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Comment Depending on how things turn out... (Score 2) 544

by one eyed kangaroo (#42279459) Attached to: Is Technology Eroding Employment?

...this is either the start of the post-scarcity future so cleverly portrayed by Ian M Banks in his Culture novels. In this future we are freed from the need to work and instead choose to work, and play.

...or it's the start of a dystopian future forshadowed in Kevin Warick's "In the Mind of the Machine". Chapter 2 of that book is still the most horrible account of our near-term future I have read anywhere. In it humans are bred in conditions like contemporary chicken farms, kept for their labour, and are lucky to live past 30. Very unpleasant.

I'm hoping for the Banksian future ;-)
Science

Submission + - Declining Life Expectancy for Less Educated Whites (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by
JThaddeus
JThaddeus writes: "Citing mortality data, researchers assert that the life expectancy of less educated U.S. whites is declining. According to the New York Time article, "Four studies in recent years identified modest declines, but a new one that looks separately at Americans lacking a high school diploma found disturbingly sharp drops in life expectancy for whites in this group...The reasons for the decline remain unclear, but researchers offered possible explanations, including a spike in prescription drug overdoses among young whites, higher rates of smoking among less educated white women, rising obesity, and a steady increase in the number of the least educated Americans who lack health insurance." Could the Cracker problem be self-correcting?"
Science

Submission + - Brain's 'reading centres' are culturally universal (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Learning to read Chinese might seem daunting to Westerners used to an alphabetic script, but brain scans of French and Chinese native speakers show that people harness the same brain centres for reading across cultures.
Reading involves two neural systems: one that recognizes the shape of the word and a second that asseses the physical movements used to make the marks on a page. But it has been unclear whether the brain networks responsible for reading are universal or culturally distinct. Previous studies have suggested that alphabetic writing systems (such as French) and logographic ones (such as Chinese, in which single characters represent entire words) writing systems might engage different networks in the brain.
The researchers found that both Chinese and French people use the visual and gestural systems while reading their native language, but with different emphases that reflect the different demands of each language (paper).
Understanding how the brain decodes symbols during reading — using both visual and motor centres — might also inform learning strategies for general literacy. Harnessing the gestural system more in education might, for example, help young children with reading."
Facebook

Submission + - The Facebook Toll Booth (correntewire.com)

Submitted by
Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes: "Facebook charges you to talk to more than 15% of your "friends"

According to Facebook's own advertising department, on the average, about 15% of the folks you imagine are getting your stuff are getting it. The other 80 or 85%..... not. That's one in five if you're lucky, one in seven if you're not. Ever wondered what that “promote” button at the bottom of your posts is? That's the doorway to talking to ALL your followers or friends or fans. It's the ONLY doorway, and it's a toll booth. This is not a bug, it's a feature.

"
Australia

Submission + - Aussie pubs beat bar fights with biometrics (zdnet.com.au) 1

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: Pubs and clubs in Australia are signing up in droves to national and state biometrics databases that capture patron fingerprints, photos, and scanned driver licenses in efforts to curb violence.

The databases of captured patron information mean that individuals banned at one location could be refused entry across a string of venues. Particularly violent individuals could be banned for years.

The databases are virtually free from government regulation as biometrics are not covered by privacy laws, meaning that the handling of details are left to the discretion of technology vendors.
Earth

Submission + - An Evangelical Backlash Against Environmentalism

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "John Collins Rudolf reports that a fierce backlash against the mingling of Christianity and environmentalism has recently emerged led by the Cornwall Alliance, an evangelical nonprofit that strenuously opposes action on climate change and describes the environmental movement as a “false religion” that Christians must avoid at all costs and that while some environmental concerns are well founded and serious, others are without foundation or greatly exaggerated including "fears of destructive manmade global warming, overpopulation, and rampant species loss." This December, the group released a 12-part educational video series, “Resisting the Green Dragon,” warning Christians that radical environmentalism “is striving to put America, and the world, under its destructive control.” “We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory,” the group’s declaration reads. “Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.”"
Crime

Submission + - Is Reading Spouse's e-mail a Crime?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Detroit Free Press reports that Leon Walker is charged with unlawfully reading the e-mail of Ciara Walker, his wife at that time, which showed she was having an affair with her second husband, who once had been arrested for beating her in front of her son. Walker says he gave the e-mails to her first husband, the child's father, to protect the boy. "I was doing what I had to do," says Walker. "We're talking about putting a child in danger." Now prosecutors, relying on a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets, have charged Leon Walker with a felony for logging onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife. Prosecutor Jessica Cooper defended her decision to charge Walker. "The guy is a hacker," says Cooper adding that the Gmail account "was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained. Then he downloaded [the emails] and used them in a very contentious way.""
NASA

Submission + - Comet Snow Is Pouring Out Of Hartley 2 (discovery.com) 1

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "On Nov. 4, NASA's EPOXI mission flew past the comet Hartley 2 and discovered something strange. According to a press conference held on Thursday, particles of ice are pouring from the comet at a rate of 300 tons of the stuff per hour. Some of ice has accumulated into clumps as large as basketballs. “When we first saw this our mouths just dropped. The whole thing just looked like a snow globe,” Brown University’s Pete Schultz, a mission scientist, told reporters."

Submission + - Security Theater: The Ripples Spread to Japan (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apparently the conditions for shipping packages via air to the United States have now become so restrictive that the Japanese Post Office has announced that, effective Nov. 17, it will no longer accept any packages weighing over a pound for shipment to the US by any method that involves air transport (including EMS, airmail, and SAL). Except for large corporate mailers, everything over a pound must apparently now come by sea. Asahi Shimbun is reporting that the Japanese equivalents of FedEx and UPS have followed suit. I assume that airmail service remains in effect for the remaining 200 countries across the globe that have not lost their collective minds.

Submission + - Supreme Court justices baffled by technology (washingtonpost.com) 3

Submitted by kcurtis
kcurtis writes: Not really surprising that a group of rich old lawyers don't really use technology the way the rest of us do.

From the Washington Post story: The 72-year-old justice [Stephen Breyer] said in a speech at Vanderbilt Law School on Tuesday that he was perplexed when he recently saw the film "The Social Network" about the origins of Facebook.

Chief Justice John Roberts in a public employee privacy case before the court earlier this year tried to figure out the role of a text-messaging service in enabling an exchange between two people. "I thought, you know, you push a button; it goes right to the other thing," Roberts said. Responded Justice Antonin Scalia: "You mean it doesn't go right to the other thing?"
Security

Submission + - Intrusion Detection Honeypots Compared (infoworld.com)

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Roger Grimes provides an in-depth comparison of intrusion detection honeypots — fake computer assets that exist only to alert owners if it is touched. 'When used as early-warning systems, honeypots are low cost, low noise, and low maintenance, yet highly effective at drawing attention to threats in the network environment. They belong in any defense-in-depth program,' Grimes writes. Grimes' honeypot primer puts KFSensor, HoneyPoint, and Honeyd through their paces, and for those interested in turning on old PC into a network security asset, Grimes also provides a guide on how to roll your own honeypot.

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