science/tech

Science and Technology

“The Secret”: James Arthur Ray didn’t visualize a not guilty verdict, attracted conviction

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James Arthur Ray, a Guru who “taught” his followers “The Secret” and would subject them to re-birthing more commonly known as cooking people alive in a sweat lodge, has been convicted of negligent homicide.

Prosecutors argued that Ray was criminally negligent in subjecting Kirby Brown, Liz Neuman and James Shore to life-threatening conditions, and that he deserved prison for their deaths. They played a recording of him urging participants to ignore their bodies’ signs of distress during what he called a “hellacious” event.

“The Secret” is that really, really, really positive thinking creates positive outcomes when you really, really, really believe it:

The secret behind “The Secret” is something called, “The Law of Attraction.”

“Everything that is coming into your life, you are attracting into your life,” explains Bob Proctor, a self-help leader featured in the film, “The Secret.”

“And it’s attracted to you by the virtue of the images you are holding in your mind.”

As “The Secret’s” sales boomed, Ray was catapulted into the self-help stratosphere. His book “Harmonic Wealth” became a best-sellers, and he started popping up all over, on Larry King, as a judge at the Miss America pageant and on Oprah, who enthusiastically embraced”The Secret.”

It’s important to remember Oprah’s role in all of this promotion of nonsense. She flipped on James Frey for lying on her show. She was applauded by many for it. Oprah never moved to correct those who for various reasons, pushed snake oil cures to the masses on her show. Part of the reason, is her personal embrace of some of the quack science. Here she tells Larry King how “The Secret” was the key to her career.

She never corrected Ray for appearing on her show and promoting dangerous nonsense because she was a devotee herself.

Emoticons

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Google has been making some, in my opinion, nice changes to their UI treatment to make it feel more like chrome OS. What I don’t like, and just noticed, is that there is a damn emoticons panel in g-mail. I don’t need emoticons. I should be able to turn this off. /not really important….as you were.

Controversy Censorship is the “facebook revolution”

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Facebook is there, above all things, to make money from your information, not to make it easier for you to communicate.

And now Facebook has stepped in, presumably in light of complaints against Ebert, to remove his page on the social network site (Ebert has already tweeted his displeasure). The debate will rumble on as to the extent that well-known users should discuss topics that, in the eyes of some, aren’t their business.

via Roger Ebert Sparks War of Words After Tweeting About Ryan Dunn’s Death – TIME NewsFeed.

Ebert tweet about the death of “Jackass” crew member Ryan Dunn was offensive to his friends and family. Ebert clarified his thoughts in a blog post. Facebook spokesperson said said they only took the page down out of error even though Ebert was notified his page was removed for violations of Facebook’s Term of Use. Basically, Facebook wants to be seen as a bastion of free expression. They aren’t.

Anyone who has used a corporate owned, for profit social network to disseminate information for revolutionary purposes has done so in spite of that social network’s ownership and fealty to governments. It is the simple fact that was ignored by everyone calling the Arab Spring the “twitter revolution”. Dave Winer is ahead of those who hail the applications of big social media as engines of free speech:

We need to work on creating places where journalism is possible, where you can say what you have to say. And the service is provided by a vendor who has no interest in what you say.

via Scripting News: No journalism on Facebook.

BitTorrent, Wikileaks and the like are the foundation technologically and operationally for a true free speech web.

 

CIA hacked

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The CIA can’t secure their web servers as well as Nintendo can.

“Web sites are the low-hanging fruit,” said Richard Stiennon, a cyber expert and author of “Surviving Cyberwar.” “But the Web sites are running on a server. Once you completely own the server that the Web site is on, you can watch the insiders log in and record their activity, and that can be a front door into the organization.”

Web sites are not the low hanging fruit. In 1995 they were low hanging fruit. Today, entire companies are running enterprise systems with users using browser applications, mobile applications, web service APIs to bank, communicate and research via the web. The Question is: Would the CIA know who hacked them if the attack wasn’t claimed?

Real News: IMF Hacked

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Maybe we can pull some people off of Weiner dick gazing and Palin Bus stalking to figure out what the IMF knows about the cyberattack on their systems:

Because the fund has been at the center of economic bailout programs for Portugal, Greece and Ireland — and possesses sensitive data on other countries that may be on the brink of crisis — its database contains potentially market-moving information. It also includes communications with national leaders as they negotiate, often behind the scenes, on the terms of international bailouts. Those agreements are, in the words of one fund official, “political dynamite in many countries.” It was unclear what information the attackers were able to access.

via Sophisticated Cyberattack Is Reported by the I.M.F. – NYTimes.com.

Preserving original publications

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When it comes to books, are we keeping the originals? Barely:

A prudent society keeps at least one specimen of all it makes, forever. It still amazes me that after 20 years the only publicly available back up of the internet is the privately funded Internet Archive. The only broad archive of television and radio broadcasts is the same organization. They are now backing up the backups of books. Someday we’l realize the precocious wisdom of it all and Brewster Kahle will be seen as a hero.

via The Technium: When Hard Books Disappear.

One big problem, this archive is only in California. It needs redundancy and hopefully, this can be done in the south, north east and mid-west as well as in overseas locations. Maybe a consortium of the library of congress, museums, local libraries and non-profits? The other question, what happened to newspapers on rolls of microfiche that was available at libraries around the country? Google has stopped scanning in microfiche archives and much more is on microfiche than newspapers (including public records) .

“+888” is the exchange for UN Aid

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The UN humanitarian aid will use the +888 interface. From a Q&A by Alec Saunders with Voxbone CEO Rodrigue Ullens:

In cases of humanitarian need, where telephone systems may be inoperable because of natural disaster, the first teams on the ground would deploy a local GSM antenna, connected via satellite to the rest of the world. Then Voxbone would simply forward calls to the +888 country code via satellite to the local GSM station on the ground.

via Joho the Blog » UN gets a telephone country code for disaster relief.

(Jenny) McCarthyites anti-vaccine crusade is closing schools

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Vaccination rates are down. Pertussis cases on the rise.

So far the outbreak has been contained to Floyd, O’Dell said, but she noted that there has been a significant increase in the number of pertussis cases, both statewide and nationally. The number of Virginia cases confirmed by lab tests jumped 72 percent from 2009 to 2010, she said.

The outbreak in Floyd was caused by people not being properly vaccinated against the disease, O’Dell said.

via Whooping cough outbreak closes Blue Mountain School in Floyd Co. – Roanoke.com.

Great.

Budget Cuts = Data Cuts?

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Open .gov sites have come a long way since the SEC EDGAR days.

Data.gov was a huge step towards open government. . The current budget crisis may leave any new open government/Data.gov initiatives on the chopping block.

However, in the next few months, Data.gov, along with a number of other data-related sites of the government such as USAspending.gov and Apps.gov, are slated to be shut down due to budget cuts. The current annual budget of $37 million will be reduced to $2 million.

via Data.gov in crisis: the open data movement is bigger than just one site | Nathan Yau | News | guardian.co.uk.

In the meantime, open .gov sites like the new FCC.gov are being rolled out.

 

 

the save icon: what is that thing anyway?

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what the....

I write and think about software way to much. Seriously, if I sit at a bar during the day I may look at the register touch screen and critique the way the screen is set up. Earlier this week, I had just read 37 Signal’s April Fool’s post announcing Basecamp on Windows NT available on thirty seven 3.5 floppy disks. When I saw it, I immediately thought: the standard save icon is a rendering of media that is no longer relevant to the average computer user. My supervisor and I talked about it as well. And lo and behold, David Friedman at Ironic Sans tries valiantly to answer the questions: What should the save icon be? should there be different icons for different types of information storage?

Stuxnet is like “Ocean’s 11”

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Remember Ocean’s 11 where the pre-recorded video of Ocean’s crew “robbing the place” is pumped into Terry Benedict’s casino control room? Ralph Langner says Stuxnet is Billy Ocean’s crew, Terry Benedict is Iranian centrifuge operators and the casinos are Iranian nuclear facilities. The super computer virus basically sent signals that presented a false reality to Iranian centrifuge operators forcing them to delay their nuclear operations. In developing Stuxnet, USA and Israel have written the blueprint for attacking our own energy infrastructure. Watch it…

2015: 25% of US College textbooks will be digital

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Only 1 in 4 ? Not enough!

If you tell me I have to buy a Kindle, Nook, EReader or tablet freshman year and books will be available through that system, i would jump at it. One of the most prohibitive things about being in a walkable environment like a college campus is carrying around heavy, cumbersome books. Let alone when you grabbed the wrong book on the way out of your dorm.

I would have killed to have my iPad or Galaxy tab or Smartphone every time I had to lug that behemoth Trancendentals book around. Also I would have killed to be able to pay half price for all my books or just download all my laboratory instruction “texts” (aka overpriced pamphlets) that I could never sell anyway.

Journalistic Integrity

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Salute to Tech Crunch’s Alexia Tsotsis:

 

The most ridiculous part about this whole episode is that the post in question wasn’t even that “snarky,” whatever the hell that means. I mean it’s not like I wrote “Movie Studio Creates ‘Game’ In Order To Get People To Spam Their Friends On Facebook” in the headline.

The issue is simply that Summit thinks it can pressure us, through an AOL sister site, into making a balanced report more glowing. And while it’s inappropriate, it’s not surprising. Whatis surprising, and sad, is that Moviefone/AOL actually tried to comply with their request and asked us to change our post. It’s not just sad, it’s wrong.

So no AOL, and Moviefone, and Summit, I will absolutely not tone down my snark. This is Silicon Valley, not Hollywood.

via AOL Asks Us If We Can Tone It Down.

MovieFone Editor in Chief Patricia Chiu doesn’t seem to get that they shouldn’t be messenger for movie studios to editorial boards:

1) The person who wrote that email was not acting in an editorial capacity. That person’s job is to act as an intermediary between the studios and editorial — not to dictate content, nor to weigh in on the content of Moviefone or any other AOL site. In fact, the presence of a person with that role is just one means we have of ensuring editorial integrity on Moviefone.

via Moviefone’s Response to the TechCrunch Post – The Moviefone Blog.

Chiu is saying that MovieFone protects editorial prerogative by allowing studios to send messages through AOL employees to sister site editors about the tone of their articles. That doesn’t seem all together right to me. Editors have inboxes for that.

Who is in charge of all content at AOL now?

HuffPo to AOL

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Arianna Huffington eponymous blog is being built by AOL. $315 million for 25 milion visitors/month and a brand name in Political commentary. Applause to Huffington the business tycoon.

Personally, I try to avoid Huff Po for a variety of reasons:

  • Their science and health sections are full of drivel
  • Too much of their article presentation skews towards controversy churning (from annoying shock titles adopted from Drudge to wording that raises the alarm on any issue)
  • The cadre of celebrity contributors are probably nice dinner and cocktail party guests, but not great bloggers

I subscribe to 200+ feeds using Google Reader in the Chrome Browser, Google Reader Android app on my 3G devices, but my favorite way to browse twitter, Reader and Facebook news feed is using Flipboard on my iPad.The CEO of Flipboard on what’s wrong with journalism on the web:

Journalism is being pushed into a space where I don’t think it should ever go, where it’s trying to support the monetization model of the Web by driving page views. So what you have is a drop-off of long-form journalism, because long-form pieces are harder to monetize. And it’s also hard to present that longer stuff to the reader because no one wants to wait four seconds for every page to load.

via Flipboard’s Mike McCue: Web format has ‘contaminated’ online journalism | Technology | Los Angeles Times.

Now, what fits AOL model? Let’s let AOL tell us:

Five years ago this week I began writing for AOL’s blog network Weblogs Inc. I wrote 5 technology news stories each day and was paid a mere $5 per article. It was grueling, that was just one of 3 jobs I had at the time – and it was great.

AOL’s secret internal plan to ramp up its online content business was leaked today to New York business blog Business Insider and people are saying it’s got “content farm” written all over it. In-house writers are expected to write 5 to 10 blog posts per day and those stories are expected to go from an average of 1500 pageviews per post today to an amazing 7000 views per post in the future. How will stories be selected? The only thing that will matter, apparently, is search engine friendliness and monetization potential.

via I Worked on the AOL Content Farm & It Changed My Life.

Backup Systems

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The The Map Room links to an article about tourists that have died in Death Valley of disaster bourne of the absence appropriate supplies, knowledge and preparation exacerbated by faith in the accuracy of their GPS directions. One woman in the Sac Bee article brought her 6 year old son to the aptly named desert where temperatures hit 120 degrees.

No disaster makes that point more tragically than the disappearance of four German tourists – two adults and two boys, ages 3 and 10 – whose rental van became stuck on a remote road in Death Valley during an intense heat wave in July 1996 and who were never heard from again.

Their fate remained a mystery until November 2009, when Tom Mahood, a retired engineer and search-and-rescue volunteer, and a colleague, Les Walker, discovered human bones, the woman’s wallet and other items in an isolated corner of the park near Butte Valley.

via ‘Death by GPS’ in desert – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Regardless of preparation, children don’t belong on a long excursion into extreme wilderness. If consequences of a mistake are life and death, it is important to have redundant systems. The words “There’s supposed to be…” are of no comfort while you watch your loved ones slowly die around you and realize you are witnessing “the worst that could happen”.

Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan

Authorities had blocked internet, mobile phone and SMS services in an attempt to disrupt planned demonstrations [Photo From EPA/Al Jazeera]
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Authorities had blocked internet, mobile phone and SMS services in an attempt to disrupt planned demonstrations (Photo From EPA/Al Jazeera)

Authorities had blocked internet, mobile phone and SMS services in an attempt to disrupt planned demonstrations (Photo From EPA c/o Al Jazeera)

Like a good deal of bloggers, I haven’t commented because the situation in these countries prior was not something that I paid much attention to prior to the current political unrest. As a result, I am ignorant about the myriad of unique issues affecting each situation. The news media has decided that at least two (Tunisia and Egypt) of these stories are important and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, much of the coverage puts a lot of emphasis on what outcome is good for the US economy, corporations and consumers.

But one thing has bugged me about the coverage. In these protests social media doesn’t “lead the way”, nor are the protests part of “twitter revolutions” any more than Civil Rights movement in America was a “telephone movement”.

"Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the telephone after encountering a white mob protesting against the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, AL."

"Telephone Revolution"? American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968) sits on a couch and speaks on the telephone after encountering a white mob protesting against the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, May 26, 1961. (Photo by Express Newspapers/Getty Images)

A social medium is a communication tool to be leveraged by people to increase efficiency of communication. It is not a catalyst of revolution. Calling this a “twitter revolution” is a lazy shorthand that neglects to acknowledge the purpose and will of the people who rise to protest oppressive regimes. (And yes periodicals, pamphlets, books, postal service, and the telephony are all social media in the literal sense).

These revolutions tell us that the status quo has become untenable for a critical mass of citizens in each of these countries. We must understand: revolutionary movements can be broken and even when a country’s present regime falls at the hands of its own citizens, the regime that fills the void could create a reality that is far short of ideal.