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Welcome aboard, everyone. Start with the heavy lifting and take a look at the difficulties not only of intersection of identities, but the difficulty of being yourself when others look at your group and decide, on very little evidence, that your identity should be erased from existence. We like to think that we're beyond eliminationist rhetoric because we learned about it in history class...but there's still plenty of it going around. Just ask some of your strongly conservative (and evangelical religious) friends. Or ask all the men who have had their places of power uprooted by the advent of effective contraception who are desperately trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle.
It's gotten to the point where the satire comes swiftly, in the legislative body, in all seriousness, because the thing that's being parodied is That Bad.
Elsewhere, another perspective on the value and use of the social sciences.
Out in the world today, Italy is considering removing the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church, as the religious tax-exemption looks more and more like special treatment in the Era of Austerity.
All-white Marine squad poses with white-supremacist flag, claims they thought it meant something else. Considering the other stories I keep hearing about who is helping the military reach their recruitment goals, I'm not inclined to the benefit of the doubt on this one.
The United States military said they accidentally burned copies of the Qu'ran at Bargram air base in Afghanistan.The response was, erm, riotus to the point where the embassy in Afghanistan remains on lockdown. Several Afghan citizens have been killed in the protests.
And then there's Iran, saying they're ready to do all sorts of pre-emptive actions, which heightens the already very high tensions between Israel, officially indeterminately nuclear, and Iran, trying to be officially nuclear. The diplomatic angles, well, talks aren't really going anywhere with Iran. And now another market that would handle Iranian transactions might be closing on them, which could make the tensions even more tense. (We're probably not making things all that better by expecting all of our diplomatic and economic measures to fail, forcing the issue into a military confrontation.
Domestically, Mr. Google Problem is not an acceptable candidate for President of the United States, this time because he believes that the current President's dream of getting more people into college is really a Secret Plot to destroy more students' faiths. Of course, the media knows how to use their headlines to remind everyone about Mr. Google Problem's Google Problem. Without ever referring to said Google Problem, of course. That doesn't stop columnists from rooting for him, whether because they think he's a conviction candidate fighting a media double standard, (when he says he believes in what the American people believe, they attack him, but give the President a wink and a pass)
The folks at Heritage want you to belive that this administration has been using its power to make federal grants as a way of buying votes for unpopular parts of his agenda, well, moreso than anyone else, anyway. But since there's apparently no clearinghouse for that information, there's no real way of knowing whether this is truly a trend on the rise or that there's convenient calling-attention-to because they're out of power.
A federal district court has ruled that the Defense Of Marraige Act is not constitutional, which could be the beginning of arguments to decide whether or not the federal government really has a good reason for not recognizing all marriages, like the ones being performed in their states... now including Washington. About freakin' time. (As an aside, did we mention now that service people can be open about their orientation, the biggest group in the military for LGBT military is getting bigger.
Elsewhere, Mr. Rumsfeld says that any cuts to the military means that The Enemy Wins, which is a fairly bog-standard line from officials of the last administration. Who are apparently still credible enough to have people report when they say the same things. Mr. Crimi says the administration plans on disarming the United States, when the truth is that there would be reductions from "can destroy the world hundreds of times over" to "can destroy the world a few times over".
And speaking of SCOTUS, the high court of the United States will hear a challenge from a student who claimed she was denied admission to the University of Texas because she was white.
Last out, civilian authorities arrested a man they believed was ready to attack the United States Capitol building.
In technology, using folding technique to create sheets of pop-up robots, when then have their joints hardened. So we have three-dimensional fabrication printers, and we have two-dimensional ways of creating three-dimensional objects. The Future Is Awesome.
There's also the gentleman who excavated a basement using only scale model RC versions of earth movers, trucks, and other tools - it only took seven years.
And a successful test of a drug delivery system that can be activated wirelessly, coupled with the survival of a successful implantation of a pacemaker in a 15-minute old child.
Take a look at an informal experiment - multi-tasking in the classroom is a doable thing, but only when the multi-tasking is in service to the learning. Or in taking a necessary break from concentration, assuming that one can get back on task soon.
There's something to be said about bots taking over the world - and then their interactions causing all sorts of problems for everyone else.
Last out of technology, Mr. Nash predicts modern cryptography and computational complexity long before it comes into being.
In opinions, all the reasons not to like Fox News collected in one spot. What's not on the list? "Because they have a different political orientation than I do."
Mr. Bentley turned off his social media presences for a week, and found that he didn't miss them much, because he believes that social interaction is a far more rich experience than our current social tools - possibly because he sees our presences on social media sites as nothing more than arbitrary data cobbled together into profiles, lacking the complexity that makes human interaction so much more satisfying. One of the people on my reading list takes issue with this idea (sorry, locked-to-access, or we would link) because it fails to take into account that most of our social interactions with other people not mediated by technology are still, in fact, mediated.
What someone knows of me in person is still arbitrary data cobbled together into a profile, just one with a different name and different categories of data - things like height, weight, vocal pattern, accent, breadth of knowledge, oh, and context, which is also present in Internet interactions. The things that I will talk about with people in a work setting are different than those I will talk about in a social setting, and even different than those I will talk about in a context where there is an understanding that things discussed in the room do not leave the room, because people have seen the consequences of outing others to the mundanes. I will talk about different things with furries than cosplayers than Otherkin, even if all three of them have ears and a tail on. It is a rare person that knows about all three of those pieces of data, without me explicitly tying them together, because there usually isn't overlap between those various contexts.
There's still a being there (even if that being were, say, sharing a body with someone else, or were having body dysphoria). And I would say that the relationships created from those interactions, whether personal or Internet-mediated, have value. If for no other reason than to tell me what kind of profiles I don't want to send out, or that people don't particularly want to interact with.
Mr. McDowell, a commissioner with the FCC, recommends against the adoption of centralizing certain Internet and telecom controls with the U.N., suggesting that the free and open Internet is preferable to any regulation, intergovernmental or otherwise, because of the possibility of repressive governments exerting controls, regulations stifling commerce, or opting out entirely from the Internet.
Elsewhere, Mr. Greefield returns to the fountain of global warming, repeating his belief that scientists who believe warming is possible have put their ideology first and are trying to make the facts fit.
The editors of a Murdoch-owned paper want you to believe that a proposed increase on dividend income taxes that would only affect those earning more than 200,000 or 250,000 USD will hurt the middle class by giving corporations no incentive to distribute dividends, which hurts those living off of that dividend income. Because their richest shareholders have to pay more tax on those distributions. It makes a perverse sense, if you assume those richest shareholders will be the most vocal about the corporation keeping their money because they personally don't want to pay taxes.
Last out of opinions, those same Murdoch editors want you to believe the bailout of Detroit was really making sure that unions were loyal to Democrats and to protect those union workers from the ordinary process of bankruptcy that would have severely restructured their contracts. They want to lay the fault entirely at the feet of unions that demanded impossible wages and benefit packages and government regulations on fleet fuel efficiencies that require those automakers to manufacture cars that nobody wants (that they then have to sell at a loss), which ensures that Detroit automakers can't be successful.
Of course, in pointing fingers at the auto bailout, they're being penny-wise. The pound foolishness comes in the much bigger banks and mortgages bailout that has resulted in no relief for ordinary consumers, stablization of the market's prices, or slowing of the foreclosure process through robo-signing claims.
Last for tonight, examine The Arkh Project, an attempt to create an RPG that runs off the beaten path, in its own words.
It's gotten to the point where the satire comes swiftly, in the legislative body, in all seriousness, because the thing that's being parodied is That Bad.
Elsewhere, another perspective on the value and use of the social sciences.
Out in the world today, Italy is considering removing the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church, as the religious tax-exemption looks more and more like special treatment in the Era of Austerity.
All-white Marine squad poses with white-supremacist flag, claims they thought it meant something else. Considering the other stories I keep hearing about who is helping the military reach their recruitment goals, I'm not inclined to the benefit of the doubt on this one.
The United States military said they accidentally burned copies of the Qu'ran at Bargram air base in Afghanistan.The response was, erm, riotus to the point where the embassy in Afghanistan remains on lockdown. Several Afghan citizens have been killed in the protests.
And then there's Iran, saying they're ready to do all sorts of pre-emptive actions, which heightens the already very high tensions between Israel, officially indeterminately nuclear, and Iran, trying to be officially nuclear. The diplomatic angles, well, talks aren't really going anywhere with Iran. And now another market that would handle Iranian transactions might be closing on them, which could make the tensions even more tense. (We're probably not making things all that better by expecting all of our diplomatic and economic measures to fail, forcing the issue into a military confrontation.
Domestically, Mr. Google Problem is not an acceptable candidate for President of the United States, this time because he believes that the current President's dream of getting more people into college is really a Secret Plot to destroy more students' faiths. Of course, the media knows how to use their headlines to remind everyone about Mr. Google Problem's Google Problem. Without ever referring to said Google Problem, of course. That doesn't stop columnists from rooting for him, whether because they think he's a conviction candidate fighting a media double standard, (when he says he believes in what the American people believe, they attack him, but give the President a wink and a pass)
The folks at Heritage want you to belive that this administration has been using its power to make federal grants as a way of buying votes for unpopular parts of his agenda, well, moreso than anyone else, anyway. But since there's apparently no clearinghouse for that information, there's no real way of knowing whether this is truly a trend on the rise or that there's convenient calling-attention-to because they're out of power.
A federal district court has ruled that the Defense Of Marraige Act is not constitutional, which could be the beginning of arguments to decide whether or not the federal government really has a good reason for not recognizing all marriages, like the ones being performed in their states... now including Washington. About freakin' time. (As an aside, did we mention now that service people can be open about their orientation, the biggest group in the military for LGBT military is getting bigger.
Elsewhere, Mr. Rumsfeld says that any cuts to the military means that The Enemy Wins, which is a fairly bog-standard line from officials of the last administration. Who are apparently still credible enough to have people report when they say the same things. Mr. Crimi says the administration plans on disarming the United States, when the truth is that there would be reductions from "can destroy the world hundreds of times over" to "can destroy the world a few times over".
And speaking of SCOTUS, the high court of the United States will hear a challenge from a student who claimed she was denied admission to the University of Texas because she was white.
Last out, civilian authorities arrested a man they believed was ready to attack the United States Capitol building.
In technology, using folding technique to create sheets of pop-up robots, when then have their joints hardened. So we have three-dimensional fabrication printers, and we have two-dimensional ways of creating three-dimensional objects. The Future Is Awesome.
There's also the gentleman who excavated a basement using only scale model RC versions of earth movers, trucks, and other tools - it only took seven years.
And a successful test of a drug delivery system that can be activated wirelessly, coupled with the survival of a successful implantation of a pacemaker in a 15-minute old child.
Take a look at an informal experiment - multi-tasking in the classroom is a doable thing, but only when the multi-tasking is in service to the learning. Or in taking a necessary break from concentration, assuming that one can get back on task soon.
There's something to be said about bots taking over the world - and then their interactions causing all sorts of problems for everyone else.
Last out of technology, Mr. Nash predicts modern cryptography and computational complexity long before it comes into being.
In opinions, all the reasons not to like Fox News collected in one spot. What's not on the list? "Because they have a different political orientation than I do."
Mr. Bentley turned off his social media presences for a week, and found that he didn't miss them much, because he believes that social interaction is a far more rich experience than our current social tools - possibly because he sees our presences on social media sites as nothing more than arbitrary data cobbled together into profiles, lacking the complexity that makes human interaction so much more satisfying. One of the people on my reading list takes issue with this idea (sorry, locked-to-access, or we would link) because it fails to take into account that most of our social interactions with other people not mediated by technology are still, in fact, mediated.
What someone knows of me in person is still arbitrary data cobbled together into a profile, just one with a different name and different categories of data - things like height, weight, vocal pattern, accent, breadth of knowledge, oh, and context, which is also present in Internet interactions. The things that I will talk about with people in a work setting are different than those I will talk about in a social setting, and even different than those I will talk about in a context where there is an understanding that things discussed in the room do not leave the room, because people have seen the consequences of outing others to the mundanes. I will talk about different things with furries than cosplayers than Otherkin, even if all three of them have ears and a tail on. It is a rare person that knows about all three of those pieces of data, without me explicitly tying them together, because there usually isn't overlap between those various contexts.
There's still a being there (even if that being were, say, sharing a body with someone else, or were having body dysphoria). And I would say that the relationships created from those interactions, whether personal or Internet-mediated, have value. If for no other reason than to tell me what kind of profiles I don't want to send out, or that people don't particularly want to interact with.
Mr. McDowell, a commissioner with the FCC, recommends against the adoption of centralizing certain Internet and telecom controls with the U.N., suggesting that the free and open Internet is preferable to any regulation, intergovernmental or otherwise, because of the possibility of repressive governments exerting controls, regulations stifling commerce, or opting out entirely from the Internet.
Elsewhere, Mr. Greefield returns to the fountain of global warming, repeating his belief that scientists who believe warming is possible have put their ideology first and are trying to make the facts fit.
The editors of a Murdoch-owned paper want you to believe that a proposed increase on dividend income taxes that would only affect those earning more than 200,000 or 250,000 USD will hurt the middle class by giving corporations no incentive to distribute dividends, which hurts those living off of that dividend income. Because their richest shareholders have to pay more tax on those distributions. It makes a perverse sense, if you assume those richest shareholders will be the most vocal about the corporation keeping their money because they personally don't want to pay taxes.
Last out of opinions, those same Murdoch editors want you to believe the bailout of Detroit was really making sure that unions were loyal to Democrats and to protect those union workers from the ordinary process of bankruptcy that would have severely restructured their contracts. They want to lay the fault entirely at the feet of unions that demanded impossible wages and benefit packages and government regulations on fleet fuel efficiencies that require those automakers to manufacture cars that nobody wants (that they then have to sell at a loss), which ensures that Detroit automakers can't be successful.
Of course, in pointing fingers at the auto bailout, they're being penny-wise. The pound foolishness comes in the much bigger banks and mortgages bailout that has resulted in no relief for ordinary consumers, stablization of the market's prices, or slowing of the foreclosure process through robo-signing claims.
Last for tonight, examine The Arkh Project, an attempt to create an RPG that runs off the beaten path, in its own words.
