Has the internet run out of ideas?

Has the internet run out of ideas already? | Technology | The Observer

EU anti-austerity backlash

Politicians braced for backlash as Europe turns against austerity | Business | The Observer
It's very hard to know where to stand on the EU  crisis. On the one hand can appreciate the augments to reduce debt, but on the other I would definitely think Keynesianism sounds right on the need for government stimulation of the economy when it flags. Of course the problem is over reliance on deficit during the good, or at least better, times puts most countries in a bad starting position for this. Overall though, while aware hard economic pragmatism is needed, my gut reaction to the anti austerity backlash is positive. Firstly, I think the austerity measures hit the least able (and least responsible for the crisis) most, and so are unfair. Secondly, not least after the global groupthink failure of so called experts on 2008 , I can easily believe that the same can happen again, and leaders and elites (even if probably out of sincerity) are blinkered to alternatives to the existing financial system. The slavish devotion to the "markets" while logical within the rules of the current game, ignore the fact that the game can be changed, not by markets but de facto by governments (though not on their own except for maybe the US or China).  One thing is I think for sure however, simply muddling along playing the same game isn't going to work, and massive and creative steps are needed. I'm not going to hold my breath for it though...

Neil Heywood case sheds light on privileged lifestyles of China's elite

Neil Heywood case sheds light on privileged lifestyles of China's elite | UK news | guardian.co.uk

Latest review of mobile phones and health

The Health Protection Agency today publishes a large-scale review of the evidence to date on the links between mobile phone use and brain cancer. You can find the full report here.
Do mobile phones cause cancer? | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Après Moi, le Déluge - By James Poulos | Foreign Policy

Après Moi, le Déluge - By James Poulos | Foreign Policy

What does 15 years of baby name data tell us about modern Britain?

What does 15 years of baby name data tell us about modern Britain? | News | guardian.co.uk
By Anna Powell-Smith:
"If you are a parent, or soon to be a parent, you may already have discovered the US's Baby Name Voyager. It's a data-visualization classic, a wonderful way to bring 100 years of American baby names to life....So I built a web app called, imaginatively, England & Wales Baby Names. Just like the Voyager, you can look up names for your own children and see naming trends. You can quickly search through the 27,000 names used by parents since 1996, and see the exact number of babies given each name every year since 1996."

Mein Kampf to be re-released with notes countering Hitler's arguments

When I heard that Mein Kampf was to be allowed be published again in Germany (due to the copyright, currently held by the German government, lapsing) while not being exactly cheered by the news, overall thought a necessary evil, since simply banning the book would I believe be the wrong approach (fueling the oxygen of parnoic conspiracy arguments). But it is actually refreshing to read the details behind the story, namely that the Germans are publishing it themselves precisely to counter the inevitable surge in readings once it leaves copyright.

Mein Kampf to be re-released with notes countering Hitler's arguments | World news | guardian.co.uk

"Academics are working on producing an annotated version of the book which will include commentaries on the text that will seek to dissect and rubbish Hitler's arguments. A separate, more simplified version for schools is being produced together with academics from the Munich Institute for Contemporary History, which Bavaria's finance minister, Markus Söder, said was necessary, as more people would be reading it. The expiration of the copyright in three years' time might well lead to more young people reading Mein Kampf," he said, adding that he hoped the school version would help to demystify the book – which lays out the Nazi version of Aryan racial supremacy – and emphasise the "global catastrophe that this dangerous way of thinking led to", he added.
" 

Surely this is overall the best approach with despicable books, don't ban or bury them, but hold them up to the 'market place of ideas' and make the case against them, since it is often the case they achieve more through mystique and fame, than meaning and fact.

BFF?: Cell Phone Study Shows Evolving Lifetime Relationships in Men and Women

he calling patterns of three million cell phone users support a theory that female relationships change with shifting biological priorities, suggesting that women drive the evolutionary fitness of human
BFF?: Cell Phone Study Shows Evolving Lifetime Relationships in Men and Women: Scientific American

Why Booze Makes Some People Belligerent: Scientific American

Some people are friendly drunks, whereas others are hostile, potentially endangering themselves and others. The difference may lie in their ability to foresee the consequences of their actions, according to a recent study in the online Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Why Booze Makes Some People Belligerent: Scientific American
Before playing, the participants completed a survey designed to measure their general concern for the future consequences of their actions
Subjects who expressed little interest in consequences were more likely to administer longer, more intense shocks. In the sober group, they were slightly more aggressive than people who cared about consequences. When drunk, however, their belligerence was off the charts.

Marine Le Pen's success reveals populists' appeal to European voters

The Front National is the big winner in the French elections as 'far right' parties capitalise on immigration and eurozone fears
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/23/marine-le-pen-populist-appeal

• what the assorted leaders and parties have in common is a deep rightwing cultural conservatism suffused with nostalgia for an always better and often imaginary national past – the era before mass immigration, globalisation, Europe, and international finance destroyed, they believe, the old, white, illiberal, homogeneous nation states of Europe.On economics, however, the populists tend to be anything but rightwing. They are further to the left of European social democracy in supporting generous welfare states, early retirement ages, pensions – a strong state munificent in its public spending. 
• Islamophobia has become the new antisemitism for the current generation of rebels, while the age of austerity decided by Europe's leaders as the answer to runaway debt, soaring deficits, and a failing euro supplies fertile ground for the populist campaigners.
• Although they do not achieve their maximalist demands, these campaigns are successful in setting the agendas in national politics and forcing the mainstream parties to accommodate the extremists by meeting them halfway. 

The future internet, no dogs allowed

Online identity: is authenticity or anonymity more important?
Before Facebook and Google became the megaliths of the web, the most famous online adage was, "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog". It seems the days when people were allowed to be dogs is coming to a close
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/19/online-identity-authenticity-anonymity

The argument (and trend) seems to be that real identities enable more people to trust the web, and thus take part in it :
"Allan believes the benefits of authentic identity outweigh the costs. Facebook and other services with an assurance of security and credibility are more inclusive, and open up the web to new audiences who never would have gone online before, he says. "We're optimists. Facebook enables hundreds of millions of people to express themselves online because they didn't have or know how to use the tools they needed." Facebook, he believes, is a stepping stone to the rest of the web."

My personal position is that while it would be good to have consistent identities online (regular use of same psuedonym, or a limited set of psuedonyms, across platforms) there are many reasons why this should not mean real life identity. The biggest reason is perhaps the dangers people would expose themselves to, from the obvious cases of antagonizing a repressive (or even democratic) systems laws to the more widespread risk of 'peer-to-peer' persecution and mob justice. The internet often brings out the worst in both people and state in how they react to perceived violations of norms and values, and revealing one's true identity would expose one to this. Of course it may be argued that if everyone is identifiable then the risk from trolls etc. is also removed, but while this might temper it, and prevent outright illegal persection, it would not prevent plenty of malign and vindictive behaviour. Furthermore it is a fact that the nastiest people are often the most passionate, and hence most likely to go to the effort to bypass any authentication system (something which will always be possible no matter how well implemented).

Furthermore, on a lower level, but still important, there is the problem of interaction with real world relationships - friends, acquaintances, co-workers employers etc. The sharing and linking of the web means anything one says or does can easily be passed on, taking it out of the intended social circle, and out of context. The result would be that, if real identities were necessitated on services such as blogger, one would have the option of either limiting who can hear to a (hopefully) trustworthy small circle of friends, or resort to comments so bland and innane as to be worthless (and even this might not work, since even a fair and balanced statement might anger a racist or bigotted associate).

It is interesting that such a anonymous-but-traceable approach is supported even in the restrictive regimes of China and South Korea:
"An online identity can be as permanent as an offline one: pseudonymous users often identify themselves in different social networks using the same account name. But because their handles aren't based on real names, they can deliberately delineate their identity accordingly, and reassert anonymity if they wish. Psychologists argue that this is valuable for the development of a sense of who one is, who one can be, and how one fits into different contexts. This kind of activity is allowed even in countries where social network account holders are required to register for a service using a national ID, as in South Korea and China; their online public identities are still fabrications. Even with this explicit link with the state, when users are aware that their activities online are traceable, identity play continues."

This would make it seem that in some ways China is more permissive than Google, since although the state might want to know if you're a dog, it will still let you bark around the virtual park if you want; when it comes to Google+ however, no dogs allowed.

The online product, you.

Exploiting Big Data's opportunities will need a delicate balance between the right to knowledge and the right of the individual
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/22/big-data-privacy-information-currency

• This month, the US chain Walmart bought the startup Social Calendar, one of the most popular calendar apps on Facebook..when a Social Calendar user listed a friend's birthday or details of a holiday to Malaga, she or he probably had no idea the information would end up in the hands of a US supermarket. But now it will be cross-referenced with Walmart's own data, plus any other databases that are available, to generate a compelling profile of individual Social Calendar users and their non-Social Calendar-using friends
• In one recent high-profile example, a Minneapolis man discovered his teenage daughter was pregnant because coupons for baby food and clothing were arriving at his address from the US superstore Target. The girl, who had not registered her pregnancy with the chain, had been identified by a system that looked for pregnancy patterns in her purchase behaviour. 
• last month, police in New York used a photo from Facebook in combination with their own photo files and facial recognition software to arrest a man for attempted murde
• Sceptics like Adler argue that the right to be forgotten is flawed because it ignores how social boundaries are currently being negotiated in the Big Data world. "The ability to delete personal information means that you lose the potential for lessons learned," he said. "If you can step away and erase something someone says that is stupid or hurtful, you lose an element of accountability."
• The weakest link is the technology itself. The Target pregnancy case demonstrates that machines can pick up patterns in ways that may have unexpected consequences for individuals.

The test card: when a girl and a clown ruled the airwaves

Many an impatient early morning hour spent waiting for this to end and the cartoons to start (Penelope pitstop? Yogi bear? Flintstones Scooby Doo? Ah, Hannah Barbera...)
The test card: when a girl and a clown ruled the airwaves | Television & radio | The Guardian

Is 35 really the best age to be?

What's the best age to be? Carefree 16 or a young-enough-to-have-fun but old-enough-to-leave-home 21? Or maybe a wise and stately 65? No – it's 35, according to research by insurer Aviva.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2012/apr/18/is-35-best-age

However,in 2010, research by relationship counselling group Relate suggested 35 was the beginning of the misery years for some, with work and relationship pressures taking their toll on many.

Greece burns, but not its German arms contracts

Definitely it does sound hypocritical for the Germans to be demanding such social austerity in Greece, while at the same time maintaining massive arms contracts.  While of course Greece was profligate and would need help anyway, it needs to be highlighted when countries like German and France are imposing tough conditions, to lend money which will be used to pay bills owed to them! Furthermore it is a valid question as to whether inner core countries have been able to reduce military spending partially due to relying on (poorer) peripheral countries who have to maintain the border. Of course there is some sharing of resources in the EU, but psychologically there is more drive if one is on the perimeter. And of course military spending is often accompanied by corruption, so will always appeal to the government/elite who can profit from it, and in border countries the psychology may again enable them to convince the public to pay for it (and worth noting even some German companies have been fined/settled out of court with regards to corrupt deals with Greece).



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military-spending-debt-crisis?INTCMP=SRCH

Ah, it could be worse - we could be Greece - The Irish Times

Ah, it could be worse - we could be Greece - The Irish Times - Tue, Apr 17, 2012
Fintan O'Toole recognizes the 'could be worse' current mentality to something identified 50 years ago by a German writing about Ireland :"
?When something happens to you in Germany,? Böll noted, ?when you miss a train, break a leg, go bankrupt, we say: It couldn?t have been any worse; whatever happens is always the worst. With the Irish it is almost the opposite: if you break a leg, miss a train, go bankrupt, they say: It could be worse; instead of a leg you might have broken your neck . .
Böll was not engaging in colourful Paddywhackery. He realised that a culture in which people routinely answer the question ?How?s things?? with ?Ah sure, they could be worse? is one that has learned to defend itself against real and persistent pain: ??It could be worse? is one of the most common turns of speech, possibly because only too often things are pretty bad and what?s worse offers the consolation of being relative.?
Even more incisively, he suggested that this habit of mind is not mere passivity. On the contrary, it takes great creativity to sustain it: ?With us [Germans] when something happens our sense of humour and imagination desert us; in Ireland, that is just when they come into play. To persuade someone who has broken his leg, is lying in pain or hobbling around in a plaster cast, that it might have been worse is not only comforting, it is an occupation requiring poetic talents.?

Walled gardens look rosy for Facebook, Apple – and would-be censors

Part 3 of the Guardian's 'battle for the internet' series looks at how the rise of app stores and social networks is making the way we use the net cleaner, easier and far more controllable
Walled gardens look rosy for Facebook, Apple – and would-be censors | Technology | guardian.co.uk

You can choose your friends, but only 150 of them

Interesting talk from TEDxObserver given by Robin Dunbar :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07IpED729k8&list=PL880EAF3F736F99AC&index=6&feature=plpp_video
"Robin, currently director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of Oxford, is renowned for creating a formula which is now known as 'Dunbar's number' - and that number is 150. This calculates the 'cognitive limit' of the number of people we can hold meaningful friendships with. When it was first formulated it created a fevered debate about the nature of and the differences between, online and real 'friendships'.
Robin will explore the psychology and ethology of romantic love to find out if the brain - and science - can help us explain how and why we fall in love."

In the talk he mentions also that we have circles of levels of friendship, with the average number of close friends being 5, then a next level of about 15, etc. Perhaps not surprisingly being in a romantic relationship costs 2 close friends, due mainly to the lack of time available to devote to such friendships. Indeed time spent is a key factor in how friendships are maintained, though there are it seems gender differences, with women spending more time in verbal communication (average female phone call was something close to an hour) than men (average phone call something like 7 seconds! 'meet you at 10? yip! grand so'). And face to face time, meeting in person or even skype, is the most valuable of all, which indicates that online relationships face major hurdles in being maintained


Also interesing is from this guardian interview with him on the question as to whether Dunbar's number can be increased :
"We're caught in a bind: community sizes were designed for hunter-gatherer- type societies where people weren't living on top of one another. Your 150 were scattered over a wide are, but everybody shared the same 150. This made for a very densely interconnected community, and this means the community polices itself. You don't need lawyers and policemen. If you step out of line, granny will wag her finger at you.
Our problem now is the sheer density of folk – our networks aren't compact. You have clumps of friends scattered around the world who don't know one another: now you don't have an interwoven network. It leads to a less well integrated society. How to re-create that old sense of community in these new circumstances? That's an engineering problem. How do we work around it?"

Since a major issue in the modern world is how to view, shape and even sign up to 'society' then the fact that our brains are evolved for such small social groupingswill have to be taken into account. Perhaps one element of a solution would be to consider 'groups' as 'persons'. So maybe if one viewed 'other commuters' or 'Germany' or 'bankers' as 1 of the 150 individuals one can keep track of, then it would allow the rest of society to be some how kept socially 'in mind' rather than being a blurry 'other'. Of course the main problem with this would be the risk of stereotyping and blanket generalization, but since we have know complex and deep individuals, maybe we can similarly have 'friendship' with complex and complicated groups. Of course this is just a spur of the moment idea, but the point is we need to take our natural dispositions into account if we are to adapt to the modern world.

Militarisation of cyberspace: how the global power struggle moved online

Militarisation of cyberspace: how the global power struggle moved online | Technology | The Guardian
"The remaining cold war superpower, the United States, is slowly squaring up to the emerging behemoth, China, in a sphere in which Beijing has a distinct advantage: cyberspace.
Experts estimate China has as many "cyber jedis" as the US has engineers, and some of them, with backing from the state, have been systematically hacking into and stealing from governments and companies in the west, taking defence secrets, compromising computer systems, and scanning energy and water plants for potential vulnerabilities.
The scale of what has been going on is only now being recognised, and with a discernible sense of panic, the US and the UK are trying to make up lost ground."

US and China engage in cyber war games

"The US and China have been discreetly engaging in "war games" amid rising anger in Washington over the scale and audacity of Beijing-co-ordinated cyber attacks on western governments and big business, the Guardian has learned.
State department and Pentagon officials, along with their Chinese counterparts, were involved in two war games last year that were designed to help prevent a sudden military escalation between the sides if either felt they were being targeted. Another session is planned for May. "
US and China engage in cyber war games | Technology | guardian.co.uk