Technolotics #35 – Tag the Poolboy

Technolotics - An antique show about technology

[audio https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/35_technolotics.mp3]

Listen: Episode 35
Watch: Youtube

Notes

The Stolen Election

Rolling Stone on how Bush stole the 2004 election
Robert Kennedy Jr, son of Robert Kennedy, leading US environmental campaigner writes
It’s never been clear the exact (actual) outcome of the 2000 election – first election since the 1876 election in which the Supreme Court affected the decision – but most have assumed the 2004 election – although fraut with controversy was a clear victory for Bush
Not so says R.F.K
disparity between exit poles and results – in all but 4 states favouring Bush

Exit polls are almost never wrong – with a margin of error of approximately 1% (beyond that require in science for significance)
variety of discrepancies pollsters view as almost completely impossible

half of 6 million americans abroad did not recieve ballots on time
Pentagon shut down the website used to file oversea registrations
Consulting firm hireed by Sproul & Associates hired by RNC to register voters – caught shredding Dem registrations
New Mexico – 20,000 votes unregistered on ballot machines
1 million ballots spoiled by electronic voting equipment nationwide
In deciding electoral college state Ohio – 350,000 voters (most dem) did not have votes counted or could not vote, officials removed thousands of eligable voters from register (1/4 of total), provided too few vote counts to democratic precincts & derailed a recount

50 thousand complaints were recieved from voters

Irregularities invariably favoured Bush
Evidence points to a systematic co-ordinated campaign

refusing to accept registrations
removing voters who were already registered
failing to properly count ballots
providing too few voting machines to democratic areas
on a massive scale designed to throw the election – particularly in Ohio – where the election was run by a hardline republican – who broke many state and fedral laws in his running of the vote

A disgusting but unsurpring report of an election stolen brazenly and on a massive scale, a crime unreported in the partisan US media

Redefining Journalism

Blog c-lo.net argues in it’s latest post that journalism is broken.
Inspired by Mark Cuban post on how that journalism no longer offers people (particularly young people) enough of a “payoff”.
Writer argues to throw objectivity out the window and embrace subjectivity because it already occurs, witness the popularity of Fox News.
Main ideas on what journalism should be:
Objectivity is a load of bull. Transparency and honesty are not.
Don’t act like opinions don’t exist. People need opinions.

Opinions give meaning to facts.

Redefine the concept of authority.

Journalists currently control who is seen as an expert on any particular subject.
User created content means that journalists no longer control access to expert opinions.

Post argues people want the facts presented and interpreted in a particular way.
Commenter makes the point: will people choose the presentation and interpretations that question their preconceptions of an issue or bolster those preconceptions.

Links

Post on c-lo.net
Post by Mark Cuban

Tag the fuckers

Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has proposed implanting the company’s RFID tracking tags in immigrant and guest workers.
Idea disclosed in response to Bush administrations call to know “who is in our country and why they are here ”
VeriChip make very small passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips about the size of a grain of rice.
Chip can be injected directly into the body, FCC has approved VeriChips for this purpose.
Reader broadcasts a signal which powers the chip which then sends its data to the reader.
I frankly don’t see how this helps them track illegal immigrants or nefarious individuals who will either not have the chips or remove them. VeriChip are a solution in search of a problem.

Probably a more realistic worry is the near inevitable tagging of currency and consumer goods.
Consumer goods will almost certainly be tagged, a number of testing centres already exist where every product for sale in the store is tagged.
Main worry for many is that anybody can read the tags after you have bought the product e.g. mugger scanning you to find out whether you’ve anything worth stealing.
Research has been carried out into disabling the chips before they leave the store.

Revelation, chapter 13

Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon…16: Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead…17: so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.

So great for shopping then

Revelation, chapter 14

8: Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of her impure passion.”…”If any one worships the beast and its image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand he also shall drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”

Bad breath and cramping ahead for the chipped

‘Security’ and the death of amature science

Consumer Product Safety Commission has begun a crackdown on the sale of chemicals which could be used to make illegal fireworks.
CPSC wants buyers to have an explovive chemicals licence to buy any of the chemicals, presumable in any amount.
The problem is that those same chemicals have a wide range of other uses.
This is having a huge impact on the teaching of science in schools.

Schools are shying away from hands on experiments due to fears of accidents and the law.
students lose interest reading text books
This eventually leads to less scientists and less able scientists because they don’t have the experience.

This and other forces are also having a chilling effect on amateur research.

More than 30 states have passed laws to restrict sales of chemicals and lab equipment associated with meth production
In certain states you now need a licence to own certain types of glassware and unbelievably ph strips.
Any amateur scientist now fears discovery, and not the scientific kind but the S.w.a.t. team breaking down the door kind.

Strangely enough amateur scientists have always played some part in science’s progress

In recent years, citizen scientists have discovered comets and supernovas and invented tools for gauging Earth’s magnetic field.

Some big names in tech and science started out as amateur chemists.

Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, Vint Cerf, one of the architects of the Internet and David Packard the late cofounder of Hewlett-Packard spent time in their youth making home made bombs which they then detonated… cuz it was cool.

Consider on the other hand that you can buy bullets in Wal-Mart, a product made with the sole purpose of maiming and killing.

Links

Wired News Story

The net as enemy

Declassified “Information Operations Roadmap” provides glimpse of the Pentagon’s plans for “information operations”
US military are looking to fight an electronic war
Using propaganda dessimated electronically via blogs, websites etc. and physically via unmanned aerial vehicles, “miniaturized, scatterable public address systems”, wireless devices,
Document intriguingly thinks of the internet as the enemy with “fight the net”
Grand finale describes their aim to control the electromagnetic spectrum.
Anything that depends on the electormagnetic spectrum they want to be able to destroy.
That includes every telephone, computer, mobile phone, radio on the planet.
Links

BBC News

Short Stories

Gaming Propaganda from the other side

An interesting counterpoint to the usual US special forces in Iran game
the Union of Islamic Student Societies are releasing a game
storyline: US special forces kidnap an iranian nuclear scientist on pilgrimage – Commander Bahman must save him

EU Propose Email Tax

A european parliment working group has suggested a tax on text message and emails – just who would pay this tax, or how it would be collected, has not been explained
A variety of proposals for an EU tax or taxes have been announced in the light of negotiation difficulties expaning the EU budget, before now primarily paid by import duties, VAT, and contributions from member states

Big Oil Attacks Gore

Former US presidental candidate Al Gore has released a new film based on his anti-global warming lectures An inconvenient truth
Predictably ‘Big Oil’ is critical
Oil companies have hired ‘the competitive enterprise instiute’

which denies the effects of global warming
to produce 2 sixty second adds attacking Gore, and the film directly

Make More babies to catch up to the brown people

Fox News ‘pundit’ John Gibbons has suggested in his show ‘The Big Story’ that white americans need to ‘make more babies’
His reasons?

Hispanic americans are having more children
White europeans are having less “hence ‘Eurabia’.”
“Because civilizations need population to survive.”

We wouldn’t want the brown people taking over, now would we

Media Pimp

Francis

Make your PC look like a WMD

Gareth

CC Hits – Digg for CC music
List of Podsafe Music
How to Protect yourself from Big Brother
Cooked and Bomd
Monkey Mail

Sarah

Aharef: Websites as graphs