In Galileo’s time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9, at the other extreme of the scale, and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. For someone standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, the brightest feature of the sky is not the Milky Way but the glow of Las Vegas, a hundred and seventy-five miles away. To see skies truly comparable to those which Galileo knew, you would have to travel to such places as the Australian outback and the mountains of Peru. And civilization’s assault on the stars has consequences far beyond its impact on astronomers. Excessive, poorly designed outdoor lighting wastes electricity, imperils human health and safety, disturbs natural habitats, and, increasingly, deprives many of us of a direct relationship with the nighttime sky, which throughout human history has been a powerful source of reflection, inspiration, discovery, and plain old jaw-dropping wonder.

Our Far-flung Correspondents: The Dark Side : The New Yorker

Last week’s record volatility in U.S. stocks ended after four days. The anxiety it instilled among mutual-fund investors may linger for years.

Investors pulled a net $23.5 billion from U.S. equity funds in the week ended Aug. 10, the most since October 2008, when markets were reeling from the collapse a month earlier of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the Investment Company Institute said yesterday.

Volatile Stocks to Leave Lasting Scars on Fund Investors’ Psyche - Bloomberg

The practical consequence is that the effective key length of AES is about 2 bits shorter than expected - it is more like AES-126, AES-190, and AES-254 instead of AES-128, AES-192, and AES-256. We think it is a significant step toward the understanding of the real security of AES."

Aes encryption is cracked- The Inquirer

Penn Jillette:

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness...

I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it...

This country used to be owned by a King. It was his property. The corporations were owned by him. The people rented his land. The taxes were his profits. Over time, repeatedly, a gun was put to his head, and his power became less absolute. His ownership became less absolute. Some of his money was spent in the public interest against his will. We gradually created a republican system of government wherein we had a say in how his money was spent. In the United States the King was eventually removed from the picture entirely.

What right had we to do that? The United States was his property! Removing it from him and giving it to the collective ownership of the citizenry was, clearly, bullying laziness... Why didn't we go out and get our own country if thats what we wanted?! What a bunch of jerks we are!

Wealthy people who argue that they owe absolutely nothing to the rest of society and should not have to pay taxes are, more or less, arguing that the King should still own everything and they ought to be his employee. Its a line of thinking that is ahistorical, selfish, childishness.

In the real world, people sometimes use force to take the things they need to survive. Poor people steal food to survive. If conditions are bad enough, they riot. If conditions are really bad, they overthrow the rulers and establish a new order. Gasp in disgust at it over your cup of tea if you want, but this is the world you live in and its ugly.

The system of government we have is a consequence of a thousand years of balancing the rights of kings against the rights of paupers. Radical oversimplifications that one side of this equation is always right are of no value and should not be taken seriously. What is important is that we've found a way to navigate the conflicts of interests between these groups through nonviolent processes like voting and constitutional rights, instead of through war.

Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

I couldn't agree more, but no one has ever proposed that people have an individual right to not pay taxes.

Libertarianism is the same thing as Monarchism

I sat down last night and recorded a 70 minute long presentation on Secure Open Wireless Access. You can download the recording as a 37 Meg Quicktime Movie here.

Don't forget to download our code.

Our almost Blackhat talk on Secure Open Wireless

The Zooniverse is home to the internet's largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects. The currently live projects are here and plenty more are on the way.

You can help NASA classify galaxies or lunar features, or search for planets.

Zooniverse - Real Science Online

a directory of ways to participate in space exploration

Spacehack

Its new FaceIN system uses facial recognition technology to identify and clock in workers. It's billed as foolproof, hygienic and cost-saving.

With more ways to control people, what a great future it'll be!

Atlanta firm goes futuristic with face recognition for workers  | ajc.com

Its gettin' real, yo.

Whole Foods Parking Lot - Music Video [HD] - YouTube

As many may be aware by now, Bay Area Rapid Transit, also known fondly as BART and San Francisco’s version of a municipal subway system, has been on the receiving end of quite a bit of criticism over the last 24 hours. The criticism stems from BART temporarily interfering with cell service in four of its stations in order to stifle potentially violent protests that centered around an earlier shooting by a BART police officer.

BART’s Interference In Subway Protests, A Step In The Wrong Direction For Digital Freedoms - The Washington Post