Links May 2014

Charmian Gooch gave an interesting TED talk about her efforts to fight organised crime and corruption by prohibiting anonymous companies [1]. The idea of a company is to protect the owner from unlimited liability not to protect them from law enforcement.

Dr Nerdlove has an insightful article about sexual harassment in geek culture [2].

Rebecca Rose wrote an insightful article for Jezebel about the worse bullying advice ever, her summary is that it should be called “Ways We Can Get You Goddamn Kids to Act So We Never Have to Deal With Your Problems Ever” [3].

In the wake of the Heardbleed bug Imperial Violet wrote an informative article explaining why revocation checks isn’t the solution [4].

Martin Lukacs and Shiri Pasternak wrote an insightful article about the Canadian government’s attempts to stop Canadian aboriginies from exercising their legal rights [5]. I bet that the Australian government is doing the same things.

Nelson Groom wrote an interesting interview with Norrie May Welby, the first recognised agender person in Australia [6]. Marriage equality is bound to happen soon in Australia, now that the government officially recognises non-binary gender people it can’t refuse them the right to get married and therefore the straight/gay marriage distinction isn’t relevant.

BDA Technology has an interesting article on choosing fonts to make text more readable for dyslexic people [7].

Eamon Waterford wrote an informative article for the ABC about how early-intervention social policies save significant amounts of tax money [8]. Conservatives claim to want to save money and try to cut such programs which costs everyone in the long term.

Greta Christina wrote an insightful article for Salon about why religious people want atheists to lie and pretend to believe [9].

Chris Mooney wrote an informative URL about a machine to test whether someone is liberal or conservative [10]. Paul Rosenberg wrote an informative article on the link between conservatism, evil, and psychopathy [11]. The next logical step is to treat conservatism as a mental health problem.

Sociological Images has an interesting article by Jay Livingston about the hypocrisy of “conservative” tax policies [12].

Scientific American reprinted an article from The Conversation by Elaine McKewon about the climate deniers who intimidated a journal into retracting an article about their belief in conspiracy theories [13]. It seems obvious that the climate deniers are the ones who conspire.

Ben Caldecott wrote an interesting article for the ABC about the fossil fuel divestment campaign [14]. It seems that this is getting some success already, as renewable energy will soon be cheaper than coal power this could kill off coal.

Mark Taylor wrote an interesting blog post titled “Observations of an Internet Middleman” about the operations of Level3 and Internet peering [15]. He explains how monopoly Telcos throttle their customers’ Internet access.

Matt Savoy wrote an informative and disturbing article about the fact that US cops are twice as likely to beat their wives as the general population [16]. Apparently the police hierarchy aren’t interested in prosecuting such crimes.

Paul Rosenberg wrote an insightful article about mythos vs logos and the conservative approach to relity [17]. One interesting point he makes is that white men (and members of privileged groups generally) fear a loss of status more than more realistic concerns (such as global warming).

Nick wrote an interesting blog post about using GPG encrypted email on an Android phone [18]. I should get this going on my phone.

• [1] http://tinyurl.com/lyrdepn
• [2] http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2014/04/ending-sexual-harassment-geek-culture/
• [3] http://tinyurl.com/o2ueqcm
• [4] https://www.imperialviolet.org/2014/04/19/revchecking.html
• [5] http://tinyurl.com/plqdn97
• [6] http://tinyurl.com/lxbg4fp
• [7] http://bdatech.org/what-technology/typefaces-for-dyslexia/
• [8] http://tinyurl.com/lycqvng
• [9] http://tinyurl.com/ldvrztn
• [10] http://tinyurl.com/mtk9gxs
• [11] http://www.salon.com/2014/05/01/conservatives_evil_and_psychopathy_science_makes_the_link/
• [12] http://tinyurl.com/kvqfjf4
• [13] http://tinyurl.com/ko5ykrr
• [14] http://tinyurl.com/kltjar4
• [15] http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-internet-middleman/
• [16] http://tinyurl.com/oqoqvey
• [17] http://tinyurl.com/n5e6945
• [18] http://geekyschmidt.com/2010/12/09/gpg-on-your-android-phone