Saturday, July 21, 2012

What makes something ‘cool’?


via Tash ( who points; shoots; sometimes she focusws first.) Photojournalist Greg Constantine takes us to the Burma-Bangladesh border, where tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees live in crowded, dirty camps. Between Burma and a Hard Place

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever." — Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Which political parties do the Big 4 accountants support? It's a question that the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has tackled in a great article here. The short form response

For what I did
And did not do
And do without
In my old age
Rue, not rage
Against that night

We go into,
Sets me straight
On what to do
Before I die—
Sit in the shade,
Look at the sky”

What makes something ‘cool’? A man of pleasure is a man of pains

Today’s world is focused on accountability and measurable results – business leaders, economists and politicians alike scramble for the latest data to inform where they invest time, effort and moneYy.

But what happens when things at the core of human existence can’t easily be measured? This is the problem facing creatives around the world – the arts are routinely underfunded leaving writers, artists and musicians among us on the back foot. The arts are how we express ourselves to one another and future generations. Each piece of writing, artwork and song is a reflection of what life is like at this very moment. Music is the most unique of these as it completely engages our imaginations and lets our emotions run wild

Lets our emotions run wild; When I was working for Mary Quant in the 1970s, cool was hot pants, shag carpets and waterbeds; now its food trucks, craft beer and pop-up stores. With every generation what’s cool get redefined, but do the characteristics of cool stay fundamentally the same throughout the years? What makes something ‘cool’? [ Thankfully we are not all “idiots” and most of us do have a moral responsibility to pay our taxes on time and full - The politics of point scoring H-INTEL provides a venue for the scholarly discussion of intelligence ; George Megalogenis has reviewed the last 30 years of Australian history through an idiosyncratic lens. History with a soft focus]

• · Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than in any other form of writing. For W.B. Yeats, the spirit world was anything but false and foolish. “The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write W.B. Yeats, Magus; Demon Fish: Travels through the Hidden World of Sharks Don’t wear yum-yum yellow

• · · We would rather be ruined than changed
 We would rather die in our dread
 Than climb the cross of the moment
 And let our illusions die. How did the Aleppo Codex – the oldest text of the Hebrew Bible – end up in an iron case at Hebrew University? Why are 200 pages missing? A High Holy Whodunit; Walter Benjamin’s oeuvre: Ideas migrate among texts, letters morph into essays. Books are unstarted, unfinished, abandoned, aborted. For Future Friends of Walter

• · · · At Defcon, Hackers Show How to Hack Your Android Phone Encryption If you lose your Android phone, your data could find its way into the wrong hands, even if you have encryption turned on; We were buried in an e-book when the subway doors opened at the Bergen Street stop in Brooklyn. In a flash, a pair of hands dove into my date’s lap and ripped away her iPad. Chasing the guy was instinctive. But he had a crew backing him up that I never saw. Instead of winning back the iPad, I found myself lying on the platform bleeding, my jaw split in half. Fighting the iCrime Wave

• · · · · The Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), Nick Warner, broke with decades of tradition last week to deliver a public address on the workings of the agency to mark its 60th anniversary. Mr Warner said it was the first time an ASIS DG had spoken on the role and nature of the organisation since it was established in 1952 LX - ASIS opens up; An alleged Canadian spy has compromised Australian intelligence information in an international espionage case that has sent shock waves through Western security agencies Canada spy case rocks ASIO

• · · · · · If you’re not sure what kind of chart would best showcase the data you’re presenting, Chart Chooser makes short work of narrowing it down. Chart chooser ; In this photostory, we cover the most popular and important OSINT tools for a security researcher. Nine OSINT tools every security researcher must have ; Make your own Angry Birds: Homebrew apps have arrived - By itself, the story of a cute, if flatulent, pig pushing a bunch of irate birds off the top spot is nothing unusual. What is odd is that the creator of “ePig Dash”, a conjuror and economics teacher, knew little or nothing about programming. Instead he used GameSalad, a do-it-yourself tool for app-makers Last year Eddie the pig took Chile by storm