Jan 11

Via Brand Gamblin.

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Via Brand Gamblin.

It’s no wonder David Brin used dolphins in his Uplift stories.

Originally shared by Ralf Haring

“All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish. In this way, the dolphins help to keep their pools clean. Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fish, and so on.”

…

“One day, when a gull flew into her pool, she grabbed it, waited for the trainers and then gave it to them. It was a large bird and so the trainers gave her lots of fish. This seemed to give Kelly a new idea. The next time she was fed, instead of eating the last fish, she took it to the bottom of the pool and hid it under the rock where she had been hiding the paper. When no trainers were present, she brought the fish to the surface and used it to lure the gulls, which she would catch to get even more fish. After mastering this lucrative strategy, she taught her calf, who taught other calves, and so gull-baiting has become a hot game among the dolphins.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/03/research.science

Jan 10

“Grainy images of women driving ambulances and working in munitions factories in the first world war have become…

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Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society

“Grainy images of women driving ambulances and working in munitions factories in the first world war have become familiar to us all. Yet the remarkable story of the extraordinary women who took over men’s jobs in hospitals, laboratories and government research facilities only to be forced to relinquish them once men returned from the front is largely unknown. Patricia Fara’s important book, the first of many being published to commemorate the centenary of women receiving the vote, is written as a paean to these forgotten pioneers. Although many of their individual stories remain sketchy, the details of their lives and contributions lost or overlooked, their collective history provides a compelling tale.”

Another book to add to the pile.

https://buff.ly/2CWIFmZ
Jan 10

Evidence that lowering taxes on the rich will lead to automatic job growth: zero.

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Evidence that lowering taxes on the rich will lead to automatic job growth: zero.

Evidence that raising the minimum wage will lead to automatic job loss: also zero.

If anything, the evidence points to the opposite of both of these.

Originally shared by Keith Wilson

We have been raising the minimum wage for 78 years, and as a new study clearly reveals, 78 years of minimum-wage hikes have produced zero evidence of the “job-killing” consequences these headline writers want us to fear.

http://www.businessinsider.com/minimum-wage-effect-on-jobs-2016-5
Jan 09

Unless you’re an extreme idealogue, you’re probably open to the idea that government creates value in a way that’s…

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Unless you’re an extreme idealogue, you’re probably open to the idea that government creates value in a way that’s different from business, but still has some things to learn from business. That’s what this consultancy is working on.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Business Design Is a Powerful Tool for Breaking Down Bureaucracy http://suhub.co/2mfCgcy

Jan 09

The cartoonist was, of course, investigated by the FBI, and accumulated a thick file there.

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The cartoonist was, of course, investigated by the FBI, and accumulated a thick file there. This inspired her to increase the political content of her cartoons.

Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society

“Ormes’ panel [Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger], far from being merely frivolous jokes told by a precocious young girl, contained biting commentary and scathing indictments on issues related to oppression and subjugation through racist policies, government witch hunts, military industrialization, or other means. Through Patty-Jo, Ormes highlights the ways that, as Whaley notes, ‘a young, middle-class, educated Black child in the throes of the civil rights era would express herself.'”

https://buff.ly/2CzSVyk
Jan 08

Following on from the article I posted yesterday about how social media is toxic and broken, here are a few thoughts…

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Following on from the article I posted yesterday about how social media is toxic and broken, here are a few thoughts about how that could possibly be fixed.

tl;dr: An open content creation system and an open content consumption system, allowing anyone to write an app for either, linked together by an updated version of RSS.

http://csidemedia.com/gryphonclerks/2018/01/09/fixing-social-media-part-1-the-big-fix/
Jan 08

This is sobering. And I’m aware of the irony of what I’m doing with it.

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This is sobering. And I’m aware of the irony of what I’m doing with it.

Originally shared by David Brin

An important article by Roger McNamee – an early Facebook investor-insider – explores how the algorithm-led strategies of Google and Facebook made them inherently vulnerable to foreign hack-meddling aimed at wrecking our civilization:

“It reads like the plot of a sci-fi novel: a technology celebrated for bringing people together is exploited by a hostile power to drive people apart, undermine democracy, and create misery. This is precisely what happened in the United States during the 2016 election. We had constructed a modern Maginot Line—half the world’s defense spending and cyber-hardened financial centers, all built to ward off attacks from abroad—never imagining that an enemy could infect the minds of our citizens through inventions of our own making, at minimal cost. Not only was the attack an overwhelming success, but it was also a persistent one, as the political party that benefited refuses to acknowledge reality. The attacks continue every day, posing an existential threat to our democratic processes and independence.”

Remember: whether or not the Mueller investigation proves knowing “collusion” isn’t the point! (Does Donald Trump ever actually “know” anything?”) What matters is that hostile foreign powers wanted a U.S. political outcome, strove to achieve it, and got what they wanted. And they are still at it.

“Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other platforms were manipulated to shift outcomes in Brexit and the U.S. presidential election, and unless major changes are made, they will be manipulated again.”

The author, once a friend and mentor to the CEOs of these brash companies, now has burned his bridges in calling for a national response based on veritable survival. Let me add that the core problem of insularity and echo-chambers (‘Nuremberg Rallies’) that can be manipulated by cynical savanarolas is one that I predicted, long ago, in my novel EARTH (1989)

https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january-february-march-2018/how-to-fix-facebook-before-it-fixes-us/