Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Upcoming Appearances • October 19, 2011 in Washington, DC: Speaking at "What will turn us on in 2030?", a conference on energy futures.
• March 29-31, 2012 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
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Leaky ex-Scientology bigwig Marty Rathbun reveals that the Church of Scientology has been running deep "public records checks" (including dumpster-diving and investigating friends) on South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, looking for damaging/discrediting material: "Scientology's standard procedure would be to put its private eyes on a complete check of these people and their property, legal, and other public records. If they owed taxes, or had been in messy divorces, or had been arrested, Scientology would soon know about it."
— Cory
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Charlie Stross goes on a tear with "A cultural thought experiment," looking at what the wealth of the 1 percent means, what it can't buy them, and how it might be viewed from a future society.
The diminishing marginal utility law dictates that the more money we have, the less utility we get from any additional incremental gain. And this bites the top 1% very hard indeed.
Examine the world around us from the point of view of someone with a net income of $5M/year ...
Food is essentially free; you can afford to spend $1000 per meal, three meals a day, in the most expensive restaurants in London or Tokyo or Manhattan, and not make a dent in your income. (Oddly, even the hyper-rich don't typically spend $1000 on lunch every day: a more realistic expectation might be to dine out expensively twice a week, for $100K/year, and have the best of everything in-house the rest of the time, with a live-in chef, for another $100K/year.)
Clothing is essentially free; want a different $5000 suit for every day of the week? That's going to set you back only $35K! Spouse wants a dozen designer evening gowns a year? That's still going to be on the low side of $200K.
Housing is essentially free; $1000/day will rent you a penthouse suite in a five star hotel in Manhattan, while your mortgageable income will let you buy a palace in the $5-20M range. (There are places where you may need to spend more than $20M to buy a house; but not many of them.)
You don't have to do housework, interior decorating, cooking, driving, DIY home improvements, flight booking, or shopping (unless you want to). People can be hired to do any of the above for rates ranging from $15K to $100K per year, depending on the complexity of the job. And you earn $100K per week.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Teller (of Penn & Teller fame) is working on a stage adaptation of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. Teller's got an eclectic, less-well-known scholarly/serious bent, having contributed to peer-reviewed work on the neuroscience of magic as well as directing an acclaimed performance of Macbeth. From the early notes, it sounds like this adaptation will play off Teller's advocacy for atheism.
Unlike William Friedkin’s film of The Exorcist (which isn’t anywhere near the best film of all time, just for the record), this play will “focus on the psychological aspects and questions of faith.” At least, that’s according to Ken Novice, the MD of New York’s Geffen Playhouse, where the play will premiere in July 2012. I can see that the film is at least supposed to focus on those same things, and when it works, it’s because it does...
A man carries an injured girl after an earthquake in Tabanli village. REUTERS/Abdurrahman Antakyali/Anadolu Agency.
Turkey's Kandilli Observatory estimates that 1,000 or more people were killed today in a powerful earthquake in southeast Turkey's Van province.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay told reporters some 10 buildings had collapsed in Van city and around 25-30 buildings collapsed in the nearby district of Ercis.
Turkey's Hürriyet daily newspaper has coverage. For those interested in viewing local broadcasts, TRT-TV is the transmission to try and find via satellite or online re-streaming services.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
A new DARPA solicition seeks "swarming robot space vampires" (in JWZ's evocative phrasing) to disassemble and harvest valuable components from decommissioned satellites before they're decommissioned, to use as spare parts for the stuff that's still functional:
More than $300 billion worth of satellites are estimated to be in the geosynchronous orbit (GEO—22,000 miles above the earth). Many of these satellites have been retired due to normal end of useful life, obsolescence or failure; yet many still have valuable components, such as antennas, that could last much longer than the life of the satellite. When satellites in GEO “retire,” they are put into a GEO disposal or “graveyard” orbit. That graveyard potentially holds tens to more than a hundred retired satellites that have components that could be repurposed – with the willing knowledge and sanction of the satellite’s owner. Today, DoD deploys new, replacement satellites at high cost—one of the primary drivers of the high cost is the launch costs, which is dependent on the weight and volume of antennas. The repurposing of existing, retired antennas from the graveyard represents a potential for significant cost savings.
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On October 23, 2001, Steve Jobs and Apple unveiled the first iPod: 5GB of music packed into a white box no bigger than a deck of cards. More on the history, and Tony Fadell's role in developing the device: Macworld. — Xeni
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
PA Design sells die-cut post-its shaped like wristwatches, gummed so they can be joined at the wrist. A cute way to put notes where you're sure to glance at them.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
The network of global corporate control (PDF), a study published in PLOS One, analyzes the ownership structures of the world's corporations and finds a tightly-knit cluster of 147 entities control 40 percent of the world's wealth. Not only is this creepy inasmuch as it puts a lot of power into a small number of hands, but it also suggests that the governance of much of the world's wealth is closely correlated, so one disaster could sweep like wildfire across them all:
The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.
When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Some damned good fiction advice from Teresa Nielsen Hayden, just back from teaching the Viable Paradise science fiction/fantasy writing workshop on Martha's Vineyard. Rules 3 and 4 are particularly nice stuff, just the sort of thing I find myself paying attention to as I work on the sequel to Little Brother:
3. Recycle your characters. Give preference to characters already used in earlier episodes, or to characters connected with them, when you’re peopling later events. Characters are made more interesting by being reused, and it increases the overall consequentiality of the story. One-time single-purpose characters are occasionally necessary, but they don’t support as much weight.
Cherish your good secondary characters. They’re infinitely useful.
4. See if you already have one. Whenever you need something new — prop, plot thread, setting, minor character — go back through the parts of the story you’ve already written and see whether you can find it there. It’s surprising how often the exact thing you need is already sitting there in plain sight.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Since you know that November 1 is the day that retailers bust out their Christmas dross, why not combine Hallowe'en and Xmas with this zombie nativity scene from Etsy seller fetishforethics?
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Etsy seller GeekyCuteCrochet (and there's a descriptive moniker for you -- a 16-character repudiation of the theory that real names make for better commerce than nyms) has these sweet little crocheted combustible lemons, $12 a throw.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
"Toronto Tempo," a 3:42 timelapse video of Toronto captures the city's many iconic rhythms and gaits, from the subway's rocketing roar to the deceptive stillness of the lakeshore to the beetling crowds of the Eaton Centre and the St Lawrence Market. It's beautifully edited, even if it sports the obligatory ethereal timelapse music.
Video Link: Willie Nelson and his wife wrote this poem in solidarity with the "Occupy" movement. "We're the ones we've been waiting for," they read. Disclosure: I love this totally awesome dude, and he can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.
(via Greg Mitchell's excellent OWS liveblog at The Nation)
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Etsy seller CarryTheWhat created these 3D printed Minecraft pickaxes and swords. They're handpainted to your spec: "wood, stone, iron, gold or diamond available." There's a Thingiverse model for you to download and print at home, too.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
The ACLU of Tennessee has brought suit against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a warrantless raid on an apartment complex where ICE officers believed some illegal immigrants were housed. After ICE agents broke into the complex and were asked for a warrant, one agent reportedly said, "We don't need a warrant, we're ICE," and, gesturing to his genitals, "the warrant is coming out of my balls."
Among the plaintiffs are U.S. citizens, including a child detained and interrogated while playing soccer on the playground simply because of the color of his skin. Looking Latino and speaking Spanish is not enough to justify probable cause for questioning and arresting a person. Another plaintiff was carted away in handcuffs in front of his frightened and crying children.
Unfortunately, the Clairmont raid is not an isolated incident. As the Department of Homeland Security and its enforcement arm, ICE, expand their aggressive immigration enforcement policies, all too often the constitutional rights afforded to everyone living in the United States are violated. Even as ICE carries out its mission, it must act in accordance with the law and in a manner that is humane.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Ransom Riggs's photo-essay on the airplane graveyard in the Mojave Desert features astounding imagery of ancient, rotting aviation hardware bleaching its bones in the desert sun.
I thought it was a mirage the first time I saw it. I was driving through the wastes of the Mojave Desert, two hours from anywhere, when off in the shimmering distance appeared the silhouettes of a hundred parked jetliners. I pulled off and tried to get closer to them, but a mean-looking perimeter fence keeps onlookers far away. All I could do was stand and stare, wondering what the hell this massive armada of airplanes was doing here, silently baking in the 110 degree heat. For years afterward I’d ask people what they knew about it, and I kept hearing the same thing: the place has been on lockdown since 9/11, and they won’t let civilians anywhere near the boneyard. But last week my luck changed — I met a very nice fellow who works there, and with a minimum of cajoling on my part he agreed to take me beyond the high-security fence and show me around. Of course, I brought my camera.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
The Canadian Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that linking does not constitute libel, arguing that subjecting linkers to the same libel risks as publishers would cause the Web to collapse. This reverses earlier, free-speech-chilling decisions by lower Canadian courts and is a watershed for Internet freedom in Canada.
"The court recognises that simply posting a link to material that may be libellous is a far cry from publishing or repeating the libel, let alone endorsing what has been said in the linked post," Dean Jobb, a journalism professor at University of King's College told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
"Occupy the Classroom," Nicholas D. Kristof's NYT op-ed, argues that the fight for economic justice needs to include a demand for universal access to high quality early childhood education, as this is the key to social mobility.
“This is where inequality starts,” said Kathleen McCartney, the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as she showed me a chart demonstrating that even before kindergarten there are significant performance gaps between rich and poor students. Those gaps then widen further in school.
“The reason early education is important is that you build a foundation for school success,” she added. “And success breeds success.”
One common thread, whether I’m reporting on poverty in New York City or in Sierra Leone, is that a good education tends to be the most reliable escalator out of poverty. Another common thread: whether in America or Africa, disadvantaged kids often don’t get a chance to board that escalator.
Maybe it seems absurd to propose expansion of early childhood education at a time when budgets are being slashed. Yet James Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, has shown that investments in early childhood education pay for themselves. Indeed, he argues that they pay a return of 7 percent or more — better than many investments on Wall Street.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
TheNewHobbyist has posted an Instructable for re-creating the "Singing Busts" effect from the Disney Haunted Mansion rides, using an Arduino to control the effect so that it springs to life when trick-or-treaters step up to your porch.
After I started learning to program my Ardunio this evolved into a photocell actuated video "on demand" Halloween display. I used an example I found on Arkadian.eu to control a Dell Mini 9 netbook running AutoHotKey. When the photocell switch is tripped the Arduino sends a serial message to the Dell laptop which is converted to a keystroke by AAC Keys which in turn triggers the below AutoHotKey Script and finally plays back using VLC. The "AAC Keys" could probably be replaced by setting up your Arduino as a USB HID but at the time this was all a foreign language to me.
My latest book, Made by Hand, in paperback on Oct. 25
[Video Link] An interesting 30-minute documentary about 2011 CrossFit champion, Annie Thorisdottir. I've never been to a CrossFit gym before. The workouts look intense!
Join filmmaker Sevan Matossian as he captures the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games winner Annie Thorisdottir back at her Iceland box, CrossFit BC Island. She reveals more about herself as an athlete and coach.
Thorisdottir credits her background as a gymnast for much of her success in CrossFit. She started coaching gymnastics at age 15 and has been coaching CrossFit for almost two years.
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
The ACLU has sent a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder documenting its disturbing research into the use of racial profiling in the FBI's anti-terrorism efforts. According to the ACLU, the FBI practices "racial profiling on an industrial scale," targetting people of Muslim faith on the basis of their religion rather than any violent tendencies or beliefs.
Meanwhile, the ACLU has filed numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests – some backed up with lawsuits – to find out how the FBI is using racial and ethnic data as part of its investigations.
“The documents we have started to receive confirm our worst fears,” ACLU officials wrote to Attorney General Holder. “Although often heavily redacted, these documents, obtained from a number of different field offices, demonstrate that FBI analysts are using improper and crude racial stereotypes regarding the types of crimes committed by different racial and ethnic groups and then collecting demographic data to map where people of those racial or ethnic groups live.”
The result, charges the ACLU, has been “racial profiling on an industrial scale.”
An instructive lesson in what not to do on television, from a FOX affiliate news program in Grand Rapids, Michigan. YouTube ("Funny Local News"), via Gawker.
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New reports about DSK coming out in the French press involving pimping, paying for possibly underage prostitutes with company funds, and related activities—some while in the United States— do not paint a more sympathetic portrait of the man whom multiple women have accused of sexual assault. A French police commissioner is alleged to have personally delivered prostitutes to him. (via Elaine Sciolino)— Xeni
Upcoming appearances
* Oct 26, Torino: VIEW conference
* Nov 8, Berlin: evening reading (TBD)
* Nov 9, Munich: evening reading livestreamed in cooperation with www.lovelybooks.de (TBD)
* Nov 18-20, Philadelphia: PhilCon
* Nov 22, Washington DC: Public Knowledge/New America Foundation event (TBD)
Next week marks the inaugural Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference (AKA Rightscon) in San Francisco. This event will explore the role that technology plays in the expansion -- or elimination -- of human rights and the ways that technologists and high-tech firms can either help or harm humanity. In an age when American companies supply "deep packet inspection" technology to the Iranian government so that Iran's secret police can figure out whom to brutally murder (to cite just one example among many), this is an important question.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is dispatching several staffers to speak at the event, and they've provided a helpful guide to the more interesting sessions to keep an eye on.
Google, a Rightscon sponsor and participating organization, as well as a member of GNI, is just one example of a company that has done a lot of thinking on human rights: its YouTube platform has been instrumental in getting news out of Syria, thanks to a policy that allows violent content to remain available if intended for documentary or educational purposes. And just this week, Google expanded its use of encryption technology to default to SSL search on Google searches.
Twitter, whose General Counsel Alex MacGillivray will be among the keynote speakers at Rightscon, is another company that has taken human rights under consideration when designing its policies, particularly when it comes to free expression. Another rights-thinking company is Mozilla, whom the EFF has praised for its stance on privacy.
On the lists of attendees and sponsors, EFF also sees several companies about which we have grave concerns. A prime example is AT&T, which famously acted in tandem with the NSA to illegally spy on American citizens. Also amongst the participating companies is Comcast, against which the FCC issued an order (crediting EFF research) in 2008 to stop blocking peer-to-peer traffic. Skype is also on our list of companies of concern due to its surveillance capabilities. Skype is also one of several companies in attendance that has been ranked in EFF's Who Has Your Back? campaign (so far, the company has zero stars).
Notably absent from the list are the myriad Silicon Valley companies that provide censorship and surveillance capabilities to authoritarian regimes, among them Boeing's Narus, Cisco (sign our petition here), McAfee/Intel's SmartFilter, and H-P.
Soul Kitchen is a new restaurant opened in Red Bank, New Jersey, by Jon Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea. The establishment offers a "pay what you can afford" payment model, and serves wholesome, gourmet food made with fresh ingredients grown in the restaurant’s garden, and other local produce.
On the website, they explain that Soul Kitchen is "A community restaurant with no prices on the menu; customers donate to pay for their meal. If you are unable to donate you may do volunteer work in exchange for your family's meal."
But as NJ.com reports, this is no soup kitchen serving up desperation and gruel. "The décor is upscale. Patrons don’t wait in line — they are waited on."
This is a cool thing. If I were in the area, I'd go buy a meal to support the project, or offer to help out in the kitchen for the afternoon. I'm hearing of similar ventures around the country, like the Panera experiment I blogged about here earlier. Boing Boing readers, is there something like Soul Kitchen in your home town?
China Digital Times verifies a long list of banned keywords on Sina Weibo’s search function that combine “occupy” (占领) with a place name inside China: "provincial capitals, economically developed regions, and few symbolic local areas." Here are some of the keywords that contain the names of the capitals of Chinese provinces (in fact, all provincial capitals except Hefei of Anhui province and Guiyang of Guizhou province are on the list):
★Justin Elliott in Salon: "New documents obtained by the ACLU show that the FBI has for years been using Census data to “map” ethnic and religious groups suspected of being likely to commit certain types of crimes." — Xeni
★
"I was a little sorry Wozniak wasn’t along that day because I’d read that he had lived in a tree. I’m partial to tree-dwellers, having as a kid hoped to be one, when my little friend Bob Nelson (we were both little, of course) and I, out of sight of our parents, set to constructing a tree house." New York Times. (via Dale Dougherty)— Xeni
One wonders if a trial for crimes against humanity might have been a little more dignified—not because the deceased deserved it, but because the living deserved something better than perpetuation of the cycle of gore, brutality, and dehumanization. From Arab News:
In Misrata, residents crowded into long lines to get a chance to view the body of Qaddafi, which was laid out on a mattress on the floor of an emptied-out vegetable and onions freezer at a local shopping center. The body had apparently been stowed in the freezer in an attempt to keep it out of the public eye, but once the location was known, that intention was swept away in the overwhelming desire of residents to see the man they so deeply despised. Men, women and children filed in to take their picture with the body. The site’s guards had even organized separate visiting hours for families and single men.
“We want to see the dog,” some chanted.
Qaddafi’s 69-year-old body was stripped to the waist, his torso and arms streaked with dried blood. Bullet wounds in the chest, abdomen and left side of the head were visible.
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The diminishing marginal utility law dictates that the more money we have, the less utility we get from any additional incremental gain. And this bites the top 1% very hard indeed.
The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.
Google, a Rightscon sponsor and participating organization, as well as a member of GNI, is just one example of a company that has done a lot of thinking on human rights: its YouTube platform has been instrumental in getting news out of Syria, thanks to a policy that allows violent content to remain available if intended for documentary or educational purposes. And just this week, Google expanded its use of encryption technology to default to SSL search on Google searches.
