An excellent post to the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC2 WG2 mailing list sums up critical feedback over recently approved emojis, including a fierce denunciation of the (IMHO) excellent "frowning pile of… Read the rest of the article: The brewing crisis over the pile of poo emoji
In a wide-ranging interview with CCCB Lab, Kim Stanley Robinson (previously) discusses the origin of his climate-inspired, critical science fiction, which envisions futures in which the climate catastrophe arrives and… Read the rest of the article: Theorizing a post-capitalist future with Kim Stanley Robinson
Joe Ricketts, Trumpist founder of TD Ameritrade and owner of DNAinfo (which acquired Gothamist and the other -ist) sites, has shut down all Gothamist and related properties following a unionization… Read the rest of the article: Gothamist unionizes, Trumpist billionaire owner throws a tantrum and shuts it down
Machine-learning-based image classifiers are vulnerable to "adversarial preturbations" where small, seemingly innocuous modifications to images (including very trivial ones) can totally confound them.
The DHS's old "IDENT" database is full, with 240,000,000 records in a system designed to hold 200,000,000; so they're paying arms-dealers and erstwhile comic-book superheroes Northrop Grumman $93,000,000 to develop… Read the rest of the article: The DHS is buying a new database to store biometrics for 500 million people
As Volkswagen's murderous Dieselgate scandal has unfolded, the company has steadfastly maintained that even if it did kill thousands of people with its toxic cars, at least it pays its… Read the rest of the article: Cheaters cheat: VW swears the €17B it stashed in a web of Luxembourg companies has nothing to do with tax-avoidance
The programs Obama established to retrain coal miners are going begging in Pennsylvania, undersubscribed because the out-of-work miners they were established to help are convinced that Donald Trump wasn't bullshitting… Read the rest of the article: Trump told coal miners he'd bring back coal, so they're refusing retraining
A year ago, the AI Now Institute released its inaugural report on the near-future social and economic consequences of AI, drawing on input from a diverse expert panel representing a… Read the rest of the article: Ten recommendations to make AI safe for humanity
Get insured, folks: just because the Trump administration is doing everything it can to take away healthcare from millions of Americans (including refusing to tell anyone that enrollment is open!),… Read the rest of the article: Reminder: Obamacare Open Enrollment begins today and runs to Dec 15
London galleries — and some US dealers — have been hit by a rash of electronic thefts by crooks who take over the gallery's email accounts and interrupt the transmission… Read the rest of the article: Today's art thieves rob via email
It's been 15 years since Sony used the DMCA to shut down the community that had sprung up to extend the functionality of its Aibo robot dogs, threatening people with… Read the rest of the article: Sony's new robot dog doubles down on DRM
Just look at it. (Thanks, Mom!)
Nippybus bills itself as "one of Somerset's leading independent bus companies" and operates a schoolbus contract for a local council in Somerset, England, where it struggles to recruit drivers thanks… Read the rest of the article: Owner of a private school bus contractor fires low-waged drivers and shuts company without notice: "Fuck it"
Wildstorm started life as an independent, creator-owned comics universe of enormous verve and originality; following its acquisition by comics behemoth DC in 1998, it grew moribund, leading to its shuttering in 2010. Now it's back, in a revival helmed by Warren "Transmetropolitan" Ellis, who has reimagined the complex geopolitics of this paranoid superspy/shadow government/black ops world into a brutally fast-paced, dynamic tale that's full of real bad guys and ambiguous good guys who may or may not be trustworthy. The first six issues are collected in The Wild Storm Vol. 1, out this week.
91% of the prisoners in Ohio are in Republican districts: they aren't allowed to vote, but they are counted in the census, creating winnable districts with tiny voting populations that… Read the rest of the article: Ohio Republicans create winnable electoral districts by siting nonvoting prisons near friendly voters
Redditor Endeavy created these Halloween-themed skull hotpockets, augmented by dribbles of red, oozing sauce; they used these cake pans to mold the crusts.
Jonathan Simmonds, an MD in Boston, MA, created these Map Anatomy illustrations that represent a detailed, functional diagram of the human head's anatomy in the style of a London tubemap;… Read the rest of the article: Anatomy of the human head in the style of a London tube-map
Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte are 20 year old UC Berkeley students who turned a machine learning class assignment into a browser plugin that tries to guess whether a given… Read the rest of the article: Botcheck.me: a plugin that predicts whether a Twitter user is a bot
Joi Ito's Resisting Reduction manifesto rejects the idea of reducing the world to a series of computable relationships that will eventually be overtaken by our ability to manipulate them with… Read the rest of the article: Resisting Reduction Manifesto: against the Singularity, for a "culture of flourishing"
The Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program identifies possible duplicate voters by looking at registrations by people with the same name and birthdate; a joint study by researchers at Harvard, Yale,… Read the rest of the article: Indiana's voter-purging software removes voters without notice, is wrong 99% of the time
