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This is the results of a Pew Research survey in May (of 2015) regarding Americans' opinions of the NSA, surveillance, national security, etc. This could be useful in the security vs. privacy paper, to look at the public opinion on these issues.

You are still being watched, and your data being collected, so be careful what you send and to where you send it too. Innocent messages sent out of the country can easily make you become a person of interest for no reason.

There are already in place many automatic license plate readers on things such as road signs and bridges. This has purposes for helping track vehicles known to be owned by criminals, but simultaneously the tracking information is stored for millions of innocent people as well.

To any future college students: Be careful of what you type on the internet or reveal about yourself in an online forum. Despite the shocking revelations of the size and scope of the government's surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden, the majority of Americans don't understand the kind of information the government has on them, have taken few steps to protect their online data, and believe that such programs don't go far enough in tackling terrorism. Ironically, these same Americans also overwhelmingly believe that consumers have lost protection of their data to companies who have used their clients' privacy as a commodity. I would advise you to be careful of what you post online, and follow a few steps, such as passwords, encryption, and clearing your cookies, to help protect at least some of your data online and allow you to remain private. These programs continue to this day, and it's important that you protect what little privacy remains.

What are the mechanisms behind surveillance? How precisely are people surveilled in the US?

I like the way this is written because the author makes it a fun read. It is not a long boring article about the writing process of her story, but rather it breaks down her process into steps. Moreover, her writing is entertaining, which grasped my interest more so than many other posts. 

This article concerning the science behind poker and its categorization as either skill or luck is particularly well written in that it draws its audience in by presenting a recent event that concerned poker, and then proceeding to present information on the history of poker as well as the statistics that support its argument.  Furthermore, the author establishes credibility throughout her post by referencing credible studies done. Her voice throughout the post continues to be entertaining, keeping the reader's attention for the entirety of her post.

A little progress on the mysterious Voynich manuscript...

I felt that this article was particularly well written because of how conversational the author was with the reader. The conversational aspect allows the scientific aspect of the article to be better understood, in a way. The use of a video was also allowed for a better understanding of the physics.

I was thinking about doing this one! I curled for a couple of winters, and always wondered about the weirdly illogical physics of curling stones. Unfortunately, the nearest curling club is 3 hours away in Knoxville...

I feel this article is well written for a few reasons. If has the feel of telling a story but remains formal and in the style of academic writing at the same time. The flow of the post is very well done also as each paragraph logically leads into the next. Lastly, the post concludes very well tying in everything the post discusses and how they relate to science in the world today.

This article, though very clearly biased, describes the ways in which the movements of citizens are being tracked by both technology and the police. The video/information slides are obviously carried out with bias, but the information is still there. The end of the article has some interesting (helpful?) information about what the judicial system is ruling on cases involving location tracking without warrants.