The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican. But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA…
My contributions this year are a workshop on #Inform7 and “Fixed It For You: Modding Memes, Maps and Minds”. Similar:Enjoyed watching "Queen of Katwe" (Ugandan girl chess prodigy movie)I enjoyed watching this chess-themed com…CultureJournalism 101: I fixed this meme for you.I can sympathize with the sentiment, but…CultureRobot wars: 100 years on, it's time to reboot…
The use of words related to negative emotions has increased by more than one third…. If we assume an average of 300 words per song, every year there are 30,000 words in the lyrics of the [Billboard] top-100 hits. In 1965, around 450 of these words were associated with negative emotions, whereas in 2015 their number was above 700. Meanwhile, words associated with positive emotions decreased in the same time period.
Farid emphasises that forensic techniques do not guarantee fake photos can be spotted. They are, however, creating an arms race between hoaxers and those working in the forensic community. “They raise the bar for the level of difficulty and skill required to create a compelling fake,” says Farid. “My hope is that when you run…
People who caught the sites plagiarizing began speculating about the motivations of whoever was running them. One person noticed that their Google Alerts for Julian Assange were flooded with results from the sites, leading them to warn that “cyber marketing tools are being used in the propaganda war against #WikiLeaks.” One researcher labeled the network of sites…
Sometimes students will submit bibliography entries that repeat a title — either the journal or the article. I assume they are using an online citation generator and I assume they’re not bothering to check its output. What I had previously thought of as a random careless error now seems evidence of a paradigm shift. I’ve…
Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation A new-to-me “Data Hears a Who” character story, featuring a multi-layered philosophical jam session in Picard’s quarters, a substantial B-plot for Wesley, and some tacked-on science-fictiony frippery for the groundlings. I started watching the show late at night, and lost interest when Wesley was steeling himself in the hallway…
Similar:More bits of my summer project – another delightful span of a #neovictorian #steampunk con…AestheticsPassage: a Gamma256 video game by Jason RohrerGrand Text Auto introduced me to the exc…AestheticsDon't Be a Sucker (antifascist film from 1945)https://youtu.be/CXm3WxU–fM?si=E1BHac8J…CultureFuturistic Acrylic Chair (Blender 3D Animation)Yesterday, I sketched a chair I found at…AestheticsInternet Explorer and Murder Rates: More Fun with…
Here’s an editorial by someone who feels a heck of a lot more optimistic than I do right now. The free press fostered and protected by the genius of the First Amendment has let Americans know the truth, if they wish to. They can see the facts and the process, and they will be shaped…
Going back to Plato—perhaps the first hater of literature on record—philosophers and religious authorities have attacked art for the same reasons our professors taught us to deconstruct and distrust it: because it is unpredictable, unreasonable and often inconsistent with their preferred politics or morality. It was also a lesson that was destined, in the years…
Space Shuttle Challenger Destroyed (my reflection on the 28th anniversary in 2014) I was in my final semester of high school. I remember Principal Burch came over the loudspeaker to announce that the Challenger “blew up on the pad,” which I knew wasn’t true because I was watching a TV… probably in the library. Years…
In January 2000, I was blogging about Dancing paperclips and telemarketers A “100 best novels” list published in 1899 Updike’s prequel to Hamlet The “bafflegab” jargon generator “Bookseller Barnes & Noble is teaming with Microsoft to build a new online e-book store.” (but the link is dead) Similar:‘One of the great American stories’: the incredible…
Peter and I spoke to a reporter from EpochTimes.com after the Shen Yun show yesterday. I said I was interested to hear the group’s message in favor of religious freedom, and was surprised to encounter the anti-Communist stance. After I found this picture on the EpochTimes.com website, I scanned through its news feed and noted…
Similar:Close Reading of Sonnet 130: Form, Theme, and Cultural Context (and a Rage Comic)I’m preparing to teach Shakespeare again…AcademiaTraces of ScribesBook historian Irene O’Daly notes that t…AcademiaPieces of Earliest Games RecoveredThese small sculpted stones unearthed fr…Culture“Link In Bio” is a slow knifeWe don’t even notice it anymore — “link …BusinessThe #Blender3D #eevee denoising filter gives off…
One of seven touring groups devoted to sharing China’s traditional culture. The name means “beauty of divine dance.” Much emphasis on acrobatics and fluid motions. A recurring theme was interaction with the divine, and one number set in the present day focused on two brothers, one a police officer and one who falls in love…
In 2007, Google changed the long-standing shaded background indicating the ads section of the page from blue to yellow. In 2008, it then briefly tried a green background before reverting back to yellow. Google continued to test variations of background colors including bright blue and a light violet. In 2010, violet officially replaced the…
I spent an hour on this. Below is the original version, as generated by imageflip.com, before my edits. Similar:Destroying trust in the media, science, and government has left America vulnerable to disa…From The Brookings Institution (non-prof…CultureCrying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship EverI’ve felt a bit like this guy the last f…CultureThe case…
In a section of my dissertation, I dove into office gender politics of the late 1940s, in order to explore just what Arthur Miller’s original audiences would have thought about the wire recorder that appears in Death of a Salesman. In the play, Willy Loman’s boss Howard thinks of the cutting-edge device as a domestic…
Stay tuned for more live footage of StormSurge FearCast Weather Crusaders, standing in the cold, snow blowing in their faces! Media personalities, warning everyone to stay inside, except of course for the media personalities paying back student loans by churning out anxiety-producing live reports like this one! Our own Slick Goodhair, telling you just how…
I adored this truck, and spelling words with the letters. When I got older, it was the shuttlecraft for my Star Trek figures. Similar:Clicking, collaborating, and talking in the libraryOur local paper did a story on how libra…AcademiaTimes photo staffer's invention: the streaming backpack “From a photographer’s perspective it…AestheticsEnjoying my "Dystopia in American Literature"…