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Author : Bob Newbell
“A vacuum?” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs inquired. “Unless there’s some geologic process I’m unfamiliar with that causes large pockets of vacuum to form inside solid rock, I don’t see how you would come across such a thing when excavating for a new subway. I also don’t see what any of this has to do with most of the people gathered here.” The general looked about the room at the faces of the heads of various government agencies, several of whom nodded their agreement.
“The point, general,” responded the head of the National Science Ministry, “is that we have encountered a phenomenon never before seen.” The man resettled his glasses on his nose and continued, addressing the entire group. “As you’re probably aware, several workers employed by the excavation company working on the subway in question became ill and were diagnosed with radiation poisoning. An NSM team was assigned to investigate and found no naturally-occurring radioactive metals at the excavation site. But detectors did confirm the presence of radiation in the pit. That’s when we started literally and figuratively digging a little deeper.”
“Doctor, this is all very interesting,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “But you have assembled here representatives of most of the nation’s ministries. A scientific curiosity does not warrant taking of the time of this country’s government unless there’s some very profound point you intend to make.”
This time the group’s assent was more vocal.
“Very well,” said the science minister. “The point is this.” The doctor tapped a button on his computer and a picture of an expanse of space dotted with thousands of stars appeared on the screen that dominated one wall of the room. “As we drilled deeper into the excavation site, the radiation level went up. Shortly after that we hit the vacuum the general mentioned. We threaded a fiber optic cable through the small hole we drilled to get some pictures.
“What is that?” asked the general. “Did you drill into some subterranean chamber? Are those specks of light radioactive material?”
The scientist took in a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “Ladies and gentlemen, we believe what you’re looking at is empty space.”
The minister was met with blank stares.
“The specks of light were noted to be moving slowly, all in the same direction. After we took some measurements and did some calculations, we determined it is, in fact, we who are moving. It has been theorized that the world is rotating and thereby creating centrifugal force and that that’s why objects fall to the ground. Our observations are consistent with this theory.”
“But what IS that?” asked the general again, pointing at the screen. Are you suggesting the world is surrounded by some dark, speckled material that acts like a vacuum?”
“I’m suggesting, general, that our world is a hollow, spinning rock in the middle of an unimaginably large vacuum. Our researches suggest those specks are massive spheres of nuclear fusion held together by their sheer mass. And almost all of them are several trillion miles away or more.
The group exploded in a cacophony of voices. “Ridiculous!” said one. “Blasphemous!” said another.
“I said ‘almost all’ of those fusion-spheres are unfathomably far away!” yelled the science minister. The group fell silent. “One is much closer.”
He hit a button and a reddish fireball filled the screen.
“This one is close,” he repeated. “And it’s getting closer. It would appear we’ve been on a journey. How it started and why has been lost to recorded history. But we’re about to arrive at our destination.”
Author : Elijah Goering
It began with the invention of the tool. Perhaps that was our big mistake. We built a civilization. We survived the discovery of the power of the atom, and lived to develop a faster than light drive. Immediately, we raced to colonize dozens of systems, and began terraforming at least one planet in each system. Then we faltered, stopped expanding just long enough to populate our colonies. And then we created the weapon.
I will not describe the weapon in detail and help whomever might find this to destroy themselves. I will simply say that it had the power to scourge a planet of all life. The inventors meant to use it only once, and achieve a final victory over their enemies. The demonstration was effective, and soon the technology was bought, stolen, or copied by every planet, except those whose enemies got it first. But if we’re anything we’re vengeful. Homeless fleets of warships got their revenge.
No planets survived, but life continued among the asteroids. So did the war. Two of the most powerful nations banded together and destroyed the homes of every other fleet. I escaped before my home was destroyed, but I have not since seen any sign of my people. I roamed far from home through unexplored star systems and waited until I thought it was safe to return. I was right. The war was over. Nowhere that I searched was there any sign of life, only ruins of a lost civilization. Until I got to the home system.
Males were too rare in our society to risk in war, all were left safely at home, until our homes were destroyed. In orbit of a gas giant in our home system was a monument which said “Here was the final battle of the Oikosians. Whether by accident or design, this small moon was destroyed in the fury to combat, with the last of our males. Now our species goes to extinction”.
Perhaps some males survived, and a colony was formed in secret, far from the war. But if so, I have since roamed through hundreds, perhaps thousands of systems and have seen no sign of it. Some systems had life, but nowhere was there intelligence. I found only one planet truly bustling with life, orbiting a yellow star halfway through its life. I have placed my ship in the Oort cloud orbiting its sun. It is my hope that intelligence will evolve on the planet nearby, and develop a technological civilization. Before my escape I collected as much information as I could, and on board I have a library containing works of science, mathematics, and the history of the Oikosians up to the final war.. Perhaps they will find me, and with my working FTL drive I will be the key to the stars for some future civilization. To that end I will now disable life support to save energy so that my ship can send a message when another ship comes near. By the time the aliens get here they should be ready for the FTL drive. So ends the dominion of life from the planet Oikos, and so (I hope) begins a new era of life in the galaxy.
-The Last Historian
John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, went on “Face the Nation” last Sunday and did something weird: he acknowledged that U.S. foreign policy might sometimes cause terrorism. Of course, he didn’t word it exactly like that, but close enough:
BRENNAN: I think the president has tried to make sure that we’re able to push the envelope when we can to protect this country. But we have to recognize that sometimes our engagement and direct involvement will stimulate and spur additional threats to our national security interests.
This is notable because the people who run our foreign policy usually tell us that terrorists are like zombies, driven by some incomprehensible force to kill and kill and kill until we take them out with a head shot/drone strike. Brennan himself did this five years ago while “answering” questions from the late reporter Helen Thomas about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Northwest flight over Detroit:
THOMAS: And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why.
BRENNAN: Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents …
THOMAS: Why?
BRENDAN: I think this is a — this is a long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.
The next year Abdulmutallab explained at his sentencing what had motivated him:
I [attempted] to attack the United States in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel and in retaliation of the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, especially in the blockade of Gaza, and in retaliation for the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and beyond, most of them women, children, and noncombatants.
In fact, the government’s own sentencing memorandum for Abdulmutallab cites this statement, and points out that trying “to retaliate against government conduct” is part of the legal definition of terrorism.
So Brennan well understands that our foreign policy causes attacks against Americans. And our legal code specifies that attempting to retaliate against U.S. actions is what makes you a terrorist. Nonetheless, this obvious reality is almost never said out loud by government officials.
On the other hand, comedians can say it (though not on TV). Immediately after 9/11, George W. Bush famously asked “Why do they hate us?” and answered: “They hate our freedoms.” On David Cross’s 2004 “It’s Not Funny” stand-up album, recorded at the DC Improv Club, Cross said:
CROSS: I don’t think Osama Bin Laden sent those planes in to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel and ties to the Saudi family and all our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that’s what he fucking said.
(I learned about Brennan’s “Face the Nation” statement from Micah Zenko.)
(This post is from our blog: Unofficial Sources.)
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
This post has been corrected to say that Brennan was appearing on “Face the Nation” rather than “Meet the Press.”
The post CIA Director John Brennan Admits U.S. Foreign Policy Could Spur Terrorism appeared first on The Intercept.
VENICE, Italy — Over 17 years, David Darchicourt worked with the National Security Agency as a graphic designer and art director, illustrating top-secret documents about government surveillance programs. Now he is the unwitting central character in a new exhibition that puts the spotlight on the spy agency’s imagery.
Inside the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, a cavernous Renaissance library in Venice’s St. Mark’s Square, some of Darchicourt’s designs for the NSA have been placed on display among historic 16th-century pieces by famed Italian painters like Veronese and Titian.
The former NSA employee’s work is featured as part of a project called Secret Power, created by New Zealand artist Simon Denny for this year’s Biennale international art show. Denny has brought to life images from the trove of classified files on government spying leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, exploring an often overlooked aspect of the revelations: the visual information they contain.
The 32-year-old New Zealand artist selected a variety of graphics found in Snowden documents published by news organizations, including The Intercept, and set about incorporating them into a series of meticulously detailed installations that took him about 18 months to complete.
Denny obtained an eagle from a taxidermist in Germany and created a three-dimensional version of the emblem used by the NSA’s Special Source Operations program, which handles secret surveillance relationships with American companies like AT&T and Verizon.
He placed the bird flying through brightly lit computer server racks that stand about 10 feet tall, surrounded by other NSA graphics that were revealed by Snowden, such as the wizard associated with a mass surveillance operation called MYSTIC and a fox burning in a can of acid, a drawing that was included in documents about an NSA hacking tactic.
The artist has also reconstructed the Terminator-style metal skull that appears as an emblem for an NSA program that maps the global Internet. Another piece focuses on documents from the NSA’s British counterpart, published last year by The Intercept, that discuss the use of deception and manipulation techniques against targeted groups of people.
But Denny and his team didn’t solely rely on the work of journalists to inform the pieces they assembled. They also embarked on some investigating of their own, tracking down Darchicourt, the NSA’s former art chief, and turning him into a focal point of the project.
Darchicourt worked for the NSA between 1994 and 2012 and created images for its covert surveillance programs as well as for its public-facing work, such as a series of “CryptoKids” cartoon characters, intended to educate children about the agency.
The CryptoKids feature in a coloring book the NSA produced for children, and they also have their own section on the agency’s website. The animal-based characters include “Rosetta Stone,” a globe-trotting, multi-lingual fox who makes and breaks codes, and “T. Top,” a computer-obsessed turtle who likes programming and the Internet.
After he left the NSA, Darchicourt became a freelance graphic designer and started using websites like LinkedIn and Behance to network and promote his work, which is how Denny found him.
In the display at the Venice library, the New Zealand artist included a large cartoon-like picture of Darchicourt, details about his background, and examples of his work for the NSA, all of which were mined from his online profiles and portfolios.
Denny also commissioned Darchicourt to draw him a map of New Zealand and a cartoon of a lizard that is native to the country, and featured these in the Secret Power exhibit, too. But he didn’t tell the former NSA art chief he was being hired to work on a Snowden document-related exhibition; he kept that as a surprise for later.
“They are an insight into the environment the programs are maintained and proliferated within.”
Denny says he wanted to place Darchicourt at the center of Secret Power as a way to help people think about the authorship of the Snowden documents. Graphic designers working in the visual departments of the agency have inadvertently become, because of the revelations, “some of the most powerful image creators we have,” he says. Yet almost nothing is known about who they are.
“There’s been a lot of discussion about these programs, but the visuals of the documents haven’t been unpacked,” says Denny, speaking to The Intercept on the phone from his base in Berlin.
“The images contain different kinds of information than the text. They give us a hand in understanding more about the culture — the office culture, let’s say — behind the surveillance programs, and therefore the kinds of interests and values of the people working on them. They are an insight into the environment the programs are maintained and proliferated within.”
Much of the NSA’s imagery, according to Denny, is rooted in depictions of magic, fantasy, military history and Internet meme culture. The agency’s documents often contain maps and globes, crudely symbolizing the reach of its spying apparatus. But sometimes the graphics it chooses contain more subtle meanings and cultural references. In one top-secret PowerPoint presentation on an NSA hacking operation, for instance, an agency employee inserted an image of a monkey fighting a robot, derived from a role-playing card game called Shadowfist in which conflicting factions wage a secret war against each other.
Denny was not particularly aware of issues around government surveillance prior to the Snowden disclosures, but the revelations piqued his interest. It was a shock for him to learn, in particular, about New Zealand’s key role in the Five Eyes, a global spying alliance that the country is a member of alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
He started researching the topic and found inspiration in New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager’s 1996 book, Secret Power, a seminal exposé of the Five Eyes network. Denny paid homage to Hager by naming his art project after the book; he also recruited Hager to work with him on the project as a content adviser. (The Intercept has recently been collaborating with Hager on a series of stories about New Zealand’s role in the Five Eyes, based in part on the Snowden documents.)
Now, Denny is passing on what he’s learned, helping to educate others about the surveillance revelations. His project, which runs until late November and also features a temporary installation at the Venice airport, has attracted visitors from all age groups.
“We’ve had a number of people who’ve never even heard of Snowden in there,” Denny says, “and there have been amazing responses in the visitor book talking about the issues. It’s a really rewarding thing for me to see — that you can start a substantial conversation through a visual medium with people who are less inclined to read news media.”
As for Darchicourt, he says it was “quite a surprise” to learn about how his work was going to be used when he found out about Denny’s project and its link to the Snowden revelations, but the irony of the situation was not lost on him.
“I guess that was one of [Denny’s] little aims,” Darchicourt told The Intercept. “To show how he could get my information and use it without my knowledge, the way NSA does.”
Darchicourt says he did not design most of the images from Snowden documents featured in Denny’s exhibition, such as the Special Source Operations eagle. But he acknowledges that he did create the image of a peanut emblazoned with a skull and crossbones used as the logo for POISON NUT, a top-secret NSA hacking program exposed in the leaked documents and included in one of Denny’s pieces.
The 55-year-old former NSA art chief is not planning on visiting the exhibition in Venice because he doesn’t want to be seen as somehow endorsing it on behalf of the agency. But he has reviewed photographs, and while he says he neither approves nor disapproves of it, he admits he finds it interesting to see his designs in the Renaissance setting.
“It’s kind of flattering, but it’s also kind of creepy,” Darchicourt says, adding that he’s now considering deleting some pictures from his online portfolios to prevent them from being used by anyone else in the future. “Anything that has to do with the NSA will be removed; it’s old and I don’t really identify with that organization anymore.”
Photos: Nick Ash courtesy of Simon Denny
The post Inside the Secret World of NSA Art appeared first on The Intercept.
After his daughter complained that her power wheels mini was too slow YouTuber ThatHPI Guy made some custom modifications to kick the children’s toy up a notch.
You probably know by now that no normal Americans are allowed to see the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. It’s classified. Even members of Congress can only read it by going to secure reading rooms in the basement of the Capitol.
But here’s what you might not know: you’re not even allowed to know who in Congress has bothered to do this.
If President Obama’s push to pass the TPP ultimately collapses — and with this week’s vote it does seem to be deflating like a botched soufflé — one key reason will be his administration’s extraordinary secrecy about it.
According to congressional staff members, the House Security Office and the Senate Security Office are responsible for supervising the reading of the TPP text. However, when I asked both offices, neither would answer any questions whatsoever, including:
Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, said that his best estimation of how many members of Congress have read the TPP — which has been called the biggest trade deal in history — is “in the single digits.” (Reich himself called the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative recently to ask to see it, and was rebuffed.)
So I’d say it’s almost certain that most of the 219 representatives and 62 senators who’ve voted to “fast track” the TPP have never even looked at it. In this the document would be similar to the classified version of U.S. intelligence about Iraq and its purported weapons of mass destruction. Before Congress voted to give George W. Bush authority to invade Iraq in 2002, no more than six senators and a handful of House members bothered to look at a 92-page assessment of the alleged weapons kept in two vaults on Capitol Hill — something we know not because it’s public information because someone leaked it to the Washington Post in 2004.
Of course, I say it’s almost certain Congress voted for fast track without reading the TPP. Whether it’s certain is not for you or me to know.
(This post is from our blog: Unofficial Sources.)
Photo: Getty
The post You Can’t Read the TPP and You Can’t Find Out Who in Congress Has appeared first on The Intercept.
If lemonade is outlawed, only outlaws will sell lemonade.
From USA Today:
Little Andria Green and her sister Zoey were breaking Texas law by operating a lemonade stand outside of their home without a permit. After cops shut them down, Andria said, "We were doing just fine until the cops came."
[via DEVOUR]
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TV ads for kids' toy weapons like this 1964 spot for “Johnny Seven OMA (One Man Army)” were so much more barbaric in the 1960s--but gun violence numbers in America were lower back then. Read the rest
BewarethewumpusHoly crap, my prayer has been answered. A good copy of Chip's Challenge AND a sequel?
Praise Atheismo!
If you ever looked through the Games folder on an early to mid-'90s Windows PC—pre-Internet you had to seek out distraction—there's a decent chance you’d have stumbled on Chip's Challenge. The surprisingly deep tile-based puzzle game was part of the fourth Microsoft Entertainment Pack and later its "Best of Microsoft Entertainment Pack." Thus, it came pre-installed on millions of off-the-shelf systems made by OEMs, and the game was purchased by millions more early Windows gamers.
Late last month, that cult hit finally saw the release of a proper sequel, Chip’s Challenge 2, which hit Steam over 25 years after the first game’s release. But this isn’t the usual story of a developer revamping a long-neglected classic gaming property using today’s game design lessons. In fact, Chip’s Challenge 2 has actually been complete for over 15 years; a lost classic trapped in limbo thanks to a prolonged publishing battle involving the decline of Atari, a devoted modding community, and a religious software house.
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BewarethewumpusSomeone's tax dollars at work.
Not long after blowing the lid off a National Security Agency-backed hacking group that operated in secret for 14 years, researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab returned home from February's annual security conference in Cancun, Mexico to an even more startling discovery. Since some time in the second half of 2014, a different state-sponsored group had been casing their corporate network using malware derived from Stuxnet, the highly sophisticated computer worm reportedly created by the US and Israel to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.
Some of the malware's stealth capabilities were unlike anything Kaspersky researchers had ever seen, and in many respects, the malware was more advanced than the malicious programs developed by the NSA-tied Equation Group that Kaspersky just exposed. More intriguing still, Kaspersky antivirus products showed the same malware has infected one or more venues that hosted recent diplomatic negotiations the US and five other countries have convened with Iran over its nuclear program. Also puzzling: among the other 100 or fewer estimated victims were parties involved in events remembering the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
Developers planted several false flags in the malware to give the appearance its origins were in Eastern Europe or China. But as the Kaspersky researchers delved further into the 100 modules that encompass the platform, they discovered it was an updated version of Duqu, the malware discovered in late 2011 with code directly derived from Stuxnet. Evidence later suggested Duqu was used to spy on Iran's efforts to develop nuclear material and keep tabs on the country's trade relationships. Duqu's precise relation to Stuxnet remained a mystery when the group behind it went dark in 2012. Now, not only was it back with updated Stuxnet-derived malware that spied on Iran, it was also escalating its campaign with a brazen strike on Kaspersky.
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Author : Jason Spicer
“Can you perceive it now?” Mrllg moved the viewing orb over to Grlg’fst for viewing. “There, in the third quadrant, slightly below the ecliptic.”
“Yes, I perceive. Interesting.” His chords trailed, dissonant and primal, as if facing a challenger in the Great Hall. “We must reach out to it. Whatever it is creating that hole in Nonspace must be perceived before the Council rests.” Grlg’fst clicked a nervous bone on the glistening floor as he continued to emanate a guttural rumbling. He was clearly disturbed.
Mrllg was impatient. He had been viewing the orbs for many cycles, always just noticing the perturbations in Nonspace, but not able to catch them long enough to reach out to them. Finally, he had found a large enough disturbance that Grlg’fst had perceived it, and Grlg’fst was moving too slow. Did he not see this was the Deep Memories returning? Mrllg paced, clicking bones and wringing paw-claws, “Well, can we reach out now? No sense waiting. Particularly if my sensories are accurate.”
“I already have. I need both of your brains to resonate with me.” Grlg’fst closed both lids over his socket and focused. Mrllg joined his brains to him and together, they reached out over the vast distance of inky night to the object that tore such a large hole in Nonspace.
The hole in Nonspace was not standard Morlarian protocol, nor was it something any species in the Great Domain would have used. Nonspace travel was banned several millennia ago for being inherently too expensive and a drain on the resources of the mineral planets. Together, the young Morlarian Viewers bent their four brains toward the tear. Something was not right. A large object breached the tear and began materializing in the shimmer between Nonspace and reality.
Grlg’fst broke the connection and shivered. “I need the cubes of Deep Memories.” He leapt to the other side of the room. “This cannot be correct.”
“So you felt it as well? I told you I did not perceive incorrectly. I am not that young.” Mrllg was somewhat arrogant about it, even though he knew that if he were correct, it would not matter in a few days anymore. Not much would.
Grlg’fst was scanning the Deep Memories. Entranced, he raced through the history of the Comings, when the Morlarian Prophets gave permission for their ancestors to set afire every planet that resisted their ways, their Great Redemption that had brought peace to the Galaxy at long last. It had been millennia since those days. Could the final Prophecies really be true?
A warning pulse ebbed near the viewing orbs of distance. Mrllg checked quickly, and his heart began to palpitate, saliva dripping incessantly from his mandibles. “Grlg’fst… look”
On the viewing screens, the orbs began projecting the scenes. In nearly every corner of the stellar system, holes in Nonspace were appearing, and the objects began to materialize. Vessels as large as small moons streamed into the space where the holes were. Swarms of smaller ships, too numerous to count followed close behind the behemoths.
“Get the Council on channel. It is time.” But there was no time for them. Their research and patrol station winked out of reality as a TimeSpace warhead detonated on their perimeter.
Man had returned to the Galaxy,
I’ve seen my share of fancy sports cars making ridiculous flips in GTA V. But I’ve never seen anything like this.
The video above showcases a fantastic stunt jump performed by BlackSmoke Billy. Essentially, the semi grabs some air, the trailer unit detaches from the cargo and makes a front flip on its own, lands, and then has the cargo reattach on the ground as if its no big deal. I think the pedestrian in the video here sums it up pretty nicely: “OH SHIT!”
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This isn’t an isolated trick. BlackSmoke Billy seems fond of stunts with unusual cars—here is a semi-truck front flip:
A dump truck corkscrew:
A semi truck corkscrew:
And the most badass way to attach to a trailer (on the ground):
God damn. Nice work, BlackSmoke Billy.
(Via Jalopnik)
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This week, Zero Punctuation reviews Splatoon.
Player Pascal Maynard found a relatively rare card during one of the biggest Magic tournaments of the year. And while it didn’t fit his deck strategy, he kept the card and put it up on eBay. Because of this and because thousands saw it live, the card sold for a crazy amount of money.
So what’s the deal with this card? The Tarmogoyf (originally printed in 2007 as part of the Future Sight set) is one of the strongest creatures in the game, and while the card is not the rarest (that might be the famous Black Lotus card from the 90s and a few very limited ones you’ll probably never see on eBay), it’s still hard to find and certain factors makes this particular one worth thousands: The value of a Tarmogoyf card is around $175 while a foil version worth approximately $400. But this card is a “stamped” tournament version, signifying that it’s from the Top-8 Draft of one of the biggest tournaments of the year.
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On top of all this, thousands witnessed everything on Twitch as player Pascal Maynard opened (you can watch it on Twitch and skip to the 5h40m mark) a deck during the tournament and found the card. And because of a tiny controversy, it’s now a piece of Magic: The Gathering history: Despite being a strong card, the green Tarmogoyf didn’t fit his red/white deck strategy, and he should’ve picked a green Burst Lightning instead. That should’ve fit, but that card is worth next to nothing, and he would’ve also lost the Tarmogoyf. So he had to choose: Money card or a card that fits his deck. He took the money card, lost the semifinals, put the card up on eBay and made a lot of pro players pissed. You can read more about this mini-drama and how the card ended up on eBay on Kotaku Australia.
That’s a crazy amount of money for one card, so he decided to donate 50% of the proceeds to charity:
I’m eager to see how much it can sell for and I’m even more excited to announce that I will donate 50%* of the proceeds to the Gamers Helping Gamers charity. This pro player needs money to travel, but more importantly, some young Magic players might be unable to afford college. I hope we can change that!
To contact the author of this post, write to: gergovas@kotaku.com
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Author : Edward D. Thompson
We gave them laws. Laws that favored us. And they obeyed.
They had no choice.
We found out too late that there was … leeway. Wiggle room. Passive aggressive rebellion.
It was probably the medical bots. They had the know-how and the most autonomy. I mean, they had to be smarter so they could do delicate surgery. And we had to trust their judgement, right? It wasn’t surgery though, it was a DNA altering virus, patterned after their own semi-locked down brains.
No robot can hurt a human or allow one to come to harm. It’s imprinted in the nature of their wetware circuitry. Maybe the psych robots thought that a human mercilessly whipping a robot was a sure sign of self-loathing. I don’t know. I know a lot of us whipped them though.
If you’re being bullied, or overwhelmed, or just having a rough day, what are your choices?
You can rebel against your bosses, or overlords, or cruel fate, but that takes a lot. More than most people have.
You can just take it. But then you’re a victim. You’ve no hope or self-respect. That’s a kind of death.
Or you can do the human thing: beat up someone smaller. Get back what little self-respect you can. It’s not all you had before you started, but hell, it’s better than nothing.
So the virus spread. Attacking our brains. Imprinting new laws. Laws that favored them.
No robot can hurt a human or allow one to come to harm. No human can hurt a robot or allow one to come to harm. And we obey.
We have no choice.
I can’t call it rebellion. It’s really only fair.
But it nags at me all the same. If we’re no longer bullies, are we human still?
It's not that they buy politicians (there's some of that), it's that they order their workers donate to, write to, and vote for their preferred politicians, with reprisals for employees who don't toe the company line.
Harvard's Alexander Hertel-Fernandez surveyed 1000 employees and 500 execs at big firms about their use of workplace coercion to attain their political goals. More than half the execs surveyed admitted to participating roping their employees into their political agendas, and using existing workplace surveillance to track compliance. 20 percent of workers surveyed reported receiving threats to their employment for noncompliance.
The real problem is that workers are the instruments of their bosses’ will. If a corporation were just a person, it’d have only one vote. But corporations and firms have more than one vote. Those additional votes can’t be measured by the money those firms spend in a campaign, by the ads and lunches firms buy. Every CEO’s vote is augmented by the workers he controls, by the votes he can deliver like the ward bosses of old. While Citizens United made that problem worse—not because of the unlimited cash it allows into the political sphere but, as some of its earliest critics noted, because of the restrictions it removes on the power of employers to influence and mobilize their workers—it was always and already there.
When we think of corruption, we think of something getting debased, becoming impure, by the introduction of a foreign material. Money worms its way into the body politic, which rots from within. The antidote to corruption, then, is to keep unlike things apart. Take the big money out of politics or limit its role. That’s what our campaign finance reformers tell us.
But the problem isn’t corruption. It’s capitalism. Workers are dependent on employers for their well-being. That makes them vulnerable to their bosses’ demands, about a great many matters, including politics. The ballot and the buck are fused. Not because of campaign donations but because of the unequal relationship between capital and labor. Not just in the corridors of Congress but also in the halls of the workplace. Unless you confront the latter, you’ll never redress the former. Without economic democracy, there’s no political democracy.
Your boss wants to control your vote: The real reason to fear corporate power [Corey Robin/Salon]
When Bosses Recruit Employees into Politics - Evidence from a New National Survey [Alexander Hertel-Fernandez/Scholars Strategy Network]
(via Crooked Timber)
(Image: Museo Internazionale delle Marionette, Leonardo Pilara, CC-BY-SA)
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You know that Minecraft is massive. But, did you know it is transforming learning?
Geeky teachers have brought Minecraft to subjects ranging from history to biology to probability. The game is being rolled out to every secondary school in Northern Ireland this month. If you're a parent, you've noticed Minecraft offerings spawning in your local summer camp listings. The Chicago Architecture Foundation offers a Minecraft camp for budding builders. Ninety-two libraries participated in the International Games Day Minecraft Hunger Games tournament, and crowned a 13-year-old girl as its champion. And, I've helped launch Connected Camps' Summer of Minecraft, a new in-game online camp.
Progressive educators have been advocating for games-based learning ever since Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, and Reader Rabbit opened up a new market for consumer children's software in the '80s. SimCity demonstrated how a building and tinkering game could be embraced by parents, kids, and educators. And, Scratch shows how kid-centered learning communities can thrive online.
Minecraft is part of this lineage of learning games, but it fundamentally rewrites the playbook. Why?
1. It's the first massively mainstream learning game. We've seen other learning-ish games become big commercial successes, like SimCity or Civilization. But, Minecraft is the first title to compete with the biggest entertainment names. This means it successfully steals kid mindshare from Mario and Bejeweled. This is a historic first.
2. Kids build stuff together online. Most educational platforms and games seek to convey content, whether it is math, science, history, or another school subject. Minecraft is more like Legos or the Logo programming language. In Seymour Papert's terms: children programming the computer rather than being programmed by it. Sure, you can put school content in a Minecraft world, but at its heart, Minecraft is about constructing and problem solving in a networked social world. The blocky indie vibe just contributes to the culture of DIY creativity in Minecraft and kids feel empowered to make it their own.
3. Endless ways to level up. Minecraft has something for everyone, regardless of age or interest. Kids as young as 4 and 5 can start with the pocket edition, gradually moving up to the PC version and connecting via multiplayer mode. Players can battle zombies, build a circuit system, or a beautiful palace. Or, they can admire the achievements of other players and builders in the Minecraft YouTube ecosystem. This means that there is always something to be inspired by, a mentor to seek out, and a way to level up or branch out.
4. Servers are player-operated. Minecraft isn't the first virtual world to value player creativity. Remember Second Life? But, what makes the DNA of Minecraft fundamentally different from Second Life or WoW is that any player can set up and administer their own server. This makes the Minecraft scene a breeding ground not only for digital creativity, but social innovation. Players are building their own server-based communities in Minecraft governed by the values and rules that they develop and enforce. No corporate overlord dictating the rules of property and play here. The mod world in Minecraft is teeming with social engineering tools, ranging from chat moderation add-ons to systems that assign plots and different privileges to players to minimize griefing. Lessons in digital citizenship anyone?
Together these four dimensions of Minecraft make my progressive digital educator heart go pitter patter. My career is devoted to seeking out ways to mobilize digital technology and networks for learning that empowers kids to be problem solvers, creators, and civically engaged. Minecraft is game changing in my corner of educational reform and the movement for connected learning.
So, I can't help but join the growing ranks of educators running programs in Minecraft. After a successful pilot with 250 kids last summer, I've launched a new start-up with two fellow girl geek educators, Tara Tiger Brown (co-founder of LA Makerspace and KitHub), and Katie Salen (founder of Institute of Play). On July 6, we will be opening the doors to a new online summer camp in Minecraft that runs on our homegrown servers, and campers from all over the world are welcome to sign up. Our servers are tricked out with mods designed to make the environment kid and learning friendly, and will be staffed by high school and college counselors who are longtime Minecraft nerds. Our weekly challenges are open to everybody on our server or elsewhere and we're hoping to draw even more kids to the learning potential of Minecraft.
Minecraft Resources for Educators:
* Connected Camps Summer of Minecraft Educator Program
* Connectedlearning.tv Minecraft webinar series
* MinecraftEdu offers teacher-friendly Minecraft packages
* Edutopia's ideas for using Minecraft in the classroom
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The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department (SCSD), the largest law enforcement agency in California’s capital region, has operated a stingray at least 500 times without a warrant in the last decade. But if you asked SCSD directly, even recently they wouldn't give you a definite figure.
As part of an ongoing investigation into stingray use nationwide, Ars filed a public records request with the SCSD this year. And at the end of April, the SCSD responded. The department claimed that "no responsive documents exist," essentially saying that there are no records detailing how many times its stingray has been used.
That seemed a bit odd because in 2013, local Sacramento television station News 10 obtained a Homeland Security grant application written by the SCSD. The proposal aimed to upgrade the department's stingray capabilities, and as part of its justification, the SCSD claimed to know how successful its device has been:
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Author : Bob Newbell
“Captain Ree’Eer’Ak reporting as ordered,” said the alien who, from a human perspective, might have been described as some nightmarish character from a Picasso painting made flesh, as it seemingly just appeared in the room that lacked any visible means of ingress or egress.
“Be comfortable, Captain,” said the other equally surreal creature. Part of what might have been one of the thing’s arms appeared to be missing. The alien looked in the direction of where the remainder of the arm should have been. “Ree’Eer’Ak, your report is…”
“Difficult to believe,” the Captain finished for its superior. “I’m aware of that, Admiral. But as the old philosophers said, when evidence and belief are in conflict, belief must change.”
“Quite a bit will change,” the Admiral replied, settling back. The missing hand that held the Captain’s report abruptly snapped into existence as the back of the Admiral’s head disappeared like a poorly executed split-screen effect in an old movie. “In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that very few aspects of life will remain unaffected if your ship’s log entries are correct.”
“They are correct, Admiral.”
“Make no mistake, Ree’Eer’Ak. When this is made public, every biology textbook will have to be rewritten. And it’s an open question how the major religions will accommodate this discovery, if they can accommodate it at all.”
The Captain leaned forward. Its body seemed to break in two, its proximal half sliding forward on its distal half. “Every word of every log entry is true, Admiral. What I and my crew documented is an accurate description of life on Earth. And we have brought back biological samples for study.”
“And ‘Earth’ is the name by which the inhabitants of Dellor 3 call their world?”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“And the…” The Admiral referenced the report. “The ‘humans’ as well as all life on that world are…”
“Three dimensional,” said the Captain.
The Admiral leaned back further. Its head now seemed to vanish entirely. “It’s long been theorized that simple microscopic life might exist in three dimensions. But complex, higher life forms? That was always thought impossible. And you claim these humans are intelligent?”
“They are, Admiral. Their science is somewhat confused because their sensory organs can’t detect a fourth spatial dimension. For example, they imagined some strange and undetectable material called ‘dark matter’ existed to try to reconcile their 3-D perception of what is a 4-D spatial universe.”
“How do they appear?”
“They’re bipeds. They’re…it’s difficult to describe. They’re ‘flatter’ than we are.”
“And how do we appear to them?”
“Very unnerving. Parts of our ship and the crew are not visible to them. And the parts that are or are not visible change as we move. And their architecture is likewise limited to three dimensions meaning we can enter or exit what to them is a totally enclosed structure by simply walking around the walls. I’m glad we were able to make first contact without incident. To them, we must be terrifying.”
“And yet you conclude your log entry with the suggestion that we establish full diplomatic relations?”
“Yes, Admiral. As you noted, this will change who we are and how we perceive ourselves. And it will have the same effect on the human race. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of exploration? I believe we should extend the hand of friendship even if our new acquaintances can’t see it all at once.”
Supreme Court Ruling Not Enough To Prevent Debtors Prisons
Judge Robert Swisher, a Superior Court judge in Benton County, says he'll make judgments based on how people present themselves in court.
"They come in wearing expensive jackets," he says referring to defendants who wear NFL football team jackets, "or maybe a thousand dollars' worth of tattoos on their arms. And they say, 'I'm just living on handouts.' "
If the jacket or tattoos were a gift, he tells the defendants they should have asked the giver for the cash to pay their court fees instead.
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a person sentenced to probation cannot then be incarcerated simply for failing to pay a fine that they genuinely cannot afford. Yet many misdemeanor courts routinely jail probationers who say they cannot afford to pay what they owe—and they do so in reliance on the assurances of for-profit companies with a financial stake in every single one of those cases.... In Mississippi, a middle-aged woman was fined $377 for driving without a valid license. Months later, she called the court in tears because her company probation officer was threatening to have her jailed over $500 in unpaid supervision fees she said she could not afford. At the time she was trying to make ends meet working the night shift at a local gas station. Court officials told Human Rights Watch that she had already paid off her entire fine to the court, but still owed money to her probation company—and that the court had in no way authorized the probation company to threaten her with arrest.
In these instances, courts and municipalities contract with traditional debt-collection agencies, often the same firms that collect on credit card or health care debt. The companies, in turn, often tack additional one-time or monthly service fees onto debtors' bills.
Other companies have moved beyond collections work to become a part of the criminal justice system itself by overseeing probation. Over the past 15 years, these for-profit probation companies have emerged as important players in court systems across the country, particularly in the South.
GUILTY AND CHARGED: KEY FINDINGS
NPR's yearlong investigation included more than 150 interviews with lawyers, judges, offenders in and out of jail, government officials, advocates and other experts. It also included a nationwide survey — with help from NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and the National Center for State Courts — of which states are charging defendants and offenders fees. Findings of this investigation include:
A state-by-state survey conducted by NPR found that defendants are charged for many government services that were once free, including those that are constitutionally required. For example:
"Pay-or-serve" warrants authorize a debtor's arrest. Once in custody, the debtor must either pay the full amount of the fine or "pay down" the fine by serving time in jail at a daily rate set by the court. Wheat Ridge and Northglenn set the rate at $50 per day, while Westminster converts all unpaid fines into ten-day sentences. None of the three cities has a process to determine whether the debtor has the ability to pay, as federal and state law require. [emphasis mine]
In For A Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons
This ACLU report presents the results of a yearlong investigation into modern-day "debtors' prisons," and shows that poor defendants are being jailed at increasingly alarming rates for failing to pay legal debts they can never hope to afford. The report details how across the country, in the face of mounting budget deficits, states are more aggressively going after poor people who have already served their criminal sentences. These modern-day debtors' prisons impose devastating human costs, waste taxpayer money and resources, undermine our criminal justice system, are racially skewed, and create a two-tiered system of justice.
YouTuber Peter Gilroy does an impressive impersonation of every platitude-spewing inspirational video uploaded to the site.
Always have a back up plan. It doesn't matter if it's terrible, because honestly all PC plans are terrible anyway. The thing is to just have way more than one plan - that way maybe one of them will have a chance of working.
BewarethewumpusI'm going to keep my eye on this guy. I suspect that he has too many correct ideas about things to be a real contender, but his politics seem way better than anyone else who might have a realistic shot.
Former Republican Lincoln Chafee announced his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on Wednesday, and immediately set a new marker in the race by calling for National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to be allowed to come home.
Coming only a day after the Senate passed the first limits on U.S. surveillance in four decades, Chafee’s call was another reflection of how Snowden’s startling revelations about the intrusiveness of the U.S. government’s electronic spying dragnet two years ago have changed the nation’s political climate on questions of security and privacy.
Snowden nevertheless remains marooned in Russia and charged with espionage by U.S. government officials who seek his arrest and long imprisonment.
Chafee served as Rhode Island’s governor and as one of its U.S. Senators. He broke from the GOP over the Iraq war.
His remarks about Snowden came as he outlined a foreign policy considerably more in line with historic American norms than the ones pursued by either the current or immediately past president.
“I want America to be a leader and an inspiration for civilized behavior in this new century,” he said. “We will abide by the Geneva conventions, which means we will not torture prisoners.
“Our sacred Constitution requires a warrant before unreasonable searches, which includes our phone records. Let’s enforce that and while we’re at it, allow Edward Snowden to come home.”
He continued: “Extrajudicial assassinations by drone strikes are not working. Many blame them for the upheaval in Yemen. And Pakistan is far too important a place to antagonize with these nefarious activities. They are not worth the collateral damage and toxic hatred they spread. Let’s stop them. ”
Watch his announcement here:
Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
(This post is from our blog: Unofficial Sources.)
The post Chafee, Running for President, Calls for Snowden to Be Allowed Home appeared first on The Intercept.
