5IT, 12/2
"'They have their little MacBook Air computers, their Wi-Fi, their smartphones, and they’re off to the races. We’re reacting to these situations, which means we are not fully in control of them,' the source said. Authorities suspect 'a few hundred' of the estimated 4,000 protesters who took to New York City’s streets after the Ferguson decision used their knack for mobile technology to send out real-time advisories on where cops were located and where they were headed."
2. On the Invention Secrecy Act.
"On October 27, 1977, Dr. Gerald F. Ross filed a patent application for a new invention he had devised to defeat the jamming of electromagnetic transmissions at specified frequencies. But it was not until June 17, 2014 — nearly 37 years later — that his patent was finally granted (Anti-jam apparatus for baseband radar systems, patent number 8,754,801). In the interim, Dr. Ross’s patent application had been subject to a secrecy order under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, which both prevented issuance of the patent and prohibited its public disclosure."
3. There is a Starcraft tournament for artificial intelligences.
"During this event, programs will play Starcraft Broodwar games against each other using BWAPI, a software library that makes it possible to connect programs to the Starcraft: BroodWar game engine. The purpose of this competition is to foster and evaluate progress of AI research applied to real-time strategy (RTS) games. RTS games pose a much greater challenge for AI research than chess because of hidden information, vast state and action spaces, and the requirement to act quickly. The best human players still have the upper hand in RTS games, but in the years to come this will likely change, thanks to competitions like this one."
"Somalia's bloodthirsty militia, some as young as eleven, became the guardians of Islamic justice. We join them on their combat vehicles -- Mad Max style 'technicals' and take a rare look at how Islamic law has sought to bring order to a chaotic nation."
5. Om Malik is launching a new, small site in "an attempt to capture the zeitgeist."
"But the stories on this site aren’t news or even interviews. Instead, they are simply conversations, relevant to our times — an attempt to capture the zeitgeist. Some will be short, some will be long. Some will ramble. And they will all be interesting, eclectic, and have one more thing in common: They have reshaped my thinking in some way. Kevin Kelly says it is all about 1,000 true fans. I am going to be a bit more ambitious. With Pi.co, I want to reach about 10,000 readers per month by end of 2015. I won’t be counting page views or unique visitors. Instead I will focus on actual readers: someone who spends 10 minutes or more on Pi.co, reads more than 95 percent through a conversation..."
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
corps. Corpse, which was originally the same word & so spelled and pronounced, is now completely differentiated.
The Credits: 1. nypost.com 2. fas.org / @bartona104 3. webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca / @aelkus 4. youtube.com 5. om.co
Their Little MacBook Air Computers, Their Wi-Fi, Their Smartphones