Saturday, December 18
Sowellisms
THOMAS SOWELL
He's still alive at 87, but retired. So we don't hear much from him these days.
Sowell grew up in Harlem, served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War,
graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard, Masters from Columbia, economist,
social theorist, philosopher, author, Senior Fellow Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, National Humanities Medal, Francis Boyer award.
MANY COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES ARE OPENLY OPPOSED TO PERMITTING
MR. SOWELL TO LECTURE THEIR STUDENTS AND FACULTY.
Forget it – we’re there now!!
“It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites. ”
― Thomas Sowell
M. C. Escher
His work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyperbolic geometry, and tessellations. Although Escher believed he had no mathematical ability, he interacted with the mathematicians George Pólya, Roger Penrose, Harold Coxeter and crystallographer Friedrich Haag, and conducted his own research into tessellation.
Early in his career, he drew inspiration from nature, making studies of insects, landscapes, and plants such as lichens, all of which he used as details in his artworks. He traveled in Italy and Spain, sketching buildings, townscapes, architecture and the tilings of the Alhambra and the Mezquita of Cordoba, and became steadily more interested in their mathematical structure.
Escher's art became well known among scientists and mathematicians, and in popular culture, especially after it was featured by Martin Gardner in his April 1966 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. Apart from being used in a variety of technical papers, his work has appeared on the covers of many books and albums. He was one of the major inspirations of Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach. SOURCE: Wikipedia
Friday, December 17
Riddles
RIDDLE 5 IS AMAZING. IT SHARPENS THOSE GENES IN YOUR BRAIN AND STALLS ALZHEIMER'S FOR YEARS ….
1. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven't eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?
2. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?
3. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away ?
4. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday?
5. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is highly unusual though. Study it and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching!
THE ANSWERS TO ALL FIVE THE RIDDLES ARE BELOW:
Don’t cheat!!
Answers:
1. The third room. Lions that haven't eaten in three years are dead. That one was easy, right?
2. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it, and hung it up to dry (shot; held under water; and hung).
3. Charcoal, as it is used in barbecuing.
4. Sure you can name three consecutive days, yesterday, today, and tomorrow!
5. The letter "e" which is the most common letter used in the English language, does not appear even once in the paragraph.
I’ll be getting Alzheimer’s any time now.
How did you do?
1. The third room. Lions that haven't eaten in three years are dead. That one was easy, right?
2. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it, and hung it up to dry (shot; held under water; and hung).
3. Charcoal, as it is used in barbecuing.
4. Sure you can name three consecutive days, yesterday, today, and tomorrow!
5. The letter "e" which is the most common letter used in the English language, does not appear even once in the paragraph.
I’ll be getting Alzheimer’s any time now.
How did you do?
Facial Recognition
GETTY IMAGES
An Australian firm which claims to have a database of more than 10 billion facial images is facing a potential £17m fine over its handling of personal data in the UK.
The Information Commissioner's Office said it had significant concerns about Clearview AI, whose facial recognition software is used by police forces. It has told the firm to stop processing UK personal data and delete any it has. Clearview said the regulator's claims were "factually and legally incorrect".
The company - which has been inviooted to make representations - said it was considering an appeal and "further action". It has already been found to have broken Australian privacy law but is seeking a review of that ruling.
'Google search for faces'
Clearview AI's system allows a user - for example, a police officer seeking to identify a suspect - to upload a photo of a face and find matches in a database of billions of images it has collected from the internet and social media.
The system then provides links to where matching images appeared online.The firm has promoted its service to police as resembling a "Google search for faces".
But in a statement, the UK's Information Commissioner said that Clearview's database was likely to include "a substantial number of people from the UK" whose data may have been gathered without people's knowledge.
The firm's services are understood to have been trialled by a number of UK law enforcement agencies, but that was discontinued and Clearview AI does not have any UK customers. The ICO said its "preliminary view" was that the firm appeared to have failed to comply with UK data protection laws by:
- Failing to process the information of UK citizens fairly
- Failing to have a process in place to stop the data being retained indefinitely
- Failing to have a lawful reason for collecting the information
- And failing to inform people in the UK about what is happening to their data.
"UK data protection legislation does not stop the effective use of technology to fight crime. But to enjoy public trust and confidence in their products, technology providers must ensure people's legal protections are respected and complied with."
The decision is provisional and the ICO said any representations by Clearview AI will be carefully considered before a final ruling is made in the middle of next year. READ MORE...
A Trailblazing Aboriginal Actor
GETTY IMAGES...David Gulpilil's film career spanned 50 yearsOne of Australia's greatest actors, David Gulpilil (Kingfisher) Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu, died last week aged 68, following a battle with lung cancer. In accordance with custom he will be returned to the place of his birth, known to Aboriginal people as his Country, for ceremony.
The actor, dancer, storyteller, and cultural crusader was celebrated across the globe for his contribution to cinema and his role in improving representation of Indigenous peoples and culture.
A proud Yolŋu (Aboriginal group) man anchored in kinship, sharing and responsibility, he described his experience living in the two worlds of Yolŋu culture and the Western world of fame as: "Left side, my Country. Right side, white man's world. This one tiptoe in caviar and champagne, this one in the dirt of my Dreamtime."
Warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: this article contains images of someone who has died. His family has given permission to use his name and image.
Born on his homeland of Marwuyu in Arnhem Land, the Northern Territory of the continent known as Australia, Gulpilil was from the Mandhalpuyngu clan. His name - his totem - Gulpilil represents the kingfisher.
Raised on Country following the Yolŋu knowledge system of connection and balance with the universe, he was a skilled hunter, tracker, musician, painter, ceremonial dancer and trustee of cultural structures and laws.
After the death of his mother and father he went to the Maningrida mission school. It was here that his phenomenal talent for ceremonial dancing was spotted by English film director Nicolas Roeg, who cast the teenager as a lead character in Walkabout (1971), a story acknowledging the role of Aboriginal man as the saviour of two white children stranded on foreign, black country.
Gulpilil's compelling performance was the first time in Australian film that an Aboriginal character was depicted as charismatic, powerful, and intrinsically sexy. He was miscredited in the credits as Gampilil.
The film flopped at the Australian box office but the elegance and raw masculinity of Gulpilil's performance made international headlines, and the film is now credited as 'one of the greats'. READ MORE...
Japan's Blue Hydrogen
Activists looking out over Tokyo Bay at a new coal-fired power station under construction
It's a glorious autumn afternoon and I'm standing on a hillside looking out over Tokyo Bay. Beside me is Takao Saiki, a usually mild-mannered gentleman in his 70s. But today Saiki-San is angry. "It's a total joke," he says, in perfect English. "Just ridiculous!"
The cause of his distress is a giant construction site blocking our view across the bay - a 1.3-gigawatt coal-fired power station in the making.
"I don't understand why we still have to burn coal to generate electricity," says Saiki-San's friend, Rikuro Suzuki. "This plant alone will emit more than seven million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year!"
Suzuki-San's point is a good one. Shouldn't Japan be cutting its coal consumption, not increasing it, at a time of great concern about coal's impact on the climate? So why the coal? The answer is the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
In 2010 about one third of Japan's electricity came from nuclear power, and there were plans to build a lot more. But then the 2011 disaster hit, and all Japan's nuclear power plants were shut down. Ten years later most remain closed - and there is a lot of resistance to restarting them. READ MORE...
Thursday, December 16
Camel Beauty Pageant
AFPImage...Judges used "advanced" technology to uncover tampering with contestants in the pageant
More than 40 camels have been disqualified from Saudi Arabia's beauty pageant for receiving Botox injections and other cosmetic enhancements.
The contest is a highlight of the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, where $66m (£45m) in prize money is at stake.
Key attributes include long, droopy lips, a big nose and a shapely hump.
Judges used "advanced" technology to uncover tampering withcamels on a scale not seen before, the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
All contestants were first led into a hall where their external appearance and movements were examined by specialists, it said.
Their heads, necks and torsos were then scanned with X-ray and 3D ultrasound machines, and samples were taken for genetic analysis and other tests.
Twenty-seven contestants in the cup for Majaheim camels alone were disqualified for having stretched body parts and 16 were ejected for having received injections, according to SPA.
The organisers of the pageant, the Camel Club, were cited as saying that they were "keen to halt all acts of tampering and deception in the beautification of camels" and promising to "impose strict penalties on manipulators". READ MORE...
Malta Legalizes Cannibus
REUTERS
Malta has become the first EU country to legalise the cultivation and personal use of cannabis.
Adults will be allowed to carry up to seven grams of cannabis, and grow no more than four plants at home.
But smoking it in public or in front of children will be illegal.
Several other nations have similar plans, such as Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Countries like the Netherlands tolerate cannabis use in certain circumstances.
Malta's parliament voted in favour of the reform on Tuesday afternoon, with the bill winning 36 votes in favour and 27 against.
Equality Minister, Owen Bonnici, said the "historic" move would stop small-time cannabis users from facing the criminal justice system, and would "curb drug trafficking by making sure that [users] now have a safe and regularised way from where they can obtain cannabis".
However, Malta's opposition Nationalist Party voted against the change.
In October, its leader Bernard Grech - who initially supported the new law - warned it would "only lead to the strengthening of the illegal market, with organised crime taking advantage," according to The Times. READ MORE...
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