Monthly Archives: July 2014

Bill Bonner: Confessions of a Former Child Laborer

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“As soon as we were able, we went to work in the tobacco fields. In the 1950s and 1960s, tobacco was a cash crop in southern Maryland, where we grew up. But it was pénible: It was labor intensive and the working conditions were tough.  Labor was becoming more and more difficult to come by. Tenant farmers were packing up and moving to Washington DC, where they could get jobs in the government.  That left family. Boys – sons, cousins, nephews, friends – were rounded up in late August and put to work cutting, spearing, hauling and hanging tobacco.  We boys – earning about $5 a day, with no pénibilité points – were unaware of the painfulness of it. Instead, we made it a sport.”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/confessions-of-a-former-child-laborer/

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Doug Casey on Opting-Out

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“When you’re from more than 50 miles away, you’re a novelty, people are interested in meeting you and talking to you. If you stay in your native land you are just one of millions of others that have the same background and skills. You’re nothing special. So that’s why it’s good to arbitrage yourself, by transplanting yourself.  There’s a danger in taking a normal 9-5 style job: you may get in to a rut and stay there, eventually finding yourself trapped by gradually climbing a corporate ladder. One thing leads to another and before you know it you’re fifty-years-old and most of your options are closed. I think it’s better to hit the road and do the unconventional.”

http://isil.org/doug-casey-on-opting-out-from-the-state-formal-education-and-standard-employment-2/

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The Private Security Industry In Brazil

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“All layers of the Brazilian police force have been fraught with accusations of human rights abuses, torture, and summary executions.  The corrupt and violent nature and subsequent distrust of the police, among other reasons, have led to a thriving private security industry. Starting out as neighborhood watches the industry is now composed of thousands of firms, the vast majority of them being small businesses. Ironically, while the Ministry of Justice is said to be doing a poor job of ensuring only licensed private firms are allowed to compete with the police, a large chunk of the demand for these firms’ services actually stems from the public sector. Banks are the second largest customer.”

http://isil.org/the-private-security-industry-in-brazil/

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US cops use more ammo per man than German cops in a year

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“Eighty-five shots: That’s the total number of bullets German police used in all of 2011, Der Spiegel reports. But what does it say when US cops use as much ammo to bring down one man as German cops need to keep the peace nationwide?  The rate at which German police discharged their firearms is further underscored by how rarely they shot with fatal intent.  U.S. violent crime has significantly dropped over the last 20 years, with murder and robbery rates halving from 1991-98.  But while citizens commit fewer crimes annually, US law enforcement have become increasingly militarized in the post-9/11 world.”

http://rt.com/usa/us-germany-85-shots-022/

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Uber driver fleeing taxi inspector takes passengers for wild ride

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“An Uber Black driver took three passengers for a wild ride after the driver fled a D.C. taxi inspector and traveled into Virginia.  The passengers climbed in as the inspector was asking for documents to confirm that the driver hadn’t accepted a street hail and had instead used the Uber app to set up the pickup. Only taxis can accept street hails in the District, says Neville Waters, public information officer for the D.C. Taxicab Commission.  The inspector also wanted to make sure the Uber car was returning to Virginia and not dropping off the riders at another location in D.C. Instead of cooperating with the inspector, the Uber driver took off at a high rate of sped, Waters says.”

http://www.wtop.com/41/3660305/Uber-driver-flees-inspector-takes-passengers-for-wild-ride

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Google pulls leading robots from DARPA involvement

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“ATLAS, a stompy kill-bot created by Boston Dynamics, and SCHAFT, a more abstract but well-balanced man-bot created by a Japanese company of the same name, were recently purchased by Google, which has made a rather abrupt overall turn toward robotics research. Schaft’s decisive first place and ATLAS’ strong second-place finish in the first leg of DARPA’s Grand Challenge are now basically Google’s by corporate marriage. That’s a problem for DARPA, since Google has vowed not to pursue any military contracts in the future — and this week, that policy finally came into effect.  DARPA and Google have two competing narratives as to why this happened.”

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/185570-google-finally-proves-it-wont-pursue-military-contacts-pulls-leading-robot-from-darpa-competition

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Google Announces $100M Fund For European Startups

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“Google has started a $100 million fund in Europe to invest in tech startups, the seed of what could be large-scale funding for overseas entrepreneurs.  The search giant described the fund, which is managed by its venture capital unit Google Ventures, as ‘initial funding’ to guide and support entrepreneurs with great ideas. The fund will be managed out of a new office in London. The fund positions Google to influence the newest technology emerging from Europe, discover raw entrepreneurial talent in the region and acquire more overseas startups. It is also a nod to the rising influence of European cities including London, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Dublin on the tech industry.”

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/07/10/google-announces-100m-fund-for-european-startups/

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We need to talk about Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’: Google

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“The European court found that people have the right to ask for information to be removed from search results that include their names if it is ‘inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive’. In deciding what to remove search engines must also have regard to the public interest. These are, of course, very vague and subjective tests.  The court also decided that search engines don’t qualify for a ‘journalistic exception’.  The examples we’ve seen so far: former politicians wanting posts removed that criticise their policies in office; serious, violent criminals asking for articles about their crimes to be deleted; bad reviews for professionals like architects and teachers; comments that people now regret.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/10/right-to-be-forgotten-european-ruling-google-debate

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Twitter bot alerts for anonymous Wikipedia edits from Capitol Hill

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“Ed Summers, an open source Web developer, recently saw a friend tweet about Parliament WikiEdits, a UK Twitter ‘bot’ that watched for anonymous Wikipedia edits coming from within the British Parliament’s internal networks. Summers was immediately inspired to do the same thing for the US Congress.  ‘The simplicity of combining Wikipedia and Twitter in this way immediately struck me as a potentially useful transparency tool,’ Summers wrote in his personal blog.  The stream for the bot, @congressedits, went live a day later, and it now provides real-time tweets when anonymous edits of Wikipedia pages are made.”

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/congressedits-tweets-anonymous-wikipedia-edits-from-capitol-hill/

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US Secret Service seeks Twitter sarcasm detector

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“The tender was put out earlier this week on the US government’s Federal Business Opportunities website.  It sets out the objectives of automating social media monitoring and ‘synthesising large sets of social media data’.  Specific requirements include ‘audience and geographic segmentation’ and analysing ‘sentiment and trend’.  The software also has to have ‘compatibility with Internet Explorer 8’. The browser was released more than five years ago.  The agency does not detail the purpose of the analysis but does set out its mission, which includes ‘preserving the integrity of the economy and protecting national leaders and visiting heads of state and government’.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27711109

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