Thursday, July 02, 2015

Age of Kali and Darkness

I find that I  now can read only the true fanatics with any feeling of affinity: those who in courage or desperation abandon any attempt to address an audience of cretins and speak exclusively to themselves.”

~ Thomas Berger, letter to Zulfikar Ghose (April 5, 1975

Does Milan Kundera Still Matter?

The Czech writer’s new novel The Festival of Insignificance sees a new specter haunting Europe: a decadent and dying culture.
Does Milan Kundera still matter?

sea lion louning links

Google eavesdropping tool installed on computers without permission

Economist  -  Nearly 60m people were forcibly displaced across the world by conflicts in 2014 (either within their own countries, or to other nations as refugees). It is the highest number ever recorded according to a new report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and equivalent to the population of Italy.
The dispossessed



Researcher uncovers inherent biases of big data collected from social media sites
Phys.org, While the information derived from social network sites can shed light on social behavioral traits, some analyses based on this type of data collection are prone to bias from the get-go, according to new research by Northwestern University professor Eszter Hargittai, who heads the Web Use Project.
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US authorities & Europol focus on combating the abuse of virtual currencies
On 18-19 June 2015 a Virtual Currencies Conference was held at Europol's Headquarters.

Hackers steal data using gadget inside pitta bread
Secret encryption keys can be stolen using a cheap gadget so small it could be concealed inside some pitta bread.

The upside of being sacked