Semantic Infiltration
By Paul D. Miller | Notes from the Edge of Digital Culture
WHO: 90 percent of world's population breathe dirty air
UN body's new report blames air pollution for global "health emergency" killing millions per year.<p>Nine out of 10 people globally live in places with poor air quality, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, blaming a worldwide air pollution crisis for being a major factor in millions of …
GeographyThe Filmmaking Couple Kidnapped by Kim Jong-il to Put North Korean Cinema on the Map
Some stories are spread for their strangeness. Take, for example, the story of famed actress Choi Eun-hee and filmmaker Shin Sang-ok, who were kidnapped in 1978 by North Korean agents of notorious dictator Kim Jong-il. It's a well-known story in Korea and serves as the subject of a 2015 book, <i>A Kim</i> …
Kim Jong-IlA Brief History of the Right’s Racist Hate: From 1885 to Trump
Since the late 1800s, the wolf at the door has taken many different forms: Jews, African Americans, Catholics, Communists, humanists, institutions of …
The Falsity of False Equivalence
If Donald Trump becomes president, the news media will bear a large share of the blame. I know some (many) journalists are busy denying responsibility, but this is absurd, and I think they know it. As Nick Kristof says, polls showing that the public considers Hillary Clinton, a minor fibber at …
Liberal NewsHacking, Cryptography, and the Countdown to Quantum Computing
Given the recent ubiquity of cyber-scandals—Colin Powell’s stolen e-mails, Simone Biles’s leaked medical records, half a billion plundered Yahoo accounts—you might get the impression that hackers can already break into just about any computer they want. But the situation could be a lot worse. The …
EncryptionThe universe is officially going nowhere, scientists confirm
The universe isn’t going anywhere, scientists have confirmed.<p>A new study shows that the universe is expanding the same way in all directions, not …
This Chilling New Netflix Documentary Will Connect America's Prison System to Slavery
13th comes from Selma director Ava DuVernay.<p>As true crime takes hold of the entertainment industry, the American criminal justice system has been examined through dozens of cases, angles, and programs ranging from narrative historical fiction to investigative journalism. Given the simmering racial …
NetflixAnimated Short “Voyager” Imagines the Spacecraft’s Return to Earth
In 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 were sent hurtling off into space on missions to explore our solar system and beyond, carrying 12-inch, gold-plated copper …
Datebook: Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) at The Drawing Center, New York
The Drawing Center in New York will host a performance art event titled “Drawing Sound III: Composing the City” on September 28, 2016.The program …
DJsThe Black Lives Matter Founders Are Among the World's Greatest Leaders
They succeeded where Occupy Wall Street failed.<p><i>The staff of Fortune and a panel of experts recently assembled our 2016 list of the World’s Greatest Leaders. Here’s a short profile of three of them.</i><p>Modern social movements often fizzle after their moment in the national news (Occupy Wall Street and …
Black Lives MatterIt's good to talk? Actually, no, I'll send you a message, say mobile phone users
The mobile telephone call could soon be extinct, research shows amid a surge in Britons of all ages instead using email, video and social media.<p>Almost one in three respondents in a major survey claimed they had not made any standard voice calls on their handsets in the last week.<p>In 2012, four …
PhonesA Haunting Short Film Set in a World Where Evolution Happens Rapidly -- And Is Often Deadly
GIF<p>In the dystopian world of <i>Dust</i>, evolution occurs at a breakneck rate, forming organisms that may hold miraculous powers or trigger deadly plagues. …
Short FilmsThe Importance of Mentors: Learning From Ansel Adams
Back in the late '90s—long before websites and other digital portals became the showcase for photographers—I made regular visits to New York City to share my portfolio with magazine clients.<p>On one of those visits, while walking out of the building that houses <i>Rolling Stone</i> and <i>Men's Journal</i>, I …
I asked 10 historians to nominate the 'worst' year in history — here are their picks
Terror attacks, Zika, Brexit, police shootings, Syria, Trump, record-hot temperatures, the losses of Prince and David Bowie—this has been one unrelenting turn around the calendar.<p>Have terrifying events truly piled up on each other in 2016, in a way they didn’t in any other year in human history? Or …
TerrorismThe haunting song of climate change, in D minor
Cross-posted from Climate Central<p>Despite spending countless hours of her PhD at Stanford making visits to remote stretches of Alaska, poring over …
EnvironmentalismGoogle's Project Shield helps any news site beat DDoS attacks
Independent news sources can get help from Google's massive infrastructure to stay online.<p>The distributed denial-of-service attack, better know as a DDoS, is one of the more basic but effective ways of shutting down a website you might want to torment. Often, hackers use them to silence sites who …
GoogleSecurity writer recovers from massive revenge cyberattack
The incident raises questions about journalism in an era when it's easy to force websites offline.<p>Journalists are no stranger to making enemies bent on retaliation. However, it's becoming increasingly difficult to survive that retaliation in internet era... just ask security writer Brian Krebs. An …
Security17 Science Fiction Books That Forever Changed The Genre
Speculative fiction is the literature of change and discovery. But every now and then, a book comes along that changes the rules of science fiction …
Andrew Sullivan: My Distraction Sickness — and Yours
I was sitting in a large meditation hall in a converted novitiate in central Massachusetts when I reached into my pocket for my iPhone. A woman in …
MeditationScience Shows How to Achieve Your Full Potential
Intelligence is not a monolithic capacity but varies over the years. In fact, when we are young we have a smoother intelligence and with the passing …
IntelligenceFrequency illusion and exploding Samsung phones
Just because you're hearing about Samsung phones exploding, doesn't mean it's actually happening more often.<p>Did you hear?! A Samsung phone caught …
SamsungNasa: Earth is warming at a pace 'unprecedented in 1,000 years'
The planet is warming at a pace not experienced within the past 1,000 years, at least, making it “very unlikely” that the world will stay within a crucial temperature limit agreed by nations just last year, according to Nasa’s top climate scientist.<p>This year has already seen scorching heat around …
NASARecalculating the Climate Math
The future of humanity depends on math. And the numbers in a new study released Thursday are the most ominous yet.<p>Those numbers spell out, in simple …
With Polyphasic Sleep, You Can Thrive on as Little as Two Hours per Night
Nikola Tesla, Franz Kafka, and Winston Churchill all practiced polyphasic sleep. <br>Read More
SleepThe price of connection: 'surveillance capitalism'
Shifts in our communication infrastructures have reshaped the very possibilities of social order driven by markets and commercial exploitation. Marc …