big reason is that drones/bots make the emergence of police states (as my tech thriller post on this topic shows) more likely since they allow a very small number of people to automate their control over a great many people. So, in order to ensure the future doesn’t careen in that direction, we should democratize the technology as a counter-weight.

- John Robb

The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:02:44 -0600

The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician:

In the July/August 2001 issue of the late, great magazine Lingua Franca, James Ryerson published an enthralling article about an anonymous benefactor who was paying professors huge sums of money to review a strange 60-page philosophical manuscript. Slate editor David Plotz talked about “The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician” on this week’s Political Gabfest, citing it as one of his favorite magazine articles of all time. Ryerson gave Slate permission to republish the story in full.

Autumn Mantra (by Oer-Wout)(via ruineshumaines)

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:54:19 -0600

Autumn Mantra (by Oer-Wout)
(via ruineshumaines)

The Digital Path: Smart Contracts and the Third World

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:52:15 -0600

The Digital Path: Smart Contracts and the Third World:

Inadequate and ill-adapted property institutions in the third world prevent the extralegal assets of the poor from serving as capital. In particular, the absence of credible systems of title transfer makes real estate holdings ineffective as collateral for loans. How can this barrier to wealth creation be surmounted? Country-by-country institutional reform is possible, but inevitably slow. New options based on computer networks and trusted computational agents may provide a shorter path. By leveraging trust in first-world institutions while enabling the evolution of contractual arrangements that fit local needs and traditions, this approach could bring advanced property systems to regions now paralyzed by their absence.

- Mark S. Miller and Marc Stiegler, The Digital Path: Smart Contracts and the Third World

The DOJ’s escalating criminalization of speech

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:48:24 -0600

The DOJ’s escalating criminalization of speech:

Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening. The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, charged with “providing material support” to a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)).

What is the “material support” he allegedly gave? He produced and uploaded a 5-minute video to YouTube featuring photographs of U.S. abuses in Abu Ghraib, video of armored trucks exploding after being hit by IEDs, prayer messages about “jihad” from LeT’s leader, and — according to the FBI’s Affidavit — “a number of terrorist logos.” That, in turn, led the FBI agent who signed the affidavit to assert that ”based on [his] training and experience, it is evident that the video … is designed as propaganda to develop support for LeT and to recruit jihadists to LeT.” The FBI also claims Ahmad spoke with the son of an LeT leader about the contents of the video and had attended an LeT camp when he was a teenager in Pakistan. For the act of uploading that single YouTube video (and for denying that he did so when asked by the FBI agents who came to his home to interrogate him), he faces 23 years in prison.

Let’s be very clear about the key point: the Constitution — specifically the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment — prohibits the U.S. Government from punishing someone for the political views they express, even if those views include the advocacy of violence against the U.S. and its leaders.

–Glenn Greenwald, The DOJ’s escalating criminalization of speech

Joyfulby athena113 (via thetruthisone)

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:34:00 -0600

Joyful
by athena113 (via thetruthisone)

#barfinshakespeare

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:28:25 -0600

#barfinshakespeare

RUN!! LIBERTARIANS WANT TO TAKE OVER THEN LEAVE YOU ALONE!!

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:08:06 -0600

RUN!! LIBERTARIANS WANT TO TAKE OVER THEN LEAVE YOU ALONE!!

1925 aka Hell is one of two animation loops directed by Max...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:34:35 -0600

1925 aka Hell is one of two animation loops directed by Max Hattler, inspired by the work of French outsider artist Augustin Lesage. 1925 is based on Lesage’s painting ‘A symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World’ from 1925.

Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual WorldAugustin Lesage, 1925

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:33:10 -0600

Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World
Augustin Lesage, 1925

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:17:46 -0600

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist:

A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity. The document, part of a program called “Communities Against Terrorism”, lists the use of “anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address” as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity. The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using “software to hide encrypted data in digital photos” or other media. In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone “overly concerned about privacy” or attempting to “shield the screen from view of others” should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities.

"I think the Net generation is beginning to see knowledge in a way that is closer to the truth about..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:06:46 -0600

“I think the Net generation is beginning to see knowledge in a way that is closer to the truth about knowledge — a truth we’ve long known but couldn’t instantiate. My generation, and the many generations before mine, have thought about knowledge as being the collected set of trusted content, typically expressed in libraries full of books. Our tradition has taken the trans-generational project of building this Library of Knowledge book by book as our God-given task as humans. Yet, for the coming generation, knowing looks less like capturing truths in books than engaging in never-settled networks of discussion and argument. That social activity — collaborative and contentious, often at the same time — is a more accurate reflection of our condition as imperfect social creatures trying to understand a world that is too big and too complex for even the biggest-headed expert.”

- Internet theorist David Weinberger, in What the Internet Means for How We Think About the World

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:04:58 -0600

“Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

- Brian Kernighan

Darren wants a drama free relationship

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:34:42 -0600

Darren wants a drama free relationship

Rules of American justice: a tale of three cases

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:33:55 -0600

Rules of American justice: a tale of three cases:

The Rules of American Justice are quite clear:

(1) If you are a high-ranking government official who commits war crimes, you will receive full-scale immunity, both civil and criminal, and will have the American President demand that all citizens Look Forward, Not Backward.

(2) If you are a low-ranking member of the military, you will receive relatively trivial punishments in order to protect higher-ranking officials and cast the appearance of accountability.

(3) If you are a victim of American war crimes, you are a non-person with no legal rights or even any entitlement to see the inside of a courtroom.

(4) If you talk publicly about any of these war crimes, you have committed the Gravest Crime — you are guilty of espionage – and will have the full weight of the American criminal justice system come crashing down upon you.

- Glenn Greenwald

The roots of Bain Capital in El Salvador’s civil war

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:30:02 -0600

The roots of Bain Capital in El Salvador’s civil war:

A significant portion of the seed money that created Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, was provided by wealthy oligarchs from El Salvador, including members of a family with a relative who allegedly financed rightist groups that used death squads during the country’s bloody civil war in the 1980s.

"The United States Constitution rests on a handful of closely related premises. (Let’s call them..."

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:36:48 -0600

“

The United States Constitution rests on a handful of closely related premises. (Let’s call them “Madisonian.”) First: the Constitution has to serve the interests of citizens, not politicians and especially not state politicians. For an emphatic statement see Federalist 45 (To appreciate the depth of Madison’s conviction on this point, note that the verbal bombast in 45 is out of character for him. Even his letters to Dolley sound like they were written by her accountant.) Second: the Constitution has to make politics possible and discipline it against factional abuse. For the general theory see Federalist 10. Third, the Constitution has to ensure stability, both in the sense of institutional durability and of preventing political hyperactivity. For the perils of a “mutable government” see Federalist 62.

Now invert the premises. First: the Constitution must protect the “states as states”—that is, their political elites and hangers-on. Second: the Constitution should facilitate interest group politics. Third: the Constitution should be democratic (and since the demos is fickle, the Constitution should be unstable). There you have the actual Constitution, upside-down. Get used to it: it’s the New Deal Constitution under which we live.

”

- Michael S. Greve, discussing his book The Upside Down Constitution

If he asks “Are you Sarah Conner?”Just say...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:06:00 -0600

If he asks “Are you Sarah Conner?”
Just say “NO!”

Movie Posters from an Alternate Universe

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing,...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:18:49 -0600

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
Bruce Lee

"One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:54:48 -0600

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.