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Monday, June 10, 2013

Mundane Stuff

It all started with a box.

There is a new cylinder Mac Pro, it has a 12-core Intel Xeon (256-bit) processor, dual AMD FirePro GPUs (standard), 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory (60GBps), and PCIe flash storage with up to 1.25GBps read speeds. The system promises 7 teraflops of graphics performance, supports 4k displays, and has a host of ports including four USB 3.0, two gigabit Ethernet ports, HDMI 1.4, six Thunderbolt 2 ports that offer super-fast (20Gbps) external connectivity.
scroll through the tour here. The computer will be available later this year. I will eventually get one...

So if you were in on the "Napster" generation you messed around with ripping to MP3 and explored your alternatives. "The Free Lossless Audio Codec, FLAC, loved by audiophiles for its lossless fidelity has been updated to version 1.3.0. FLAC is an audio format similar to MP3, but 'lossless', meaning that audio compressed in FLAC doesn't suffer any loss in quality. FLAC v1.3.0 is the first update in almost 6 years and it is also the first release from the new Xiph.Org maintainer team." Big new feature: ReplayGain works for sampling rates up to 192kHz so you can finally control the volume of your obsessively ripped LPs.

 "In the wake of recent revelations from Edward Snowden, apologists for the state security apparatus are predictably hitting the airwaves. Some are even 'glad' the NSA has been doing this. A major point they emphasize is that the content of calls have remained private and it is only the metadata that they're interested in. But given how much one can tell from interpersonal connections, does the surveillance only represent a 'modest encroachments on privacy?' It is easy enough to imagine how metadata on phone calls made to and from a medical specialist could be more revealing than we'd like. But social network analysis can reveal far more. Duke sociologist Kieran Healy, in a light-hearted but telling article, shows how one father of the American Revolution could have been identified using the simplest tools of social network analysis and only a limited dataset."

In light of the recent pulling back of the OZ curtain on the government spying on it's citizens...I bet you did not know about this group of fed up people...
The Free State Project: an attempt to get 20,000 liberty-minded activists to move to one state (they chose NH) and change the political landscape. Eleven years on, the project is still growing and having an effect on statewide politics. NPR recently ran a program discussing the movement, its list of successes, and plans for the future. The FSP has a noticeable effect on politics right now — still 6,000 short of their 20,000 goal, and long before the members are scheduled to move to NH."

 The first of what likely will be many lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s dragnet phone surveillance program was lodged Sunday, declaring the newly disclosed spy operation an “outrageous breach of privacy. They are now suing president Obama and Verizon over the NSA phone scandal.

 Obama, NSA, Verizon and DoJ are being sued for $3 billion in a class action lawsuit over PRISM scandal

Deep within the National Security Agency, an elite, rarely discussed team of hackers and spies is targeting America's enemies abroad.

 Edward Snowden, the man who leaked top secret information about government surveillance, is currently in hiding in Hong Kong after revealing himself. His old employer has a listing posted for a job similar to the one Snowden held. Now You too can work as engineer at the TSA.

A really stupid idea in my opinion.

In revealing the colossal scale of the U.S. government’s eavesdropping on Americans and other people around the world, Snowden has performed a great public service that more than outweighs any breach of trust he may have committed.

 Edward Snowden is being hailed in some quarters as a hero and a whistle-blower. He is neither. He is, rather, a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison.

 The NSA whistleblower could exploit a loophole in the Chinese territory's asylum system to buy himself some valuable time.

 Former NSA Whistleblower Sheds Light on the Science of Surveillance [Q&A]

 US spy leaker Edward Snowden 'missing' in Hong Kong

 Inside the ‘Q Group,’ the Directorate Hunting Down Edward Snowden

 The real story in the NSA scandal is the collapse of journalism

A transcript of the topic between some debaters.

NSA Whistleblower Ed Snowden: From My Desk I Could Wiretap Anyone: You, A Federal Judge Or The President Of The US

And of course it is no surprise  Sales of Orwell’s ’1984′ up 69 percent on Amazon.

 Lamborghini Countach Hand Built In Man's Basement

Raisin is amazing, and obviously loves what he's doing. His tail never stops! I love how he follows a particular ball until he sinks it. (He put the 8-ball in too early, very amateur...)



 

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