The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Something about the empty driveway next to his off-campus house in Georgetown always bugged Nick Miller. But he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
EXTRACTS:
Today, Parking Panda, which receives a cut of all transactions, makes locating and reserving a parking spot as easy as purchasing a seat online at Center Stage or Camden Yards.
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The creative center of the world
“After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs.” Wallace Stevens
What would happen if the world were enveloped by art? And if we were the artists? And if we owed nothing to any hierarchy or external authority?
Is it possible that an outpouring of art, creation, invention, coming from millions and millions of people, would bring about a sea change in the conducting of human affairs? Would such a tide affect the obsession to wage war?
Magic is not about arcane crests and codes and symbols. All those symbols and seals are just a way of invoking mystery and a front of supposed privilege.
People still accept landscapes painted by a priesthood and they call those landscapes Spiritual, and hope these puerile inventions will somehow take them to bliss and final enlightenment.
In other words, people want to exist inside a phony masterpiece designed by a class of authoritarians.
Lars-Erik Cederman, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, Halvard Buhaug
5.0 out of 5 stars FINALLY – a modern version of the causes of revolution literature from the 1970's, January 12, 2014
I am absolutely delighted to see this book published, and to also see it win awards. In the 1970's there was a strong political science literature on the causes of revolution (see a few examples below) as well as on governance alternatives intended to achieve dignity and equality such that revolutions do not occur. A few examples:
Harry Eckstein, Internal War: Problems and Approaches
Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
Chalmers Johnson, Revolution and the Social System
The book earns five stars but could reasonably be reduced to four stars for failing to have a holistic analytic model and any substantive reference to true cost economics.
Continue reading “Review: Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War”
Latin America and the US: The Apotheosis of Distrust
The year 2013 was shockingly damaging to relations between the U.S. and the countries of Latin America. Edward Snowden’s revelations showed that in the Western Hemisphere, Washington is trying to play only by the rules it itself has written.
Using such spying programs as Prism, Boundless Informant and others, U.S. intelligence was collecting strategically useful information throughout the South American continent and using it to ensure the effectiveness of its policy in the region…
Continue reading “4th Media: Latin America and the US: The Apotheosis of Distrust”
“Flock” of Nano Satellites to Capture High-Res Views of Whole Earth
A private San Francisco start-up has launched the largest-ever ensemble of Earth-imaging satellites
Scientific American, 10 January 2014
The constellation of Earth-imaging satellites launched yesterday—28 individual sputniks, called “Doves,” each about the size of its namesake and weighing in at a svelte five kilograms—is on its way to the International Space Station. If all goes well, by the end of the month “Flock 1,” as the group is called, will distribute its nanosatellites in Earth orbit, the better to photograph the complete surface of the planet at high resolution 365 days a year. The satellites will provide near-continuous pictures of Earth’s surface at a resolution of three to five meters per pixel.
Planet Labs, the San Francisco start-up that built Flock 1, is one of a growing group of companies and governments launching very small satellites. As their cost and size have plummeted, partly in response to the availability of standardized off-the-shelf components, nanosatellites such as CubeSat, have opened up unprecedented opportunities in remote sensing. Unlike traditional Earth-imaging satellites, which cost millions to build and launch, each of Planet Labs’ diminutive sky cameras, which in its predeployed state resembles a child’s kaleidoscope, comes in at a fraction of that cost.
Conceptual search allows users to search by concepts and ideas within information rather than basic keywords and phrases. Great idea, except that that the idea of conceptual search has been around since 1999. HP is touting it as a entirely brand new idea in the article, “Analytics For Human Information: Optimize Information Categorization With HP IDOL” posted on its own Web site. Rather than break directly into the “new” conceptual search, we are given the even better glittery term “categorization.” HP IDOL, using ExploreCloud-an SaaS solution for analytics and sights, offers an auto-categorization feature marked as a time saver and productive tool.
HP describes it as a magic tool:
“Powered by HP IDOL, ExploreCloud helps you uncover insights across all channels: web, mobile, social media, email, contact center, database, and storefront, so that you can organize and quantify content in a consistent, objective manner, resulting in data that is more accessible and consistent. And you can maintain existing legacy taxonomies and/or enrich them with contextual understanding. When you go beyond the limitations of what keywords can help you do, your whole world opens up. You can also discover the “unknown unknowns,” or topics you did not know to look for in the first place.”
The article stresses that regular keyword searching is far from abandoned, but its limitations are stressed. Keyword search’s weaknesses are addressed to the point of stating the obvious, and then it turns into a sales pitch for HP IDOL. Little is said about what exactly HP IDOL can do, other than organize data. HP, please tell us something we do not know.
Whitney Grace, January 12, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
