Links April 2014

Yves Rossy is the Jetman, he flys with a wing and four jet engines strapped to his body, he gave an interesting TED talk about flying along with some exciting videos [1].

Larry Brilliant gave an informative and inspiring TED talk about stopping pandemics [2]. I thought that Smallpox was the last disease to be eradicated but I was wrong.

Michael Shermer gave an interesting TED talk about pattern recognition and self deception [3]. It’s a pity that the kissing prank shown at the end only pranked women, they should be less sexist and prank men too.

Raffaello D Andrea gave an interesting TED presentation about “Athletic” quadcopters [4]. It’s very impressive and has the potential for several new human/machine sports.

Lisa D wrote an insightful article about Prejudice Spillover discussing the way that people who aren’t in minority groups only seem to care about injustice when a member of the majority is targetted by mistake [5].

Ron Garret wrote an insightful post about the Divine Right of Billionaires which debunks some stupid arguments by a billionaire [6]. Ron says that “it’s often instructive to examine incorrect arguments, especially when those arguments are advanced by smart people” and demonstrates it in this post.

Lisa D wrote an interesting post about her problems with financial aid bureaucracy [7]. She intended the post to be a personal one about her situation, but I think it illustrates problems with the various aid programs. If aid was available to her with less bureaucracy then she would be doing paid work, completing her studies, and heading towards post-graduate studies.

Mark Shuttleworth wrote an insightful article about ACPI, security, and device tree [8]. It’s the first time I’ve seen a good argument for device tree.

TED presented an interesting video-conference interview with Edward Snowden [9]. It’s unusually long by TED standards but definitely worth watching.

Tom Meagher (who’s wife was raped and murdered two years ago) wrote an insightful article about rape culture [10].

Key Lay (the Victorian Chief Commissioner of Police) wrote a good article encouraging men to act to stop violence against women [11]. It’s particularly noteworthy when a senior police officer speaks out about this given the difficulties women have had in reporting such crimes to police.

Emily Baker wrote an insightful article about the lack of support for soldiers who survive war [12]. A lot of attention and money is spent remembering the soldiers who died in the field but little on those who live suffer afterwards, more soldiers die from suicide than enemy fire.

Daniel Pocock wrote an informative article about the failings of SMS authentication for online banking [13]. While he has good points I think he’s a little extreme. Stopping the least competent attackers is still a significant benefit as most potential attackers aren’t that competent.

Jess Zimmerman wrote an interesting article for Time about the “Not All Men” argument that is a current trend in derailing discussions about the treatment of women [14].

The Belle Jar has an insightful article “Why Won’t You Educate Me About Feminism” about some ways that men pretend to care about the treatment of women [15].

Jon Evans wrote an article for Tech Crunch about the “Honywell Bubble Count” measure of diversity in people you follow on social media [16]. Currently on Twitter I follow 57 accounts of which 15 are companies and organisations, so I follow 42 people. I follow 13 women 31%, for a visible minority group other than my own it’s 2/42 or 5%, for people who live in other countries I think it’s 8/42 (although it’s difficult to determine where some people live) which is 19%. So my Honywell number is 55.

The Top Stocks forum has an interesting post by a Coal Seam Gas (CSG) worker [17]. It seems that CSG is even worse than I thought.

Ashe Dryden wrote an informative post for Model View Culture about the backlash that members of minority groups (primarily women) receive when they speak out [18].

• [1] http://www.ted.com/talks/yves_rossy_fly_with_the_jetman
• [2] http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pandemics
• [3] http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception
• [4] http://tinyurl.com/pwa7hwy
• [5] http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com/131742.html
• [6] http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/02/the-divine-right-of-billionaires_22.html
• [7] http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com/132730.html
• [8] http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1332
• [9] http://www.ted.com/talks/edward_snowden_here_s_how_we_take_back_the_internet
• [10] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-18/meagher-the-danger-of-the-monster-myth/5399108
• [11] http://www.vicpolicenews.com.au/blogs/93-oursay/1302-ccp-ken-lay-on-family-violence.html
• [12] http://www.examiner.com.au/story/2248712/dont-forget-about-those-war-veterans-who-remain/
• [13] http://danielpocock.com/sms-logins-an-illusion-of-security
• [14] http://time.com/79357/not-all-men-a-brief-history-of-every-dudes-favorite-argument/
• [15] http://bellejar.ca/2014/02/22/why-wont-you-educate-me-about-feminism/
• [16] http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/26/whats-your-honeywell-bubble-count/
• [17] http://www.topstocks.com.au/stock_discussion_forum.php?action=show_thread&threadid=1106338
• [18] http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/dissent-unheard-of