Archive for July, 2014
Why Hoboken is Throwing Away All of its Student Laptops
July 30th, 2014In other news: Finns Beat U.S. with Low-Tech Take on School. Via: WNYC: Inside Hoboken’s combined junior-senior high school is a storage closet. Behind the locked door, some mothballed laptop computers are strewn among brown cardboard boxes. Others are stacked one atop another. Dozens more are stored on mobile computer carts, many of them on […]
Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager to Clients: EMP Greatest Risk to Society
July 30th, 2014Yeah, and there were only two seasons of Jericho: Via: CNBC: Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer has issued an unusual warning for investors, calling the threat of a widespread blackout from an electromagnetic surge the “most significant danger” in the world. Called an “electromagnetic pulse” or EMP, the events can occur naturally from solar […]
Australia Bans Reporting of Multi-Nation Corruption Case Involving Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam
July 30th, 2014Via: Wikileaks: Today, 29 July 2014, WikiLeaks releases an unprecedented Australian censorship order concerning a multi-million dollar corruption case explicitly naming the current and past heads of state of Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, their relatives and other senior officials. The super-injunction invokes “national security” grounds to prevent reporting about the case, by anyone, in order […]
35 Percent in U.S. Facing Debt Collectors
July 29th, 2014Via: AP: More than 35 percent of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been reported to collection agencies, according to a study released Tuesday by the Urban Institute. … The study found that 35.1 percent of people with credit records had been reported to collections for debt that averaged $5,178, based on September […]
Russia Offers $111,000 to Crack Tor
July 28th, 2014Via: Ars Technica: The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has offered a 3.9 million ruble (approximately $111,000) contract for technology that can identify the users of Tor, the encrypted anonymizing network used by Internet users seeking to hide their activities from monitoring by law enforcement, government censors, and others. In a notice on the […]
Only U.S. Votes Against Resolution to Investigate Latest Round of Israeli Atrocities
July 28th, 2014Via: AP: The U.N.’s top human rights official demanded Wednesday that all sides in the two-week war in the Gaza Strip refrain from indiscriminate attacks on civilians, warning that violations may amount to war crimes. The warning by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay came at a special meeting of the U.N.’s top […]
U.S. Congress Banned from Editing Wikipedia After Staff Caught Trolling
July 28th, 2014If I had a Humor category… Via: Guardian: Wikipedia has been forced to ban users inside the US Congress building from making edits to the collaborative encyclopaedia, after at least one member of staff began trolling the site. A number of edits, apparently made in jest, have been picked up by the automatic twitter bot […]
The French City of Toulouse Saved 1 Million Euro by Migrating Desktops to LibreOffice
July 28th, 2014Via: European Commission: Toulouse in south-west France is one of the successes of the free software movement, having replaced Microsoft solutions with LibreOffice. Free software and open source in general is now an established part of the city’s comprehensive digital policy, and the open model promotes economic development and employment in the region.
U.S. Can’t Account for 40% of Firearms Sent to Afghan Security Forces
July 28th, 2014Via: Washington Times: A government oversight agency says the Pentagon has lost track of more than 40 percent of the $626 million in firearms it has provided to Afghanistan’s security forces, prompting officials to contemplate a “carrot and stick” approach to arming the fledgling military. A Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report scheduled to […]
U.S. Scientist Finds 300 More Vials After Smallpox Discovery
July 27th, 2014
Via: AP: The same federal scientist who found forgotten vials of smallpox at a federal lab earlier this month also uncovered over 300 additional vials, many bearing the names of highly contagious viruses and bacteria. Food and Drug Administration officials said Wednesday the undocumented collection contained 327 carefully packaged vials, listing various pathogens, including […]
