Privacy and the Fourth Amendment – Our laws, or at least, our interpretations of them, desperately need to be updated to deal with information and privacy in a computer mediated world. What will be the framing cases, and how will they shake out? Apparently the warrantless wiretapping wasn't a big enough scandal to get us paying attention. Terrifying to imagine what it will take. (tagged: privacylawsecuritytechnology )
The Quiet Coup – A withering op-ed by Simon Johnson on the policy disaster that is our financial sector. But he's still not willing to re-evaluate the underlying premise of perpetually debt fueled exponential economic growth. How, exactly, was this all supposed to work out? (tagged: politicseconomicsfinancebailoutcrisispolicybankingimf )
MASHSF – Fixies gone wild. Not my kind of riding, but hey, someone's having a good time! Looks like they're making a movie. (tagged: bicyclefixievideocycling )
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project – A tutorial from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on what you can do to protect yourself against snooping, government and otherwise. Now if only these things would become standard, default practice, around which all of our applications and workflows are designed. (tagged: politicstechnologyprivacysurveillancesecuritylaw )
Human flesh search engines – A phenomenon of internet vigilantes, kind of like paramilitary morality cops, in China. We've been doing this kind of thing to spammers and other "internet criminals" for a while now. Strange to see it leak out into the real world. A potentially interesting propaganda tool. Mob justice on command? (tagged: internettechnologychinavigilantepolitics )
The Kessler Syndrome – Another example of unsustainable behavior, without forethought on our parts? The recent collision of two satellites is causing some to wonder if we might be getting close to the threshold at which the debris from such collisions begets more collisions, and more debris, in a runaway process rendering low earth orbit useless for satellites. (tagged: spacesustainabilitynon-linearkesslerimapcts )
Boston Dynamics (DARPA) BIGDOG Robot – BigDog is a DARPA funded quadripedal robot capable of climbing over a pile of cinderblocks, walking on slippery ice, scaling dunes and snow covered hillsides, taking a big shove from the side, and jumping over a designated obstacle. When do we get to send one of these guys to Mars? (tagged: robotyoutubedarpamarsmilitaryvideoresearchtechnology )