"Rheal LeBlanc, head of press and external relations, said Tuesday the appointment of Wonder Woman as an Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls would end this week, a move that come less than two months after a splashy ceremony at the U.N., which attracted actresses Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman in the 1970s TV series, and Gal Gadot, who has taken on the role in the forthcoming 'Wonder Woman' film."
Your next wearable biometrics device may be your new earbuds. (Grokked from Dan)
"Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday… State officials are planning to examine about 20 Detroit precincts where ballot boxes opened during the recount had fewer ballots than poll workers had recorded on Election Day." Well now that they can frame other people for their failures (and it has no chance of changing the outcome), the State of Michigan is all about the investigation of what went wrong. Cynical? Yeah, probably. But why wasn't this shit (broken machines, poor training, etc) corrected before the election? Because now the conservative state government of Michigan can cry "voter fraud!" (Grokked from Cat Rambo)
"There are almost 1,000 surviving official documents and several contemporary histories from the Salem witch trials of 1692 and 1693. But little of this relates directly to the 19 hangings that punctuated the notorious period of hysteria and paranoia, and none of the documents record where the executions took place." (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
"Security researchers have found malware hidden in the firmware of several low-end Android smartphones and tablets, malware which is used to show ads and install unwanted apps on the devices of unsuspecting users. 26 Android device models have been found to be vulnerable. The common link between all these devices is that all are low-cost devices, mostly marketed in Russia, and which run on MediaTek chipsets." (Grokked from Dan)
And, "Almost three million Android phones, many of them used by people in the US, are vulnerable to code-execution attacks that remotely seize full control of the devices, researchers said Thursday." (Grokked from John)
"A thousand years ago, huge pyramids and earthen mounds stood where East St. Louis sprawls today in Southern Illinois. This majestic urban architecture towered over the swampy Mississippi River floodplains, blotting out the region's tiny villages. Beginning in the late 900s, word about the city spread throughout the southeast. Thousands of people visited for feasts and rituals, lured by the promise of a new kind of civilization. Many decided to stay." Excavating Cahokia. (Grokked from Ann Leckie)
"According to a lawsuit the U.S. Justice Department filed Monday in federal court in Virginia, that decision represented a discriminatory effort on the part of Culpeper County to keep Muslim worshippers from having a permanent place to gather and to pray." That makes 2, IIRC. Also, it's always funny to me (having served on a local council) how many local politicians think they can get away with discrimination because they're "too small to be sued" and "we have a reason to not approve the permit (which we've previously approved for other people)." Um, no. No you're not. And you have to justify your decisions.
"Oklahoma plans to force hospitals, nursing homes, restaurants and public schools to post signs inside public restrooms directing pregnant women where to receive services as part of an effort to reduce abortions in the state… Businesses and other organizations will have to pay an estimated $2.3 million to put up the signs because the Legislature didn't approve any money for them." But, and I'm only assuming here, no funding for long-term birth control and fact based sexual education, two things which are proven to reduce the number of abortions. And of course they won't pay for them.
"Housing discrimination happens all the time. But the shocking thing here was just how visibly the tool let advertisers discriminate. On Facebook, all they had to do was check a box." How online "personalization" advertising tools help companies discriminate and enforce racial barriers. "This cartoon is about how those personalized experiences impact whether or not we get real-world opportunities — like the chance to move to a better neighborhood. This story could very well have been about job listings or college advertisements, but it seems apt to talk about how algorithms have sorted us online and, in turn, in real life." (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
"Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference." (Grokked from Dan)
"Members of the public in European states including France, Belgium, Germany and the UK greatly overestimate their country’s Muslim population and the rate at which it is growing." You might remember "a commie in every closet" days. We're back there again. Match this up with the studies on how people misunderstand their own position within their own economy (and the number of rich people and how much wealth they hold) and basically you see the break between reality and fantasy. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
"Donald Trump's pick to be secretary of state, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, leads a company currently under investigation by state attorneys general for potentially misleading investors about what the company knew about climate change." I'm sure it's all fine. And, as others have pointed out, Mr. Tillerson is perfectly fine with fracking… when it's not in his backyard threatening his water supply and level yard.
"It's a good thing former Texas Gov. Rick Perry once forgot he wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy, because President-elect Donald Trump is nominating him to lead the agency. That's according to reports by multiple news outlets." God help us all.
"Republican Gov. John Kasich signed a bill Tuesday imposing a 20-week abortion ban while vetoing stricter provisions in a separate measure that would have barred the procedure at the first detectable fetal heartbeat." And that's why there were two bills (so he could veto the more egregious one). Also, defending that other bill is going to be an expensive case to fight.
"Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is scrubbing online content pushing the false and dangerous conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton’s campaign trafficked children through a D.C. pizzeria. A man who recently entered the pizzeria with a rifle and fired shots reportedly shared a piece of Jones’ content before the shooting; the video he shared is still on the website." We have always been at war with Eastasia. (Grokked from Michele)
"An examination by The Times of the Russian operation — based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of the cyberattack." (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
Tweet of my heart: @JosephKay76 'My wages, terms and conditions get worse every year. You don't see me striking.' MATE THESE THINGS MAY BE RELATED. (Grokked from Ann Leckie)
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