What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral - The Washington Post
Topic: Miscellaneous
9:34 am EST, Nov 7, 2011
Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault.
Three-dimensional mapping of starling flocks could shed light not only on the birds' collective behavior but also on a broad range of other aggregate systems.
Masafuera, in the South Pacific, five hundred miles off the coast of central Chile, is a forbiddingly vertical volcanic island, seven miles long and four miles wide, that is populated by millions of seabirds and thousands of fur seals but is devoid of people, except in the warmer months, when a handful of fishermen come out to catch lobsters.
The Rise Of Pinterest And The Shift From Search To Discovery | TechCrunch
Topic: Miscellaneous
7:54 am EST, Nov 7, 2011
I’ve been tracking Pinterest for a while now and, to me, the single most important aspect of the site is that it has deeply tapped into an important shift in consumer and purchasing behavior. As we make a decision to search for or buy something online, we are trained to go to Google (or Amazon), search by keyword, and sort through results to eventually make a transaction. In return for that sorting, Google charges for advertising, but in order for it to work, we users have to signal our intent: “Red Nike running sneakers.” But, how did I decide to want these red running shoes in the first place? While Google makes money at the bottom of this decision funnel, the top of the funnel is where “discovery” happens. It’s much wider at the top of the funnel, and harder to pin down where the thoughts originate (pun intended).
"In August, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), invited analysts to submit proposals on the research applications of social media to strategic communication. DARPA planned on shelling out $42 million in funding for "memetrackers" to develop "innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems."
In Pakistan, Drones Kill Our Innocent Allies - NYTimes.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
1:17 pm EDT, Nov 4, 2011
During the meal, I met a boy named Tariq Aziz. He was 16. As we ate, the stern, bearded faces all around me slowly melted into smiles. Tariq smiled much sooner; he was too young to boast much facial hair, and too young to have learned to hate....
On Monday, he was killed by a C.I.A. drone strike, along with his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed Khan. The two of them had been dispatched, with Tariq driving, to pick up their aunt and bring her home to the village of Norak, when their short lives were ended by a Hellfire missile...
Tariq’s extended family, so recently hoping to be our allies for peace, has now been ripped apart by an American missile — most likely making any effort we make at reconciliation futile.
TSA Checkpoints Now on Tennessee Interstate Highways - YouTube
Topic: Miscellaneous
10:32 am EDT, Nov 4, 2011
If you want a glimpse into the future of this country, this news broadcast is it. It talks about TSA agents performing random searches of vehicles on Tennessee freeways and they throw up a map with hot spots all over the state where checkpoints have been established.
Unconstitutional? Nah! The Constitution doesn't require warrants to perform searches. It just bans searches that are "unreasonable." This news broadcast clearly states that there is a terrorist threat on the freeways. The searches are a reasonable, measured response to that threat, and the searchers are narrowly limited to what is required to protect people from that threat. No Constitutional problem at all!
The problem, of course, is that this news broadcast isn't entirely accurate, as the TSA clarified on their blog. But it will be. Just you wait. You'll see.
I did not know, until last night, that Killing an Arab by the Cure, one of my favorite songs, is a reference to a story by Albert Camus called L'Étranger. I recall his Myth of Sisyphus as one of the most interesting and valuable things that I was "forced" to read in High School. So a copy of L'Étranger is now in my backpack and I am most excited about reading it.
Or rather, an English translation of it - the correct translation being a subject of some controversy, apparently. I find myself wishing that my French was strong enough that I wouldn't have to bother with a translation. It is the first time in my life when I have wanted to know French for a deeper reason than to be able to hang out in France without being constantly regarded as an annoying outsider (which is an impossible goal for an American and therefore an ironically Sisyphusian reason for practicing the language).
I also did not know that Albert Camus was French - much less a Pied-Noir, an Algerian Frenchman. Hence the killing of an Arab by the stranger - by a Frenchman on a beach in Algeria. I continue to be fascinated by Algeria after watching The Battle of Algiers, which was every bit as interesting as it was supposed to be. I still haven't seen Pepe le Moko.
Feds bust alleged Atlanta terror plot | 11alive.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:42 am EDT, Nov 2, 2011
Thomas is quoted in the affidavit from a recorded conversation with the informant: "There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save the country, to save Georgia, without doing something that's highly illegal. Murder. That's (expletive) illegal, but it's gotta be done. When it comes time to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die."
I want to understand the mechanism whereby 3 years into a Democratic administration - *poof* - you get right wing "militiamen" planning to blow up Atlanta. Its like these people went into cryostorage after the '96 Olympics and somehow they just woke back up.
