Category: Uncategorized

Summer!

Inept cyberwar

Alexander runs the nation’s cyberwar efforts, an empire he has built over the past 8 years by insisting that the US’s inherent vulnerability to digital attacks requires him to amass more and more authority over the data zipping around the globe. In his telling, the threat is so mind-bogglingly huge that the nation has little option but to eventually put the entire civilian Internet under his protection, requiring tweets and emails to pass through his filters, and putting the kill switch under the government’s forefinger.

keith alexander is the pro to total information awareness amateur efforts from the early 2000s.

Homer social network

So homer checks out from a social network analysis perspective, how about that other fable, the bible? Anyone?

We managed to build and analyze a social network gathered across the classical epic, Odyssey of Homer. Longing for further understanding, topological quantities were collected in order to classify its social network qualitatively into real or fictional. It turns out that most of the found properties belong to real social networks besides assortativity and giant component’s size. In order to test the network’s possibilities to be real, we removed some mythological members that could imprint a fictional aspect on the network. Carrying on this maneuver the modified social network resulted on assortative mixing and reduction of the giant component, as expected for real social networks. Overall, we observe that Odyssey might be an amalgam of fictional elements plus real based human relations, which corroborates other author’s findings for Iliad and archaeological evidences.

The same thing is true for viking sagas:

Njal’s Saga has an average of 4 new characters every page. Whereas modern fiction tries to make sure you can keep track of everyone, with the exception of maybe Game of Thrones. That density of characters, and the realism of their networks, suggest a different purpose for literature than might be the case now — the creation of portraits of societies, rather than portraits of individuals.

US rivers

The stimulus is all wrong

enlightened industrial policy would invest trillions into massive skill upgrades for millions of workers so they can obsolete themselves into better jobs instead of letting that happen to them. instead, we get shovel-ready, about the least ambitious waste of money ever.

The last AOL users

in my scientific survey of 2 real estate “professionals”, they are both some.moron@aol.com. really tells you all you need to know, doesn’t it.

Environment Progress

whatever happened to acid rain, the ozone hole, forest dieback, and the many other environmental dangers of the 80s? apathy seems likely or perhaps some things have actually improved? you never hear about these anymore.