Future of Technology survey from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Thanos

A majority of Americans are optimistic about technology’s potential impacts on our future even after the last couple of decades of dystopian future films from Hollywood. Most of them when asked about specifics like personal implants or robots caring for elderly were against those notions of technology.

When asked for their general views on technology’s long-term impact on life in the future, technological optimists outnumber pessimists by two-to-one. Six in ten Americans (59%) feel that technological advancements will lead to a future in which people’s lives are mostly better, while 30% believe that life will be mostly worse.

Demographically, these technological optimists are more likely to be men than women, and more likely to be college graduates than to have not completed college. Indeed, men with a college degree have an especially sunny outlook: 79% of this group expects that technology will have a mostly positive impact on life in the future, while just 14% expects that impact to be mostly negative. Despite having much different rates of technology use and ownership, younger and older Americans are equally positive about the long-term impact of technological change on life in the future.

Read the full survey here Future of Technology – Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

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Intelligence Gathering and the Unowned Internet – NSA, Berkman Center Panel Discussion

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Thanos

A good discussion on what’s right and what’s wrong with the current NSA rule sets and oversight. It starts dry but gets very interesting, please stick with it to the end.

The long-term viability of an unowned, open Internet remains in question. Any analysis of where the Internet is headed as a protocol and a platform must take into account the activities of both public and private entities that see the Internet as a source of intelligence — and a field of contention. Yochai Benkler, Bruce Schneier, and Jonathan Zittrain of the Berkman Center are joined by John DeLong and Anne Neuberger of the National Security Agency in a conversation moderated by Berkman Faculty Director Terry Fisher on the future of an open internet in the face of challenges to privacy in an unsecure world.
More info on this event here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2…

This talk was co-sponsored by: the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the Harvard Law School American Civil Liberties Union, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, National Security Journal, and National Security and Law Association.

License

Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)

via Intelligence Gathering and the Unowned Internet – YouTube.

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Some Sanity From the Kansas House

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Thanos

Educating our children is one of the most significant things we do as parents and as a society. It’s something key that differentiates us as a species from the other species on this planet – no other species takes as much time to nurture and pass their knowledge to their children. We spend 18 years or more on just our children – and we commit to paying taxes to educate all children, not just our own, even after our children are long out on their own.

That’s why I applaud this vote by the Kansas house, which is a rarity these days. We can’t just have Johnson county as the shining beacon on the hill, we have to raise the level of education throughout Kansas to match our best school districts. In this interconnected age we can’t afford to be an island of knowledge wealth in a sea of misery and ignorance because that will bring disaster longer term for all of Kansas. All Kansans should be proud of the monies we spend on education, it’s to create a better future for everyone. History shows that islands of knowledge in seas of ignorance tend to wash away – so all children in Kansas need their education to be the best it can or we will create a grim future for everyone, including our descendants.

House rejects compromise on school finance bill | Wichita Eagle

  • By Bryan Lowry
  • Eagle Topeka bureau

The House sent a strong message to the Senate early Sunday by voting down a school finance bill that was packed with conservative policy changes.

The House had passed a bill with overwhelming bipartisan support on Friday, but a conference committee with Senate leaders Saturday yielded a bill that Democrats and moderate Republicans refused to support.

And enough conservatives also decided that the bill, which would have stripped teachers of due process rights and granted property tax breaks for parents with children in home or private school, went too far.

via House rejects compromise on school finance bill | Wichita Eagle.

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Overnight Rain

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Thanos

This morning there was a lot of water flowing down the creek from the overnight rains, so I had to do one of those water rushing by shots.

IMG_7914

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Why I love Google Image Search

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Thanos

I love Google image search because it provides contrast, e.g. a search for “Kit and Kaboodle” will deliver both this:
.
Purina Kit & Kaboodle
.
and this:
National Lampoon's Kit and Kaboodle cartoon

To read the whole classic Kit and Kaboodle cartoon from National Lampoon from 1981 go here. To think that all these years since I’ve remembered it as:

“Blegh… my spine…”
Or you could just buy the complete 246 issue set on DVD here:
[amazon-product align=”center”]B000VPNSJY[/amazon-product]

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Waves

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Thanos

I like having a Submersible camera because you can put it down at the wave tops without worry.
DSCN6063

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‘Electronic skin’ equipped with memory

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Thanos

This is merely the beginning — nano-technology razor thin wearable and/or implantable sensors coupled with computer on a chips wearing highly accurate medical devices that track everything will become the norm as these devices will become printable or otherwise available for mass production. Forget about those bulky android watches, this is the real future to come.

From : Nature News & Comment
Researchers have created a wearable device that is as thin as a temporary tattoo and can store and transmit data about a person’s movements, receive diagnostic information and release drugs into skin.Similar efforts to develop ‘electronic skin’ abound, but the device is the first that can store information and also deliver medicine — combining patient treatment and monitoring. Its creators, who report their findings today in Nature Nanotechnology1, say that the technology could one day aid patients with movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or epilepsy.The researchers constructed the device by layering a package of stretchable nanomaterials — sensors that detect temperature and motion, resistive RAM for data storage, microheaters and drugs — onto a material that mimics the softness and flexibility of the skin. The result was a sticky patch containing a device roughly 4 centimetres long, 2 cm wide and 0.003 millimetres thick, says study co-author Nanshu Lu, a mechanical engineer at the University of Texas in Austin.

via ‘Electronic skin' equipped with memory : Nature News & Comment.

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What’s In A Name?: Okla. Judge Who Denied Transgender Name Changes On Biblical Grounds Gets Overruled

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Thanos

From Simon Brown at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:

An Oklahoma judge who used the Bible as the basis for denying name-change requests by women who had gender-reassignment surgery has been overruled by a higher court.

On two separate occasions, one in 2011 and another in 2012, Oklahoma County District Judge Bill Graves refused to permit two people who were born male to change their names to ones that are traditionally female because doing so “is fraudulent.”

In a baffling ruling in which Graves claimed that it is impossible for anyone to change their gender, he used the Book of Genesis to support his conclusion.

“To grant name change in this case would be to assist that which is fraudulent,” Graves wrote in his 2012 decision denying James Dean Ingram’s request to become Angela Renee Ingram. “It is notable that Genesis 1:27-28 states: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them.’ The DNA code shows God meant for them to stay male and female.”   

Graves made the same argument in 2011, when he refused to permit Steven Charles Harvey to become Christie Ann Harvey.

Fortunately a higher court has mopped up Graves’ messes — twice. Last week, the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals unanimously voted to grant Ingram’s request. The court had previously undone Graves’ misdeed on behalf of Harvey as well.

Graves, who was once a Republican member of the state legislature, said the appeals court’s action is “very disappointing.”

via What’s In A Name?: Okla. Judge Who Denied Transgender Name Changes On Biblical Grounds Gets Overruled | Americans United.

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Volvo Road Magnets Tell Autonomous Cars Where to Go | EE Times

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Thanos

An interesting direction from the world of autonomous cars.

Carmakers have been stuffing intelligence and instrumentation into cars since at least 1980 in an effort to get them to drive themselves, safely.

Autonomous-car designs almost all depend on stuffing enough intelligence into a car to allow it to drive. Volvo is experimenting ways to make the road do some of the work as well.

The Swedish carmaker launched an EU-funded SARTRE Project, whose goal is to get cars to gather into cooperative "road trains" travelling at a consistent speed in a single lane to save gas and reduce lane-change-induced chaos.

via Volvo Road Magnets Tell Autonomous Cars Where to Go | EE Times.

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Sherlock Mini-Episode: Many Happy Returns – Sherlock Series 3 Prequel

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Thanos

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