Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, February 03, 2015.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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World Has Not Woken Up to Water Crisis Caused by Climate Change
By Nita Bhalla
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Water scarcity could lead to conflict between communities and nations as the world is still not fully aware of the water crisis many countries face as a result of climate change, the head of the U.N. panel of climate scientists warned on Tuesday.
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More frequent floods and droughts caused by climate change, pollution of rivers and lakes, urbanisation, over-extraction of ground water and expanding populations mean that many nations such as India face serious water shortages.
In addition, the demand for more power by countries like India to fuel their economic growth has resulted in a need to harness more water for hydropower dams and nuclear plants.
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Hospitals in New Delhi cancelled surgery at one point in 2013 because they had no water to sterilise instruments, clean operating theatres or for staff to wash their hands. Upmarket shopping malls selling luxury brands were forced to switch off air conditioners and shut toilets.
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India, as both an upper and lower riparian nation, finds itself at the centre of water disputes with its eastern and western downstream neighbours - Bangladesh and Pakistan - which accuse New Delhi of monopolising water flows.
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Widening health inequalities among adolescents, international study reveals
By (ScienceDaily)
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The findings, published in The Lancet, reveal that socioeconomic differences across multiple areas of adolescent mental and physical health increased between 2002 and 2010, with young people from the poorest socioeconomic groups more likely to be in worse health: being less physically active, with larger body mass index (BMI), and reporting more physical and psychological symptoms (such as irritability or headaches).
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The research also showed that adolescents living in countries with greater income inequality were less physically active had larger body mass index, lower life satisfaction, and reported more psychological and physical symptoms. Young people in these countries also had larger health inequalities between socioeconomic groups in psychological and physical symptoms and life satisfaction.
According to Professor Elgar, "The many health and social problems that relate to income inequality and the current global trends in rising income inequality all lead to a grim prediction about future population health. Urgent action is needed to tackle inequities in health in adolescence."
Writing in a linked Comment, John Santelli, Wendy Baldwin, and Jennifer Heitel from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, USA point out, "Investment in youth now could pay huge dividends in health outcomes and reduce health disparities in later years…Although some interventions should always support individual behaviour change, Elgar and colleagues remind us of the importance of social context. To improve health and reduce health disparities across the lifespan, a focus should be on social factors that affect the health and wellbeing of young people.
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Canarywatch: fine-grained, high-alert system to detect and reveal secret government snooping
By Cory Doctorow
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Its not illegal for companies that publish "transparency reports" listing how many secret government spying demands they're received to say that they've received zero such requests, and it's not illegal for them to simply omit mention of secret spying demands once they receive such a warrant
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Canarywatch lists the warrant canaries we know about, tracks changes or disappearances of those canaries, and allows users to submit canaries not listed on the site. For people with interest in a particular canary, the site will show any changes we know about. The page’s FAQ explains the mechanics and legal theories underpinning warrant canaries. It also has an anatomy of a canary that, since canaries come in so many different forms, helps anyone understand what they’re seeing when they look at a particular canary.
Warrant canaries are a unique tool ISPs have to provide users with more transparency about the government requests they do, and do not, receive. We hope the site will educate, improve the usefulness of warrant canaries for the general public, and help people with a special interest in canaries track them.
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NSA to delete some data of non-Americans after five years
By (BBC)
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The US electronic spying agency will no longer be allowed to keep indefinitely data collected from foreigners with no intelligence purpose.
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The move makes no changes to the mass collection of data about US phone calls first revealed by Edward Snowden.
The Obama administration also "re-affirmed'' existing requirements that the government must delete communications to, from, or about US citizens if they lack intelligence value and set up new bureaucratic oversight over the requirement.
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International |
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Brazil Rio: Rare victory for residents in regeneration battle
By Donna Bowater
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Almost 900 families, many of which lived on Rua da Esperanca (Hope Street), were facing eviction because their houses stood in the way of the planned route for the Transolimpica bus rapid transit system (BRT).
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After two years of uncertainty and a small yet vocal campaign of resistance, they have managed to save it from demolition.
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Instead of running straight over the neighbourhood, the new $555m-bus system (£370m) will now cut around Vila Uniao.
. . . he is confident he can drive down the number of those facing eviction even further. "We see the possibility of removing fewer still than 191," the 37-year-old electromechanical technician said.
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Boko Haram crisis: Chad's troops enter Nigeria
By (BBC)
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Chad's deepening involvement shows how the conflict with Boko Haram is taking a regional dimension.
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Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has threatened to create a caliphate, incorporating parts of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
The African Union has responded by backing plans to establish a 7,500-strong regional force to fight the group.
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Nigeria's military has been widely criticised for failing to curb the six-year insurgency, which has displaced some 1.5 million people.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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On These 5 Things, Republicans Actually Might Work With Dems to Do Something Worthwhile
By Sam Brodey
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Recently, bipartisan momentum has been building behind an issue that has historically languished in Congress: criminal-justice reform. Recent Capitol Hill briefings have drawn lawmakers and activists from across the political spectrum—from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden, whose boss, conservative megadonor Charles Koch, has made reform a key philanthropic priority.
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Earned-time credits . . .
Easing up mandatory minimums . . .
Juvenile-justice reform . . .
Reducing recidivism . . .
Sealing and expunging records . . .
Despite the bipartisan efforts, many experts still believe that there are plenty of issues that could pose serious obstacles to compromise. Beyond the disagreement on mandatory minimums, there's potential conflict on the role of for-profit prisons, which conservatives praise and Democrats like Booker loathe. Additionally, support for loosening drug penalties—particularly for marijuana—is growing broadly popular, but powerful Republicans remain vocal opponents. The ACLU's McCurdy says that, despite potential hang-ups, she's encouraged by the bipartisan concern over the state of the justice system. "I'm encouraged by how many diverse groups have come on board, which sends a signal to leadership that this is something the American people really want to get done," she says.
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Amazon reportedly looking to buy hundreds of US retail stores
By Rupert Neate
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Amazon is reportedly in discussions to buy hundreds of retail stores across the US to showcase its products, such as the Kindle tablet and Fire smartphone, and act as delivery points for online orders.
The Seattle-based company, which last week reported annual sales of $89bn (£59bn), is in talks about acquiring some of collapsed electronics chain RadioShack’s 4,000 stores, Bloomberg reported. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. RadioShack declined to comment.
The proposed deal would be Amazon’s biggest push into traditional retailing and present a challenge to Apple, which has stores in cities across America and the rest of the world.
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Valley fever is taking a toll on California prisoners — and it’s the government’s fault
By David Ferry
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Valley fever, we know today, is born of a microscopic fungus that thrives in the valley’s fertile soil. Unlike most other infectious diseases, it does not spread through person-to-person transmission, but rather through dust particles that make their way into our lungs. Each individual fungus is a spore, a single-celled organism capable of asexual reproduction. When kicked up by cars or backhoes or tractors, spores can float across a county in an afternoon. They thrive in the dusty, dry swath of land that cuts from California to Texas, and billions of them are sent into the air with each subdivision we carve out from unclaimed expanses. Outside cities like Bakersfield or Fresno, you may inhale hundreds of these invisible fungal specks in a day. For most people, however, breathing in a few spores amounts to nothing — 60 percent of people who inhale the fungi feel no symptoms at all. Thirty to 35 percent develop illness — usually flulike symptoms. Most people never even know they encountered the fungus — and for that reason, experts believe that valley fever may be much more common than official reports suggest.
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No one knows why some people develop life-threatening bouts of valley fever and others don’t. What is known is that for certain racial groups, the risk of contracting disseminated valley fever is much higher. For black men, it is as much as 14 times that of white men. Filipinos and Pacific Islanders like Eteaki are also thought to be highly susceptible, though there is not enough data to prove how much.
In California, the quirks of valley fever’s pathology have collided with the state’s habit of jailing a disproportionately large number of black and brown people. For years, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation housed many of these minority inmates in prisons scattered throughout the dusty, endemic areas of the Central Valley. Thousands fell ill and dozens died. The story of their suffering is one of incompetence and outright negligence — it’s the story of how the state of California left thousands of its charges to suffer while under its care. If valley fever was endemic to the hills above Rodeo Drive or the boulevards of Palo Alto and struck down Caucasians with the ferocity it lays out African Americans, it would be the kind of public health emergency that sends Anderson Cooper into the field with a face mask. As it stands, valley fever remains, in the words of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a “silent epidemic.”
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When sick inmates are released from California’s prison system, they’re given a 30-day supply of medicine, regardless of their disease. Eteaki was jobless and uninsured. His condition worsened after his prison-issued anti-fungal drug — called Diflucan — ran out, and he began going to the emergency room for treatment. For Eteaki and the thousands of other prisoners who contracted valley fever behind bars, the cost of treatment came as a shock. A 30-day course of Diflucan was about $550, but prison doctors had Eteaki on a double dosage because of the severity of his disease, so his treatment was twice as expensive. He asked the prison system for help, but it refused. He and his wife sought aid through Social Security and Medi-Cal, but they were told there was nothing anyone could do — because Sika’s wife was working full time and the couple had savings, they did not qualify for assistance. He began to take fewer pills to try to stretch the bottles out. Between the hospital visits and the pills, Eteaki spent more than $20,000 managing the disease, burning through all his savings — money he had hoped would help support his wife and children.
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Measles politics: Hillary Clinton says 'sky is blue and vaccines work'
By Anthony Zurcher
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On Monday evening former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came down firmly on the pro-vaccine side, tweeting: "The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids."
She ended her message with the hashtag "#GrandmothersKnowBest", yet another hint that her newly minted grandmaternal status could be leaned on heavily to provide her with a softer image as she gears up for her possible campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
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Slate's Amanda Marcotte calls rejecting scientific consensus "an art that Republicans have perfected when it comes to climate change and evolution. But, more importantly, the right is just a more comfortable home, ideologically, for anti-vaccination arguments."
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On a host of different subjects, the US public differs significantly in its views from members of the scientific community. While 68% of US adults say that childhood vaccines should be required, 86% of scientists support it.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
Twenty years ago, Ted Kessler interviewed Jeff Buckley for the NME as his seminal debut, Grace, was released. Three years later, Buckley would drown in Memphis
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First, there’s the voice. He shares the amazing vocal dexterity of his father, for sure, but when you listen to him it’s like hearing Liz from the Cocteau Twins for the first time. The words have meaning here, but all the significance is in the tone of his singing. Before you come anywhere near a lyric sheet you understand the emotion behind each line. Longing, pain, lust and hope all bursting out of this little body at once.
Then, there are his songs. Within the simple constraints of guitar, bass, and drums (and some extraordinary string arrangements) he creates a dense but immediate emotional vessel that cannot be pinned down in any rock, soul, or folk category, or as mainstream or alternative. It’s all over the place but it sounds new and it means something.
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“The words come from here,” he says touching his top pocket. “From memories, from dreams, from people I’ve known. I’m always writing and reflecting on life. I want to suck it all in. . ."
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Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Solving climate change will be difficult but worth it
By David Roberts
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. . . I think that the net benefits of transitioning to low-carbon, low-waste, highly networked systems of transportation and power would vastly exceed the net costs, considered at almost any scale and time frame (except perhaps very short time frames). That’s because climate change of 4 degrees C or greater, which is entirely possible on our current trajectory, carries with it a high probability of runaway feedbacks that could render the Earth all but uninhabitable for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Most of our economic models effectively discount to zero the value of the lives of people living far in the future. I think that’s immoral, that screwing up the Earth for all future generations would be a monstrous crime.
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Ergo,large-scale deployment of existing clean technologies should proceed even as a combination of push-and-pull policies are put in place to draw newer, better technologies into the mix. Some fairly detailed modeling (from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and others) shows that 100 percent renewables is possible with current technology, but it’s equally true that the cost would be lower and the political burden lighter if newer, better technology came along. For just about any “this or that” question on climate — mitigate or adapt, tax or regulate, R&D or deployment, supply-side or demand-side — the answer is “both, quickly.”
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It sometimes seems to me that climate hawks have, over the course of decades spent arguing with idiot climate deniers and idiot conservative economists, grown defensive, to the point of developing a bunker mentality. They seem to think we must constantly chant that climate mitigation is technologically and economically possible, lest delayers get any ammo.
But I think it’s OK for climate hawks to unclench a little, at least around each other. It’s OK to grapple seriously with the enormity of the undertaking we are contemplating. It’s a huge thing, a change in course not only for individual countries but for our species, and as such, it’s going to be incredibly challenging. Some of that difficulty will be measured in financial capital, some in social capital, but either way it will take an enormous outpouring of effort, conflict, and sacrifice, just as it did to free the slaves or give women the right to vote or establish the social safety net or win World War II. Big, worthy achievements take hard work, and though they are all “cheap” in some sense — they are worth the effort! — their costs in blood, sweat, and tears are considerable. It’s OK to say so.
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Most China cities fail to meet air quality standards
By (BBC)
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Only eight out of China's 74 biggest cities passed the government's basic air quality standards in 2014, the environment ministry has said.
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But the BBC's Celia Hatton in Beijing says like many places in China, the authorities are struggling to balance factory closures with the demands of the country's slowing economy.
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The Chinese authorities announced a "war on air pollution" last year, and recently began publishing figures for the air quality in China's cities. Officials have pledged to restrict consumption of coal, scrap millions of cars and rely more on clean energy sources.
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It also attempted to improve the air quality in Beijing during the Apec summit, imposing tight limits on car use and ordering factories to close in the weeks leading up to the meeting.
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Science and Health |
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Add nature, art and religion to life's best anti-inflammatories
By (ScienceDaily)
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Researchers have linked positive emotions -- especially the awe we feel when touched by the beauty of nature, art and spirituality -- with lower levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are proteins that signal the immune system to work harder.
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In addition to autoimmune diseases, elevated cytokines have been tied to depression. One recent study found that depressed patients had higher levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine known as TNF-alpha than their non-depressed counterparts. It is believed that by signaling the brain to produce inflammatory molecules, cytokines can block key hormones and neurotransmitters -- such as serotonin and dopamine -- that control moods, appetite, sleep and memory.
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As for which came first -- the low cytokines or the positive feelings -- Stellar said she can't say for sure: "It is possible that having lower cytokines makes people feel more positive emotions, or that the relationship is bidirectional," Stellar said.
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Our thoughts are susceptible to external influence, even against our will
By (ScienceDaily)
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For a recent San Francisco State University study, participants were asked to look at a commonplace image but avoid thinking of the word that corresponds with the image or how many letters are in that word. The task may seem simple, but the study found that when presented with ?, for example, nearly 80 percent of people will automatically conjure up the word "sun" and about half will quietly count to three.
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Morsella said that this research has important implications for the study of psychopathological disorders that afflict people with uncontrollable repetitive thoughts or, more commonly, the inability to stifle an obsession. "When people have a thought they can't control, this machinery may be at work," Morsella said. "We're learning not only that the brain does work this way, but that unfortunately, under most circumstances, the brain should work like this."
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Take guilt, for example. Just like most people can't stop themselves from subvocalizing the word "sun" in response to an image of one, it can also be difficult to repress negative feelings after doing something wrong. "If you could override these kinds of thoughts, it would not be adaptive," Morsella explained. "There is a reason why we feel guilt: to change future behavior. If you could snap your fingers and not feel guilty about something, guilt would cease to have a functional role."
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Even cockroaches have different personalities, scientists find
By Lewis Smith
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Researchers studying the behaviour of the insects have discovered that far from simply being a homogenous mass they have individual character traits.
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If they had the same personalities they would all behave exactly the same when in the open but observations have revealed clear differences.
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“Shy individuals are those that spend more time sheltered and explore less the arena or the surroundings. Instead, bold individuals are those that spend most part of the time exploring the surroundings and spend less time sheltered.”
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Different personalities are thought to help the survival of the species because by driving different behaviour it increases the chances of at least some surviving when disaster strikes. The personalities of individuals can also, the team found, affect the behaviour of groups of cockroaches.
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Technology |
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White House drone crash fallout shows who really owns your drones, says EFF
By Stuart Dredge
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If you own a DJI Phantom drone, you canft buzz the White House any more - or, indeed, fly it anywhere in the Washington DC area - after a firmware update introduced after a drone crashed in the presidential grounds.
Wait a minute. Do you really own a DJI Phantom drone? Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation has claimed that the firmware update should be a reminder that while you may have bought the device, its manufacturer still has ultimate control over how it works.
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For the EFF, the DJI Phantom firmware update is the latest peg to hang its campaign against anti-circumvention provisions in the USf Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) legislation.
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"But instead, the law casts a shadow of doubt on users that would modify that software, researchers that would examine it for security vulnerabilities, and companies that would create competitive alternatives."
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Why One of the World's Biggest Font Makers Is Getting Into Emoji
By Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan
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Monotype—which owns some of the most ubiquitous typefaces of both our digital and physical worlds—announced yesterday that it had acquired a small company called Swyft Media, which makes stickers and emoji—for $12 million. On the surface it might look like a relatively ho-hum business deal deal, but in reality, it also illustrates how we'll text and message in the future.
Swyft is based on a very unique business mode. It creates emoji and stickers that are given (or sold) to users on a huge number of emerging messaging apps, from Kik to Tango to Facebook Messenger. A good example cited by Forbes: A sticker pack created to promote Gwen Stefani's new album. Swyft created the pack and put it on Tango for free—and it was downloaded more than a million times. Swyft also works with brands and companies to sell stickers to users who are willing to pay for them, like fans of a particular sports team.
So does this mean your next typeface will include emoji? Not necessarily—Swyft will still be independent—but it could definitely mean that you could be texting with a custom font sometime soon. As Monotype's CEO and president, Doug Shaw, explained to me over the phone, buying Swyft could let them put custom type on the next generation of messaging apps, from Kik to Facebook Messages—and let 2.5 billion mobile messaging user start to choose their typography.
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In 1976 Arthur C. Clarke Predicted the Dark Side of Smartphones
By Matt Novak
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AT&T has just uploaded a video from a conference at MIT wherein Clarke describes the future from the vantage point of the 1976. Of course, it's fascinating to hear him talk about the death of the newspaper, long before physical newspapers actually saw a major decline. And his vision for what sounds an awful lot like networked computing feels prescient.
We're going to get devices which will enable us to send much more information to our friends. They'll be able to see us, we'll be able to see them and exchange pictorial information, graphical information, data, books, and so forth.
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It would be a high-definition TV screen and a typewriter keyboard and through this you can exchange any type of information, send messages to your friends. They can read it [and] when they get up they can see what messages have come in the night. You can call in through this any information you want: airline flights, price of things at the supermarket, books you've always wanted to read, news selectively.
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In the global village of the future, it will be like living in one small town where at any time about a third of your friends will be asleep but you won't even know which third. So we may have to abolish time zones completely and go on a common time for everybody, which will cause all sorts of problems.
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Cultural |
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Across Asia, sex is a handy form of bribery
By Patrick Winn
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Potentially traceable gifts, such as BMWs or cash-stuffed suitcases, can land both the briber and the corrupt official in prison. But influencing officials with sex — a common practice across Asia — produces very little physical evidence.
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But some countries don’t even concede that offering sex for favors constitutes a bribe. The UN anti-corruption convention forbids authorities from offering “undue advantage” or “influence” to another person. But it never mentions sex per se.
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Vietnam’s decision to scrutinize sex bribes is uncommon in Asia. Even Indonesia, a massive nation under the sway of conservative Islam, appears unwilling to pursue it. As one senior Indonesian anti-corruption official lamented in 2013: “An act of bribery requires the bribe to come in material form. So where does this leave sexual favors?”
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Though most sex bribes involve prostitution, Ran says, banning sex for favors will also effectively ban another practice: sleeping your way to the top. But that’s a good thing, he says, as women in the male-dominated world of Asian officialdom often have little power to resist bosses who want to exchange sex for a promotion.
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Three adults and an embryo are OK in the UK
By Corinne Purtill
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. . . genetic history was made there Tuesday when lawmakers voted to approve a procedure that could prevent life-threatening diseases by replacing some of an egg cell’s damaged DNA with that from a healthy donor.
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The technique is a modified version of in vitro fertilization. Before a fertilized egg is implanted in the mother's womb, the faulty mitochondrial DNA is replaced with some from a healthy donor. Because mitochondrial DNA is passed down only on the mother's side, the donor must be female. In all cases, babies resulting from a successful transfer and pregnancy would have DNA from one man and two different women.
“We have finally reached a milestone in giving women an invaluable choice, the choice to become a mother without fear of passing on a lifetime under the shadow of mitochondrial disease to their child,” said Robert Meadowcroft, chief executive of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, in a statement after the vote.
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Babies resulting from embryos that have undergone mitochondrial transfer won’t inherit three people’s characteristics. The genetic traits that make us who we are — eye color, hair color, your feelings on cilantro — come from DNA in a cell’s nucleus, which the procedure doesn’t mess with. Altering or engineering that nuclear DNA in an embryo is still illegal under UK law.
But it’s not like donating an organ. Changes in the mitochondrial DNA will be passed down to future generations who obviously can’t give their consent, which is one reason critics oppose it.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |