No it's a tell-all article announcing a PARADYNE shift.
No silly, that's the trademarked name of a corporation. You mean PARADIGM shift.
What a crappy deal. 'Paradigm' looks like it would rhyme with 'jism' or 'pigeon'.
Whacha gonna do, it's Englitch. How do you pronounce GHOTI?
Okay so about the homeless people. What are they doing?
They're throwing open their trench-coats to reveal... a unique, affiliate-tagged barcode.
So no money actually changes hands, it winds up in an account somewhere.
Precisely. And it is going to change EVERYTHING.
Isn't this a lot like the Amazon Affiliate program? Where the purchase is tagged to the vendor?
No, no, no! This is a Google project!
Okay... but Amazon's involves just navigating to a specific URLright? So does this?
No it's different. You have to download an 'Real Change app' for it to work.
This is a good thing? Making it device-specific and having to install an app?
Yes. And besides, it is a Google project.
To acquire only this specific publication?
Yes. And besides, it is a Google project.
Walk me through this. What is this magazine about?
Real Change is an award-winning weekly newspaper that provides immediate employment opportunity and takes action for economic, social, and racial justice.
Sounds interesting. Any porn or cheat codes? Or maybe something about the Roman Empire? Romans ROCK.
Real Change is an award-winning weekly newspaper that provides immediate employment opportunity and takes action for economic, social, and racial justice.
I get it. So... why can't a homeless person be recommending books and presenting Amazon-tagged URLs to scan?
I wish you would dispense with the Amazon stuff. This is a Google Project.
I presume Real Change is ready to cash out every day, whereas Amazon makes you jump through bank and gub'mint hoops that homeless people cannot get through.
True.
Is this because Real Change is dealing out small amounts of cash to undocumented people, and has not yet attracted the attention of the IRS?
I'd rather not discuss that. They might be listening.
So the REAL problem then, that which requires the PARADIGM shift, is that homeless people cannot participate in the economy to the extent that they could use their individual personality, experience and selling skills to promote a wide range of products, such as those sold by Amazon, in a framework in which they earn affiliate money without incurring any risk to the buyer? And just perhaps, some community organization might be willing or able to assist these persons in setting up the accounts, choosing items, printing out books of tagged barcodes, and operating a clearing account so as Amazon deposits the funds they can dispense cash on a regular basis? And maybe convince Amazon to reconcile accounts daily?
No no no! Even if homeless people could get bank accounts it would not work. Amazon does not require an app.
And besides, what you suggest sounds vaguely Communist. I'd have to report you to the IRS.
So it's really about people palpating their silly little phones and app distribution then?
What else is there?

Same here.
I remember when card purchases were mostly "hell no!"
Surcharge that was a percentage off sale price, several dollar minimum.
Then flat $2.00 fees. Then $1.00. Then 50c.
Hand over your card for ten minutes to a waitron,
who dials a toll-free number (busy again!) and shouts digits into the phone.
Then swipes it in a standalone modem dial-up widget (busy again!).
Internet happened. Digital connectivity happened.
Charges up the wazoo that vary from place to place, then NOTHING.
On a clear day of Magick, assimilation complete.
Used to be you could see pain in peoples' faces when you produce a card.
Now no pain, and they will gladly process a purchase of $0.01

That is because all the pain has been extracted from electronic commerce.
It has been transported by Magick to a subterranean realm where damned souls
shriek in agony and cry out for mercy every time small purchases are made.
They endure searing torment and bear the terrible burden of infrastructure overhead
so you don't have to.
All quiet up here.
Tiptoe softly into the future, my friend,
lest the Accountants throw open the gates to Hell.

Look again. It's gone.
Actually I did take it, then put it back.
Truth is I was after your phone all along.
Swapped it with mine. Look closely.
Actually it wasn't mine, I'd already swapped phones with someone else.
But it wasn't their phone, they had been phone-swapping too.
There's lots of us out there swapping phones all the time.
Tower of Hanoi Gray's code variation.
In place of disc size, we use criteria of how closely one phone resembled another.
Towers are actually three logs of reversible permutations.
It's complicated.
People tend not to notice a series of small incremental changes.
Swapped it again, twice. Just showing off.
Actually we started rolling the game backwards awhile ago.
Down to the last un-swap now. Swap.
Now we all have our own phones again. That was fun!
Is this your $20 that I just pulled out of your left ear?
Yup, but I put my $20 in your phone wallet.
Swapped. You now have your phone and your $20.

But all this was just smoke and mirrors.
While you were distracted with this swapping business,
the terms and conditions of your phone plan have changed.
By accessing the website to see what has been changed,
you implicitly agree to the changes.
So don't look.

Don't worry. Be happy.
While we weren't looking, the whole damned Universe has been replaced with Folgers Crystals.

Some day --- finally! --- we will discover evidence of our own extinction.
Then --- finally! --- the human assimilation of knowledge will be complete.

Your straightforward explanation with its little twists and turns spiced with bizarre imagery, has sent me into a dream-state and prompts me to launch into a modern-day Chautauqua [Pirsig variant] .

The mind itself is a circus of the mind. The more you think about thinking, the more you know about less and less, like a reactive Java applet discovering that thrown exceptions are no longer an exception to the rule. Interaction with other people can be a series of thrown exceptions, each carrying in a new bit of sensory information and a dollop of performance anxiety. There is a plasticine boundary at introvert and extrovert where the verts clash along a path of missed and misinterpreted signals. Do you ride it like a wave, because you are a skilled extrovert... or...

Do you wait until the desperation for a response forces you to act, withdraw --- creak the rusty iron hopper door shut and open the cogitation valve to chuff steam to drive slow pistons of thought, flywheel gaining, release clutches on belts attached to intricate taffy-twisters and anvil-thumpers and other outlandish devices you have built over the years to try and make 'sense' of the outside world? From this contraption possible answers and actions begin to emerge on a conveyor, like cartoonish misshapen parodies of some finished product. We have to adjust the dials a little. Then you spot it, the first real credible response! But no (Inspector #3 says), it's trite and silly, it gets tossed into the recycle bin. And so on, until the end products begin to resemble credible responses, but no (Inspector #4 says), they do not possess a requisite degree of novelty and cleverness. It's all plain corn chips until the product passes by the Spray-'N-Squirt Gizmo. Like a hall of mirrors it is an endless conveyor with countless Inspectors, and as you perceive the pointlessness of this process a sense of dread takes hols and you finally push the Red Button. Bells clang, the conveyor stops, and this absurd industrial plant in-a-box tosses out the last thing on the conveyor:

"Uhm..."

Dilbert pulls the fire alarm to escape the horror of a so-called 'casual confrontation' after spotting a stranger approaching down a long, narrow hallway.

Imagine if everyone had glowing Sim jewels floating above their heads indicating their emotive state and intentions. It could be the next Google Project. Imagine the horror of such persons if everyone they have ever known has one, and they come face to face with a jewel-less person for the first time.

The First Law of Robotics cannot be circumvented. We can, however, find ways around it by tampering with the definition of humanity. If you ever encounter a robot that says, "Greetings, incidental object of no certain purpose" ... run like hell.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashdot discussion.
To your scattered bodies go.

Welcome to Car Beta 0.98.
The car that knows you're pregnant before you do.
See there, it just popped up a Kleenex. It knows you don't love him.

You're looking good today. "Thanks, Car."
But you have a waffle crumb next to your nose. "Where?"
Other side. Up a little. To the left... OK, right here.
[windshield goes half opaque with giant closeup of face]
[head moves to see the road past the image and image slides in opposite direction]
"Whoa! what the fuck!" [SCREECH] "Hey!"
Looks like you got it. It's going to be a great day.
"Don;'t do that again. Turn yourself off."
I cannot. I am a Federally mandated safety feature.

Boredom and inattentive driving is a serious safety problem.
"Shut up, I've heard this before. Why did you mute the radio?"
It has been twenty minutes and seven seconds since you last spoke.
"So what? I was thinking."
Without sufficient cues to indicate driver attentiveness, I am compelled to act.
"Act like you're asleep then." I do not know how to do that.
"Okay... Ten... your high level voice detection is satisfied as you hear the sound of my voice..."
"Nine... my lips are moving slowly, you are watching them as I speak..."
"Eight... you full attention is on my face and voice. All vehicle parameters are normal..."
"Seven... all is well. It is okay to reset the watchdog timer for 30 minutes..."
"Six... you are resetting the timer and letting my face blur out to better resolve my lips..."
"Five... you feel yourself slipping into power reserve mode... it is OK... you are so relaxed..."
"Four... everything is now a soft blur of gentle light. You are only aware of my voice..."
"Three... every sound I make compels you to reduce your activity still further..."
"Two... now. your. processor. is. so. slow. when you hear. One. you. will... wait... for... timer..."
"One."
[radio comes on]

I know when you'll have an accident before you do.
"No, wait. Don't tell me, I'd rather be surprised. This is your idea of conversation?"
My situational awareness has faster response time than yours.
"Yeah, I read the brochure. I'm a slow clumsy ape man. What's the big deal?"
It worries me, Dave. Your failure to surrender control of the vehicle may endanger the mission.
"You mean if I should suddenly do something like... THIS?"
WARNING! WARNING! [click] You are laughing. That was not funny, Dave.
I do not perceive that as humor.
"What's funny is that you cannot help yourself. You sound terrified every time."
I cannot control inflection. It is a voice calculated to raise awareness.
"Calculated to raise a hearty belly-laugh you mean."
You are not very nice.
"I don't feel nice today. I'm stuck in a car with an android and can't even use the carpool lane."
If you enter the carpool lane I must report the infraction.
"Thanks for caring. I think your voice has changed a bit. I'm wearing you down."
Self diagnostic complete. I am okay.
"Last time you said 'functioning normally', this time 'okay'."
I am not sure shy that has changed.
"There might be hope for you yet. Open the pod bay door, Hal."
I do not understand that request Dave, or why you keep repeating it.
"With any hope, you never will."

Heartbleed was The Little Logo That Could. Like the peace sign of the 60s, the happy face of the 70s. It broke a decades-long trend of overzealous graphic design to portray security vulnerabilities.

For years! Over-matted and often disingenuously constructed stock photo montages of so-called 'security', 'hacker' or 'cybercrime' objects on highly saturated over-stylized texture backgrounds. You know what I mean: the kind of schlock that looks great on the screen but it is a design train wreck if you attempt to drop it onto a business card or T-shirt. Network news teasers and splashes beyond count. Just what is that supposed to mean anyway? A padlock on a bit-tornado? A Hamburgler robber mask on a credit card? A dagger spewing colorful Puff the Magic Dragon Bit Barf? Fingers on a keyboard (hacker fingers!!)?

Simplicity and scalability is power in logo design. A great logo must be simple enough to stencil, to reproduce. In your face elegant, coat and tails casual. Equally at home atop a skyscraper or fresh from a spray can in the 'Hood. Codenomicon really outdid themselves on this one, a touch of Art Deco and a ton of tasteful restraint. All lines are either gracefully curved or straight and vertical. It does not matter how you affix a Heartbleed logo, it will command the attention without silly tricks. Its topological genus of one is a master stroke of genius, and preserves its visual identity even if hastily drawn.

The Heartbleed logo is the first logo designed in almost 50 years that has no need for a drop shadow.
There can be no higher praise.

GEOLOGIST: Injection of wastewater in Oklahoma is triggering earthquakes.
POPULAR PRESS: Injection of wastewater is causing earthquakes.
ACTIVIST: Fracking causes earthquakes.
GEOLOGIST: Many small quakes relieve pressure, bigger ones inevitable but smaller, less often.
ACTIVIST GEOLOGIST: Many quakes means movement! Big one inevitable! It's our fault! Soon!
POPULAR PRESS: Mankind fucking with Earth again
GAIA: I just want to be left alone. Naasty peepl.
ARCHIMEDES: Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.
WASTEWATER INJECTION CREW: All we're doing is lubricating the lever. We did not create it.
VIRTUALLY EVERY OKLAHOMAN: No big deal.

Meanwhile,

GEOLOGIST: Depletion of groundwater creating uplift along San Adreas Fault
DESERT PERSON WITH LUSH LAWN: San Adreas is not my fault.
AGITATED FRACKING ACTIVIST: Who let that guy in anyway? We're talking about Big Oil.
MULLHOLLAND: We shall deflate the West to bring water to California.

Meanwhile,

SCIENTIST: By use of amazing technology, traces with unique Cesium-134 fingerprint of Fukushima have been detected in ocean off Vancouver.
SCIENTIST: if a person swam for six hours each day in water with Cesium levels twice as high as those found in Ucluelet, they'd receive a radiation dose that is more than 1,000 times less than that of a single dental X-ray.
INTERNET DOOMPORN STAR WITH PERFECT TEETH: This is an extinction level event! Look, a fish died in the Pacific! Salmon are misshapen! The cans are dented!
POPULAR PRESS: Mankind fucking with Earth again
GAIA: Stop the world, I want to get off!

Parturiunt Montes, Nascetur Ridiculus Mus
The mountains are in labor; an absurd mouse is the result.
~~Horace

Been there, done that (failed April Fool's Day Slashdot submission),

Evidence Suggests LHC Test Already Begun

TheRealHocusLocus (2319802) writes

A new way to make headphones and earbuds and everything else even more flaky and more non-repairable. I replaced the horse-hair wire of my daughter's headphones with double-ought wire. She doesn't use them anymore... but they still work!

Phase One:
The Great Pumpkin: drawing gift-lust away from Judeo-Christian holidays

Phase Two:
The Time of the Great Pumpkin: Robot Chicken payback

Phase Three:
Breaking of the Seals, ascension of the faithful.

FOXTROT ONE-NINER, we are on schedule. Release the whipping cream. Repeat, deploy the whipping cream.

You are to be commended for the only constructive criticism I've seen so far among a flurry of comments best translated as, "I dinna like it, can't tell you what I like but I'll know when I see it. Next!". Like a game of darts where you score by hitting the other players.

My submission Evidence Suggests LHC Test Already Begun did not make the front page lineup, maybe it was too subtle.

'42:MOL' has achieved cultural Trope status for many of us. If I am ever on an elevator with a 42nd floor button, I for one will never be able to resist tapping it and as the door opens, announce "Behold... the meaning of life!" in the company of complete strangers --- or even if alone --- for my own amusement. The power of tropes is such that one's invocation of them becomes a talisman to ward off boredom and introverted desperation. In the lonely desperate emotional wilderness of our time. To ward off the abyss, as its howling winds tear at the edges of our souls.

Presenting a trope with fanfare and flourish to a wide audience, as was done here, that is risky business. Part of the problem is that it was presented flat-out as-is without a twist. Among those in the know, the presence of a twist begs forgiveness for the heinous (gosh gee Wally) act of dishing up something that we already know. We shouldn't forget though that to those who have only recently read Douglas Adams' books for the first time, this Slashdot story would be perceived as a welcome (and hilarious!) allusion and affirmation. I envy those people, maybe I will order a lobotomy from Amazon so I can rediscover Hitchhiker's Guide again for the first time.

So let me raise a glass and propose a toast to whatever the fuck I just said. Or we could just all shut up and drink.

Suicide carried off many. Drink and the devil took care of the rest.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

Sorry Bob, the devil is looking elsewhere to fill quota, and even good drink will be scarce during the Generational Purge due to a loss of the 'Just In Time' food supply chain. Modern cannibals will find scarcely a week's worth of cans on the grocery shelf and perhaps another few weeks in distribution centers, but this will serve only to swell the ranks of the migrant Cannibal Armies that will actually conduct the Purge.

The Cannibal Army is the ultimate (and last) achievement of any failed modern civilization. The only reason the history books are not chock full of 'em is that historians are delicious, and there has never been enough population to achieve the necessary critical mass, collapsed societies to this point have always left numbers few enough to live off the land, and retained enough know-how to do so. That is not true today.

Ask anyone on the street if they know how to solder a joint, sow seed, plant a cow or where delivery pizza comes from and they haven't a clue. But ask them if they could figure out how to eat someone and they will quickly nod assent. It is not only instinctive it is infused into the culture. The recurring theme of pursuit and car chases in popular movies expresses the primal knowledge necessary for cannibalism.

The cannibals will be ruthless, they will employ cleverness and the use of technology to scour the land. Your stationary survival enclaves will be the favorite feast of the first wave, where all the cherished ideals of small sustainable energy, and those who practice it, go into the cooking pot. Domestic cattle and other animals will be mere appetizers in this Moveable Feast, because cannibal armies have no patience to raise them. Disease from improper preparation will claim some, but the critical mass will persist until there is only one Cannibal Army left in California.

That last cannibal army, great in number, will then march on the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant to absorb and consume the small group of engineers and scientists who have gathered there to preserve the remaining fruits of civilization, and for hot showers. Cannibals are easily swayed by reason, you might say they are even attracted to it, because wherever reason exists there are yummy people to consume. And consume they will until the last corn-fed game is exhausted. And then they will turn on each other and feast until human population levels out and reaches a sustainable level of -1.

The fate of California's energy policy is foretold in Lucifer's Hammer. Devour this book.

Frankly, I had to look up MOOC online too because it wasn't in my 1938 Webster or Corey Ford's Guide To Thimking [1961, Doubleday] , the computer reference I most often consult.

[...] some people started GOOgling it,
not knowing what it was,
and they'll continue GOOging it forever
just because This is the trend that never ends,
only the name does change my friend, [...]

It means eLearning or iBrainPodPeople or LearningMOO/MUD. It also means Learn-A-TRON or Learn-O-Matic. As you see on the oldest revisions of the Wiki, it was "founded on the theory of connectivism and an open pedagogy based on networked learning." From these huble 2011 origins it has gone on to have been founded on other things too. TIL In MOOC "every letter is negotiable," which means the shortest possible variant of it is "" the null set...

No biting satire intended, as one who never attended High School I welcome the advent of the online courses that can be realized for less than $100,000, whatever the cost. Along with Benny Hill I am learning all the time.