172082523
submission
Ostracus writes:
"Is the world facing a “polycrisis”? Is there even such a thing?"
Makes an argument that current events aren't just, "business as usual" but something novel happening.
167139707
submission
Ostracus writes:
"China has opened dozens of “overseas police service stations” around the globe to monitor its citizens living abroad, including one location in New York City and three in Toronto." The source for some of the claims is this site.
https://safeguarddefenders.com...
106461080
submission
Ostracus writes:
The brain may represent concepts in the same way that it represents space and your location, by using the same neural circuitry for the brain’s “inner GPS.”
104436828
submission
Ostracus writes:
Using ratings, competitions and bonuses to incentivise workers isn’t new – but as I found when I became a Lyft driver, the gig economy is taking it to another level. But that apparent freedom poses a unique challenge to the platforms’ need to provide reliable, “on demand” service to their riders – and so a driver’s freedom has to be aggressively, if subtly, managed. One of the main ways these companies have sought to do this is through the use of gamification.
102489806
submission
Ostracus writes:
"Why is the nation’s flagship loan forgiveness program [PSLF] failing the people it’s supposed to help?"
101885968
submission
Ostracus writes:
"Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a “desktop-as-a-service” (DaaS) offering. Instead of owning Windows, you’ll “rent” it by the month."
101762406
submission
Ostracus writes:
"Car dependence not only reduces our quality of life, it’s a crucial factor in America’s economic and political divisions."
8940940
submission
Ostracus writes:
Odd as it may seem to some of you, my online persona is no different than millions of others. If you traverse the blogs and forums and websites of the World Wide Web, you will find that those who choose to be exactly what they are in real life on the net as well are in a minority. From elves to vampires, klingons to anime cat-girls, cartoon characters to movie stars, the face worn by the majority of netizens is rarely the one they wear in daily life.
4805453
submission
Ostracus writes:
The cellphone is the world's most ubiquitous computer. The four billion cellphones in use around the globe carry personal information, provide access to the Web and are being used more and more to navigate the real world. And as cellphones change how we live, computer scientists say, they are also changing how we think about information.
3691289
submission
Ostracus writes:
New York — The American newspaper is dead. Long live the American newspaper!
OK, so reports of the demise of daily journalism are a bit premature. But you can't open up the newspapers today without reading bad news about the papers.
Declining circulation and advertising revenues have forced newsrooms to trim their staffs, which means less real reporting. A few city papers have closed — the most recent victim was Denver's 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News — while others fill their pages with fluff pieces or wire-service stories. Put simply, it's getting too expensive to gather news.
So here's a novel idea: Let's get university professors to do it. For real. And, best of all, free of charge.
3575093
submission
Ostracus writes:
If the economic crisis goes on much longer, will there be any newspapers left in the US to write about it?
America's newspaper industry has been badly hit by the downturn, and a number of titles face closure. The latest casualty is the venerable San Francisco Chronicle, whose owners on Wednesday announced they were planning to cut a "significant" number of jobs to meet cost-cutting targets, and that if the targets are not met, then the paper would be sold or closed down.
3426655
submission
Ostracus writes:
Almost 40 years ago, American scientists took their first steps in a quest to break the world's dependence on plastics.
But in those four decades, plastic products have become so cheap and durable that not even the forces of nature seem able to stop them. A soupy expanse of plastic waste — too tough for bacteria to break down — now covers an estimated 1 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.
Sensing a hazard, researchers started hunting for a substitute for plastic's main ingredient, petroleum. They wanted something renewable, biodegradable, and abundant enough to be inexpensive.
2832325
submission
Ostracus writes:
A group of researchers led by Peidong Yang, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, have recently created nanoscale particles that can self-assemble into various optical devices. These include photonic crystals, metamaterials, color changing paints, components for optical computers and ultrasensitive chemical sensors, among many other potential applications. The new technology works by controlling how densely the tiny silver particles assemble themselves.
