Extenuating Circumstances

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for September 4th from 22:18 to 15:43:

• Jeffrey Epstein’s Donations Create a Schism at M.I.T.’s Revered Media Lab –
• [1908.09339] The Spaceline: a practical space elevator alternative achievable with current technology –
• Craig Callender: Are We All Wrong About Black Holes? | Quanta Magazine –
• Google Developers Blog: Enabling developers and organizations to use differential privacy –
• When Speech Is an Assault: Linguistics and First Contact in Peter Watts’ Blindsight https://www.tor.com/2019/09/03/when-speech-is-an-assault-linguistics-and-first-contact-in-peter-watts-blindsight/ –

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for September 3rd from 12:16 to 21:17:

• Ursula LeGuin–the space crone—the whole essay –
• MIT Media Lab founder: I would take Jeffrey Epstein’s money today –
• Mental-health information ‘sold to advertisers’ – BBC News – Bullshit
• The Whip’s Office – Commons Library briefing – UK Parliament –
• ‘You understand that you might have to shoot a student?’ – The Washington Post – I think it's fair to say now that the experiment about having a written constitutional clause *effectively* guaranteeing a right to firearms ownership is, on balance, not great

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for September 2nd from 07:46 to 11:56:

• China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating `Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate – Bloomberg –
• ‘Iron Man’-Like Helmet Has Augmented Reality to Aid Search-and-Rescue Teams | Inverse –
• Check Out These Photos Of USAF B-2s And RAF F-35Bs Flying Together For The First Time – The Drive –
• Feasibility of Artificial Geomagnetic Field Generation by a Superconducting Ring Network –
• [1006.2483] Dark Matter: A Primer –
• Physicist here. It’s roughly right, but it’s kind of the picture we had 50 years… | Hacker News –

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for August 30th from 16:45 to 19:58:

• Famous Graphics Chips: Microsoft’s Talisman — the Chip that Never Was | IEEE Computer Society –
• Metroidvania – Wikipedia –
• Helen Greiner – Wikipedia –
• Trump Might Use AI, Smart Home Data to Detect Mass Shooters –
• The Plan to Use Fitbit Data to Stop Mass Shootings Is One of the Scariest Proposals Yet –

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for August 29th from 19:03 to 10:15:

• The Adults In The Room –
• Product vs. Feature Teams | Silicon Valley Product Group –
• A Television of Her Own: On Emily Nussbaum – Los Angeles Review of Books –
• Gamasutra: Tommy Thompson’s Blog – The Perfect Organism: The AI of Alien: Isolation –
• ‘Standin’ by the window, where the light is strong’: de-extinction, machine intelligence, the search for extra-solar life, autonomous drone swarms bombing Parliament, genetics & IQ, science & politics, and much more @ SciFoo 2014 – Dominic Cumming –
• The Usage of Iron for Assyrian Weaponry – StMU History Media –

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for August 28th from 22:16 to 13:16:

• 1491451 – When using the CoreAnimation present path, make CompositorOGL use a scissor rect to only update the parts of the framebuffer that have changed –
• 1429522 – Improve compositing power usage on macOS by using CoreAnimation –
• Dori Tunstall: Rebranding Anthropology Textbooks –
• What Is the Human Placenta Project? –
• calling out my rapist – jesus christ

This is an auto-posted collection of my public links posted to Pinboard.in for August 28th from 07:29 to 17:46:

• There’s a great William Tenn Cold War short story about this about a race to the… | Hacker News –
• The Myth of Consumer-Grade Security – Schneier on Security –
• 16-bit RISC-V processor made with carbon nanotubes | Ars Technica –
• Realizations in Russia: 11 Sweater Buttons Later – Center for International Private Enterprise – <blockquote>When talking about governance, it is easy to forget that its impact is often experienced just as much through minor hold-ups and red tape as through the large-scale corruption, fraud, and abuse that usually makes headlines. In a recent pair of articles, The Guardian's Moscow correspondent, Miriam Elder, has stirred u…</blockquote>
• Safely joining up information to protect children – Barnardo’s Blog –
• Possible Detection of a Black Hole So Big It ‘Should Not Exist’ | Quanta Magazine –
• Maria Soto Was Born in the U.S., yet the Trump Administration Won’t Give Her a Passport. We’re Suing. | ACLU of Oregon –

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for August 26th from 13:55 to 23:21:

• The Joy Of audio logs in System Shock 2 | Rock Paper Shotgun –
• The dislike for facial recognition technology is another one of those hard to co… | Hacker News – "The dislike for facial recognition technology is another one of those hard to comprehend stances for me. The article is more like a moral call to action, it doesnt contain any facts or information or even arguments against it. All I can find is that it claims "costly errors, discrimination and privacy invasions" are the problem. How can facial recognition software possibly cause all of that? Software operation basically free, discrimination is ridiculous – if anything it helps with less discrimination, it scans everybody after all"
• Escape Pod 636: Mother Tongues – Escape Pod –
• How the brain ‘approximates’ without actually counting – "While researchers have long believed that estimating the number of objects in a visual scene is an instantaneous and parallel process with objects being scanned from one side to another, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that previous scientific wisdom on the subject is incorrect. Their new evidence, using eye-tracker data, reveals that the eyes capture information by fixating on a visual object and estimating quantities in the center of the visual field."
• Department of Health and Social Care on Twitter: “NHS Health Checks save hundreds of lives each year, but we want to further improve and personalise this service. One option, alongside face-to-face checks, is a tailored digital service. Southwark Council – “A tailored digital service”.

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for August 23rd from 16:14 to 09:44:

• Employees connect nuclear plant to the internet so they can mine cryptocurrency | ZDNet –
• ArtStation – ELYSIUM, Mitchell Stuart –
• ArtStation – Saturn Explorer, Mitchell Stuart –
• ISS Daily Summary Report – 11/16/2017 – ISS On-Orbit Status Report –
• FAA asks public not to attach guns, bombs, or flamethrowers to drones – The Verge – So I guess you don't have a second amendment right to own a gun-mounted drone, then?

This is an auto-posted collection of public links I’ve either posted to, or favourites from Twitter, my Instapaper bookmarks and my public links posted to Pinboard.in for August 21st from 16:32 to 07:35:

• Taking a look at HS2’s huge Old Oak Common station – IanVisits –
• Kegan’s Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness | Tomorrow’s Professor Postings –
• notmuch –
• Language Log » Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong’s wealthiest tycoon –
• Famous Experiment Dooms Pilot-Wave Alternative to Quantum Weirdness | Quanta Magazine –