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- Yeah, in a Minute... is the personal dumping grounds of Paul Landry:
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News Gathering vs. Confirmation Bias
- Remember, if you do not have at least one source of news that you turn to regularly, with which you routinely disagree, then you are not practicing news gathering! You are practicing [confirmation bias].
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Science
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) at p.32.
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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- Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of the King of Rock ‘n Roll, dies
- U.S. Insurrection +2 years
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Meta
Tag Archives: security
Trump’s behavior regarding Russia has always presented a serious security concern
Longtime conservative Republican Tom Nichols in USA Today, “All signs point the same way: Vladimir Putin has compromising information on Donald Trump”: Trump’s behavior regarding Russia has always presented a serious security concern. But when Trump fires the director of the FBI, and then brags about it to actual Russians, only the most stupid or […]
Also tagged bullshit, freedom, government, trump
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1 in 4 Americans have deleted Facebook
Business Insider: A new study suggests that Facebook’s business has suffered from the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal earlier this year. In May and June, the Pew Research Center surveyed over 4,500 American adults, and found that a lot of them are taking action to reduce their Facebook usage. Some eye-popping stats from the study: […]
Apple confirms iOS 12 will close iPhone security hole used by police and criminals
James Martin writing at CNET: Apple will make a method — often used by police — for getting data off iPhones much less powerful with a software update announced Wednesday. The change, called USB Restricted Mode, will close down access to data through a iPhone’s Lightning port if the phone hasn’t been unlocked in the […]
Also tagged apple, crime, law enforcement, privacy
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Apple Is Making Password Management Easier in iOS 12
Christina Bonnington writing at Slate: Apple is making some noteworthy changes to the way its devices handle passwords, changes that should help smartphone users better manage their passwords—and perhaps use better password practices in general. In iOS 12, Apple will be giving developers access to a new Password Manager API. This API will work with […]
Farewell, AirPort… dammit!
AppleInsider: After over a year on life support, Apple’s AirPort base stations are lurching to a final end. AppleInsider is waxing nostalgic about it, and we aren’t very happy. Nor am I. I have an AirPort Extreme and two AirPort Express “extenders.” Truth be told, I’ve been looking to replace them lately, but I’ve secretly […]
Also tagged apple, technology
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Apple statement on ‘Meltdown’ and ‘Spectre’
Apple: Security researchers have recently uncovered security issues known by two names, Meltdown and Spectre. These issues apply to all modern processors and affect nearly all computing devices and operating systems. All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time. Since exploiting many of these […]
Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled
Keith Collins at Quartz: Many people realize that smartphones track their locations. But what if you actively turn off location services, haven’t used any apps, and haven’t even inserted a carrier SIM card? Even if you take all of those precautions, phones running Android software gather data about your location and send it back to […]
Also tagged mobile
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Terms and Conditions May Apply
You know, it occurred to me several years ago, that if I could “Like” something on Facebook from another website, then Facebook was tracking me. I log in and out–even on my iPhone–every time I use Facebook (or Google, for that matter)… If you don’t, or don’t know why you should, you may want to […]
Also tagged documentary, movies, tv
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Boot Camp and Mountain Lion’s FileVault 2 full disk encryption
Setting up full disk encryption in OS X 10.8 “Mountain Lion” — even with a Boot Camp partition — is simple. In fact, it’s the same deal as with OS X 10.7 “Lion” (see my post from February). Couldn’t be simpler…
Essential Rules of Gunfighting Everyone Should Know
(You may someday have to apply one or more of these…) 1) Bring a gun; when possible, bring at least two guns, all of your friends that have guns and FOUR TIMES the ammunition you think you could ever need. 2) Guns have only two enemies: rust and inexperience. a) Practice. Practice reloading one-handed and […]