Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1587 – Public Intelligence Blog

Google Is Yesterday: Apps, Not Search, the Future

I read “Google Searches for role in App Age.” This is a for fee item, so you will need to pony up money or buy a copy of the dead tree edition of the March 10, 2014, Wall Street Journal. If you have a WSJ account, here’s your link, gentle reader, www.wsj.com and click on the “Top Stories in Tech” by Rolfe Winkler. You may want to try this link too. Great name, Rolfe.

The point of the write up for those who have not been watching Google with Murdochesque eye wear is that mobile users use apps. Mobile users are not too hip to the Web search thing.

According the the write up:

On a phone, links to apps often are more useful than Web links. The apps may be tuned for the smaller screen, and tap features of the phone, like knowing a user’s location, to provide more relevant information: the Open Table app can automatically show restaurants nearby.

Be still my heart. The write up points out:

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Google Is Yesterday: Apps, Not Search, the Future – Comment by Robert Steele”

2014/03/11

SchwartzReport: Update on Fukushima and West Coast

Earth Intelligence

This is, I think, the best assessment of our current understanding of the impact of the Fukushima crisis on the American West Coast.

Scientists: Test West Coast for Fukushima Radiation
TRACY LOEW – USA TODAY

SALEM, OREGON — Very low levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster likely will reach ocean waters along the U.S. West Coast next month, scientists are reporting.

Current models predict that the radiation will be at extremely low levels that won't harm humans or the environment, said Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who presented research on the issue last week.

But Buesseler and other scientists are calling for more monitoring. No federal agency currently samples Pacific Coast seawater for radiation, he said.

2014/03/102014/03/10

Anthony Judge: Independence of Scotland from a Crimean Perspective

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Independence of Scotland from a Crimean Perspective

Emerging strategic logic of the new century understood otherwise?

Introduction

Interpretation of the perspective of the UK Foreign Secretary in terms of the perspective of the Russian Foreign Secretary

Interpretation of the perspective of the UK Envoy to the UN in terms of the perspective of the Russian Envoy to the UN

Interpretation of the perspective of the UN with regard to UK's interest in Scottish stability

Other articulations meriting “adaptation” regarding Scotland

2014/03/102014/03/10

Berto Jongman: Climate Change Killing Deep Sea

Earth Intelligence

Scientists: Climate change is killing life at the bottom of the sea

Number of fish and species diversity was shockingly sparse 7 kilometers down, team concludes.

Climate change isn't a matter of controversy– the planet's climate changes all the time and is arguably doing so now. The question is what's causing it, which is arguable. Less controversial is what climate change is causing, and now scientists suspect the effect at the bottom of the sea is much worse than had been thought.

Scientists from the University of Aberdeen and New Zealand sent cameras to a depth of 7,000 meters – 4.5 miles – to record rarely-seen creatures on the floor of the New Hebrides Trench in the South Pacific.

The researchers had expected to see more variety in the previously unexplored trench, they say. They believe climate change could be having an impact even in the deepest reaches of the ocean.

Read full article and watch video.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Climate Change Killing Deep Sea”

2014/03/102014/03/10

Robin Good: Access Dead Page Tool — and Broken URLs

IO Tools

Access Broken URLs and Dead Web Pages with Resurrect for Firefox

Resurrect Pages is a free Firefox Add-on that allows you to instantly find archived and cached copies for any dead page or broken URL.

Specifically, Resurrect searches through these cache/mirrors:

CoralCDN
Google Cache
Yahoo! Cache
The Internet Archive
MSN Cache
Gigablast
WebCite

Free to use.

Try it out now: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/resurrect-pages/

2014/03/102014/03/10

Jean Lievens: Interview with Rene Ramirez on Bio-Socialism (Buen Vivir) versus Marxist Socialism

Cultural Intelligence

Interview with Rene Ramirez on the Socialism of Buen Vivir – P2P Foundation

* “Why should the socialism of buen vivir be considered a bio-socialism? What characterizes it identifies it and makes it unique from the socialism conceived of by the classics—Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Lenin?

The socialism of buen vivir is a pact of coexistence made by the Ecuadorian people, which has been signed into the new Constitutional Document of 2008. In this constitution, what I have labeled the socialism of buen vivir or republican bio-socialism is made concrete. In simplified terms, the nucleus of classical socialism’s wager was the issue of redistribution, equality. Without a doubt equality has to continue being one of the pillars of the socialism of buen vivir. However, in my view, the leftist agenda that the Ecuadorian people outlined in Montecristi doesn’t just point towards the search for equality. Additional topics exist give it a special place within other current constitutional utopias. One of them is the change from anthropocentrism to biocentrism. What is important is not only human beings but life as a whole, which is constitutive element that guarantees the survival of human beings. We should remember that Ecuador is the only country in the world whose constitution guarantees the rights of nature. At the same time, this Constitution is republican in the sense that it recognizes differences but seeks equality and within the framework of the construction of a democracy that is not only representative but participative and deliberative, in which a citizen not only has rights, but also obligations and responsibilities in the political community.

Read full interview.

2014/03/102014/03/10

John Maguire: Joe Bageant, Duck Dynasty, and the American Hologram

Cultural Intelligence

Joe Bageant, Duck Dynasty, and the American Hologram

It’s been almost three years since Joe Bageant, one of America’s most unique, populist political voices, passed away rather suddenly from cancer. During his life he kept company with American folk heroes such as Hunter S. Thompson, Timothy Leary, and Alan Ginsberg, bartended on the same Indian reservation that author Sherman Alexie grew up on, and in his spare time became one of the preeminent gonzo journalists of his generation. Pretty impressive for a guy who grew up dirt-poor in Winchester, West Virginia, dropped out of High School at sixteen to join the Navy, and never earned higher than a GED.

I did not know Joe personally, but through engaging with his writing felt like I did. I’m sure many admirers of his work feel the same way. I did however have the honor of having a thirty-minute phone conversation with him in August of 2010, approximately six months before he passed. He had forwarded me, a person he barely knew, his phone number after only a brief email exchange. He was spending some time in his Mexican bungalow at the time, and our conversation ranged from the evils of the mortgage industry to his terminally ill family dog. He even extended an invitation to spend some time with him down in Mexico after the New Year. Unfortunately that was not meant to be, but I still consider our conversation as one of the greatest gifts of my life. Not everyone has the opportunity to dialogue with their personal hero.

Continue reading “John Maguire: Joe Bageant, Duck Dynasty, and the American Hologram”