placeholder

‘Duck Dynasty’ vs. ‘Modern Family’: 50 Maps of the U.S. Cultural Divide

Americans have been clustering themselves into cultural bubbles just as they have clustered in political bubbles.

Click to view the original at nytimes.com

placeholder

Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People

In 1945, as American physicists were preparing to test the atomic bomb, it occurred to someone to ask if such a test could set the atmosphere on fire.

Click to view the original at idlewords.com

placeholder

placeholder

Hasnain says:

"Getting five or six hours of sleep—substantial by many physicians’ self-standards—can leave drivers impaired to a degree that’s similar to drunkenness. That’s according to findings of a study released this month from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety: Drivers who sleep only five or six hours in a 24-hour period are twice as likely to crash as those who got seven or more.

The finding led AAA’s director of Traffic Safety Advocacy and Research Jake Nelson to recommend on NPR: “If you have not slept seven or more hours in a given 24-hour period, you really shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car.”

So, should you be performing neurosurgery?"

Posted on 2016-12-20T20:55:52+0000

placeholder

Hasnain says:

"That is far from the truth. Not all developers will bring positive value to your team. I understand the pressure of tight timelines, but hiring in desperation won’t solve that problem. It’ll make it worse. Bad developers will not only slow you down, but they can cause your great developers to leave your company. You will be even further behind on your project than if you hadn’t hired anyone. "

Posted on 2016-12-19T07:01:48+0000

placeholder

placeholder

placeholder

placeholder

surveillance, whistleblowing, and security engineering

Yesterday morning, Reuters dropped a news story revealing that Yahoo installed a backdoor on their own infrastructure in 2015 in compliance with a secret order from either the FBI or the NSA. While we all know that the US government routinely asks tech companies for surveillance help, a couple aspec...

Click to view the original at diracdeltas.github.io

placeholder

100 CEOs Have as Much Retirement Savings as 116 Million Americans - Monetary Watch

Submitted by Andrea Germanos via Common Dreams, While many Americans are facing a “frightening retirement reality,” 100 CEOs are looking at “colossal nest eggs” and can look forward to monthly retirement checks of over $250,000 for the rest of their lives. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) puts...

Click to view the original at monetarywatch.com

placeholder

Starting a real business

Starting a business is hard. Some of the difficulty is intrinsic—making products and services then convincing customers to pay for them will always be a challenge. Some of the difficulty is unnecessary—access to the infrastructure and tools for starting up an internet business is not evenly distribu...

Click to view the original at stripe.com

placeholder

The Government Finally Has A Realistic Estimate Of Killings By Police

About 1,200 people were killed by police officers in the U.S. in the 12 months that ended in May, according to a federal report released Thursday. That number is much larger than government counts …

Click to view the original at fivethirtyeight.com

placeholder

Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit From Yahoo Deal

Verizon Communications Inc. is exploring a price cut or possible exit from its $4.83 billion pending acquisition of Yahoo! Inc., after the company reported a second major e-mail hack affecting as many as 1 billion users, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Click to view the original at bloomberg.com

placeholder

watt time is left

watt time is left So Apple no longer knows how to make a battery meter. The good news is OpenBSD is still here for all your desktop needs. How does its battery meter work? The simplest interface to get battery status info is to run apm. This gives us both percentage and an estimate of time remaining...

Click to view the original at www.tedunangst.com

placeholder

placeholder

The Great A.I. Awakening

How Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate, one of its more popular services — and how machine learning is poised to reinvent computing itself.

Click to view the original at nytimes.com

placeholder

placeholder

placeholder

placeholder

Yahoo - Important Security Information for Yahoo Users

--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ:YHOO) has identified data security issues concerning certain user accounts. has taken steps to secure user accounts and is working closely with law enforcement.

Click to view the original at investor.yahoo.net

placeholder

Children trapped in building under attack in Aleppo, doctor tells UN

Spokesman describes ‘complete meltdown of humanity’ as troops loyal to Syrian president close in on last opposition-held areas

Click to view the original at theguardian.com

placeholder

Jennifer Lawrence, please keep your butt off our ancestors | J Kehaulani Kauanui

The actor made light of sitting on sacred rocks in Hawaii during a Hunger Games shoot. But we’re not laughing

Click to view the original at theguardian.com

Hasnain says:

I don't know why people were laughing at that segment when it came up. Replace these rocks with a symbol from a more mainstream religion/culture and it becomes verboten, so why is it OK in this case?

Double standards are way too prevalent

Posted on 2016-12-10T18:26:40+0000

placeholder

placeholder

placeholder

Breathing in poison – Lahore’s growing air pollution problem

Toxic smog in Pakistan’s second largest city risks the health of its residents, but the government is failing to address the issue

Click to view the original at theguardian.com

Hasnain says:

This is slowly killing the population and unfortunately people aren't realizing it's a silent killer.

" Last year, almost 60,000 Pakistanis died from the high level of fine particulate matter in the air."

"Meanwhile, at Lahore traffic stops where groups of men sit out in the open, the lack of public messaging about the risks from prolonged air pollution exposure is apparent. “For the neediest, the government should provide environmental shelter and face masks,” says 22-year-old Lahore resident Noshien Shaukat. “The most vulnerable members of society have no information and remain at risk.”"

Posted on 2016-12-09T21:06:45+0000

placeholder

placeholder

Hollywood’s finally getting hacking right. Here’s why you should care

The popular portrayal of computers as magic boxes capable of anything has done real societal harm. Now one TV show wants to save us.

Click to view the original at technologyreview.com

placeholder

Should Travelers Avoid Flying Airlines That Have Had Crashes in the Past?

The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine on Thursday, following the disappearance of its Flight 370 in March, is the second mysterious incident involving the airline this year. The inc…

Click to view the original at fivethirtyeight.com

placeholder

Note to Breitbart: Earth Is Not Cooling, Climate Change Is Real and Please Stop Using Our Video to Mislead Americans

In this instance, we simply must clear a few things up.

Click to view the original at weather.com

placeholder

United Airlines will charge extra fee for use of overhead bins

So now you're stuck with either paying for a checked bag, or paying for a more expensive ticket to bring it on the flight with you.

Click to view the original at abc2news.com

placeholder

Hasnain says:

This paper is amazing. They take credit card numbers and try guessing CVV/expiry dates across many merchants at a time, staying under the fraud detection limits of any one merchant. Given just a card number they can get the rest of the info in ~6 seconds.

Posted on 2016-12-05T22:37:58+0000

placeholder

Regional Security Office Ghana Shuts Down Fake Embassy

In Accra, Ghana, there was a building that flew an American flag outside every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, 7:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Inside hung a photo of President Barack Obama, and signs indicated that you were in the U.S. Embassy in Ghana. However, you were not. This embassy was a sham.

Click to view the original at state.gov

Hasnain says:

It's amazing that they managed to keep this running for ten years. And sad that people didn't see the scam after being there in person too

Posted on 2016-12-04T10:40:29+0000

placeholder

placeholder

How to Hide $400 Million

When a wealthy businessman set out to divorce his wife, their fortune vanished. The quest to find it would reveal the depths of an offshore financial system bigger than the U.S. economy.

Click to view the original at nytimes.com

Hasnain says:

Really interesting read on the 1%, how they transcend countries, divorces, hiding money, and offshore tax evasion.

Also ... malware and shitty internet businesses are quite profitable it seems.

"Xacti, which came to enfold most of their ventures, sold banner ads, video games and various other kinds of software, including “toolbars” that promised to clean viruses off your computer or free up space on your hard drive. The businesses threw off enormous amounts of cash, and by the mid-2000s, Oesterlund and his wife had become wildly rich. They bought a $5 million house back in Finland and their first yacht, a 48-foot cruiser."

Posted on 2016-12-02T07:01:30+0000

placeholder

What This Here Compound Needs Is Some Hydrogen Peroxide

As an organic chemist, I am willing to deal with the occasional bang or kapow in the lab, as long as things don't get too out of hand. You're supposed to know enough to be on guard against the sorts of compounds most likely to do that and be ready for them in case they decide to make the thermodynam

Click to view the original at blogs.sciencemag.org

placeholder

Hasnain says:

Great story of data analysis, investigation, and a hunt for a bug.

Interestingly enough, it was done by a (competent) government agency.

Posted on 2016-12-01T23:26:00+0000