"They found that the spread of home computers and high-speed Internet access was associated with significant declines in math and reading scores."

Stop reading my blog -- BUY or Borrow A BOOK !!! ~` TP

-----------------

The Medium Is the Medium

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: July 8, 2010

"Recently, Internet mavens got some bad news. Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy examined computer use among a half-million 5th through 8th graders in North Carolina. They found that the spread of home computers and high-speed Internet access was associated with significant declines in math and reading scores."

-------------

Study links bee decline to cell phones

Study links bee decline to cell phones

www.cnn.com

A new study has suggested that cell phone radiation may be contributing to declines in bee populations in some areas of the world.

==================

If this bears out as true,

this is a very historical find. It will change much.

Celebrating the birth of copyright : by Sen. Patrick Leahy.

By Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) - 04/13/10 02:31 PM ET :

The copyright laws offer creators incentive to produce new and unique works. These may come in various forms, including movies, music, and books, all of which are important components of American culture.

These works create jobs, from their production and manufacture to the advertising and sales that support them.

To cultivate these new jobs, intellectual property enforcement must keep pace with an ever changing digital world.

As an avid photographer I am intrigued by the debate at the turn of the 20th Century about whether photographs were copyrightable creations, or merely technical representations.

Public discussion then helped shape copyright laws to accommodate the new medium, just as it does now as times and technologies continue to change.

Today people watch television on handheld devices, skim books on digital readers and enjoy music on laptops, benefiting both content owner and the user.

But along with these new opportunities for distributing creative content, the World Wide Web has also brought new challenges.

"A rampant increase in online piracy threatens the financial viability of those same copyright owners who benefit from our new technology.

This risks harming not only those creators, but the hundreds of thousands of jobs that result from their products.

It also instills the user with a fundamental mistrust of the technology. Effective intellectual property enforcement is necessary to counter this attack. "

more

: "Are Profits Hurting Capitalism?"

~` Great piece~~

------------------------

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS: "Are Profits Hurting Capitalism?"
By YVES SMITH and ROB PARENTEAU

Published: July 2, 2010

..."So instead of pursuing budget retrenchment, policymakers need to create incentives for corporations to reinvest their profits in business operations"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/06smith.html?src=me&ref=general

"A Chinese court on Saturday sentenced a Tibetan environmentalist..."

"BEIJING, July 3 (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Saturday sentenced a Tibetan environmentalist who organized villagers to pick up litter and plant trees to five years in jail for inciting to split the nation, his lawyer said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/world/asia/04tibet.html?hpw

www.nytimes.com

---------------

Remember China ,

TechnoPolitical is WATCHING you !

~~~ Not a Big fan of this . I trust (most) journalists & editors to tell me what is important--

that I might other wise miss in my busy day.

I do not want "what is news" to be determined

by what is popular.

--[ I can always watch FOXnews if I want that] ~~~

------------------------------------

"At Yahoo, Using Searches to Steer News Coverage"

By JEREMY W. PETERS

Published: July 4, 2010

"“There’s obviously an embedded negative view toward using any type of outside information to influence coverage,” said Robertson Barrett, chief strategy officer of Perfect Market Inc., a company that helps news organizations make their content more detectable to search engine algorithms.

Mr. Barrett, a former publisher for the Web site of The Los Angeles Times, said many mainstream media outlets would start to come around to the idea if they did not feel pressured to let it affect their coverage.

“There’s a middle ground here in which publishers and news organizations can learn a lot about their audiences and what they want in real time and take that into account generally,” he said. “But that does not need to affect the specific story assignments.”

------------

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."

- Abba Eban

"Conspiracy theories are generally the province of people who are high on I.Q. and "low on common sense",

SO TRUE :

"Conspiracy theories are generally the province of people who are high on I.Q. and "low on common sense",

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/birthers-polls-and-public-ignorance/?nl=opinion& emc=tyb1

Full Copyrights for Art.

by Suzanne Lainson(profile) , Jun 18th, 2010 @ 2:24pm

poster:"I would like to see a movie released with lots of extra clips so a person can legally make and share their own version of the film using the clips. Imagine how viral that would be."

SL : The tools are already out there and this is being done to one degree or another. (I've been working on a related project.)

Creativity on a personal level is expanding daily. I think we will eventually get to a point where we are much more interested in what we create ourselves for our small circle of friends and family than what others create for a bigger market.

The economics of having millions of people making their own art will change the salability of creativity, but as a culture we will likely be better for it.

(reply to this comment)(link to this comment)

• • insightful
  • informative
  • report

  Re: Creativity on a personal level is expanding daily. // The economics of having millions of people making their own art will change the salability of creativity, but as a culture we will likely be better for it.

  by Technopolitical(profile) , Jun 22nd, 2010 @ 12:03pm

  SL : "The economics of having millions of people making their own art will change the saleability [cor. sp] of creativity, but as a culture we will likely be better for it."
  
  
  

  Me : exactly 100% plus
  
  $$$ who cares.
  
  Control of use .
  
  who. when. where. how. why.
  
  As long as i have full artistic control
  
  i is cool.
  
  Full Copyrights for Art.
  
  It is not just a good idea.
  
  It is the bedrock of our Constitutional Economic System for Artists.
  
  ---------------
  --------
  patents on drugs and cellphones ?
  
  it is a different horse.
  
  not my thing.

  (reply to this comment)(link to this comment)

Justice Kennedy said the court was uncomfortable fashioning comprehensive legal rules, given the pace of technological and cultural change

~` This a biggie from SCOTUS. I think they hit it right on.~~ `
------------------------------

June 17, 2010

Justices Allow Search of Work-Issued Pager

By ADAM LIPTAK

• Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON — A California police department did not violate the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it audited the text messages on a pager the city had issued him, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday.

The decision represented only a preliminary attempt to define public employees’ Fourth Amendment rights in the digital era, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court, took pains to say that the ruling was narrow and closely tied to the facts.

Still, the decision puts government employees on notice that electronic communications on devices provided to them may not be subject to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches, as long as their employers have “a legitimate work-related purpose” in inspecting the communications.

Justice Kennedy said the court was uncomfortable fashioning comprehensive legal rules, given the pace of technological and cultural change.

“The court must proceed with care when considering the whole concept of privacy expectations in communications made on electronic equipment owned by a government employer,” Justice Kennedy wrote in a part of the opinion joined by every member of the court except Justice Antonin Scalia.

“Cell phone and text message communications are so pervasive that some persons may consider them to be essential means or necessary instruments for self-expression, even self-identification,”

Justice Kennedy went on. “On the other hand, the ubiquity of those devices has made them generally affordable, so one could counter that employees who need cell phones or similar devices for personal matters can purchase and pay for their own.”

The decision did not address the privacy rights of people employed by private companies.

• Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
• -----------------------------------------------------------------
  

WORRIES ABOUT E-VOTING PERSIST AS New York State PRIMARY LOOMS

__ I really really do not like e-voting at all .
Click the labels on e-voting for more and why~`

------------------------------------------------------------------

WORRIES ABOUT E-VOTING PERSIST AS PRIMARY LOOMS

Twenty counties have raised concerns about the shift from lever machines to electronic voting devices, which the state is belatedly supposed to make for the upcoming statewide primary.

Adam Klasfeld

Throughout New York State, county legislatures and election authorities have raised serious concerns about state and federal laws requiring them to replace lever machines with electronic systems before the September primaries.

The advocacy group Election Transparency Coalition has a map showing that over 20 counties that have passed resolutions or sent letters to the State Board of Elections opposing the transition. The election commissioners of Nassau County have filed a lawsuit to stop the transition to computerized machines on the grounds that the new machines are untested, faulty, owned by a corporate giant and prone to ,,,,,,

http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4059/worries-about-e-voting-persist-as-primary-looms

Copyright © 2010 - City Limits is a project of the Community Service Society of New York, which is a 501(c)3 organization. Contact Us | Privacy Policy

Re: Wow..First of all, this is why I support FOSS (Free Open Source Software). If its all free, then there would be no piracy!!! ;).

by Technopolitical(profile) , Jun 8th, 2010 @ 7:23pm

First of all, this is why I support FOSS (Free Open Source Software). If its all free, then there would be no piracy!!! ;)

ME :: TRUE ,, w/ software. i love Linux & Mozilla .

----
Try to "Open source" my Art

I will either :

A) "load my shotgun" (Rick Derringer & Ted Nugent ) ,

or

B} call my lawyer ( Me and the Beatles) ,

or

C] both (Willie Nelson).

(reply to this comment)(link to this comment)

Technopolitical(profile) , Jun 8th, 2010 @ 5:56pm

Re: Re: Re: Where is the harm? Re: Re: Copyright is still a farce in the age of supercopying machines that fit in our pockets.
by Anonymous Coward, Jun 8th, 2010 @ 12:50pm
----------------

------------------------
YOU : What "limited extend"? How is it limited? By what force of nature is it "technically true, to a limited extent"?

ME : GREAT POINTS !!

lets me try here

>>> What "limited extend"?.

ANS : I make my Art, Once public , I will always loose some control,

How you interpret it for one.

Do you see the point i had in mind when I wrote the song?

Our do you Pretzel Logic twist into your own worldview.

But I have still have legal control of my Arts reuse and sale.
================

You : How is it limited?

Me : It is limited by the law.

You CAN PARODY my art legally 100%.

Usually artist LOVE parody of their work,

Imitation is the highest form of compliment.

But even if the original Artist does not like the PARODY,

there is nothing he can do-- legally.

He can punch the parody artist in nose if they meet at the Grammy-s,, but it never happens.
--------------=============

ME : By what force of nature is it "technically true, to a limited extent"?

ME : Again , I make my Art,
and Once public ,

I will always loose some control,

How you interpret it for one.

=============

YOU :By what force of nature ?

Me : Well here we have to get meta-physical.

Law is man. Thought put on paper. rspected.

The constition itself has no POWER.

It needs the Government.

"Power comes out of the barrel of a gun" -- Mao,

( Sorry Mr. Lennon, sometime even Mao hit one good.)

We elect gov't within the framework of our Constitution, won by rebellion against England ,

and till today fought for by People with guns -

-- who represent our President , Governors , and Mayors , and/or any official who command a police or army force ----

So in the "real world" the "force of nature" is Government Guns and Jails.

We have elections , checks and balances , so the Gov't does not oppress us without our legal consent.

There is always the next election.

If we elect bad leaders , who it to blame?

The People of the Nation.

That is why some nations rise , and some nations fall.

The People.
----------------
What is the "force of nature" above the real materiel world?

Well , either

a] G-d ,

or

b] Objective Morals / Natural law --

--- that guide the people to make government.


----------------------------------

How did i do ?

(reply to this comment)(link to this comment)

Techno Politics in Presidential Campaigning

~~Seems interesting ,,
Click here for my take on this ~
~~ TP

Techno Politics in Presidential Campaigning
New Voices, New Technologies, and New Voters
Edited by John Allen Hendricks, Lynda Lee Kaid

* Price: $49.95
* Binding/Format: Paperback
* ISBN: 978-0-415-87979-8
* Publish Date: November 10th 2010
* Imprint: Routledge
* Pages: 324 pages
* http://routledge-ny.com/books/details/9780415879798/

Can you copyright your DNA ?

"Copying: It's in our DNA!"

by Technopolitical(profile)

If I clone you, is your DNA yours still ?

Can you copyright your DNA ?

I am asking .

It has been in the news lately a bit ,

Search , and get back to me.

----------------

So a guitar player walks into a bar

with a little Monkey on his head.

the bar owner says:

hey, where did you get that ?!?!

And the monkey says,

Greenwich Village NYC!

there are loads of them !

-----------------

a pirate geek

goes to the same bar ,

with a little monkey on his head

the bar owner asks him:

well, where did you get that?

and the monkey says :

The apple store , they all over the place !!!

And get this,,

this geek says he is not copyrighted !

He is now my property to do as I wish.

I can clone him a million times ,

and make slaves for me.

AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD !!!!

It rains . My INTERNET modem goes on and off repeatably.

Dear CableVision:

Let me summarize :

It rains . My INTERNET modem goes on and off repeatably.

Sometimes the surge is so strong , that because I only have USB ports on my computer, the surge causes my Windows to reboot.

I loose no data when this happens and the computer is unharmed.
it is just a pain.

I understand ,, that now cable vision DOES NOT support /endorse using a USB to connect the modem to the computer,, but I have no choice........

..... AND UNLESS IT RAINS -- with water getting into a corroded Cablevision Telephone pole box some where --- unless it rain ,, I HAVE NO PROBLEM !!

No rain ,, no re-boot problem. there should be no problem when it rains --that IS CABLEVISIONs problem , not mine.

We just did a test here at my house , and sprayed water with the garden hose all over the tele-pole directly behind my house. MY INTERNET was un affected. Being the last rainy day - Tuesday May 18th of this week ---- the INTERNET did go on and off REPEATABLY all day , the problem is another tele-pole box somewhere.

ALSO -- it is very clear , that the cablevision box on the tele-pole behind my house is SHINNY BRAND NEW ! Meaning it was recently changed --- as I have been told by your tech support guys all the way through for 3 weeks now.

The problem of the INTERNET going on and off on ONLY rainy days , is clearly not in my house , not the box behind my house on the tele-pole ,, BUT ANOTHER tele-pole box.

This point point was agreed upon by a senior tech rep who spoke to me last Friday May 14 -- the day No ONE showed up for a scheduled appointment.

AGAIN --please forward this email to the highest ranking folks at cablevision who supervise BOTH field repair and customer service.

Signed

TP

====

mailed-by cablevision.com

hide details 6:24 PM (30 minutes ago)

Mr. Technopolitical:

Thank you for taking my call today. As agreed I will arrange a tech to come to your home between 2PM and 5PM on Friday 5/28. The tech will replace the NIC card in your computer and replace the your present modem with a Docis 3.0 modem.

Please let me know if for any reason we need to change these plans. My phone details are attached below.

Thank you again,

"A Chinese student, Wang Jianwei, his professor, wrote an academic paper on the vulnerability of the American power grid to a computer attack."

~~ I hope the paper got an "A" grade.

Surely it did get noticed !! ~~~

Academic Paper in China Sets Off Alarms in U.S.

By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZA

March 20, 2010

“We usually say ‘attack’ so you can see what would happen,” he said. “My emphasis is on how you can protect this. My goal is to find a solution to make the network safer and better protected.” And independent American scientists who read his paper said it was true: Mr. Wang’s work was a conventional technical exercise that in no way could be used to take down a power grid.

The difference between Mr. Wang’s explanation and Mr. Wortzel’s conclusion is of more than academic interest. It shows that in an atmosphere already charged with hostility between the United States and China over cybersecurity issues, including large-scale attacks on computer networks, even a misunderstanding has the potential to escalate tension and set off an overreaction.

“Already people are interpreting this as demonstrating some kind of interest that China would have in disrupting the U.S. power grid,” said Nart Villeneuve, a researcher with the SecDev Group, an Ottawa-based cybersecurity research and consulting group. “Once you start interpreting every move that a country makes as hostile, it builds paranoia into the system.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/world/asia/21grid.html?src=me&ref=general

~` So Mr. Smith , you would like to work here?

First fill , out this application.

After we do a background check, drug test , and credit search,

you can go to room "A" for your polygraph ,

and then to room "B" for your Brain Scan.

Let the moral and legal debate begin.

---------------------------

---

Brain Scan Can Read Your Thoughts

New insights into brain activity could explain how memories are formed and how they change over time.

Thu Mar 11, 2010 02:30 PM ET | content provided by AFP

THE GIST:

• Brain scans could reveal what a person is thinking.
• Using fMRI scans, scientists can distinguish memories of a past event a person is recalling.
• The brain scans could provide fresh insight into how memories are stored and how they may change through time.

---

A scan of brain activity can effectively read a person's mind, researchers said Thursday.

British scientists from University College London found they could differentiate brain activity linked to different memories and thereby identifythought patterns by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The evidence suggests researchers can tell which memory of a past event a person is recalling from the pattern of their brain activity alone.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/brain-scan-mind-reading.html?print=true

Justice Department Decides To Break Up E-Voting Company

~~ I really , really do not like electronic voting. I feel it could threaten the functioning of our democracy. Anything electronic can get hacked . ( See other posts on this topic.)

Re-counting electronic votes needs techie geeky types. I still like paper ballots , marked in hand by the voter. Primitive , yes ; slow yes ' but it is easier and truer to recount. The less that can go wrong , the less that will go wrong ~~~

==============================

Justice Department Decides To Break Up E-Voting Company

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100308/1919058469.shtml

from the how-about-just-opening-the-source-code? dept

As was rumored at the end of last year, the US Justice Department has decided to break up Election Systems & Software (ES&S), the dominant e-voting provider in the country. You may recall that just a few months earlier, ES&S (who has a long and troubled history of inaccurate, buggy and insecure e-voting machines) had purchased the remains of Diebold's e-voting business for just $5 million. Of course, Diebold also had a long and troubled historyof inaccurate, buggy and insecure e-voting machines, so the two made a perfect match. In both cases, the companies relied on security by stonewalling -- insisting that nothing was wrong, despite lots of proof to the contrary, and refusing to let third party security experts ever look at their machines. Rather than breaking up the companies, why don't the feds just require that any e-voting machine use open source software that can be tested by anyone?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100308/1919058469.shtml

~~ The Internet was in its youth carefree fun. Now it is an angry adolescent that needs serious discipline and constant oversight , as Google just learned -- AGAIN !!-- in China.

We can only hope the Internet matures well-- and remains useful and open,

Click the labels on these topics for more from me on this ~~

January 18, 2010

Companies Fight Endless War Against Computer Attacks

http://www.nytimes.com

By STEVE LOHR

The recent computer attacks on the mighty Google left every corporate network in the world looking a little less safe.

Google’s confrontation with China — over government censorship in general and specific attacks on its systems — is an exceptional case, of course, extending to human rights and international politics as well as high-tech spying. But the intrusion into Google’s computers and related attacks from within China on some 30 other companies point to the rising sophistication of such assaults and the vulnerability of even the best defenses, security experts say.

“The Google case shines a bright light on what can be done in terms of spying and getting into corporate networks,” said Edward M. Stroz, a former high-tech crime agent with the F.B.I.who now heads a computer security investigation firm in New York.

Computer security is an ever-escalating competition between so-called black-hat attackers and white-hat defenders. One of the attackers’ main tools is malicious software, known as malware, which has steadily evolved in recent years. Malware was once mainly viruses and worms, digital pests that gummed up and sometimes damaged personal computers and networks.

Malware today, however, is likely to be more subtle and selective, nesting inside corporate networks. And it can be a tool for industrial espionage, transmitting digital copies of trade secrets, customer lists, future plans and contracts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/technology/internet/18defend.html?em

~~ About time !!

Actual Cyber Warfare would have serious consequences ~~

December 13, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/science/13cyber.html?_r=1&hp

U.S. and Russia Open Talks on Limits to War in Cyberspace

By JOHN MARKOFF and ANDREW E. KRAMER

The United States has begun talks with Russia and a United Nations arms control committee about strengthening Internet security and limiting military use of cyberspace.

American and Russian officials have different interpretations of the talks so far, but the mere fact that the United States is participating represents a significant policy shift after years of rejecting Russia’s overtures. Officials familiar with the talks said the Obama administration realized that more nations were developing cyberweapons and that a new approach was needed to blunt an international arms race.

In the last two years, Internet-based attacks on government and corporate computer systems have multiplied to thousands a day. Hackers, usually never identified, have compromised Pentagon computers, stolen industrial secrets and temporarily jammed government and corporate Web sites. President Obama ordered a review of the nation’s Internet security in February and is preparing to name an official to coordinate national policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/science/13cyber.html?_r=1&hp

",,,,,in South Africa it seems the web is still no faster than a humble pigeon."

~~ I would label this Retro-TechnoPolitical. :) ~~~

10 Sep 09 10:03 11:03 UK

South Africa pigeon 'faster than broadband' !!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8248056.stm

Broadband promised to unite the world with super-fast data delivery - but in South Africa it seems the web is still no faster than a humble pigeon.

A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom.

Winston the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data.

Telkom said it was not responsible for the firm's slow internet speeds.

The idea for the race came when a member of staff at Unlimited IT complained about the speed of data transmission on ADSL.

He said it would be faster by carrier pigeon.

"We renown ourselves on being innovative, so we decided to test that statement," Unlimited's Kevin Rolfe told the Beeld newspaper, 'No cats allowed,"

Cyber attack seen as emerging threat for London 2012

~~ Cyber Wars are now a daily fact. Every single gov't , biz , org., or person must be continually on guard for cyber attack. We tend to forget how much of our national security , industrial base and electrical/energy grid, is all very venerable to gifted hackers of ill intent.

Cyber Security is among the foremost issues of our times. Good Jobs there for gifted computer geeks for millennium to come!

If I was in high school or college and looking for a good economically safe career,

Cyber Security Network Admin seems a good bet. ~~~~

Cyber attack seen as emerging threat for London 2012
Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:53pm BST
By Avril Ormsby


http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE56K3TM20090721

LONDON (Reuters) - Olympic organisers are "very alive" to the threat of a cyber attack on the London 2012 Olympics, made more challenging because of its evolving nature, senior Home Office officials said on Tuesday.

Ticketing systems, the transport network and hotel bookings as well as security are among potential targets.

Olympic security officials are also planning for the possible diversion of aircraft to protect airspace around the venues from terrorist attacks, the officials said.

The greatest threat to security at the Games is international terrorism, the government's latest "Safety and Security Strategy" report said.

"There's no current evidence of a terrorist threat to 2012," one of the Home Office officials said.

"But if you look at precedents for sporting events, and to some degree about Olympic events, it would not be beyond the point of imagination to imagine a terrorist threat to 2012 nearer the time."

A Database for Everything

I think this a good , even great thing. OK , as pointed out below it may create a sea of data so large it will be hard to navigate,, but as also pointed out , there are tech firms already looking to solve that issue-- which is a little economic boost right there. ~~ technopolitical

A Database For Everything
By Erika Lovley |

6/24/09 @ 5:06 AM EST

http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=24118&cat=topnews

The government has answers. Lots of answers. Wondering which airline is the most stingy with passenger snacks? No problem. Want to know how many people were injured by vending machines last year? Got that, too.

Agencies and departments already boast countless registries and databases of seemingly bizarre, seemingly useless information, but lawmakers continue to call by the day for the creation of new databases.

Since January, Congress has introduced bills that call for the creation of nearly 40 new databases and registries, by POLITICO’s count.


http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=24118&cat=topnews