Sunday, May 30, 2021

Crypto Crackdown: Only the Beginning? If you think the officialdom is getting tough

 

  • Almanac: Elmore Leonard on falling in love
    “She raised her head and he saw her eyes, that gleam, that look that could change his life if he let it.” Elmore Leonard, Rum Punch Continue reading Almanac: Elmore Leonard on falling... Read more


    Crypto Crackdown: Only the Beginning?

    If you think the officialdom is getting tough with crypto, there’s even more they can do to tighten the screws.



    There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm.
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    Washington Irving

    This line comes from Washington Irving’s short story “The Adventure of the German Student,” which is actually a pretty dark and ghostly tale. But these words come at a joyful time in the story. The main character has just met a woman and immediately falls in love with her; at this moment he is explaining how he plans to take care of her. His earnest enthusiasm wins her over, and it's a lesson to take to heart. Time and again, when we let our joy and passion shine through, we’re rewarded with happiness.


    Bent Reality

    These surrealistic images were created by Cream Electric Art for a United Airlines ad campaign. Here’s a quick behind-the-sceneson how the Route 66 image was constructed. Prior art: Berg’s Here & There map of Manhattan, Inception, and these curved cityscape panoramas. (via moss & fog)


    Report: USPS ‘Internet Covert Operations Program’ Is ‘Much Broader in Scope Than Previously Known.’“The program ‘includes analysts who assume fake identities online, use sophisticated intelligence tools, and employ facial recognition software.’ . . . Based on what is now known about the surveillance program, however, it would appear that iCOP’s scope has gone way beyond merely monitoring potential threats to employees and infrastructure and has understandably raised serious privacy concerns.”

    Why is the Postal Service, which can’t seem to do its actual job, functioning as an internal security agency surveilling American citizens?



Study: Aboriginal Memory Technique Improves Recall

The students who used the Aboriginal memory technique were three times more likely to remember the entire list than they were before they were trained in this type of recall. The memory palace group were about twice as likely to recall the whole list, and the control group only improved by 50%. – Cosmos


Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital InformationSSRN. “To investigate how people determine the credibility of digital information, we sampled 45 individuals: 10 Ph.D. historians, 10 professional fact checkers, and 25 Stanford University undergraduates. We observed them as they evaluated live websites and searched for information on social and political issues. Historians and students often fell victim to easily manipulated features of websites, such as official-looking logos and domain names. They read vertically, staying within a website to evaluate its reliability. In contrast, fact checkers read laterally, leaving a site after a quick scan and opening up new browser tabs in order to judge the credibility of the original site. Compared to the other groups, fact checkers arrived at more warranted conclusions in a fraction of the time.” Lateral reading is what we do…. .


This Is What Banksy Gets For Saying ‘Copyright Is For Losers’

“In a new decision issued by the [European Union] IPO Cancellation Division, a trademark owned by street artist Banksy has been declared invalid. … The attorney who represented the opposing party in the case” — a greeting-card company — “said ‘the real nail in the coffin’ that led to the ruling was ‘the public comments of Banksy and his lawyer’.” – World Trademark Review



“Using event study analysis of recent minimum wage increases, we find that these changes do not affect the likelihood of searching, but do lead to large yet very transitory spikes in search effort by individuals already looking for work.”  Link here.


All the more reason to call it “The Norwegian Century.”