December 2011
14 posts
Mexico City opens massive public-surveillance... →
The cameras, officials said, are designed to automatically spot anomalies on the streets of the D.F., as this city is called for short. Cameras would alert staff at the C4I4, for instance, if a car was going the wrong way down a major avenue, or if a group of people was detected suddenly moving or running at once.
6 Reasons We're In Another 'Book-Burning' Period... →
when Borders bookstores went belly-up earlier this year, they decided to destroy all the unsold books instead of donate them.
USENIX 2011 Keynote: Network Security in the... →
Which leads me to conclude that it’s nearly impossible to underestimate the political significance of information security on the internet of the future. Rather than our credentials and secrets being at risk – our credit card accounts and access to our email – our actual memories and sense of self may be vulnerable to tampering by a sufficiently deft attacker. From being an afterthought or a...
USENIX 2011 Keynote: Network Security in the... →
All this, of course, assumes we have jobs to go to. The whole question of whether a mature technosphere needs three or four billion full-time employees is an open one, as is the question of what we’re all going to do if it turns out that the future can’t deliver jobs. So I’m going to tip-toe away from that ticking bomb …
Science and Censorship - A Duel Lasting Centuries... →
“The notion that the boundaries of knowledge are defined by what is published by Science and Nature is quaint,” he said, referring to the journals. “For better or worse, the way that knowledge is disseminated today is ever less dependent on the flagship journals. It’s done by global scientific collaboration, draft papers, online publication, informal distribution of preprints, and on and on.”
Science and Censorship - A Duel Lasting Centuries... →
“The notion that the boundaries of knowledge are defined by what is published by Science and Nature is quaint,” he said, referring to the journals. “For better or worse, the way that knowledge is disseminated today is ever less dependent on the flagship journals. It’s done by global scientific collaboration, draft papers, online publication, informal distribution of preprints, and on and on.”
Latin America still growing, but fiesta is over -... →
What’s much more worrying, frustrating, and ominous, is that with a few exceptions — such as Chile, and to some extent Brazil — most South American countries have been wasting their commodity exports bonanza in a consumption fiesta. Instead, they should be using their extra income to improve their disastrous education standards and become more competitive in the global economy.
Sinaloa Cartel OK's Mexico's Newest Drug Ballads -... →
Movimiento Alterado’s boom began in 2009 when the Valenzuela brothers recorded songs by two bands and released them on the Internet because radio stations wouldn’t play them. In the states of Sinaloa and Baja California, it’s illegal to play songs that advocate drug trafficking on the radio. In May, Sinaloa state Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez went further and banned them at bars and public places. In...
The Protester -Person of the Year 2011- Printout -... →
rising expectations that go unfulfilled are sociology’s classic explanation for protest. For a critical mass of people from Cairo to Madrid to Oakland, prospects for personal success — for the good life at the End of History that they’d been promised — suddenly looked very grim. They were fed up, and the frustration and anger exploded after the regimes overreached.
End of the Burbs →
Some of the most expensive neighborhoods in their metropolitan areas are Capitol Hill in Seattle; Virginia Highland in Atlanta; German Village in Columbus, Ohio, and Logan Circle in Washington. Considered slums as recently as 30 years ago, they have been transformed by gentrification.
French Modesty and American Delusion →
Over in Europe, dreams are also unraveling. In France, according to a Pew Research Center survey, only 27 percent of the population now believes that “our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior.”
I haven’t read such depressing news in a long time. When humility overtakes French culture, it’s over, folks.
French culture is superior. Just consider the cut of a Chanel suit,...
Role Reversal: IMF Seeks Latin American Funds for... →
In the past, visits by IMF officials to Latin America inspired anger and resentment as the organization preached austerity measures to struggling economies. Now, with the region’s economic boom, Europe is looking to Latin America for help in an unprecedented role reversal. But in an ever-connected global economy, Latin American economies still remain vulnerable to the crisis.
Brazil’s government says annual Amazon rain forest... →
About 20 percent of the Brazilian rain forest has already been destroyed, and 75 percent of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to come from forest clearing as vegetation burns and felled trees rot.
Internet Access and the New Divide - NYTimes.com →
Only slightly more than half of all African-American and Hispanic households (55 percent and 57 percent, respectively) have wired Internet access at home, compared with 72 percent of whites.