Topic: DRUGS - on August 2, 2016 at 3:34:00 PM CEST
A ketamine-themed musical is coming to New York
In the last ten years, ketamine has become intrinsically linked with nightlife, while also being developed as a drug to aid depression and PTSD. Now, it’s the subject of a new musical debuting in Brooklyn, New York, later this month. Ketamine: The Musical will open 17-19 August at House of Yes, an art space and club in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It’s been described as “an immersive, participatory, psychoactive and dissociative spectacle”.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: DRUGS - on August 2, 2016 at 3:29:00 PM CEST
More American high school students smoke pot than binge drink
In 2014, 44.1 million Americans reported using illicit drugs over the past year. One tragic result of the widespread use of drugs and alcohol is its impact on youth. In the United States alone, 7% of youth aged 12–13 took an illicit substance in the past year, while 5.6% reported drinking alcohol. Early use of drugs or alcohol has been linked to a several times greater risk of developing substance dependence, as the majority of Americans aged 18–30 admitted for substance abuse treatment initiated alcohol or drug use before the age of 18.
The use of alcohol and illicit drugs by teenagers and youth is a serious issue. With a problem this widespread, we wanted to find out where youth drinking and drug use is most prominent. So, we compared data from the United States and European nations to find out just how many high school students are engaging in binge drinking and marijuana use. Read on to learn more about patterns of youth drinking and drug use around the globe.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: DRUGS - on August 1, 2016 at 4:46:00 PM CEST
Is cannabis really getting stronger?
Cannabis continues to be the world’s favourite illicit drug with around 147m people using it annually. However, there are fears that the drug is becoming increasingly potent and that it could pose a public health risk. But how reliable is the evidence? And is it really getting stronger? The debate about cannabis potency and harm is long running. In the UK, where there are 2m annual users, it predates the 2004 downgrading of cannabis classification from class B to class C. But this episode demonstrated some of the issues with estimating the harms of the drug. Research conducted at the time highlighted how the relative harms of cannabis compared with other class B substances was one of the factors behind the decision to reclassify. However, critics accused the government of ignoring emerging evidence that cannabis was becoming more potent and that it represented a serious public health problem.
rawstory.com Achtung Canvas-Fingerprinting
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: SECURITY - on August 1, 2016 at 4:45:00 PM CEST
Chaos Computer Club: "Das Darknet macht keine Waffen"
Nur eine Plattform für Kriminelle? Nach dem Amoklauf in München warnt der Chaos Computer Club vor der Verteufelung des anonymen Internets.
SZ: Der Amokläufer von München hat sich seine Waffe im Darknet besorgt. Warum warnt der Chaos Computer Club dennoch davor, den anonymen Bereich des Internets zu verteufeln?
Falk Garbsch: Ich bin mit dem Begriff Darknet nicht glücklich. Es geht um ein Tor-Netzwerk, über das sich ein User anonymisiert im Netz bewegen kann. Er kann sich damit vor der Totalüberwachung durch die NSA schützen. Bei der Revolutionsbewegung in Ägypten haben Tor-Netzwerke eine wichtige Rolle gespielt, damit die Menschen frei kommunizieren konnten.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: WEB - on August 1, 2016 at 4:42:00 PM CEST
When the Internet Came to Everest
It was morning on May 10. I was in a teahouse in Dingboche, a remote Nepalese village about a two-day trek from the Mt. Everest base camp, sipping instant coffee, watching the sun rise from behind snow-crested Himalayan peaks, and trawling my Facebook feed using the Everest Link Wi-Fi network.
My guide Bishnu checked the day’s weather forecast on his smartphone. Although there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, he told me there was snow expected later in the afternoon. I was skeptical, but he said it would be best to leave sooner rather than later.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: AUSTRIA - on August 1, 2016 at 4:40:00 PM CEST
Austrian Mint sells 41 tonnes of gold coins and gold bars in 2015
Earlier this year, the director of marketing and sales at the Austrian Mint confirmed to Bloomberg in an interview that the Mint’s combined gold bar and gold coin sales in 2015 had totalled 1.32 million troy ounces, a 45% increase on 2014, while the Mint’s silver sales in 2015 had reached 7.3 million ounces, a figure 58% higher than in 2014. Since Münze Österreich, or the Austrian Mint in English, only publishes its annual report in July of each year, we had to wait a few months to see the granular details behind these sales numbers. Now that the Austrian Mint’s 2015 Annual Report has been published, the detailed sales figures are as follows.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: EU - on August 1, 2016 at 4:39:00 PM CEST
EU-US Privacy Shield open for sign ups from today
U.S. companies needing to transfer personal data of European customers across the Atlantic can now sign up to a new framework to govern such data transfers, with the so-called EU-US Privacy Shield up and running from today. The European Commission has also now published the legal texts associated with the Privacy Shield agreement, along with a citizens guide — which aims to provide information to EU consumers as to how they can go about making complaints about the handling of their data by US companies, should they feel the need to. The new data transfer deal was officially adopted by the EC last month, bringing to a close some nine months of limbo in the wake of the region’s Court of Justice decision to topple the predecessor framework last year (while failing entirely to end the uncertainty that the demise of Safe Harbor has wrought — given that critics continue to question Privacy Shield’s robustness to future legal challenge).
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: EU - on August 1, 2016 at 4:37:00 PM CEST
Don't forget the role of the press in Brexit
They lied and they got away with it and that’s outrageous – since the referendum this sentiment has prompted hundreds of thousands of words of commentary, and rightly so. A crisis so grave and unexpected inevitably makes us suspect some underlying, fundamental shift that we must hurry to comprehend, and so ideas that were not previously at the centre of our thinking have arrived there, with a bang. We ask ourselves whether we have entered a post-factual society dominated by emotion, whether social media are killing the truth, whether society is fracturing in ways that traditional political discourse can’t express.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: POLITIK - on August 1, 2016 at 4:36:00 PM CEST
The Psychopathology of Donald Trump
Does Donald Trump only say crazy things, or does he say crazy things because he actually is crazy? In a speech delivered on the third day of the Democratic National Convention, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg openly questioned the GOP candidate’s sanity on prime-time television. More importantly, if less sensationally, the issue of Trump’s emotional stability has also been raised by a growing number of influential and highly respected mental-health practitioners. They have done so out of a sense of urgency, even in the face of a code of conduct promulgated by the American Psychiatric Association that cautions psychiatrists against making public statements about public figures whom they have not formally evaluated.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: SECURITY - on July 31, 2016 at 12:13:00 PM CEST
Wikileaks tiefer Fall: Antisemitismus, Terrorclips, Doxxing
Die Plattform verliert immer weiter an Zustimmung, auch weil es zusehends um die Person Julian Assange geht In den vergangenen zwei Wochen durfte sich die Enthüllungsplattform Wikileaks über eine starke Präsenz in den Medien freuen. Die Plattform publizierte interne E-Mails der US-Demokraten und der türkischen Regierungspartei AKP, die auf breites Echo in sozialen Medien stießen. Doch beide Enthüllungen hatten einen Haken: Die E-Mails der AKP waren inhaltlich banal, enthielten jedoch Links auf Wählerverzeichnisse mit heiklen Daten von Bürgern. Wikileaks hatte so effektiv Millionen Türken "gedoxxt", wie der Fachausdruck für den Verrat persönlicher Informationen im Netz heißt. Das führte etwa zu einer wütenden Anklage der Forscherin und Kolumnistin Zeynep Tufekci, die Wikileaks gar vorwarf, "Türkinnen in Gefahr zu bringen".
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: War and Peace - on July 31, 2016 at 12:11:00 PM CEST
Article — From the August 1941 issue Who Goes Nazi?
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis. It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become “Honorary Aryans and Nazis”; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
Topic: SECURITY - on July 31, 2016 at 12:09:00 PM CEST
The Details About the CIA's Deal With Amazon
A $600 million computing cloud built by an outside company is a "radical departure" for the risk-averse intelligence community.
The intelligence community is about to get the equivalent of an adrenaline shot to the chest. This summer, a $600 million computing cloud developed by Amazon Web Services for the Central Intelligence Agency over the past year will begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community. If the technology plays out as officials envision, it will usher in a new era of cooperation and coordination, allowing agencies to share information and services much more easily and avoid the kind of intelligence gaps that preceded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For the first time, agencies within the intelligence community will be able to order a variety of on-demand computing and analytic services from the CIA and National Security Agency. What’s more, they’ll only pay for what they use.
... Link (0 comments) ... Comment
