With the Ontario election coming up, here is a look at ‘Gerrymandering’:
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Paying respects to Michael S. Hart
September 7, 2011 — xanthippaYesterday marks the passing of Michael S. Hart.
His is not a household name, but he has made one of the most important cultual changes in our lifetime possible: he invented eBooks and headed up the Gutenberg project. In this way, he made culture and education accessible more universally than anyone since, well, Gutenberg.
Just giving credit where credit is due…
Mark your calendarsfor the Free Thinking Film Festival in November
September 6, 2011 — xanthippaNow that the summer is winding down (noooooo!) and people are beginning to plan their activities for the fall, those living in the Ottawa area might be interested in the second annual Free Thinking Film Festival – set to begin on Remembrance Day 2011:
If you are looking for a book to read…
September 5, 2011 — xanthippaSeptember 4, 2011 — xanthippa
For a long time. I have said that one of the best ways to affect change in our society is to get onto a lot of survey lists: this is by far the easiest way to make sure that your voice comes through. After all, surveys are the very vehicle through which big business – or big government – seeks input from us. the small folk.
Hat tip to Blazing Cat Fur for the link to this survey, where the Canadian government seeks input from its citizens on how best to continue to alter the nature of our country through immigration.
Go ahead: be heard!
‘Backscatter Vans’ produce unsafe x-ray levels
September 2, 2011 — xanthippaIf you still had any doubt, SlashDot has a nice, short blurb with links in it confirming they are not the best thing for your health.
Not sure what ‘Backscatter Vans’ are?
They are vans equipped with backscatter x-ray machines which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been driving up and down the streets, especially in urban centres, scanning all the people in the viscinity – without their consent or even knowledge. (Yes – just imagine the nightmare scenario: a woman, in the early weeks of pregnancy, stops innocently nearby one of these unmarked surveilance vehicles and has her baby’s DNA scrambled…) This has been happening for quite some time – quetly, but definitely.
Now, through FOIA, there is confirmation that these machines produce x-rays at levels that are unsafe for humans.
But, don’t worry – since they are classified as covert operations machines, they do not need to adhere to them old-fashioned safety standards!
Genes are ‘patentable’ and ‘open source’ may become impossible…
September 1, 2011 — xanthippaThere have been some unpleasant rumblings from the legal circles on a few important issues.
First, some seriously misinformed courts have ruled that ‘genes’ are not a product of nature and are therefore ‘patentable’. The upshot of this spells huge obstacles to cancer and other important medical research (patents on genes make it too expensive to do life-saving medical research) – and in my never-humble-opinion, will eventually lead to a new form of slavery where you will not actually ‘own’ your own genes…
And on another, no less important front, if Oracle gets its way, ‘open source’ could become impossible in practice.
Not good.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 