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Weiye Loh

Hacktivists as Gadflies - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    "Consider the case of Andrew Auernheimer, better known as "Weev." When Weev discovered in 2010 that AT&T had left private information about its customers vulnerable on the Internet, he and a colleague wrote a script to access it. Technically, he did not "hack" anything; he merely executed a simple version of what Google Web crawlers do every second of every day - sequentially walk through public URLs and extract the content. When he got the information (the e-mail addresses of 114,000 iPad users, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel, then the White House chief of staff), Weev did not try to profit from it; he notified the blog Gawker of the security hole. For this service Weev might have asked for free dinners for life, but instead he was recently sentenced to 41 months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of more than $73,000 in damages to AT&T to cover the cost of notifying its customers of its own security failure. When the federal judge Susan Wigenton sentenced Weev on March 18, she described him with prose that could have been lifted from the prosecutor Meletus in Plato's "Apology." "You consider yourself a hero of sorts," she said, and noted that Weev's "special skills" in computer coding called for a more draconian sentence. I was reminded of a line from an essay written in 1986 by a hacker called the Mentor: "My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for." When offered the chance to speak, Weev, like Socrates, did not back down: "I don't come here today to ask for forgiveness. I'm here to tell this court, if it has any foresight at all, that it should be thinking about what it can do to make amends to me for the harm and the violence that has been inflicted upon my life." He then went on to heap scorn upon the law being used to put him away - the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the same law that prosecutors used to go after the 26-year-old Internet activist Aaron Swart
Weiye Loh

Harvard professor spots Web search bias - Business - The Boston Globe - 0 views

  • Sweeney said she has no idea why Google searches seem to single out black-sounding names. There could be myriad issues at play, some associated with the software, some with the people searching Google. For example, the more often searchers click on a particular ad, the more frequently it is displayed subsequently. “Since we don’t know the reason for it,” she said, “it’s hard to say what you need to do.”
  • But Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com, an online trade publication that tracks the Internet search and advertising business, said Sweeney’s research has stirred a tempest in a teapot. “It looks like this fairly isolated thing that involves one advertiser.” He also said that the results could be caused by black Google users clicking on those ads as much as white users. “It could be that black people themselves could be causing the stuff that causes the negative copy to be selected more,” said Sullivan. “If most of the searches for black names are done by black people . . . is that racially biased?”
  • On the other hand, Sullivan said Sweeney has uncovered a problem with online searching — the casual display of information that might put someone in a bad light. Rather than focusing on potential instances of racism, he said, search services such as Google might want to put more restrictions on displaying negative information about anyone, black or white.
Weiye Loh

Shakespeare? He's in my DNA | plus.maths.org - 0 views

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    "not only can scientist read DNA sequences from biological samples, they can also "write" them. In the lab they can produce strands of DNA corresponding to particular strings of nucleotides, denoted by the letters A, G, T and C. So if you encode your information in terms of these four letters, you could theoretically store it in DNA. "We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from bones of woolly mammoths, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it," explains Nick Goldman of the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). "It's also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy.""
Weiye Loh

BBC News - Belle de Jour's history of anonymity - 1 views

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    "Anon was, as Virginia Woolf noted in one of her final unpublished essays, "the voice that broke the silence of the forest". Elsewhere she suggested that "Anonymous was a woman". For anonymity has definitely been widely used by women throughout the ages, whether they're writing about relationships, sex or anything else. Without Anonymous, there are so many classics we would not have had - Gawain and the Green Knight, virtually all of the Bible and other religious texts. Anon is allowed a greater creative freedom than a named writer is, greater political influence than a common man can ever attain, and far more longevity than we would guess. Obviously, I'm a great fan of Anon's work, but then, as a formerly anonymous author, I would say that, wouldn't I?"
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    Perhaps in intentionally adopting anonymity she seeks to represent herself as everywoman; it is not the individual and what (s)he does which matters, but the "type" which has been/is being (per)formed (Can I just say also that as a result of this she implies all females seek such outlets for expression? i.e. whoring themselves (literally or otherwise). All idea of submission seems to be inherent in their nature, however much they protest and rail against it - HYPOCRISY). By removing the source (i.e. the author's name), the focus is on the words and actions (which should it not be?). Regarding anonymity and creative freedom, the lack of burden of responsibility frees writers from having to conform to any roles which may be ascribed to them by virtue of their "place".
Weiye Loh

Washington's Blog: Facebook Censors Prominent Political Critics « naked capit... - 0 views

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    "Indeed, Facebook told an Infowars reporter last year not to post anything political: Be careful making about making political statements on facebook … facebook is about building relationships not a platform for your political viewpoint. Don't antagonize your base. Be careful and congnizat (sic) of what you are preaching. And Infowars also confirms that the Facebook account for Natural News - one of the most popular alternative health sites - has been shut down. Reports are that the Facebook accounts of a number of other political critics were suspended or deactivated today as well, including:"
Weiye Loh

BBC News - Fallen soldiers: Is it right to take images of bodies? - 0 views

  • It now appears that, in Belgium, it's acceptable to film the dead from Waterloo but not from WWI.
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    "Fallen soldiers: Is it right to take images of bodies?"
Weiye Loh

Joe Queenan: My 6,128 Favorite Books - WSJ.com - 0 views

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    "If you have read 6,000 books in your lifetime, or even 600, it's probably because at some level you find "reality" a bit of a disappointment. People in the 19th century fell in love with "Ivanhoe" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" because they loathed the age they were living through. Women in our own era read "Pride and Prejudice" and "Jane Eyre" and even "The Bridges of Madison County"-a dimwit, hayseed reworking of "Madame Bovary"-because they imagine how much happier they would be if their husbands did not spend quite so much time with their drunken, illiterate golf buddies down at Myrtle Beach."
Weiye Loh

How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read | Brain Pickings - 0 views

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    ""Non-reading is not just the absence of reading. It is a genuine activity, one that consists of adopting a stance in relation to the immense tide of books that protects you from drowning. On that basis, it deserves to be defended and even taught.""
Weiye Loh

The Origins of "Basic Research" - 0 views

  • For many scientists, "basic research" means "fundamental" or "pure" research conducted without consideration of practical applications. At the same time, policy makers see "basic research" as that which leads to societal benefits including economic growth and jobs.
  • The mechanism that has allowed such divergent views to coexist is of course the so-called "linear model" of innovation, which holds that investments in "basic research" are but the first step in a sequence that progresses through applied research, development, and application. As recently explained in a major report of the US National Academy of Sciences: "[B]asic research ... has the potential to be transformational to maintain the flow of new ideas that fuel the economy, provide security, and enhance the quality of life" (Rising Above the Gathering Storm).
  • A closer look at the actual history of Google reveals how history becomes mythology. The 1994 NSF project that funded the scientific work underpinning the search engine that became Google (as we know it today) was conducted from the start with commercialization in mind: "The technology developed in this project will provide the 'glue' that will make this worldwide collection usable as a unified entity, in a scalable and economically viable fashion." In this case, the scientist following his curiosity had at least one eye simultaneously on commercialization.
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  • In their appeal for more funding for scientific research, Leshner and Cooper argued that: "Across society, we don't have to look far for examples of basic research that paid off." They cite the creation of Google as a prime example of such payoffs: "Larry Page and Sergey Brin, then a National Science Foundation [NSF] fellow, did not intend to invent the Google search engine. Originally, they were intrigued by a mathematical challenge ..." The appealing imagery of a scientist who simply follows his curiosity and then makes a discovery with a large societal payoff is part of the core mythology of post-World War II science policies. The mythology shapes how governments around the world organize, account for, and fund research. A large body of scholarship has critiqued postwar science policies and found that, despite many notable successes, the science policies that may have made sense in the middle of the last century may need updating in the 21st century. In short, investments in "basic research" are not enough. Benoit Godin has asserted (PDF) that: "The problem is that the academic lobby has successfully claimed a monopoly on the creation of new knowledge, and that policy makers have been persuaded to confuse the necessary with the sufficient condition that investment in basic research would by itself necessarily lead to successful applications." Or as Leshner and Cooper declare in The Washington Post: "Federal investments in R&D have fueled half of the nation's economic growth since World War II."
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: New Bridges Column: The Origins of "Basic Research" - 0 views

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    "The appealing imagery of a scientist who simply follows his curiosity and then makes a discovery with a large societal payoff is part of the core mythology of post-World War II science policies. The mythology shapes how governments around the world organize, account for, and fund research. A large body of scholarship has critiqued postwar science policies and found that, despite many notable successes, the science policies that may have made sense in the middle of the last century may need updating in the 21st century. In short, investments in "basic research" are not enough. Benoit Godin has asserted (PDF) that: "The problem is that the academic lobby has successfully claimed a monopoly on the creation of new knowledge, and that policy makers have been persuaded to confuse the necessary with the sufficient condition that investment in basic research would by itself necessarily lead to successful applications." Or as Leshner and Cooper declare in The Washington Post: "Federal investments in R&D have fueled half of the nation's economic growth since World War II." A closer look at the actual history of Google reveals how history becomes mythology. The 1994 NSF project that funded the scientific work underpinning the search engine that became Google (as we know it today) was conducted from the start with commercialization in mind: "The technology developed in this project will provide the 'glue' that will make this worldwide collection usable as a unified entity, in a scalable and economically viable fashion." In this case, the scientist following his curiosity had at least one eye simultaneously on commercialization."
Weiye Loh

From Abstract to News Release to Story, a Tilt to the 'Front-Page Thought' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    "In the post on research on extreme rainfall and warming, Gavin Schmidt, the NASA climate scientist and Real Climate blogger, described the misinterpretation of some paper abstracts as mainly reflecting a cultural divide: "Here we show" statements are required by Nature and Science to clearly lay out the point of the paper. If you don't include it, they will write it in. The caveats/uncertainties/issues all come later. I think the confusion is more cultural than anything. No one at Nature or Science or any of the authors in any subject think that uncertainties are zero, but they require a clear statement of the point of the paper within their house style. I think that conclusion misses the reality that, particularly in the world of online communication of science, abstracts are not merely for colleagues who know the shorthand, but have different audiences who'll have different ways of interpreting phrases such as "here we show.""
Weiye Loh

Merchants of Doubt - Home - 0 views

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    "n their new book, Merchants of Doubt, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway explain how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists, with extensive political connections, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. In seven compelling chapters addressing tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, and DDT, Oreskes and Conway roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided by a too-compliant media, has skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era. "
Weiye Loh

The disintermediation of the firm: The feature belongs to individuals | A Computer Scie... - 0 views

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    I expect to see the rise of individuals and the emergence of small teams to be an important trend in the next few years. The bigger firms will feel the increase pressure from agile teams of individuals that can operate faster and get things done quicker. Furthermore, talented individuals, knowing that they can find good job prospects online, they will start putting higher pressure on their employers: Either there is a more equitable share of the surplus, or the value-producing individuals will move into their own ventures. Marx would have been proud: The value-generating labor is now getting into the position of reaping the value of the generated work. Ironically, this "emancipation" is happening through the introduction of capitalist free markets that connect the planet, and not through a communist revolution.
Weiye Loh

Newspaper Uses Photoshop To Dramatise Violence In Syria | Gizmodo Australia - 0 views

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    The Kronen Zeitung is Austria's largest newspaper, with a daily readership of around three million people. Yesterday, those readers were treated to the image on the left of war-torn Aleppo, bombed out and desperate - but that wasn't the scene at all. As one sharp-eyed Redditor points out, it was just another Photoshop job.
Weiye Loh

The liberal media's war on 'trolling' is becoming increasingly intolerant and censoriou... - 0 views

  • The respectable media’s war against “trolling” continually mixes together prejudicial spite with political thinking, as if there is no difference between them. So feminist bloggers who rail against misogynistic trolling wring their hands over everything from threats of rape, which are very serious and potentially illegal, to ridicule of feminism, which is just a form of political criticism – often not very sophisticated criticism, but so what? One news report on the problem of misogynistic trolling lumped together commenters who make “threats of rape” with commenters who are “strongly and personally antagonistic towards feminism”. That is outrageous. Feminism is a political ideology and thus must be open to criticism, even stinging, hurtful criticism. To compare ridicule of feminism with the threat to rape a female writer is a kind of censorious moral blackmail, where the aim is clearly to demonise critics of feminism by associating them with foul blokes who get off on writing emails about rape.
  • Web-surfers who criticise Islam and don’t like the ideology of feminism, or respectable media outlets that now denounce pretty much everything they disagree with as “trolling”? The war on trolling is starting to look less like a demand for civility, and more like a demand for conformism.
Weiye Loh

Justice At Last For Paul Chambers! #twitterjoketrial « Quiet Riot Girl - 0 views

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    This morning it was announced that Paul Chambers who had been convicted of making a 'menacing' tweet under the 2003 Communications Act, has had his conviction quashed. He was found innocent of all charges by three Appeal Court judges. To most people reading this the news is not only brilliant for Paul, his partner Sarah (@crazycolours) and their families. It is also a victory for freedom of speech and expression, especially online. So it is with extra joy that the news was first reported and now is being celebrated on our favourite social media platform.
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