Desktopography is an exhibition, a showcase of nature themed desktop wallpapers created by designers worldwide.

Welcome to Desktopography | Exhibition III (2007)| Natural Desktop Aesthetics

"You're talking about creating (something) that knows no fatigue, no boredom and is absolutely focused."

"The eventual goal is to have elaborate video surveillance well in advance of the 2016 Olympics."

ACLU says: "It is incumbent on the city to ensure that there are practices and procedures in place to sort of watch the watchers."

For "elaborate" as an adjective, OAD offers this: "(of an action) lengthy or exaggerated : he made an elaborate pretense of yawning."

That sounds about right.

Chicago Video Surveillance Gets Smarter

"It would seem that mobbing is also a part of social learning, a kind of class in predator recognition, if you like."

So, Digg is about identifying online predators?

Well, those "N Things about X" memes are considered harmful (or should be).

Once More Into the Fray

You can take the human out of the savannah. But you cannot take the savannah out of the human.

Animal Monitoring Is Innate

In the middle of Steven Pinker's talk at Town Hall last night, the lecture morphed into some surprisingly blue comedy. We'll warn you now: what follows is adult language content.

Surely You're Joking, Dr. Pinker!

"Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things."

A Beloved Professor Delivers The Lecture of a Lifetime

A few years ago, with little fanfare, the United States opened a base in the horn of Africa to kill or capture Al Qaeda fighters. By 2012, the Pentagon will have two dozen such forts. The story of Africa Command, the American military's new frontier outpost.

The Americans Have Landed

Pulp-Based Computing is a series of explorations that combine smart materials, papermaking and printing. By integrating electrically active inks and fibers during the papermaking process, it is possible create sensors and actuators that behave, look, and feel like paper. These composite materials, not only leverage the physical and tactile qualities of paper, but can also convey digital information, spawning new and unexpected application domains in ubiquitous and pervasive computing at extremely affordable costs.

By Marcelo Coelho and Pattie Maes, in collaboration with Joanna Berzowska and Lyndl Hall.

Pulp-Based Computing

Public servant is alleged digital stalker.

United States Attorney Scott N. Schools announced that a federal grand jury in San Jose indicted Benjamin Robinson, age 40, of Oakland, on September 19, 2007, with making a false statement to a government agency, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1030(a)(2) and (c)(2)(B)(ii).

According to the indictment, Mr. Robinson was sworn in as a Special Agent for the Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement, Bureau of Industry and Security, on March 31, 1997. In November 2002, Mr. Robinson began a romantic relationship with a person identified in the indictment by her initials, S.S. The relationship lasted approximately seven months and ended acrimoniously. The indictment alleges that, during the course of their relationship and after S.S. tried to end it, Mr. Robinson made numerous threats to S.S., including threatening to have her deported and to kill her and her family.

The indictment further alleges that from approximately May 2003 through March 2004, Mr. Robinson accessed a government database known as the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) at least 163 times to track the travel patterns of S.S. and her family. Federal agents are authorized to use that database only in the performance of their official duties and not for personal reasons. In addition, law enforcement agents receive training in TECS security and privacy, and are issued unique passwords to access TECS so that their use of the system can be monitored.

The indictment further alleges that on June 1, 2004, agents from the Department of Commerce interviewed Mr. Robinson, and he admitted that he had accessed the TECS database approximately ten to fifteen times to track S.S.’s travel in and out of the United States. In fact, at the time Mr. Robinson made that statement, he was well aware that he had accessed the system at least 163 times between May 1, 2003 and March 22, 2004.

United States Attorney Scott N. Schools stated: "Those of us who are sworn to public service must continually strive to uphold the highest standards of professional conduct. Federal officers who violate the public trust by abusing their official positions to pursue a private vendetta must be held accountable for those actions."

Mr. Robinson is scheduled to make his initial appearance before Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg on October 11, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in San Jose.

So what is TECS?

The TECS is a computerized information system designed to identify individuals and businesses suspected of, or involved in violation of federal law. The TECS is also a communications system permitting message transmittal between Treasury law enforcement offices and other Federal, national, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The TECS provides access to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the National Law Enforcement Telecommunication Systems (NLETS) with the capability of communicating directly with state and local enforcement agencies. The NLETS provides direct access to state motor vehicle departments.

Ex-Dept of Commerce Agent Indicted for Unauthorized Use of Government Database

In 1976 Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde presented the following dilemma: “The liberal secular state lives on premises that it is not able to guarantee by itself.

On one side it can subsist only if the freedom it consents to its citizens is regulated from within, inside the moral substance of individuals and of a homogeneous society.

On the other side, it is not able to guarantee these forces of inner regulation by itself without renouncing to its liberalism.”

What answers can the liberal state offer to questions of social cohesion and ethical deficit that are affecting secularized democracies? Are we living in a secular or a post-secular society?

Reset put these questions to some of the most influential international intellectuals.

A range of European worldviews.

Reset - Dialogues on Civilizations | The dilemma of the liberal State