Topic: NEWS - on May 25, 2016 at 2:32:00 PM CEST
Trade in Services Agreement - wikileaks
Today, Wednesday, 25 May 2016, 11:30am CEST, WikiLeaks releases new secret documents from the huge Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) which is being negotiated by the US, EU and 22 other countries that account for 2/3rds of global GDP. This release includes a previously unknown annex to the TiSA core chapter on "State Owned Enterprises" (SOEs), which imposes unprecedented restrictions on SOEs and will force majority owned SOEs to operate like private sector businesses. This corporatisation of public services - to nearly the same extent as demanded by the recently signed TPP - is a next step to privatisation of SOEs on the neoliberal agenda behind the "Big Three" (TTIP,TiSA,TPP).
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Topic: logisch - on May 25, 2016 at 2:17:00 PM CEST
The Open Data Delusion
I first met Gail Ramster in 2010 at an event about the release of London-wide Open Data by the Greater London Authority. A researcher on “toilet usability,” she was trying to gather public data to compile a list of toilets accessible to elderly people. Six years later I met Gail again, this time at her office at the Royal College of Art, to discuss her experience. The past 5 years have been for me a whirlwind of Open Data advocacy; first working to increase awareness of Open Data in academia, then as a ministerial adviser in the now defunct Open Data User Group – or ODUG, an advisory panel at the UK Government Cabinet Office. ODUG operated in 2012-2015 to help the Government prioritize data releases, assign funding, and produce policy recommendations. In those three years, one of the most curious things I learned was that toilets are among the most requested datasets. A project to allow Local Authorities to release toilet locations was one of the recipients of the Release of Data Fund (see: Local Government Data Incentive Scheme), which we administered. When I tell Gail that I believe toilet data is representative of the whole Open Data parable, she laughs: “It’s all very fragmented.” In fact, despite a lot of work by and with the Government, in 2016, we still have little assurance about data quality, frequency of the releases, reliability of schemas, conflicting standards, and teething issues with licensing.
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Topic: logisch - on May 25, 2016 at 2:15:00 PM CEST
Towel Day
Towel Day is an annual celebration on the 25th of May, as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams (1952-2001). On that day, fans around the universe carry a towel in his honour.
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Topic: NEWS english - on May 21, 2016 at 4:39:00 PM CEST
Startup To Create Man-Made Meteor Shower For 2020 Olympics
For some countries, a massive pyrotechnic display would do, but not Japan. Japanese startup company Star-ALE wants to create a man-made meteor shower for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The artificial meteor shower called Sky Canvas light show will allow viewers to enjoy it from an area of more than 120 miles. And for that to happen, the pyrotechnics will not be set up on the ground. Star-ALE is taking it to space.
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Topic: History - on May 21, 2016 at 2:23:00 PM CEST
That wasn't a Mayan lost city, just another example of the culture of hype
I t was a good story while it lasted: A 15-year-old boy discovered a lost city by theorizing that a modern star map would correlate with ancient Mayan settlements. It seemed to fit the common understanding of the Maya as peaceful stargazers, centuries ahead of their time in astronomical observation and deeply mystical. It only makes sense they’d plan their cities to align with constellations. The teenage scientist, William Gadoury, of Saint-Jean-de-Matha, Quebec, overlaid constellations and known Maya cities. When he found a gap where it seemed a settlement ought to have been, he consulted satellite imagery and found shapes the looked man-made. Suddenly, the lost city story went viral.
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Topic: FUN - on May 20, 2016 at 4:27:00 PM CEST
Die neuen Schockbilder auf Zigarettenschachteln
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 20, 2016 at 4:23:00 PM CEST
Harald Lesch über den Unsinn des Cannabis-Verbots
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Topic: logisch - on May 20, 2016 at 1:00:00 PM CEST
ps aux | grep food
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 20, 2016 at 12:57:00 PM CEST
Police and Prison Guard Groups Fight Marijuana Legalization in California
Opposition to the marijuana legalization initiative, slated to go before voters in November, has been organized by John Lovell, a longtime Sacramento lobbyist for police chiefs and prison guard supervisors. Lovell’s Coalition for Responsible Drug Policies, a committee he created to defeat the pot initiative, raised $60,000 during the first three months of the year, according to a disclosure filed earlier this month.
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Topic: NEWS english - on May 18, 2016 at 6:14:00 PM CEST
A Bluetooth-connected tampon. Hoo boy
The vagina, or nature's pocket as Broad City calls it, can do all sorts of mystical things. It's a life canal. Babies come out of it! Before babies traverse that path, there's a recurring visitor: the period. The monthly blood bath is about as natural as it gets, and let's be real, it's a pain to have. Constantly changing tampons, fearing toxic shock syndrome, and keeping track of when it last showed up isn't great. There's also the added paranoia that blood will leak and create a potentially embarrassing public situation. Well fear no more, ladies, because a Chinese company has heard your concerns and thinks it can help. Turn your vagina into a connected device by wearing a Bluetooth tampon. Why didn't you think of that?
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 18, 2016 at 10:44:00 AM CEST
Employers Struggle To Find Workers Who Can Pass A Drug Test
Jackie Calmes writes in the NYT that all over the country, employers say they see a disturbing downside of tighter labor markets as they try to rebuild from the worst recession since the Depression: the struggle to find workers who can pass a pre-employment drug test. The hurdle partly stems from the growing ubiquity of drug testing, at corporations with big human resources departments, in industries like trucking where testing is mandated by federal law for safety reasons, and increasingly at smaller companies. But data suggests employers' difficulties also reflect an increase in the use of drugs, especially marijuana -- employers' main gripe -- and also heroin and other opioid drugs much in the news. Data on the scope of the problem is sketchy because figures on job applicants who test positive for drugs miss the many people who simply skip tests they cannot pass. But Quest Diagnostics, which has compiled employer-testing data since 1988, documented a 10% increase in one year in the percentage of American workers who tested positive for illicit drugs -- up to 4.7 percent in 2014 from 4.3 percent in 2013.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 18, 2016 at 10:41:00 AM CEST
Drugs and the Meaning of Life
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. Every waking moment—and even in our dreams—we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.
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