Från ett inlägg i Facebook-gruppen Teknikbubblan:

Drygt en gigabyte data per dag är vad som krävs för att hålla en familj på fyra nöjda i en fjällstuga, enligt min högst ovetenskapliga mätning just nu. Då har jag låtit datat strömma fritt med Netflix, SVT Play och onlinespel. Tänkte att det kunde tjäna som riktmärke för andra sportlovsföräldrar här i bubblan.

Självklart är det ovetenskapligt, som han skriver, men kan bli intressant att gå tillbaka till om några år, och se om dataförbrukningen rusar i höjden, eller om operatörerna kommer att ändra betalmodellerna så att mobildataförbrukningen stryps.

/Simon

We love seeing those little life hacks that are supposed to make everyday tasks — from painting your walls to scooping ice cream — just a little bit easier. But how many of them really work as well as their proponents claim? This video puts 30 supposed life hacks to the test.

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- Expressen 2012

DSM är en tidning med mycket liten upplaga. Utgivaren Jan Gillbergs dagordning utgörs till stor del av konspirationsteorier, som regel med en rejäl högervinkling. Estonia var ingen olycka, Kreuger tog inte livet av sig utan mördades, klimathotet är hittepå... Skribenter som Jüri Lina (hävdar att kommunisterna/judarna/frimurarna/Illuminati ligger bakom allt elände här i världen) och Pia Hellertz (chemtrails m.m.) borgar för en låg och förvirrad nivå. Det hela påminner närmast om EAP/LaRouche-rörelsen: "konspirationistisk världsåskådning, sektliknande organisation, utopism, inslag av antisemitism och motstånd mot miljörörelsen" (Wikipedia: EAP).

DSM är, kort sagt, inget man vill ha att göra med. Men en gång om året får tidningen stor uppmärksamhet även bland de så föraktade MSM, mainstream media.

- Journalisten 2012

Det är när man ger ut listan "Sveriges Viktigaste Opinionsbildare". Den sätts, enligt uppgift, ihop av 300 personer "som i sin profession har att följa debatten och den därmed sammanhängande opinionsbildningen". Vilka dessa är vet bara Jan Gillberg.

- Thomas Mattsson, Expressen 2012

Ännu en värdelös lista, alltså. Men Gillberg har hittat exakt rätt knappar att trycka på.

Journalister vill känna sig viktiga. Därför röstar de gärna inom yrket, på sina kollegor eller varför inte på chefen – och presenterar sedan listan från DSM som om den faktiskt utgjorde en riktig nyhet.

- Johan Ehrenberg, Listan för inbördes beundran, ETC 2 februari 2006

Ehrenberg utgår ifrån (eller gjorde det åtminstone 2006) att listan verkligen sätts ihop av de hemliga utvalda, vilket inte alls är självklart. Men strunt samma; listan har getts ut år efter år och ger media något att diskutera. Att det hela faktiskt är komplett ointressant har häpnadsväckande många annars nog så källkritiska journalister länge missat.

- Makthavare 2011

Det verkar först vara på sistone som listan åtföljs av frågetecken (som hos Makthavare de senaste åren) eller inte uppmärksammas alls. Det kan spela in att det är skojigare när den toppas av namn som DN:s chefredaktör Peter Wolodarski (2013) eller Anders Borg (2011) än Jimmie Åkesson (2014). Eller när en signatur som bloggar om invandring, islam och annat, och som är oerhört okänd utanför kretsen av de närmast sörjande, dyker upp på listan två år i rad:

2013 röstades Julia Caesar fram – av journalister (!!) – till en av Sveriges största opinionsbildare. Från ingenstans tog hon sig in på plats 80, i konkurrens bland många namnkunniga personer och före många välkända namn. Det är tidskriften DSM (som förresten varje påläst och fritt tänkande samhällsmedborgare bör stödja genom en prenumeration) som årligen tar fram denna lista.

- Aktualia: Julia Caesar

De senaste listorna har också fått betydligt större uppmärksamhet av DSM:s meningsfränder än av MSM.

- Sverigedemokraterna 2015

- Nya tider 2014

- Exponerat 2015

- Dispatch International 2015

Det kanske behövdes en sverigedemokrat i topp för att journalisterna verkligen skulle inse vad de har att göra med? Åtminstone några av dem.

Ändå vidarebefordras listan i dag glatt av två av Sveriges mest respekterade journalister, SVT:s Mats Knutson och Expressens K-G Bergström (K-G som för övrigt, enligt Gillberg, är en framträdande figur i ”Gramscivänsterns svenska nätverk”).

- Dagens Arena 2015

På något sätt har de rödare journalisterna haft lättare att hålla sig kallt källkritiska till spektaklet. Som Ehrenberg ovan, eller Dan Josefsson, vars gamla text till stor del fortfarande gäller.

Bland icke-journalisterna hamnar personer som Jan Gillberg själv kan tänkas sympatisera med påfallande högt upp. Den bland befolkningen tämligen okände SAF-ideologen Patrik Engellau placerar sig till exempel mitt i listan, medan Handels ordförande Kenth Pettersson, som inte bara debatterar flitigt utan också representerar tiotusentals fackmedlemmar, inte finns med överhuvudtaget.

Jan Gillbergs undersökning säger alltså ingenting alls om vem som påverkar vad svenska folket tänker.

Den säger bara vad en liten anonym grupp journalister tycker. Ändå är det som om hela svenska pressen drabbas av kollektivt vansinne varje gång Jan Gillberg publicerar årets lista.

Alla slår upp den som en stor nyhet. Under rubriker som "PERSSON, BILDT OCH JOURNALISTER VIKTIGAST FÖR OPINIONEN" kablar Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå ut Jan Gillberg och hans kompisars åsikter över landet. Varenda lokaltidning hakar på och presenterar listan som om den vore resultatet av en vetenskaplig undersökning.
Expressen, Aftonbladet och Göteborgs-posten basunerar ut att journalisterna återigen "utsetts" till de viktigaste opinionsledarna i Sverige.

- Dan Josefsson: Opinionsbildarna (1998)

Bild och idé som vanligt från xkcd: Misconceptions. Se även Explain xkcd: 843: Misconceptions.

Som denna uppmaning på denna blogg nu är inne på sitt femte år har vi väl uppnått åtminstone halva law and custom. Varsågoda:

Wikipedia: List of common misconceptions

A skin cream, an algae-based pet food, a hand-held cabin pressure monitor, speakers built with magnetized fluid and a machine designed to fix your golf swing. What do they all have in common? All of them were made using NASA research.

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Some older fictional characters turn up again and again and again: Count Dracula and his foes, Victor Frankenstein, Dorothy Gale and the denizens of Oz. But Western literature's public domain is filled with excellent characters, many who deserve a bit more limelight.

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There have been many efforts during the past few years to raise awareness of gender equality in the IT industry. But it’s been slow progress – and we don’t like slow! So we decided to do things differently. Instead of just hoping to achieve gender equality, we made it a requirement for our hackathon “Diversify”.

What we set out to do

After organizing events for tech students over the last couple of years, it’s become clear that we’re doing something wrong when it comes to gender diversity: we’ve rarely managed to get a female/male ratio better than 15/85. We refused to settle for this and decided to explore why this was the case and what we could do to improve gender diversity at our events.

Research shows that gender diverse teams create better results – so if we increase the number of women at our events and make them feel welcome and productive, our events will get better results and be more successful.

“There is not a high enough demand from women to attend tech events”

Believe it or not, we still get versions of this statement from a lot of people as an explanation for why there are so few women at tech events. We simply refuse to believe this is true. So instead we set out to create a tech event that would be equally attractive to men and women.

Studies shows that women shy away from competitive environments, and that such environments might unfairly impact their performance. By removing the competitive elements of a programming event, we hoped to get more women applying for the event and get a higher quality output from the teams.

How we executed it

How do you re-shape a concept that has been around for ages and broaden the spectrum of participants, while still making everyone feel welcome and challenged?

Clever Marketing

We worked hard to make all copy (emails, website and social media) friendly and fun. We avoided words that might scare people away, and instead emphasized cross-collaboration and learning to reach people who usually don’t attend these events. Colors were kept natural but still fun – and we avoided the ninja and Barbie^® themes!

The channels where you spread the event decide the crowd that will apply. We wanted to expand outside our Facebook hacker groups. So we talked to university teachers, local communities, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends from other cities to push the event outside the usual “tech bubble”.

The channels where you spread the event decide the crowd that will apply. We wanted to expand outside our Facebook hacker groups. So we talked to university teachers, local communities, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends from other cities to push the event outside the usual “tech bubble”.

Not Like Other Applications

If you want a diverse crowd, don’t only ask for the applicant’s GitHub account. Dare to ask the soft questions and you’ll get deeper thoughts and values in return. For example, we asked “Why is diversity important to you?” and “What do you want to learn?” The answers we received really touched our hearts. We had 40 participants in total, divided into ten teams. It was a good size, not too big but still plenty of people to talk to.

BUILD UP THE VIBE

To motivate people to show up with the right mindset, we put a lot of thought into creating a good vibe before the event. A Facebook group for all participants & coaches was a good platform for random conversations, and also allowed us to release a few teasers now and then. The hashtag is another powerful tool that we encouraged people to start using as soon as they got accepted. Furthermore, we wanted to make people feel welcome, irrespective of previous hackathon experiences. This meant not assuming people had specific technical skills. For example, we provided tutorials prior to the event on how to work with Git and explained to everyone how we were planning to use the services of GitHub during the event.

SOUNDTRACK YOUR HACK

No one wants to listen to hardcore techno for 40 hours – not even people pretending to like it! It’s just not human. So we created a playlist by initially asking everyone to describe themselves with a song. We received 40 very diverse songs and some amazing stories behind them. During the hack we let people add songs to the original playlist as we went along. It shaped itself into a fantastic mix-tape.

THE DREAM TEAMS

Each team consisted of two male and two female participants. All teams included people with different profiles; backend, front-end, design and project management. Ideally people in the same team would not be from the same school either. Additionally, these people had never met before, which adds to the impressiveness of what they created.

“First time I worked in a team as balanced as this one.”

ÄR MAGEN GLAD ÄR MÄNNISKAN GLAD

The “fika” (snack) table had everything from vegetables sticks to donuts. The meals ranged from vegetarian buffet to pizza slices. We tried to make everyone happy and the effort was very well received. It was all about showing that things can be done differently – and killing the geek macho vibe that pizza and beer events induce!

“Great with a mix of healthy and ‘traditional’ hack food”

COACHES

Fifteen Spotify employees across a range of different disciplines were asked if they wanted to coach the teams. They all said yes, and they did it beautifully! Their input really notched up the quality and learning atmosphere of the whole event. They are rock stars and we can’t thank them enough!

“The minute I heard there was an event featuring 50-50 male-female developers, I knew I wanted to be part of it and help coaching!”

SPECTACULAR SCHEDULE

We didn’t want people to just sit in front of their computers for 48 hours with the group of friends they came with. Instead, we planned talks, a workshop, fika and food breaks spread out during the two days. We also put a lot of thought into how to integrate the diversity perspective into every activity. The talks were from a female (Heidi Harman) and a male (Christian Heilmann) perspective. They are both fascinating people with amazing tech careers, so getting their point of view was really interesting and a great conversation starter for the remaining part of the hack.

Judit Schneider from Learning & Development at Spotify held a two hour workshop about Diversity and the unknown bias we carry with us, which was really well-received. The mixed activities created a natural opportunity for all teams to take breaks from hacking together and socialize. The full schedule is available here.

“So much less stressful than other hackathons I’ve attended. I really enjoyed just focusing on learning new stuff, getting to know new people and raising the gender equality discussion, rather than working until my eyes bleed.“

THE PRESENTATION FORMAT

We feared that many talented people don’t apply to these kinds of events because they don’t like the competitive environment. And to be fair, those 90 second pitches give no project a fair chance to present itself properly. So we removed prizes and pitches. Instead we held a demo session where teams demoed their apps in a science fair fashion. Coaches and participants walked around the room, tried the prototypes and asked more in-depth questions. This relieved the stress and enabled people to focus on process, learning and end results.

“I won the best thing: friends.”

THE AFTERMATH

“A confidence boost and a s*!t load of fun!”

We think of ourselves as rebels – we like to do things differently and start the odd revolution! We’ve thought a lot about how to package what we learned, inspire others and nurture the friendships that were formed during this weekend. There is already been a lot of Facebook friend requests and “I miss you” posts. We’ll do everything we can to keep building on this amazing vibe with these amazing people through the channels and events we have. So let’s start that diversity revolution now! And don’t forget to stop by the showcase site to see what the teams built.

What we learned

43-57

Out of all the applications Diversify received, 43% were from female and 57% from male applicants. This has never happened before in Street Team’s history of organizing events. The Street Team hopes and thinks this is because we were extremely thoughtful about inclusion in every single part of the planning and execution.

THE DEMAND WAS TOO HIGH

We simply received too many great applications. It’s truly a luxurious problem but we could have hosted three Diversify and still have had great candidates left in the pool of applicants. This tells us that the demand for these types of events is super high among both men and women.

NO PITCHES, NO PRIZES

The format was one of the things people appreciated the most and even made some participants change their mind about attending:

“I really like the idea about it not being a competition. I strongly agree with the problem stated by Chris Heilmann about the ‘start-up culture’ and it’s heavily competitive attitude, which is geared towards a certain type of people. Personally I don’t attend that many hackathons because of this.”

Instead of only one team leaving with a prize, we wanted all teams to leave feeling proud of their accomplishments and inspired to become even better. True, a few people complained about missing the traditional pitches and competitive element. Some people are driven by competition and argue that it leads to better results in the end. But one of our coaches left this feedback:

“The coolest thing is, that even without the competition, the results were remarkable.”

There are millions of competitive hackathons, but not very many like Diversify. We saw that there is definitely a demand for non-competitive hackathons focused on other things.

A WARM WELCOME TO FIRST TIME HACKATHONERS

Many of our participants had never been to a hackathon before. This tells us the importance of being open to everyone, and to nurture and grow a technology scene where everyone feels welcome and comfortable.

DIVERSITY IS NOT ONLY ABOUT GENDER

We’re of course aware that diversity is so much more than gender equality. It’s about nationalities, age, religion, race, skill-set, socioeconomic background etc. The list is long. We chose to address gender equality as a first step. An amazing side effect was that we also got many applications from people with different nationalities. This tells us that it’s not about making women feel more welcome, it’s about creating an event where everyone feels welcome, regardless.

WHAT THE TEAMS ACCOMPLISHED

So what about the fact that diverse teams create better products? This is the first hackathon we’ve ever organized where one result was not even slightly similar to any other result. You can judge the quality of the prototypes for yourself at the showcase site.

Why others should follow

We’ve talked enough in this article, so we’ll borrow some thoughts from the participants and coaches to wrap up.

MOTIVATION

“After this weekend I feel more motivated to bring up the discussion than I’ve ever been before.”

“This is acting as an inspiration and motivation to keep the discussion going.”

INSPIRATION

“Most inspiring weekend in a long time.”

“I have no doubt to say that it was the best weekend of my life! \o/”

DEMAND

“The obvious things like 50/50 gender distribution were very refreshing and I hope that we’ll see more of this in the future.”

“If I could do this again – even next weekend – I’ll be there”

RE-SHAPING

“It wasn’t like a ‘typical’ hackathon, it was more than that.”

“It was the best one I’ve ever gone to.”

IT’S GOOD FUN

“Awesomeness was had.”

“When I think about it, I start to smile.”

Thank you

To all the people who helped make this happen.
We hope we inspired you to act differently.
We hope you will join our revolution.
We hope you will share this article.
We might even love you.
Thanks for reading!

/The rebels in Spotify Street Team

* Showcase site at diversify.github.io
* Special thanks to Confetti & UrbanEars
*Photos by Caroline Arkenson and Sofie Lindblom
*All quotes are taken from the survey we sent out to participants & coaches after the event.

Redan dess officiella namn är fel. För en holländsk melkmeijse är, liksom en engelsk milkmaid, en mjölkerska, snarare än köksan på tavlan. Men det är en annan sak.

Vermeers tavla är berömd. Och likt alla berömda tavlor hamnar den, med eller utan eventuella upphovsrättsinnehavares samtycke, på nätet, i olika versioner. Tumnaglarna ovan är resultatet av en enkel bildgoogling. Man behöver inte vara färgproffs för att se att valörerna skiljer sig rejält. Och när folk som sett tillräckligt många dassiga avbildningar får se en omsorgsfullt utförd reproduktion, som till exempel vykorten på museet där originalet hänger, så kan det inträffa att de tvivlar på äktheten.

Det var just vad som hände på Rijksmuseum. Där tog man sig en rejäl funderare tillsammans med kolleger. Det blev en hel del prat om affärsmodeller och annat i den högre museala skolan, men åtminstone ett av resultaten var konkret och trevligt: Man tog fram ett högupplöst fotografi med god färgäkthet och lade ut på nätet, med fri licens så att folk kunde använda och sprida bilden. För det är upp till Rijksmuseum om folk ska inse hur en tavla på Rijksmuseum faktiskt ser ut.

After releasing a high quality true to life digital image of the Milkmaid, they found that people quickly started using this version for all kinds of purposes. As a result searching for Vermeer’s Milkmaid now will give you the version from the museum as a first hit. [...] The Yellow Milkmaid Syndrome makes quite clear that where a cultural institution does not publish their digital collection, or very low quality reproductions, other versions can probably be found online anyway. In this scenario the institution has absolutely no control what the image looks like, the quality of the images shared, or which versions are being used.

- Joris Pekel, The Yellow Milkmaid Syndrome - paintings with identity problems, Europeana, 7 januari 2015

• Workshopen finns dokumenterad hos H. Verwayen, M. Arnoldus, P. B. Kaufman, The Problem of the Yellow Milkmaid.
• Se även Sarah Stierchs Yellow Milkmaid Syndrome (Tumblr) med rader av mer eller mindre kända konstverk i mer eller mindre skadade versioner.
• Ett problem av en helt annan sort men i samma genre: Hur en tavla ser ut.

Cal Newport is the author of the excellent career advice book, So Good They Can't Ignore You (Read Kevin Kelly's review). Eric Barker of Barking up the Wrong Tree interviewed Newport to find out how he schedules his time.

Here are his rules:

1. To-do lists are evil. Schedule everything.
2. Assume you're going home at 5:30, then plan your day backwards.
3. Make a plan for the entire week.
4. Do very few things, but be awesome at them.
5. Do less shallow work — focus on the deep stuff.

Here's what Newport had to say about the power of scheduling:

Scheduling forces you to confront the reality of how much time you actually have and how long things will take. Now that you look at the whole picture you're able to get something productive out of every free hour you have in your workday. You not only squeeze more work in but you're able to put work into places where you can do it best.

And he also says you should ask yourself "What's creating real value in my life?" and stop doing things that don't create value.

You're judged on what you do best so if you want to have as much success as possible you're always better off doing fewer things but doing those things better. People say yes to too much. I say no to most things. I'm ruthless about avoiding or purging tasks if I realize they're just not providing much value.

Great advice.

How to be the most productive person in your office — and still get home by 5:30 p.m.

Over the course of three decades Joe Simon and Jack Kirby wrote and illustrated several hundred comics, many of which are reproduced in The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio covering all aspects of their amazing career. Selected and with an introduction by Mark Evanier, the foremost authority on the work of Simon and Kirby, the book includes artwork photographed from the original art in Joe Simon’s private archive and showcases the seminal work of Simon and Kirby and their artistry as it has never been seen before.

Cover of The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio

Race for the Moon no. 2 (September 1958). Harvey Comics. Introduction page illustrated by Jack Kirby. “The Thing on Sputnik 4” illustrated by Jack Kirby. “Lunar Trap” illustrated by Jack Kirby. “Island in the Sky” illustrated by Jack Kirby and Al Williamson. “The Face on Mars” illustrated by Jack Kirby and Al Williamson.

Blast-Off no. 1 (October 1965). Harvey Comics. “The Great Moon Mystery” illustrated by Jack Kirby and Al Williamson. “Danger! Atoms!” illustrated by Howard Nostrand. “Lunar Goliaths” illustrated by Jack Kirby and Al Williamson.

Adventures of the Fly no. 1 (August 1959). Archie Comics. “The Strange New World of the Fly” illustrated by Kirby and Simon. “Come Into My Parlor” illustrated by Kirby and Simon. “The Fly Discovers His Buzz Gun” illustrated by Kirby and Simon. “Magic Eye” illustrated by George Tuska.

Black Cat Mystic no. 59 (September 1957). Harvey Comics.“Take Off, Mr. Zimmer” illustrated by Jack Kirby.

Justice Traps the Guilty no. 57 (December 1953). Prize Comics. Cover by Marvin Stein

Boys’ Ranch no. 2 December 1950). Harvey Comics. Introduction page illustrated by Jack Kirby. “The Clay Duncan Story” (splash page only) illustrated by Jack Kirby. “Lead Will Fly at Sunset!” (splash page only) illustrated by Jack Kirby

Boys’ Ranch no. 4 (April 1951). Harvey Comics. Introduction page illustrated by Jack Kirby. “Fight to the Finish!” illustrated by Jack Kirby, Mort Meskin, and others. “Double-page spread illustrated and colored by Jack Kirby. "The Bugle Blows at Bloody Knife!” (splash page only) illustrated by Jack Kirby.

Fighting American no. 1 (April 1954). Prize Comics. “Duel to the Finish Line!” illustrated by Jack Kirby.

Bullseye no. 1 (August 1954). Mainline Publications. Cover by Jack Kirby. Splash page illustrated by Jack Kirby

All images are copyright the Estates of Joseph H. Simon and Jack Kirby.

~!Hacked By GeNErAL alias Mathis!~

Hacked By GeNErAL

 

Greetz : Kuroi’SH, RxR, ~

\!/Just for Fun ~Hacked By GeNErAL\!/

Hacked By GeNErAL! !

Instagram is cleansing its service from bots, which is good news for everyone who didn't buy a bunch of bots to follow them and a real bummer for anyone who did.

Cruising through the now-humbled accounts, discovered via an amazing data set compiled by Zach Allia, I thought would be good for some schadenfreudeyou know, all these people with their high and mighty follower accounts being unmasked as frauds. Instead it ended up making me feel the less popular German emotion of Fremdschmen, empathetically embarrassed for these people. It's like that kid who claimed to have a girlfriend in Canada being unmasked in front of everyone, not only for having an imaginary girlfriend, but also fake teeth, hair, and parents.

No one lost a higher percentage of followers than the Instagram user chiragchirag78, who went from 3,660,468 followers yesterday to only eight today, a drop of 99.9998 percent. In response, whoever was behind chiragchirag78 closed the account forever, leaving only unanswered questions: Who was chiragchirag78? Why won't chirag's Instagram account come up on the Internet Wayback machine? Why pay for millions of followers if you're only going to post two pictures? Who were these eight real people?

SocialBlade offers a few hintschirag's picture is a drawing of Walter White; he (let's go with the masculine pronoun) followed 22 other accounts, and his account's history is simply declines with periodic, presumably paid, follower spikes.

Image: Screenshot from Social Blade

But chiragchirag78 is gone. It's the survivors who are left to bum us out.

Wellington Campos is a Brazil-based marketing manager who was, as recently as June, famous being the most popular non-famous person on Instagram with nearly 6 million followersmore than Kris Jenner, more than Lady Gaga, more than Barack Obama. Allliterally allhe posts are posed pictures of Woody from Toy Story.

Looking at his account yesterday, you might have just thought that pictures of Woody from Toy Story staged all over the world could have more followers than the supermodel Miranda Kerr because family entertainment is more universally appealing than supermodels. Today, you know better than that.

Nearly 60 percent of Campos's followers disappeared overnight, leaving Campos and his Woodyland gallery with 2,225,650 followers. Not an insignificant number, for certain, but fewer than even the likes of Bruno Mars.

If the Campos account was just something you came across, it might be charming: Woody eating a ton of Nutella! Ha ha! You might even find it impressive: Woody with Oscar Neymar Jr, a soccer player so popular that even I, an American, recognized him on sight. Woody in Europe, Brooklyn, and Brazil. Campos is a real jet-setter, if nothing else.

But knowing that likely thousands of dollars were spent inflating the follower account gives the endeavor a tragic and pathetic air. It's like hearing that the notoriously nice Tom Hanks ruined the careers of his rivals en route to becoming Woody. There's an incongruity here that skews towards being revolting.

I reached out to Campos but have yet to hear back. Sure, he doesn't have the massive follower count anymore, but he still has over two million people commenting and liking his posts. And for that reason, I can't really make sense of why he ended up getting greedy. Like Woody into a jar of Nutella, Campos plunged right into the world of fake Instagram followers and got burned. Now he looks as foolish as this picture of Woody, uh, also with a jar of Nutella.

I mellandagarna publicerade Expressens kultursida en text där jag ånyo brottas med frågan om antisemitism. Den kan läsas som en fortsättning på mitt blogginlägg från i somras om att antisemitism inte är detsamma som “judehat”. Antisemitismens kärna består inte i något urskillningslöst hat mot judar, utan i den paranoida fantasin om en judisk konspiration. Detta utesluter inte en idé om att det finns “goda judar”, vilka rentav kan bli föremål för antisemiternas hyllningar. Däremot lämnas inget utrymme för nyanser, när det kommer till judar (eller personer som uppfattas som judiska).

Antisemitiska fördomar resulterar ständigt i att judar, bara för att de är judar, avkrävs offentliga ställningstaganden åt det ena eller andra hållet. Jag ger några exempel på detta i artikeln och framhåller behovet av en strukturell förståelse av antisemitismen – precis som i fråga om transfobi, homofobi, sexism och rasism. När jag säger “struktur” menar jag bara att fördomarna handlar om mer än bara summan av individuella uppfattningar. Vi måste inse detta för att inte fastna i ett oändligt jidder om vad vissa individer har sagt, vad dessa individer “egentligen” tycker och vad vissa ord “egentligen” betyder.
Ja, jag tror att feminister är bättre än icke-feminister på att tänka strukturellt. Ungefär därför tror jag också att det bara är på vänsterhåll som det finns utsikter för en vässad kritik av nämnda fördomar, inklusive antisemitismen. Därmed inte sagt att detta automatiskt kommer att ske. Särskilt inte som det inom delar av vänstern fortfarande finns tendenser att förneka eller bagatellisera antisemitismen.

Observera dock att jag ingenstans i artikeln fäller svepande omdömen om “vänstern”. Rubrik och ingress är inget som skribenten i en tidning kan kontrollera. I detta fall tycker jag tyvärr att rubriken i Expressens webbupplaga blev lite missvisande, då den antydde att artikeln skulle handla om “vänstern” (vad man än må lägga i detta begrepp).

Även om det är klart att det i vänsterkretsar förekommer antisemitism (liksom det förekommer sexism och homofobi), är det inte en artikel om det som ledarskribenter brukar kalla “vänsterns antisemitism”. Oavsett vad vi menar med “vänstern”, så finns det ingen specifik vänsterantisemitism, lika lite som det finns en specifik vänsterhomofobi.

Däremot finns det, bland vissa vänsterdebattörer i Sverige, en tendens att förringa eller förneka antisemitismen. Framför allt finns en okunskap och en ovana att se det strukturella problemet. Exempelvis detta med oförmågan att tala om judars situation utan att byta ämne till att tala om Israel. Denna tendens att byta ämne är i sig ett uttryck för strukturell antisemitism.

We’re winding down the days here in 2014, so it seemed appropriate to look back on the year as we usually do and reflect on some of the most popular and interesting things we covered over the last 12 months. It’s always exciting to see the articles that rise above on Colossal. In past years the editorial focus here has veered mostly toward design and contemporary art, while this year articles focused heavily on science, history, craft, and performance. That shift is definitely noticeable in this list. So here, loosely ordered on popularity, are the top 12 articles on Colossal in 2014. See also 2013 and 2012.

1. 271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book

In 1692 an artist known only as “A. Boogert” sat down to write a book in Dutch about mixing watercolors. Not only would he begin the book with a bit about the use of color in painting, but would go on to explain how to create certain hues and change the tone by adding one, two, or three parts of water. The premise sounds simple enough, but the final product is almost unfathomable in its detail and scope. Spanning nearly 800 completely handwritten (and painted) pages, Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau, was probably the most comprehensive guide to paint and color of its time.

2. A New Acoustic Instrument That Creates Sounds like a Digital Synthesizer

The Yaybahar is a new acoustic instrument designed by Istanbul-based musician Görkem Şen that emits music right out of a retro sci-fi movie, a remarkable feat considering there isn’t a bit of electricity involved. The Yaybahar can be played in a variety of different ways using mallets or with a bow, relying on a combination of two drum-like membranes, long springs, and a tall fretted neck to create music.

3. LIX: The World’s Smallest 3D Printing Pen Lets You Draw in the Air

The latest contender in 3D printing pens, the LIX raised over $1 million on Kickstarter.

4. 888,246 Ceramic Poppies Surround the Tower of London to Commemorate WWI

Historic Royal Palaces

To commemorate the centennial of Britain’s involvement in the First World War, ceramic artist Paul Cummins and stage designer Tom Piper conceived of a staggering installation of ceramic poppies planted in the famous dry moat around the Tower of London. Titled “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red,” the final work consisted of 888,246 red ceramic flowers—each representing a British or Colonial military fatality—that flowed around the tower (and the entire internet) like blood.

5. The Cloud: An Interactive Thunderstorm in Your House

Cloud is an interactive light and speaker system shaped like a cumulus cloud that simulates a thunderstorm both in light and sound based on external input from either a remote control or motion sensors.

6. Table Topography: Wood Furniture Embedded with Glass Rivers and Lakes by Greg Klassen

Furniture maker Greg Klassen builds intricately designed tables and other objects embedded with glass rivers and lakes. Inspired by his surroundings in the Pacific Northwest, Klassen works with edge pieces from discarded trees (often acquired from construction sites, or from dying trees that have begun to rot) which he aligns to mimic the jagged shores of various bodies of water.

7. An Abandoned Bangkok Shopping Mall Hides a Fishy Secret

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

Professional cook and photographer Jesse Rockwell discovered something wholly unexpected when he descended the steps into the basement of an abandoned shopping mall in Bangkok where he took these amazing photos.

8. Polyphonic Overtone Singing Demonstrated by Anna-Maria Hefele

A chilling demonstration of polyphonic overtone singing by Anna-Maria Hefele, who demonstrates the almost inhuman ability to create a harmony of two notes at a time using a single breath.

9. Psychedelic Paint and Poured Resin Artworks by Bruce Riley

Chicago-based artist Bruce Riley fills canvases with abstract organic forms made from layer after layer of dripped paint and poured resin. While looking at images of his work online, it’s difficult to grasp the depth and scale of each piece which can be penetrated by light from multiple angles, casting shadows deep into the artwork. Riley works using a number of experimental techniques, frequently incorporating mistakes and unexpected occurrences into the thick paintings that appear almost sculptural in nature.

10. Absurdly Expressive Dog Portraits by Elke Vogelsang

Based in Hildesheim, Germany, Elke Vogelsang is a professional photographer who mostly shoots portraits of people and pets, but in her spare time spends plenty of time with her trio of rescue dogs who frequently find themselves in front of the camera.

11. Sheets of Glass Cut into Layered Ocean Waves by Ben Young

Self-taught artist Ben Young is a man of many exceptional talents from surfing and skateboarding to repairing furniture and working full-time as a qualified boat builder. He’s also spent the last decade exploring the art of sculpting with glass, an endeavor that’s become increasingly rewarding as galleries and collectors have started to take notice.

12. This 16th Century Book Can Be Read Six Different Ways

Sure, the Amazon Kindle might have dynamic font adjustments, and it can hold thousands of books, but can it do this? Printed in the late 16th century this small book from the National Library of Sweden is an example of sixfold dos-à-dos binding, where six books are conjoined into a single publication but can be read individually with the help of six perfectly placed clasps.

Den 14-15 januari genomfördes den första svenska workshopen för 3d-print för alla som är verksamma vid universitet och högskolor. Det var forskningscentret Sports Tech Research Centre vid Mittuniversitetet som tog initiativet för att hitta nya samarbeten kring additiv tillverkning.

3d-print, eller additiv tillverkning, är en teknik som har väckt stor uppmärksamhet de senaste åren på många olika sätt. Mittuniversitetet och forskningscentret Sports Tech Research Centre, som varit verksamma inom området sedan år 2000, genomförde en nationell workshop i Åre med ett 30-tal deltagare från universitet och högskolor i hela landet.

–Syftet med workshopen på lite längre sikt är flera, först och främst så är det viktigt att forskare i Sverige får träffas för att få en större förståelse för vad som händer inom området i landet och hur vi skulle kunna samarbeta i framtida projekt, säger Lars-Erik Rännar, docent vid Sports Tech Research Centre och en av projektledarna för workshopen.

Workshopen inleddes med ett studiebesök för deltagarna i den labbmiljö för 3d-print som finns vid Sports Tech Research Centre i Östersund. Diskussioner om framtida forskningssamarbeten stod på agendan då det finns goda möjligheter att söka finansiering inom additiv tillverkning. Till exempel har Vinnova flera olika utlysningar där tekniken nämns speciellt och även inom ramen för Horizon2020 finns goda möjligheter till finansiering.

Det finns också tankar från arrangörernas sida om området additiv tillverkning nu är tillräckligt stort inom akademin för att starta en återkommande nationell konferens, antingen fokuserad på forskningspresentationer eller mer inriktad mot informella möten för att diskutera exempelvis forskningsutlysningar eller praktiska samarbeten.

Theres a week left in 2014, but for much of America, the year in drones starts today. And thats scaring the bejeezus out of the Federal Aviation Administration.

No doubt, thousands and thousands of teens and adults will have a drone sitting under their tree this morning and, no doubt, many of those people will have no idea what theyre doing when they go fly it for the first time.

For that reason, then, we can expect 2015 to be much like this year when it comes to drones, only magnified exponentially. This is the year that dronesnot Predator drones, but little white plastic toys (OK, and lots of other variations on the little white plastic toy)became a common topic of conversation. And they arent going away anytime soon.

Case in point: Earlier this week, the FAA put out this campy, almost aggressively poorly produced video called Know Before You Fly. It is the FAAs most accessible attempt yet to beg prospective drone pilots: Please dont be idiots with these things. And the agency that oversees the FAA has already said that its going to be nearly impossible to actually police all the drones people are going to get for Christmas.

But thats the future.

To understand how were going to get to a place where your regular-ol person owns a drone, however, we have to understand what the heck happened this year to keep drones in the public consciousness so much.

And lots happened. People were innovative with drones, people were stupid with drones, the government fumbled with what to do with drones. The commercial use of drones was kinda-sorta-illegal, and then it was completely legal, and then it was illegal again. Hobby use of drones was unregulated, then it was quasi-regulated, and now it exists in an exceedingly confusing state in which the FAA can call whatever use it wants illegal.

Drones took pictures of naked people and filmmakers made porn using drones. Pepper spray guns were attached to drones and drones were shotgunned out of the sky. The dronie became a thing. A teenager was assaulted by a woman for flying his drone. Two hobbyists were arrested by the NYPD after the police chased after their drone. Speaking of police use of dronestheyre using them. Is that a good or a bad thing? Who knows.

And thats kind of the deal, here: Some uses of drones are awesome; others, not so much.

File these ones under the Case For Drones column: Lakemaid Brewery announced in February that it would be delivering beers out to ice fishers in Minnesota using drones (the FAA squashed it). Anti-poaching activists used drones to monitor wildlife and look for poachers in South Africa. Hundreds of small businesses thrived (and flew safely) as real estate photographers, pipeline and agricultural field-monitors, and wedding photographers. Amazon and Google both dipped their toes into drone delivery, to varying degrees.

Many, many people will be getting one of these today. Image: Shutterstock

And file these under the probably not so great developments for the future of drones: Frat bros filmed their parties with drones (OK, this one was just kind of tacky). The National Parks Service banned drones outrightand, after the ban, someone went and crashed one into a lake in Yellowstone. Not one, but two drones (one on each coast) were blasted out of the sky with a shotgun. The FAA has done all it can to keep these out of the sky and, in doing so, has potentially made throwing a frisbee illegal. There are still privacy concerns. Theyve been used to smuggle drugs into prisons. The big ones are and will remain targeted killing and surveillance devices.

The list goes on, but Im going to stop it there. Because this is probably going to be the last year in history that one can even do a The Year in Drones article and actually do a reasonably thorough job of catching everything. Moving forward, trying to nail down The Year In Drones will be like trying to make a list of what everyone did with their smartphones or computers all year.

Unless, of course, one of you who just got a drone for Christmas goes and does something colossally destructive or dangerous with it. So, yeahplease dont ruin it for the thousands of people out there who have turned the drone industry into one of the most exciting sectors in recent memory. 

As 2014 comes to a close, it's time to reflect on the most futuristic breakthroughs and developments of the past year. This year's crop features a slew of incredible technological, scientific, and social achievements, from mind-to-mind communication to self-guiding sniper bullets. Here are 15 predictions that came true in 2014.

Read more...

"Its protagonist lives in a world of almost continual night, with the hungry eyes and dead affect of an Ayn Rand wet dream: his world is constituted of chrome, glass, a palette of white-to-taupe, a spatter-pattern rug and one book, a single book, on graphic design" - Piercepenniless on the Redrow London property development promo video.

Flat-toned, void affect, social cancer in a suit: a model for London living. Here’s a curious honesty about it all: houses in the suburbs are marketed still for the smiling happy family, all oak tables and smiling coffee mornings (in zone 4, the dog never even barks, let alone bites). In the central zones, having been cleared of many of their inconveniences (families, communities, *life*), now deadboxes are marketed to the single (wannabe singular) sub-Thatcherite dweeb who manages his violence only on a balance sheet, who wants to take life, pin it, and crush it behind plate glass. Let us burn it down.

Violence, glass, steel

It's almost here, guys! Flying cars! Jetpacks! Hoverboards! Or so we've been promised. It seems these technologies are always just two years away. At least that's what the media keeps telling us .

Read more...

The Soarigami is a plastic divider meant to extend and split the shared airplane armrest.

Company spokesperson Arthur Chang says, "We do anticipate some travelers to have issues with sharing, we feel like this is a great conversation starter."

Welp, you lost me there.

Soarigami (via CNN)

Love this library color coding, imagined by Tom Gauld. (You can buy it as a print!)

Idén till min och Eric Schüldts nya poddradioserie Myter & Mysterier har grott länge, vad jag minns ända sedan vi höll på och spelade in Människan och maskinen. Redan förra våren chansade vi på att söka stipendiemedel från Svenska kyrkans kulturfond men konceptet och innehållet var kanske lite för äventyrligt. Vi är säkra på att det inte passar in i Sveriges Radios sedvanliga ramar heller. Så vad göra? Vi visste ju att det finns en rad olika crowdfundingsajter, så tanken på att testa den möjligheten har funnits ett tag. När så Kickstarter "öppnade" även i Sverige gjorde vi slag i saken. Att vi valde just Kickstarter hade med synlighet och varumärket att göra. Vi kände att kampanjen skulle kunna bli effektiv och lättspridd helt enkelt. Sådant är inte oväsentligt när man agerar på egen hand i en marknadsekonomi.

Men sådana överväganden väger lätt jämfört med det viktigaste: Hela pängen med crowdfunding är ju direktkontakt med hugade och intresserade lyssnare, människor som gillar det vi gjort tidigare och som är villiga att satsa en slant bara för det. Ingen av oss hade genomfört någon sådan här kampanj tidigare, även om vi har vänner som gjort det. Vi visste egentligen inte så mycket om "hur man gör". Så vi var oss själva helt enkelt. Att filmaren och regissören Henrik Hellström erbjöd sig att hjälpa till med vår lilla presentationsfilm hjälpte till att hitta tonen och inspirerade oss ytterligare. Och gensvaret blev, både i form av glada tillrop och ekonomiskt, över förväntan. Till det bidrog säkert delvis att kampanjen uppmärksammades av både Dagens Nyheter och Sydsvenskan. Och i efterhand blev satsningen dessutom föremål för en krönika i nyhetsmagasinet Fokus. I ett sådant här läge är i princip all publicitet bra publicitet och vi är glada för uppmärksamheten. Men vi blev också lite fundersamma, eftersom saken vinklades på lite speciella sätt vilka kan förtjäna några reflektioner.

I Sydsvenskan fick Andreas Ekströms krönika om det hela rubriken "Nu går även den bäste med mössan i hand". Eric är ju en utomordentligt skicklig radiojournalist med gott renommé och med många (andra) eminenta program bakom sig. Ekström störde sig på att Eric måste "söka mecenater för att kunna jobba professionellt." "Jag blir galen!" tillade han och menade att det här var ett tecken på kulturens "avprofessionalisering". Det där låter märkligt för mig. Är Eric och jag mindre professionella för att vårt nya projekt nu finansieras direkt av lyssnare? Är det mera professionellt att vara anställd av SR (som Eric inte är) eller av ett universitet (som jag nte är)? Både Eric och jag är frilansare sedan länge. På vilket sätt gör det oss mindre professionella? Vad betyder "professionalitet"? Det kan väl inte betyda något annat än att man är kompetent och får betalt för det man gör i kraft av sin kompetens. Vem som betalar är, som jag ser det, irrelevant i relation till professionalitetsbegreppet. Det finns f ö också en anledning till att jag lämnade universitetet och att Eric inte är fast anställd vid SR och det har med skaparfrihet att göra.

Men är man fri när man har "mecenater"? Elsa Westerstads krönika i Fokus fick rubriken "Den giriga mecenaten". Hon köper inte Ekströms vinkling men tycks i sin tur reta sig på att de mest generösa av våra donatorer kommer att bli omnämnda och berättas om kort i våra program. "Egennytta tycks vara mecenatsamhällets nya dygd" skriver hon och implicerar att givarna i fråga bara handlat av egennyttiga skäl. Det känns som en ogrundad och mot dem närmast oförskämd antydan. Men oavsett det så är det enda viktiga just här själva saken. Vad vi kommer att säga i serien bestäms till 100 % av oss själva. Det är för det våra lyssnare har stöttat oss; vi tar helt och hållet för givet att det är vår självständighet och egensinnighet de gillar. Sålunda: Ja, man är fri när man har sådana mecenater. (För övrigt tror jag att majoriteten av stödjare känner sig främmande för att bli kallade "mecenater".) Detta är, som jag ser det, själva tjusningen med crowdfunding. De som stöttar ett projekt den vägen gör det för att de av någon anledning (dunkel eller uppenbar, det spelar ingen roll) tror på dem som ligger bakom. Som en av våra stödjare skrev i ett mail, parafraserat: Jämfört med de 2000 kr om året jag betalar till SVT/SR är en summa till er en säker kvalitetsinvestering.

En mera allmän synpunkt när det gäller finansiering av så kallat kulturell verksamhet är följande. Kultur av lite mer krävande och kompetent slag har praktiskt taget alltid betalats av någon annan än de professionella kulturmakarna själva. Var det inte någon adelsman eller kung, eller storbönder eller köpmän, så var det staten, eller kommunen, eller landstinget, eller EU. Sådana är villkoren helt enkelt. Är det någon som på allvar tror att statlig eller annan offentlig finansiering sker utan förbehåll, om än aldrig så underförstådda? Då har denne fel; det vet jag. Och i det här avseendet är kombinationen av öppenhet och frihet en viktig styrka hos crowdfunding. Att några stödjare får lite extra omnämnanden och annat ändrar inte på det. Och den som någon gång sökt offentliga medel för något projekt vet, att mecenaten då bokstavligen kräver att bli omnämnd om pengar ges. Det är skillnad.

Till sist kan det vara värt att notera att -- utöver en del av det som helt kort skrevs i DN -- har ingen journalist sagt något om själva innehållet i serien. Och trots allt är det ju själva mysterierna som är det enda verkligt intressanta i alltihop. Eller hur?

/Per

Det var 1985 som Sami tvingades ta ställning till den svenska synthpopgruppen Adolphsson/Falk, i vilken Adolphsson och Falk medverkade som sångare till ackompanjemang av synthesizers programmerade av Greg Fitzpatric. På förslag av Yngve Åkerberg beslöt Samis arbetsutskott ”att tillgängligt poängutrymme fördelas lika mellan Adolphsson, Falk och Fitzpatric”.
Frågan är dock om dilemmat verkligen löstes. ”Det är den konstnärliga påverkan i själva inspelningsögonblicket som omfattas av ersättningsrätten”, fastslår Sami i sitt ännu gällande regelverk (”Rollkoder & poäng”).
Att programmera en sequencer bör då inte berättiga till ersättning – om man inte tänker sig själva programmerandet som ”inspelningsögonblick”, vilket förvisso är tänkbart. Av allt att döma har Sami anslutit sig till en sådan outtalad idé om programmerbara instrument. Alternativet borde vara att de avböjde att samla in ersättningar för sådan musik som är fullständigt förprogrammerad, inklusive mycket techno och annan nyare dansmusik.

“The new (inexplicable amount of stock images of) women laughing alone with salad is women laughing alone with tablets.” [On the Media Blog]

Gammalt möter nytt.

En invändning som ibland dyker upp i samband med förtätning är att nybyggnationerna kan föra med sig statushöjning, höjda hyror och undanträngning av befintliga resurssvaga grupper i de områden där de genomförs. Att sådana effekter kan förekomma och har förekommit lokalt är nog inte så mycket att orda om, framförallt i de fall förtätningen och de upprustningar som ofta genomförs i samband med denna koncentreras till enstaka områden medan andra områden med liknande karakteristik lämnas orörda. För staden som helhet är dock förtätning avgörande för att motverka sådana undanträngningsffekter, givet att stadens befolkning växer.

Vad som glöms bort av dem som av gentrifieringskritiska skäl generellt motsätter sig förtätning och upprustning av den yttre miljön i låginkomstområden är att status i huvudsak är ett nollsummespel. Så snart en ny iPhone släppts är den tidigare modellen inte längre lika häftig, och en statushöjning orsakad av förändringar i stadslandskapet kommer på samma sätt att leda till att resten av staden blir lite mindre flärdfull än den annars skulle ha varit (om förändringen gör hela staden mer flärdfull kommer någon annan stad att tappa i flärd). Att statusen höjs på område efter område utan att andra områden tappar beror helt enkelt på att stadens befolkning ökar, och inte på upprustningarna. Att motverka undanträngning genom att stoppa upprustningar är alltså ett ”race to the bottom” som på sin höjd fungerar på det mycket lokala planet; de uteblivna upprustningarna kommer istället att leda till att statusen blir högre någon annan stans i systemet, vilket (om utgångspunkten är att statusökningar är något negativt) borde leda till slutsatsen att stoppandet av upprustningar är en osolidarisk handling. Den som tycker att det satsas för mycket på ett område borde istället argumentera för att satsningarna ska spridas mer jämnt över staden, så att inte vissa områden ska rusa i status relativt andra. I Göteborgs fall bör, t.ex., en upprustning av Gamlestaden genomföras parallellt med en upprustning av centrala hisingen (vilket också görs). Vi vill naturligvis att alla områden ska vara så trivsamma som möjligt – allt annat vore absurt.

Om ett generellt motverkande av upprustningar är verkningslöst ur ett undanträngningsperspektiv så är ett generellt motverkande av förtätning rent kontraproduktivt. Förtätning bidrar på det stora hela till att dämpa prisökningarna eftersom det ökade utbudet av bostäder som förtätningen för med sig gör att konkurrensen om bostäderna minskar. Även om flyttkedjor inte alltid löper så väloljat som ibland förespeglas så kommer varje person som flyttar in i det nybyggda att hålla fingrarna borta från det gamla. Förtätning minskar alltså risken för undanträngning av resursvagare grupper i staden som helhet. I en stad med växande befolkning men utan nybyggnation kommer, däremot, resurssvaga grupper successivt att helt trängas ut ur staden.

YIMBY Stockholm om: förtätning, upprustning, gentrifiering, undanträngning

Bloggar om: förtätning, upprustning, gentrifiering, undanträngning

A mysterious and incredibly destructive cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, the corporations motion picture and television division, by a hacking group known only as the Guardians of the Peace (GOP), has received plenty of mainstream attention as of late. 

The GOP was an unknown hacker group before last week, but reports of the attack began to emerge after a 90s hacker movie-style image of a CGI skeleton was splashed across the office computers of Sony employees.

That splash image included several links to stolen data taken from the Sony network, and Sony has since hired cybersecurity firm Mandiant to help clean up the mess.

A photo that has been circulating on the internet, allegedly showing the image that appeared on Sony computers.

The initial GOP leak was a list of file namessomewhere around 40 millionthat the GOP has claimed to have stolen from Sony. 

According to the list, the GOP has seemingly swept up confidential information of Sony employees indiscriminately, based on filenames like Marriage Certificate0001.JPG and Wells Fargo account details.jpg.

Other files indicate GOP may have taken at least hundreds of contracts, given the names of many PDFs that appear to be signed agreements with entertainers like Queen Latifah and with various television stations for Seinfeld syndication deals.

It seems the GOP is hellbent on leaking the entirety of Sonys data.

After publishing those filenames last week, the GOP hackers followed up yesterday by releasing several movies that were stolen from Sonys network and leaked online early, even by regular online piracy standards.

Fury, the Brad Pitt-fueled war movie thats still in theaters, was stolen and released in DVD screener quality. And Annie, an unnecessary remake of the lovable orphan franchise, was thrown online weeks ahead of its actual release.

Then, late last night, another archive of material was published; this one is 25GB of compressed information, which would amount to an even greater amount of data once it is uncompressed for review. The GOP claims this 25GB chunk is only a fraction of the 11TB that theyve been able to obtain, which is a massive, albeit unconfirmed, amount of data.

To put it in perspective, the first Chelsea Manning leak, which was referred to as the largest intelligence breach in American history before Snowden, was 1.6GB.

Within another public Pastebin post, which was forwarded to select members of the media yesterday, links to the cache were published with multiple mirrors, to serve as contingency plans when links go dead. A warning appears above the links to the massive amount of stolen information: These include many pieces of confidential data.

Current speculation suggests these GOP attacks are from North Korean state actors trying to get revenge on Sony for making The Interview, a comedy about assassinating Kim Jong-Un. North Korea does have the ability to launch a cyberattack of that scale, but the countrys involvement is unconfirmed. 

Regardless, the American government has started to take this attack seriously. A flash warning was released by the FBI to several American corporations, cautioning them about the attack yesterday, while encouraging them to come forward if they experience similar network-crushing infiltrations.

This is where things get a little crazy

In a report about that FBI warning, Reuters sources compared the malware used by GOP against Sony to malware used against Saudi Aramco, a Saudi oil company, in 2012.

This is where things get a little crazy. The Saudi Aramco attack was described by the New York Times as Iran firing back against US cyberwarfare. The motive for Iranian hackers breaching Saudi Aramco appears to be a mixture of lashing out against a Saudi embargo on oil trade with Iran, while also serving as an attack against one of Americas primary oil partners.

To be clear, it's not been confirmed that the Saudi Aramco attack and the latest GOP attack are related. But it is notable that the two share superficial similarities: a huge network of computers had their data wiped (the computers at Sony can only be repaired by physically replacing the hard drives or re-imaging them) from afar. 

And like the Sony attack, Saudi Aramco's systems were also modified to display a particularly jarring image. Per the Times: The virus erased data on three-quarters of Aramcos corporate PCsdocuments, spreadsheets, e-mails, filesreplacing all of it with an image of a burning American flag.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a similarly-named group, Cutting Sword of Justice, (CSoJ) which does not appear to have taken credit for any other attacks, just like the Guardians of Peace. Though CSoJ did publish numerous Pastebin documents about the attack at the time, they have not re-appeared (under that name, at least) since.

Whether or not they're related from a technical standpoint, it's interesting to see massive malware attacks utilizing such broad-scale, destructive methodsa trend that's not limited to these two incidents.

The virus used by CSoJ against Saudi Aramco was called Shamoon, and according to several security experts, Shamoon may have been developed using stolen code from a cyberespionage tool called Flame, which at one time targeted predominantly Iranian computers and has been called a follower of Stuxnet. 

Shamoon even shares a component name with Flame, Wiper, but the two components arent a clone of one another. The code is different, but Shamoons Wiper is still considered to be a copycat of Flame.

Of course, Shamoon and the GOP attack come after the 2010 advent of Stuxnet, a highly complex American-Israeli computer worm aimed specifically at Irans nuclear facilities. Stuxnet's code ended up being reused and repurposed in a variety of different malware programs, like Duqu, which used leaked Stuxnet code to create an information stealing program.

But Stuxnet was just the beginning. Flame was described by Wired as a cyberweapon that makes Stuxnet look cheap, by the cybersecurity firm Kapersky Labs as "one of the most complex threats ever discovered," and by BBC sources as an industrial vacuum cleaner for sensitive information. 

While Stuxnet was designed to do one specific but nonetheless daunting taskdestroy centrifuges used for Iran's nuclear programFlame is more of an all-in-one cyberspying suite that aims to steal as much data as possible.

In the New York Times story about the Iranian attack on the Saudi Aramco network, Flame is described as having been set up in order to constantly be siphoning data from computers in Iran. Shamoon and the GOP attack seem to share similar goals.

Stuxnet began a chain reaction of incredibly powerful malware

Links have also been made between these attacks and a string of cyberattacks by a group called Darkseoul, which targeted South Korean banks and shut down ATM access for millions of customers. 

While South Korean media has blamed North Korean hackers, Symantecs analysis could not conclude that the North Koreans were responsible. They did, however, point out the rarity of the malware used by the Darkseoul and said there were only two other forms of malware like theirs: Shamoon and Stuxnet.

Given the stark similarities between the GOP attacks, the Saudi Aramco attacks, and the Dark Seoul attacks, it appears that the American-designed Stuxnet began a chain reaction of incredibly powerful malware, which is most likely the result of development from state actors. So whether or not North Korea hacked Sony over a movie-related beef, the influx of advanced cyberweapons will likely produce continuing escalation of broad-scale malware attacks.

Holy crap, comedian Chris Rock interviewed by Frank Rich in Vulture. Epic interview. Read the whole thing, start to finish--I did, and rarely do.

This one part blew my mind. It's the most succinct expression of lightning-bolt-clarity I've ever read about racism in contemporary American culture:

What would you do in Ferguson that a standard reporter wouldn’t?

I’d do a special on race, but I’d have no black people.

Well, that would be much more revealing.

Yes, that would be an event. Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.

Right. It’s ridiculous.

So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

It’s about white people adjusting to a new reality?

Owning their actions. Not even their actions. The actions of your dad. Yeah, it’s unfair that you can get judged by something you didn’t do, but it’s also unfair that you can inherit money that you didn’t work for.

Wonderful portraits of the artist in this article by Martin Schoeller. Go see 'em full size.

Once again, a Walmart store has set out a collection box for food donations to support its own employees, who are paid so little that they depend upon social assistance (and public generosity) to survive.

When you shop at your local Walmart, you support the profitability of a business that couldn't survive without your tax-dollars subsidizing its stores. It's a business model that made the Walton family into the richest family in America -- the six Waltons' net worth is more than the bottom 42% of Americans', combined -- and you give them a handout every time you shop at Walmart.

Technically,the food drives are not Walmart corporate policy, so hey, all is forgiven, amiright? Though hey, a Walmart spokesperson did characterize the Ohio effort as “part of the company’s culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships.” And Walmart checked, ’cause it cares you know, and the Oklahoma food drive is just for two associates who don’t have health insurance because Walmart doesn’t provide any to its hourly workers, so it is not like the whole freaking store is starving or anything. You can have it both ways apparently at Walmart.

And who wants to subsidize freeloaders with our hard-earned tax dollars anyway? Oh, wait. Actually Walmart hauls in a monster truck load of public assistance for itself. Those low, low daily wages are subsidized by your taxes. The company’s low wages leave huge numbers of its employees on public assistance programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. By one estimate, a single Walmart superstore requires up to $1.7 million in public assistance spending every year. The company eats up a total public assistance cost of $6.2 billion per year. That’s how Walmart can “afford” to pay its associates so little and yet they don’t pass out from hunger in the aisles during your Black Friday orgy of consumerism. Neat!

Walmart Again Holds Food Drive for Own Underpaid Workers [Peter Van Buren/Dissenter] (via Reddit)

NY Times - On a tablet device, double-tapping the article text enlarges the text size rather than zooming the entire screen.

/via Kyle Parkinson

The documentary Star Wars: Deleted Magic shows a version of Star Wars: A New Hope that never made it to theaters, one filled with deleted scenes. And watching the entire thing made me realize one of the more miraculous things about A New Hope is that we got such a wonderful movie instead of a mediocre one.

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