Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class Jaron Lanier is a computer science pioneer who has grown gradually disenchanted with the online world since his early days popularizing the idea of virtual reality. “Lanier is often described as ‘visionary,’ ” Jennifer Kahn wrote in a 2011 New Yorker profile, “a word that manages to convey both a capacity for mercurial insight and a lack of practical job skills.” Raised mostly in Texas and New Mexico by bohemian parents who’d escaped anti-Semitic violence in Europe, he’s been a young disciple of Richard Feynman, an employee at Atari, a scholar at Columbia, a visiting artist at New York University, and a columnist for Discover magazine. He’s also a longtime composer and musician, and a collector of antique and archaic instruments, many of them Asian. His book continues his war on digital utopianism and his assertion of humanist and individualistic values in a hive-mind world. This week sees the publication of “Who Owns the Future? You talk early in “Who Owns the Future?” Right. Right.
Buying Insurance Should Be as Easy as Using an IPad As a central part of President Barack Obama’s health-care law, Americans will soon be able to obtain insurance through federal exchanges. But how, exactly, will people apply for coverage? In March, a draft of the Obama administration’s application form was released online. Unfortunately, the form was complex, long and immensely difficult to navigate. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services released a radically revised application form, and there’s excellent news. For people with families, the form is a bit longer (11 pages), yet the questions are straightforward, simple and jargon-free. Although the tale of the streamlined health-insurance application form has a happy ending, it also offers three general lessons. Three Lessons The first lesson is that complex forms and requirements can seriously undermine federal and state programs. Have you ever visited a new town and asked a local how to get to the nearest gas station? Experience Matters Not necessarily. (Cass R.
LASER PHYSICIST F. J. Duarte , Laser Physicist (Optics Journal, Rochester, New York, 2012) © ISBN: 978-0-9760383-1-3 (printed version) ISBN: 978-0-9760383-2-0 (electronic version) Date of publication: May, 2012. Politics in academia.. lasers in the Cold War... the decline of an industrial icon (Eastman Kodak) towards oblivion... ethics in research... perspectives on quantum mechanics and reality... perspectives on morality, mortality, and the big question Laser Physicist provides a first hand account of academic politics at Australia's Macquarie University during the "revolt of the sciences" that led to the reform of its degree structure. Chapter 2: Sydney Soon after I began my presentation, the male Aussies started to smile nervously and then began to laugh… and laugh. Chapter 3: Macquarie In his memoirs, John Ward makes reference to my political contacts (Ward, 2004). Chapter 4: John Clive Ward 4.2 Reminiscences His directness and frankness often got him at odds with managers and administrators. 6.3 Moscow
Anti-Abuse Ad That Is Only Visible To Children Spanish organization Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk (ANAR) Foundation has created an anti-abuse ad that is only visible to children. Created using lenticular printing, the ad shows a different photo depending on the angle that the ad is viewed from. From an adult’s perspective, the ad shows a picture of a boy with the words “Sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it”. However, from a child’s point of view, the boy in the ad becomes bruised and the words “If somebody hurts you, phone us and we’ll help you” will appear, together with the foundation’s help line. The ad was created to offer a helpline to abused children, without informing their abusers. Click to watch the video below: [via PetaPixel] Receive interesting stories like this one in your inbox
Privacy on the Line: Security lapse exposes some Lifeline phone customers to ID theft risk Last fall, when Linda Mendez was offered discount phone service through a federal program for the poor, the San Antonio mom thought it was too good to be true. She signed up anyway. (PRIVACY ON THE LINE: Get additional information on investigation - Mendez, 51, works the graveyard shift at a university gym, where she keeps the building clean and stocked with towels. Did you do your homework? Mendez's phone also comes in handy during the day. "I'm always telling my husband, ‘where's my phone?'" "I need it because something's usually happening." For all the convenience afforded by Lifeline, the federal program that subsidizes phone service for qualified low-income households, Mendez now says her initial doubts were justified. Her nine-digit Social Security number, her birth date, home address and the most sensitive details about her family's finances were available to anyone doing an online search this spring . The commission and TerraCom have had previous dealings.
Drinking Water out of Air Reporters use Google, find breach, get branded as “hackers” Call it security through absurdity: a pair of telecom firms have branded reporters for Scripps News as "hackers" after they discovered the personal data of over 170,000 customers—including social security numbers and other identifying data that could be used for identity theft—sitting on a publicly accessible server. While the reporters claim to have discovered the data with a simple Google search, the firms' lawyer claims they used "automated" means to gain access to the company's confidential data and that in doing so the reporters violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with their leet hacker skills. The files were records of applicants for the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Lifeline subsidized cell phone program for low-income consumers. The applicants' information was collected for the telecom providers YourTel and TerraCom by Vcare, an India-based call center service contracted to verify applicants' eligibility.
How to Design Our Neighborhoods for Happiness by Jay Walljasper Biology is destiny, declared Sigmund Freud. But if Freud were around today, he might say “design is destiny”—especially after taking a stroll through most modern cities. The way we design our communities plays a huge role in how we experience our lives. The way we design our communities plays a huge role in how we experience our lives. You don’t have to be a therapist to realize that this creates lasting psychological effects. Of course, this is no startling revelation. One of the notable solutions being put into practice to combat this problem is New Urbanism, an architectural movement to build new communities (and revitalize existing ones) by maximizing opportunities for social exchange: public plazas, front porches, corner stores, coffee shops, neighborhood schools, narrow streets, and, yes, sidewalks. But while New Urbanism is making strides at the level of the neighborhood, we still spend most of our time at home, which today means seeing no one other than our nuclear family.
Become a Programmer, Motherfucker If you don't know how to code, then you can learn even if you think you can't. Thousands of people have learned programming from these fine books: Learn Python The Hard Way Learn Ruby The Hard Way Learn Code The Hard Way I'm also working on a whole series of programming education books at learncodethehardway.org. Learn C The Hard Way Learn SQL The Hard Way Graphics Programming Language Agnostic NerdDinner Walkthrough Assembly Language Bash Clojure Clojure Programming ColdFusion CFML In 100 Minutes Delphi / Pascal Django Djangobook.com Erlang Learn You Some Erlang For Great Good Flex Getting started with Adobe Flex (PDF) Forth Git Grails Getting Start with Grails Haskell Java JavaScript JavaScript (Node.js specific) Latex The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX (perfect for beginners) Linux Advanced Linux Programming Lisp Lua Programming In Lua (for v5 but still largely relevant)Lua Programming Gems (not entirely free, but has a lot of free chapters and accompanying code) Maven Mercurial Nemerle Nemerle NoSQL Oberon Objective-C
Tiny House Village to Shelter the Homeless in Texas by Kelly McCartney The project, which is set to break ground next year, will include places for residents to live, garden, worship, and work. posted Dec 16, 2013 This article originally appeared on Shareable. An architect's rendering of the Community First! village. Image courtesy of Mobile Loaves and Fishes. In Austin, Texas, a project to offer affordable housing to some 200 chronically homeless citizens is on the move. Graham views Community First! Supporter Alan Graham, of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, notes that the price of not housing these folks costs taxpayers about $10 million a year, not to mention the emotional and psychological tolls on the homeless themselves. Graham says that, for the most part, local residents seem to be in favor of the project. Graham has been working with the homeless in his community for more than 14 years and cites broken families as the leading cause of homelessness. And he has given them hope. Kelly McCartney wrote this article for Shareable, where it originally appeared.