TechKnowLedge

pewresearch: pewinternet: When the Pew Research Center asks...

Mon, 25 Jun 2018 10:27:02 -0400

pewinternet:

When the Pew Research Center asks American internet users for their bottom-line judgment about the role of digital technology in their own lives, the vast majority feel it is a good thing.

Yet, over the past 18 months a drumbeat of concerns about the personal and societal impacts of technology has been growing.

In light of these mounting concerns, Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center queried technology experts, scholars and health specialists on this question: Over the next decade, how will changes in digital life impact people’s overall well-being physically and mentally?

While many experts say digital life will continue to expand people’s boundaries and opportunities, nearly a third think that people’s overall well-being will be more harmed than helped in coming years.

The Future of Well-Being in a Tech-Saturated World

Many experts say digital life will continue to expand people’s boundaries and opportunities. Yet nearly a third think that people’s overall well-being will be more harmed than helped in coming years. Read our new canvassing of experts on the future of well-being in a digital world.

The Internet of Shit: a godsend for abusers and stalkers

Mon, 25 Jun 2018 09:44:05 -0400

mostlysignssomeportents:

People who help domestic abuse survivors say that they are facing an epidemic of women whose abusers are torturing them by breaking into their home smart devices, gaslighting them by changing their thermostat settings, locking them out of their homes, spying on them through their cameras.

The abusers are often ex-partners who retain authentication passwords that allow them to access the IoT devices after a breakup.

Many of the women facing this abuse are wealthy and well-off (domestic abuse affects people of all incomes, but wealthier people are more likely to own these gadgets). In interviews with the NYT, survivors called it “jungle warfare” and “asymmetric warfare,” likening their ex-partners to guerrilla fighters attacking in secret.

Some women have been assessed for mental health issues because their stories sounded like paranoid delusions. My colleague Eva Galperin from the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that for many of the women, the devices that are being used to torment them also connect them to the wider world, and they are loathe to further isolate themselves while they’re in such difficult straits.

https://boingboing.net/2018/06/24/look-what-you-made-me-do.html

Informatic school is in southwest Cameroon: 2018 Graduation Beginner’s Class

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 14:22:10 -0400

hackerculture:

Saturday June 16, 2018 21 students were graduated from the Association of Linux Friends Limbe.

This occasion was graced by the presence of the Chief of Isokolo villageand some other dignitaries. The ceremony started at about 1:30 pm due to the bad weather which lasted all day. With the arrival of all the graduating students, their guardians and the invited guests the occasion commenced.

Appointment of members of the high table.

Parents and guardians on the graduating students on the graduation ground

Welcome speech from the proprietor of the Association of Linux Friends

we also had a speech from a student from the beginner’s class, talking about their experiences at the Association.

Two traditional dances presented by the graduating students. The students presented the Bakweri cultural dance.

and the Bayangi cultural dance

There was presentation from the advance class students on Robotics(using the programming language ‘Python’ to make a robot), Radio and a static web page.

Next was ballet presented by the graduating students.

via Dyne.org public news feed http://sokolo.cronopios.org/wordpressses/wordpress/?p=2010

"We’re talking about an effort either by an adversary aimed at the United States or by the United..."

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 10:24:20 -0400

“We’re talking about an effort either by an adversary aimed at the United States or by the United States aimed at an adversary, to try to conduct a war before the first shot is even fired. That if you can so disable the adversary’s electric power grid, the cell phone system, emergency response, the communications to their defenses, in some cases even their ability to launch a nuclear weapon or just an ordinary missile, then you’ve kind of won before any shot was fired and it’s entirely conceivable that you could achieve your political objectives before you actually started shelling anything or dropping bombs.”

- David Sanger on cyberwarfare. His new book is The Perfect Weapon. (via nprfreshair)

In two days, an EU committee will vote to crown Google and Facebook permanent lords of internet censorship [[SHARE THIS!!]]

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 09:46:13 -0400

mostlysignssomeportents:

On June 20, the EU’s legislative committee will vote on the new Copyright directive, and decide whether it will including the controversial “Article 13” (automated censorship of anything an algorithm identifies as a copyright violation) and “Article 11” (no linking to news stories without paid permission from the site).

These proposals will make starting new internet companies effectively impossible – Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and the other US giants will be able to negotiate favourable rates and build out the infrastructure to comply with these proposals, but no one else will. The EU’s regional tech success stories – say Seznam.cz, a successful Czech search competitor to Google – don’t have $60-100,000,000 lying around to build out their filters, and lack the leverage to extract favorable linking licenses from news sites.

If Articles 11 and 13 pass, American companies will be in charge of Europe’s conversations, deciding which photos and tweets and videos can be seen by the public, and who may speak.

The MEP Julia Reda has written up the state of play on the vote, and it’s very bad. Both left- and right-wing parties have backed this proposal, including (incredibly) the French Front National, whose Youtube channel was just deleted by a copyright filter of the sort they’re about to vote to universalise.

So far, the focus in the debate has been on the intended consequences of the proposals: the idea that a certain amount of free expression and competition must be sacrificed to enable rightsholders to force Google and Facebook to share their profits.

But the unintended – and utterly foreseeable – consequences are even more important. Article 11’s link tax allows news sites to decide who gets to link to them, meaning that they can exclude their critics. With election cycles dominated by hoaxes and fake news, the right of a news publisher to decide who gets to criticise it is carte blanche to lie and spin.

Article 13’s copyright filters are even more vulnerable to attack: the proposals contain no penalties for false claims of copyright ownership, but they do mandate that the filters must accept copyright claims in bulk, allowing rightsholders to upload millions of works at once in order to claim their copyright and prevent anyone from posting them.

That opens the doors to all kinds of attacks. The obvious one is that trolls might sow mischief by uploading millions of works they don’t hold the copyright to, in order to prevent others from quoting them: the works of Shakespeare, say, or everything ever posted to Wikipedia, or my novels, or your family photos.

More insidious is the possibility of targeted strikes during crisis: stock-market manipulators could use bots to claim copyright over news about a company, suppressing its sharing on social media; political actors could suppress key articles during referendums or elections; corrupt governments could use arms-length trolls to falsely claim ownership of footage of human rights abuses.

It’s asymmetric warfare: falsely claiming a copyright will be easy (because the rightsholders who want this system will not tolerate jumping through hoops to make their claims) and instant (because rightsholders won’t tolerate delays when their new releases are being shared online at their moment of peak popularity). Removing a false claim of copyright will require that a human at an internet giant looks at it, sleuths out the truth of the ownership of the work, and adjusts the database – for millions of works at once. Bots will be able to pollute the copyright databases much faster than humans could possibly clear it.

I spoke with Wired UK’s KG Orphanides about this, and their excellent article on the proposal is the best explanation I’ve seen of the uses of these copyright filters to create unstoppable disinformation campaigns.

https://boingboing.net/2018/06/18/asymmetric-information-war.html

ibmconsulting:Meet the scientists behind the IBM Q quantum...

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 20:57:59 -0400

ibmconsulting:

Meet the scientists behind the IBM Q quantum computing systems as they answer 50 questions, one for each qubit in IBM Q. Learn about qubits, dilution refrigerators, even the secret handshake to get into the lab. And finally get an answer to “what is quantum?”

California Assembly Needs to Know: The Whole Internet is Watching

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 17:50:58 -0400

fight4future:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, June 18, 2018
Contact: Evan Greer, 978-852-6457, press@fightforthefuture.org

There is good news for net neutrality coming out of California today, where two State Senators have combined their bills, SB 822 and SB 460, ahead of a key hearing this Wednesday before the Communications and Conveyance Committee. AT&T and other ISPs have been pouring money into lobbying and spreading misinformation, and were attempting to kill both bills by playing them against each other.

The combined bills leave all critical net neutrality protections intact, and if passed would set a gold standard for state-level open Internet legislation across the country. But telecom monopolies are still pushing hard to kill or water down the bills at the hearing this Wednesday, and contacts on the ground in Sacramento indicate that the committee chairman Miguel Santiago is being heavily lobbied by ISPs to do just that.

“It’s unthinkable that California Democrats would even consider weakening an extremely popular net neutrality bill in the immediate wake of the FCC’s attack on our Internet freedom,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group with more than 350,000 members in California. “The free and open Internet is essential for every social movement combating corruption and authoritarianism. California Assembly members need to listen to their constituents, small business owners, and community groups – not AT&T’s lobbyists. The whole Internet is watching.”

###

High tech lock is "invincible to people who do not have a screwdriver"

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 16:55:32 -0400

tramtheram:

portentsofwoe:

mostlysignssomeportents:

LockPickingLawyer, a recreational lock picker, was sent a fingerprint padlock for review. He emailed the manufacture to let them know that he’d discovered a security vulnerability: “Upon examining the lock, I found that if you remove the three screws, the lock falls apart. The shackle can be opened and relocked without the owner’s fingerprint or knowledge.”

The manufacturer replied: “the lock is invincible to the people who do not have a screwdriver.”

Thank goodness a set of torx drivers costs $4, or this might be a concern for anyone using this lock

https://boingboing.net/2018/06/15/high-tech-lock-is-invincible.html

lol

Also bolt cutters but hey.

invaderxan: sixpenceee: This short time-lapse video shows a...

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 15:14:52 -0400

invaderxan:

sixpenceee:

This short time-lapse video shows a real life traffic shockwave, happening for no precise reason. Via Massimo.

For more posts: sixpenceee.com/tagged/posts

This is called a density wave. As well as making traffic jams happen for no reason, a similar thing causes galaxies to form spiral arms.

dailytechnologynews:Hey Google: Stop Trying To Patent A...

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 12:05:02 -0400

dailytechnologynews:

Hey Google: Stop Trying To Patent A Compression Technique An Inventor Released To The Public Domain https://ift.tt/2JGrHth

https://encode.ru/threads/2648-Published-rANS-patent-by-Storeleap/page3

… but I have just found fresh Google patent application for ANS in AV1: http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20170…0170164007.php

What you need to do is to petition the Examiners at the USPTO to reject the application on the grounds of Duda’s prior art.

fuckyeahmarxismleninism: Worker pressure forces Google to end...

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 11:49:26 -0400

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Worker pressure forces Google to end Pentagon contract

By Sven Ferrari

The decision by Google to yield to worker demands is both a victory for worker power and a blow to the future stability of the U.S. military-industrial complex and its war agenda. It’s another sign of the emerging workers’ consciousness reflected in the recent wave of teachers’ strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona and Colorado.

#1yrago "Purposeful objects that solve their own problems"

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 10:46:13 -0400

mostlysignssomeportents:

Dan Grayber’s Cavity Mechanism series of sculptures are a hymn to “purposeful objects that solve their own problems,” in which gravity acts upon systems of pulleys and scaffolds and wires to suspend weighty rocks in motionless perfection under glass domes.

They’re like bonsai versions of Zachary Coffin’s Temple of Gravity pieces,

https://boingboing.net/2017/06/16/tensegrity-under-glass.html

#1yrago The Commute Deck: a homebrew Unix terminal for tight places

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 10:23:51 -0400

mostlysignssomeportents:

Kerry Scharfglass designed his “Commute Deck” as a laptop alternative for his morning commute: it combines a mechanical keyboard (running the TMK open keyboard firmware), a 7", 720p display from Adafruit, a long-life USB battery, and a Raspberry Pi 2 with USB, wifi and Bluetooth dongles, and a little USB hub, all mounted on a laser-cut ¼" plywood chassis.

It takes its name from the Cyberspace Decks of William Gibson’s classic cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy. If you want to build your own, the sources are on Github.

https://boingboing.net/2017/06/16/cyberspace-is-everting.html

#1yrago Programmer pay and indent-style: tab-using coders earn less than space-using coders

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 10:17:51 -0400

mostlysignssomeportents:

David Robinson used the data from the 28,657 people who self-selected to take the Stack Overflow survey to investigate the relationship between programmer pay and the conventions of using either tabs or spaces to mark indents, and found a persistent, significant correlation between using spaces and bringing home higher pay.

https://boingboing.net/2017/06/16/digging-gold-with-spacebars.html

ultrafacts: Source: [x] Click HERE for more facts

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 09:51:43 -0400

ultrafacts:

Source: [x]

Click HERE for more facts

CMKT4 Bottle-Cap Contact Mic Workshop

Sat, 16 Jun 2018 13:30:29 -0400

CMKT4 Bottle-Cap Contact Mic Workshop

Rhizome

Sat, 16 Jun 2018 13:25:56 -0400

Rhizome:

Location:
Governors Island, Nolan Park, Building 8a

Avant-garde composer John Cage wrote a piece in 1960 titled Cartridge Music. This concept was this: a cartridge from a phonograph pickup is dismembered, the needle replaced with “all manner of unspecified small objects.” Pipe cleaners, matches, feathers and wires were sounded against surfaces, walls, bodies and floors in order to amplify the small sounds of vibration that occurred on contact. Cartridge Music is an example of a type of work produced as part of the Fluxus Movement. Fluxus artists, like Cage, often produced work in the form of “events”, which provided a set of instructions about how the work should be performed, but left much open to circumstance and chance of the moment of enactment.

Much like the pickups used in Cartridge Music, piezo disks are small components that use the electric properties of crystals to generate signal. In this workshop, we will use piezo disks as contact microphones in order to sonify and amplify hidden resonances within commonplace objects that surround us. Drawing on ideas from Nic Collins’s Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hacking Hardware, we will use vibratory materials to create our own DIY instruments, which we will amplify and perform with together in the Harvestworks Governor’s Island house. Attendees will have the chance to try hands on soldering. You should also come with objects that you might use to create amplified signal i.e. metal utensils, bowls, plastics, anything with interesting sonic potential. We will have an assortment of small materials on hand

materialsscienceandengineering: Glasses: Float glass A method of...

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 21:27:43 -0400

materialsscienceandengineering:

Glasses: Float glass

A method of producing flat planes of glass, float glass has been around since the 1950s. The process of producing it is also known as the Pilkington process, after the British glass manufacturer - Sir Alastair Pilkington - who invented it.

Any type of glass can technically be produced through the process to become float glass, though it is most often used with common silicate glasses. To create float glass, molten glass is fed onto the top of a tin bath, or a pool of molten tin.

Lead and other low melting point alloys have been used in the past, but tin is typically the choice material in modern times. Tin is immiscible with molten glass, but it does oxidize in atmosphere. As a result the tin bath has a positive pressure protective atmosphere of nitrogen and hydrogen. Temperature is gradually cooled until the glass can be removed onto rollers, then cooled gradually in a kiln until it solidifies and can be cut.

The final product, known as float glass, has a uniform thickness and very flat surfaces. It is used in everything from windows and doors to mirrors to furniture. A vast majority of the flat glass produced today is float glass and float glass itself can be further processed to create materials such as safety glass.

Sources/Further Reading: ( 1 - image 4 ) ( 2 - image 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 ) ( 5 )

Images: ( 1 ) ( 3 )

Dank Learning: teaching a machine learning algorithm to generate memes

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 21:10:41 -0400

mostlysignssomeportents:

A physics student and an engineering student from Stanford fed 400,000 memes to a Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Network and asked it to generate more memes of its own.

It did a pretty good job.

https://boingboing.net/2018/06/14/i-have-no-knee.html

How I feel about Linux containers / Dockers / LXD etc .

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 21:38:55 -0400

nixcraft:

Via https://xkcd.com/1988/