Month: April 2014

Cell phone searches at the Supreme Court: a guide to today’s big privacy case (and where to learn more) — Tech News and Analysis

http://gigaom.com/2014/04/29/cell-phone-searches-at-the-supreme-court-a-guide-to-todays-big-privacy-case-and-where-to-learn-more/

Transcripts from hearings should be available this afternoon.  Plus all the analysis.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Article: Verizon fought the NSA’s metadata collection program but lost anyway

Verizon fought the NSA’s metadata collection program but lost anyway

http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/25/verizon-loses-constitutional-fight-over-metadata/

I’ve been quiet on the NSA snooping front lately.  This short article reminded me that Big Brother continues to watch us.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Tom J Martinez PhotoBlog: Blood Moon and Great Blue Heron

http://tomjmartinez.blogspot.com/2014/04/blood-moon-and-great-blue-heron_25.html?m=1

Fellow ASKC member and astrophotography Tom Martinez relates his recent adventures with the Blood Moon and Blue Heron.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

How America’s Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-americas-leading-science-fiction-authors-are-shaping-your-future-180951169/?no-ist

Great quote from this article:

That’s why ‘big ideas’ were prevalent in the 1930s, ’40s and partly in the ’50s. People felt the future would be better, one way or another. Now it doesn’t feel that way. Rich people take nine-tenths of everything and force the rest of us to fight over the remaining tenth, and if we object to that, we are told we are espousing class warfare and are crushed. They toy with us for their entertainment, and they live in ridiculous luxury while we starve and fight each other. This is what The Hunger Games embodies in a narrative, and so the response to it has been tremendous, as it should be.”

— Kim Stanley Robinson (emphasis added)

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Kirk Got Something Right

According to io9, Captain Kirk is right when it comes to diplomacy, despite (or because of) his bad press.

Kirk, in particular, comes in for a lot of bad press, as a captain whose life gets horizontal in ways that have nothing to do with gravitational anomalies.

Chortling aside, the article above had some interesting observations.  Enjoy!

The Red Knight by Miles Cameron (5 stars)

This us next up in my ebook reading queue, after I finish Red Seas Under Red Skies.  In the meantime, enjoy my uncle’s thoughts on The Red Knight by Miles Cameron, which also comes highly recommended by Stefan Raets at his Far Beyond Reality blog.