Last week’s
Off-Topic here.
Previously on MoreLiver’s:
Weekender: Weekly Support (last week, next week)
Weekender: Best of the Week (from the ending week)
MILSECINT
How a Soviet spy outmaneuvered John Maynard
Keynes to ensure U.S. financial dominance – Wonkblog
/ WP
Aircraft Carriers: R.I.P? – The
Diplomat
Drug War Effectiveness – Chartporn
The Czech Republic's 2010 decision to lower drug
possession from a criminal to misdemeanor offense has turned the country into a
mecca for drug users. The change has spawned a profitable sub-economy, but also
come at a high social cost.
Vladimir Putin: 'the godfather of a mafia clan' – The
Telegraph
The Moscow journalist Masha Gessen pulls no
punches in her biography of Vladimir Putin, The Man Without a Face
A year ago,
a SPIEGEL editor met a Salafist in Hannover. Following several meetings in Germany, he traveled with him to his new
home in Egypt. But he could not have anticipated
the danger he would encounter there
Papacy used
offshore tax havens to create £500m international portfolio, featuring real
estate in UK, France and Switzerland
SCIENCE
Benoit Mandelbrot — The Fractalist: Memoir of a
Scientific Maverick
– Farnam
Street
Richard Feynman on the Universal Responsibility
of Scientists – brain
pickings
Reconstructing the Big Bang: A 'Baby Photo' of
the Universe – Spiegel
Europe's "Planck" research
satellite has measured the residual radiation from the big bang with greater
precision than ever before. The goal of the mission is to solve the mystery of
whether the universe truly arose out of nothing.
PSYCHOLOGY
Smiling fighters more likely to lose – BPS
A new study
has analysed photographs taken at dozens of these pre-fight encounters and
found that competitors who smile are more likely to lose the match the next day
Our brains, and how they're not as simple as we
think – The
Guardian
Neuroscience
has entered the public consciousness, and changed the way we talk about
ourselves. But much of what passes as knowledge is inaccurate
Mind games – Babbage
/ The Economist
Checklist: What are 4 steps to a more
meaningful life? – Bakadesuyo
TECH
Do markets dream of electric androids? – alphaville
/ FT
Last
weekend I attended Robots on Tour, a robotics, humanoids and cyborg exhibition
put together by the Zurich-based Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Zurich.
If You Wear Google’s New Glasses You Are An
Asshole – Gawker
CYBERWAR
Difference Engine: Hackers' paradise – Babbage / The
Economist
Chinese hackers
may get all the notoriety, but their cyber-security exploits against American
targets are chickenfeed compared with the damage done by organised crime.
BizDaily: Fire with fire? – BBC
(mp3)
Hacking
back against the hackers - with a global campaign of industrial espionage over
the Internet, should companies be retaliating and firing malware back? And,
shark fins off the menu - a new global ban on some types of shark fishing and
what it means for Hong Kong's chefs. Plus - the office without chairs. But will we stand for it?
The Second Great Crypto War – reason
The first
great conflict over cryptography and state power happened in the 1990s… The
cypherpunks achieved a new level of fame when one of them founded Wikileaks, a
website for sharing leaked or liberated documents. The site terrified national
governments, setting off the Second Great Crypto War.
Are We Ready for an Internet Cold War? – Big
Think
INTERNET
The value of the internet now and in the future – Free
exchange / The Economist
Discussion
of attempts to measure the consumer surplus generated by the internet
Which Google Reader Replacement Will You Use? – MIT
Technology Review
Google
kills its Reader, beloved by many (but not enough).
Google Reader Shutdown a Sobering Reminder That
'Our' Technology Isn't Ours – Forbes
Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know
About You – Propublica
Data
companies are scooping up enormous amounts of information about almost every
American. They sell information about whether you're pregnant or divorced or
trying to lose weight, about how rich you are and what kinds of cars you have.
CULTURE
Lowbrow in High Places: When Lederhosen Porn
Was King – Spiegel
Four
decades ago, the southern German state of Bavaria became the birthplace of a film
genre like no other. The alpine meadows were rugged, the men wore lederhosen,
the porn was soft -- and Germany was hooked.
How we made Killer, by Seal and Adamski – The Guardian
The singer
and producer recall the acid house anthem that took them from illegal raves to
stardom and a No 1 hit
Why I Hacked Donkey Kong for My Daughter – Wired