Week8
From Technolotics
Contents |
Britain makes moves toward totalitarianism
British government proposes up to three month "internment in all but name" (Amnesty international), without charge, for 'terror suspects' [1], the equivalent of a 6 month prison sentence, without having been convicted of any crime (Liberty); and a criminal offence of 'glorifying exalting or celebrating' any 'terrorist act' within the last 20 years, and certain listed acts in perpituity [2]. This goes beyond even the Draconian American Patriot act in removing the right of free speech, and giving government responsibility for which ideas are judged criminal - e.g.: Is writing in support of the Eastern European revolutions which ended communism, or the armed struggle in South Africa to be a crime? What about the socialist movements in South America, which struggled violently against US supported military juntas?
Dutch move toward the total information state
- Dutch open files from birth on children. Sensible data synthesis and organisation, or greatest potential for abuse in history? Is this inevitable in other states? [3]
Revolution Controller Announced
- Moves fluidly in 3D space, includes lasor pointer (gun) function, expandable with add on peripherals such as stick. Reviews on wired [4], and IGN [5]
- Essentially a 3D mouse, will FPS's finally be playable
- Can also be flipped around and used as a pad
- Fully wireless
- Why do expansions have to be physically connected?
- Video [6]
Chinese beauty Produces made from humans
Guardian Unlimited - The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners [7].
How to kill the Internet
- How to kill the internet [8]
- Steve Gibson alleges the net can be brought down by a DNS attack on the root servers.
- Is he a crazy hyperbolic doom sayer. Or the best hope to save the net?
- The 6 dumbest ideas in computer security [9]
Bad science in the media
Guardian article discusses sciences sensational reporting and misrepresentation in the media [10]
RNA evolution
To what extent does RNA control our development and evolution? [11]
Another explanation of the role of RNA other non DNA forms of information encoding. [12]
If RNA is so important do RNA virus's (retrovirus's) alter the behaviour of carriers to facilitate transmission? This slashdot comment points to a number of studies evidencing that the HIV virus may make specific changes through RNA to the structure of the brain, encouraging viral transmission. [13]
The Web 2.0
- Coral Content [18] and Dijjer [19] could solve the bandwidth problems of citizen media. But more than that, open a path to the 'walled gardens' of the net.
- Microsoft start.com [20], My Yahoo [21], and Google Hompage [22]; RSS, search and mail portals (online aggregators)
- Google launches blog service [23]
- Undoubtedly this will be more comprehensive than technorati, but lacking the trackback (google has historically been quite poor at indexing linkto's).
- Ignores robot's file - my blog is indexed.
- Yahoo mail beta [24]
