Group items tagged

"from the bad-ansi,-bad dept You would think that "the law" is obviously part of the public domain. It seems particularly crazy to think that any part of the law itself might be covered by copyright, or (worse) locked up behind some sort of paywall where you cannot read it. Carl Malamud has spent many years working to make sure the law is freely accessible... and he's been sued a bunch of times and is still in the middle of many lawsuits, including one from the State of Georgia for publishing its official annotated code (the state claims the annotations are covered by copyright)."

"Social butterflies who shine at parties may get their edge from special genes that make them experts at recognizing faces. Scientists have found the strongest evidence to date that genes govern how well we keep track of who's who. The findings suggest that face-recognition and other cognitive skills may be separate from each other, and independent of general intelligence. This could help explain what makes one person good at math but bad at music, or good at spatial navigation but bad at language "People have wondered for a long time what makes one person cognitively different from another person," said cognitive psychologist Nancy Kanwisher of MIT, coauthor of the study published Jan. 7 in Current Biology. "Our study is one tiny piece of the answer to this question." The ability to recognize faces is not just handy for cocktail parties, it's crucial for distinguishing friend from foe and facilitating social interactions. If face recognition increases our ability to fend off predators and find mates, there is an evolutionary drive to encode this ability in our genes. To test this, Kanwisher's team looked at whether the ability to recognize faces runs in the family. They found that identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, were more similar in their face-recognition ability than fraternal twins, who share only 50 percent of their genes. This suggests the ability to recognize faces is heritable."

"The study called "Leading the Herd Astray," showed that "popular" music, no matter how bad it is, is a self-fulfilling prophecy." [... Bandwagon Syndrome... ]

"The study called "Leading the Herd Astray," showed that "popular" music, no matter how bad it is, is a self-fulfilling prophecy." [... Bandwagon Syndrome... ]

"School scores lowest among 485 colleges and universities in SecurityScorecard scan. by Sean Gallagher (US) - Sep 12, 2015 1:35pm CEST"

"Wouldn't it be great if you could debug your brain as though it were bad code? We might not be able to reprogram ourselves, but we can use the principles of debugging to help ourselves build better habits. Here's how to debug your brain." [# ! #OpenSource Your #Mind... # ! #Free Your #Life]

"Wouldn't it be great if you could debug your brain as though it were bad code? We might not be able to reprogram ourselves, but we can use the principles of debugging to help ourselves build better habits. Here's how to debug your brain."

"The Friday afternoon news dump, a grand tradition observed by politicians and capitalists alike, is usually supposed to hide bad news. So it was a little weird that Egence" "Open Source" OpenAIlon Musk, founder of electric car maker Tesla, and Sam Altman, president of famed tech incubator Y Combinator, unveiled their new artificial intelligence company at the tail end of a weeklong AI conference in Montreal this past December."

" year and a half ago, the Internet did something it likes to do: It got outraged. A man in Washington made a bad decision that screwed over thousands of small businesses and hundreds of thousands more consumers."

" IPT says politicians can be surveilled like public citizens, overturning "Wilson Doctrine.""

"The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene. The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These "techno-pessimists" predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation's hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped). Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred. The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order. If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such "techno-optimists," progress means some norms and institutions must adapt-perhaps even disappear-for society to continue its march forward. Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it-or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy."

does Kurtopia need someone to mow the lawn?

no, but we do need someone to take our throm-dib-u-lator apart though

[from the urls-we-dig-up dept The scientific method has undoubtedly advanced the growth of knowledge, but with the enormous amount of data that can be collected now, it can be difficult to turn all that information into reliable and understandable facts. On the other hand, ...]

"by Richard Stallman One of the major advantages of free software is that the community protects users from malicious software. Now Ubuntu GNU/Linux has become a counterexample. What should we do?"

"From plastic trash and discarded fishing gear to oil spills and pesticide runoff, human beings have treated the oceans as a vast dumping ground. By Reynard Loki / AlterNet November 20, 2015 "

"Starving artists have been affected by more than just piracy and streaming royalties"

"It's time to rethink the role that government plays in shaping and supporting policies to solve big problems like climate change and income inequality. by David Rotman October 12, 2016"