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Ohio State Attacker Described Himself as a ‘Scared’ Muslim

Before running over and stabbing bystanders, Abdul Razak Ali Artan told his college newspaper he was afraid to pray on campus.

Click to view the original at thedailybeast.com

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Jordan is spectacular, safe and friendly – so where are the tourists?

With tourism to the Middle East in decline, visiting Jordan’s mesmerising sights is now a solitary experience. But the silence and emptiness only add to their allure

Click to view the original at theguardian.com

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A Simple Explanation of How Shares Move Around the Securities Settlement System

I explained here how money moves around the banking system and how the Bitcoin system causes us to revisit our assumptions about what a payment system must look like. In this post, I turn my attent…

Click to view the original at gendal.me

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What if jobs are not the solution but the problem? – James Livingston | Aeon Essays

Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?

Click to view the original at aeon.co

Hasnain says:

"So the impending end of work raises the most fundamental questions about what it means to be human. To begin with, what purposes could we choose if the job – economic necessity – didn’t consume most of our waking hours and creative energies? What evident yet unknown possibilities would then appear? How would human nature itself change as the ancient, aristocratic privilege of leisure becomes the birthright of human beings as such?"

Posted on 2016-11-27T05:15:22+0000

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Elephants are now being born without tusks because of poaching

An increasing number of African elephants are now born tuskless because poachers have consistently targetted animals with the best ivory over decades, fundamentally altering the gene pool. In some areas 98 per cent of female elephants now have no tusks, researchers have said, compared to between two...

Click to view the original at independent.co.uk

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Heroin Addiction's Fraught History

The United States has long condemned opiates and stigmatized those who use them, even when the drugs were as legal—and popular—as Tylenol.

Click to view the original at theatlantic.com

Hasnain says:

"Bayer advertised liquid heroin as the best cure for your child’s bronchitis. At a time when tuberculosis was responsible for 1 in 4 of all deaths , heroin was said to ensure an immaculate bill of respiratory health. Meanwhile its relatives—morphine, codeine, and the rest—were among the primary “treatments” for several conspicuously incompatible ailments: diarrhea, insomnia, psychosis, pneumonia, alcoholism. "

Posted on 2016-11-20T18:08:50+0000

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Who Will Command The Robot Armies?

When John Allsopp invited me here, I told him how excited I was discuss a topic that's been heavy on my mind: accountability in automated systems.

Click to view the original at idlewords.com

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Is Physical Law an Alien Intelligence? - Issue 42: Fakes - Nautilus

Perhaps Arthur C. Clarke was being uncharacteristically unambitious. He once pointed out that any sufficiently advanced technology…

Click to view the original at nautil.us

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I had a health crisis in France. I’m here to tell you that ‘socialized medicine’ is terrific

On Sunday, March 29, 2015, two days after my 54 th birthday, I came very close to dying. I was sitting in an armchair in my Paris apartment, reading a newspaper, when I became dizzy. The next thing I knew, my heart was beating violently. When the paramedics arrived, it was racing at 240 beats per mi...

Click to view the original at latimes.com

Hasnain says:

"Of course, I will never know what would have happened had I chosen to settle in my native country instead of in France. But the choice I made might well have saved my life."

Posted on 2016-11-19T22:04:59+0000

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IT's Official: NASA's Peer-Reviewed EM Drive Paper Has Finally Been Published

After months of speculation and leaked documents , NASA's long-awaited EM Drive paper has finally been peer-reviewed and published . And it shows that the 'impossible' propulsion system really does appear to work.

Click to view the original at sciencealert.com

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Appeals Court To Cops: If You 'Don't Have Time' For 'Constitutional Bullshit,' You Don't Get Immunity

A disabled vet with PTSD accidentally called a suicide prevention hotline when intending to dial the Veterans Crisis Line. Within hours, he was dealing with DC Metro's finest, dispatched to handle an attempted suicide. This brief quote from the...

Click to view the original at techdirt.com

Hasnain says:

"The officer who had asked for his key told him: “I don’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit. We’re going to break down your door. You’re going to have to pay for a new door.” Corrigan Dep. 94:15–18. Corrigan responded, “It looks like I’m paying for a new door, then. I’m not giving you consent to go into my place.” Id. 94:19–21."

Posted on 2016-11-19T08:00:56+0000

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Theranos Whistleblower Shook the Company—And His Family

Tyler Shultz says he wanted to shield reputation of former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Theranos director; $400,000 in legal fees

Click to view the original at wsj.com

Hasnain says:

Sounds like a crazy company if they're setting a PI after a whistleblower.

Also I wonder what would have happened to this guy if his grandfather wasn't on the board and wasn't as well connected.

Quotes from the article:

""The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this personally is because you are Mr. Shultz’s grandson.""

""We saw your email to Elizabeth. Before I get into specifics, let me share with you that had this email come from anyone else in the company, I would have already held them accountable for the arrogant and patronizing tone and reckless comments.""

Posted on 2016-11-19T02:21:28+0000

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How Casinos Enable Gambling Addicts

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

Click to view the original at theatlantic.com

Hasnain says:

An amazing, sad read on addiction, psychology, sales, data driven analysis/software, and the legal system. So many great quotes in here.

"“The business plan for casinos is not based on the occasional gambler. The business plan for casinos is based on the addicted gambler.”"

Posted on 2016-11-19T02:12:16+0000

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The disappearing stick shift: Less than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

Visitors to the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show will see supercars, hoverboards, self-propelling luggage and all manner of new transportation options.

Click to view the original at latimes.com

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These Professors Make More Than a Thousand Bucks an Hour Peddling Mega-Mergers

The economists are leveraging their academic prestige with secret reports justifying corporate concentration. Their predictions are often wrong and consumers pay the price.

Click to view the original at propublica.org

Hasnain says:

Really insightful article. Another scary revolving door arrangement which I hadn't known about.

Also, I should become an economics professor:

"Some of the professors earn more than top partners at major law firms. Dennis Carlton, a self-effacing economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and one of Compass Lexecon’s experts on the AT&T-Time Warner merger, charges at least $1,350 an hour. In his career, he has made about $100 million, including equity stakes and non-compete payments, ProPublica estimates. Carlton has written reports or testified in favor of dozens of mergers, including those between AT&T-SBC Communications and Comcast-Time Warner, and three airline deals: United-Continental, Southwest-Airtran, and American-US Airways."

"The expert reports “are not public so only the government can check,” said Ashenfelter, the Princeton economist who has consulted for both government and private industry. “And the government no longer has the data so they can’t check.” How accurate are the experts? “The answer is no one knows and no one wants to find out.”"

Posted on 2016-11-19T01:59:05+0000

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If you thought you were paying fair prices for chicken at the supermarket, think again

An internal document obtained by The Washington Post shows U.S. chicken prices may have been artificially inflated for years, costing consumers billions of dollars.

Click to view the original at washingtonpost.com

Hasnain says:

"“We trust the companies we work with,” Alec Asbridge, director of regulatory compliance at Georgia Department of Agriculture, said earlier this month. “We don’t see any reason they would submit information that wasn’t truthful.”

And once again, the extremely trusting nature of the average American continues to befuddle me.

Posted on 2016-11-18T01:58:57+0000

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Hasnain says:

This is one of the best things I've read in a really long time.

"Well, I’ll tell you my point. It’s the last part of The Tragedy of the Lemonade Stands that is so dangerous. See, the kids developed a belief system around “success = hard work = deserving great things” and “failure = laziness = deserving shitty things.” And those heuristics work great in a society where there’s boundless opportunity, infinite resources, and constantly expanding markets.

But when the tides turn, and those opportunities are simply no longer there, well, these same beliefs become quite dangerous and even destructive."

Posted on 2016-11-17T04:19:06+0000

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Hasnain says:

Depression is unfortunately treated as something that never happens, or is swept under the rug.

This needs to change.

#NoMoreStigma

Posted on 2016-11-16T21:27:28+0000

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Hasnain says:

This escalated really quickly.

"As developers, we are often one of the last lines of defense against potentially dangerous and unethical practices."

Posted on 2016-11-16T19:11:28+0000

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Open population datasets and open challenges

Sharing data about how people are aggregated around the world can help solve challenges such as connectivity, infrastructure planning, humanitarian aid, and disaster response.

Click to view the original at code.facebook.com

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I have toyota corola | daniel.haxx.se

cURL and libcurl I have toyota corola November 14, 2016 Daniel Stenberg 10 Comments Modern cars have fancy infotainment setups, big screens and all sorts of computers with networked functionality built-in. Part of that fanciness is increasingly often a curl install. curl is a part of the standard Ge...

Click to view the original at daniel.haxx.se

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Why 30 is the decade friends disappear — and what to do about it

At 30, I’m not anxious about my biological clock or my career. I’m anxious about making friends.

Click to view the original at vox.com

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Hasnain says:

"In 2010, while on a book tour for Reshaping the Work-Family Debate, I gave a talk about all of this at the Harvard Kennedy School. The woman who ran the speaker series, a major Democratic operative, liked my talk. “You are saying exactly what the Democrats need to hear,” she mused, “and they’ll never listen.” I hope now they will."

Posted on 2016-11-13T07:57:51+0000

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The Art of the Awkward 1:1

You probably do a lot of one-on-one meetings at work: with your manager, teammates, folks from other teams. Unfortunately, most people…

Click to view the original at medium.com

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DeepMind and Blizzard to release StarCraft II as an AI research environment | DeepMind

Announcing DeepMind's collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment to open up StarCraft II to AI and ML researchers around the world.

Click to view the original at deepmind.com

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Lahore smog: It's not a natural phenomenon

Every December, thick fog descends upon Lahore, blocking out the winter sunshine, closing off the motorway after ...

Click to view the original at dawn.com