5 Intriguing Things
1. This is the kind of sensible digital afterlife legislation I expect out of Delaware.
"Delaware has become the first state in the US to enact a law that ensures families’ rights to access the digital assets of loved ones during incapacitation or after death. Last week, Gov. Jack Markell signed House Bill (HB) 345, 'Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets and Digital Accounts Act,' which gives heirs and executors the same authority to take legal control of a digital account or device, just as they would take control of a physical asset or document." (arstechnica.com)
2. On the Mormon church's SEO efforts. (They're good: try googling "young women").
"At least three groups serve as ground troops for LDS SEO efforts. The most directly involved group is the Church’s internal IS Department, which oversees the technical aspects of official Church Web sites such as lds.org and mormon.org. The second group is the newly launched online missionary program, which operates somewhat separately from the regular missionary program. The pilot online program was established in May 2008, and the mission became an official Church mission in November 2009. Missionaries proselytize through social media such as Facebook, blogs, and the chat feature on mormon.org2. Through thousands of chats each week, missionaries help build links and send traffic to the Church’s official Web sites. The third group is actually a set of groups—'grassroots' organizations that involve a broader membership and are less formally tied to the Church." (tandfonline.com)
"Dr Richard has created a blog called ASMR University to generate further discussion on the science behind the experience. As a professor at Shenandoah University’s School of Pharmacy, he’s interested in pursuing clinical studies on the effects ASMR could have on aiding insomnia, stress or mood disorders alongside conventional pharmaceutical treatments. ‘The long-term picture could be that after appropriate research and these clinical studies are done, it might be able to show that people could use less medication when they’re coupling that with ASMR, used in an appropriate way,’ Dr Richard says, adding that it could be particularly helpful to patients who suffer side effects from high doses of medication." (abc.net.au)
4. The San Bernadino County Unidentified Persons Project.
"From 1908 to 2008, this three-acre plot at the edge of one of San Bernardino's cemeteries was the final resting place for most of the county's unidentified burials. Not all of the bodies here are unknown: Many of the burials are indigent, meaning that next of kin couldn't afford a proper funeral or no one stepped forward to pay for one. But about 10 percent of the people here—around 700 people—were buried without a name. Some are clearly the victims of murders or kidnappings, but most simply erased themselves from society. The county paid for their funerals, and made sure they were properly interred. Yet decades later—over a century later in some cases—no one knows who they are." (gizmodo.com)
5. Two research areas seem to drive supercomputing: nuclear weapons and climate change.
"Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley lab researchers, along with scientists from six other national laboratories, will take part in a state-of-the-art supercomputing project designed to model, simulate and predict the effects of climate change on Earth. The 10-year Energy Department project— Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy—will develop and apply advanced climate system models on cutting-edge high-performance computing machines as soon as they become available, lab officials said." (insidebayarea.com)
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
cipher. So spelled (NOT cy-). In cryptography, cipher is restricted to secret writing by means of disarranged letters or substitutions for letters (numbers, symbols, &c.), code to substitution of words, letter groups, &c., for words, phrases, or sentences.
You will note that I've added the domain on which a story appears after the quote. That's by subscriber request, and I think I like it.
The Newly Launched Online Missionary Program