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Kimmel Picks Up Kai The Hatchet-Wielding ‘Homefree’ Hitchhiker For Exclusive Interview
“Unions lift wages for non-union members by creating a higher prevailing wage. Even if you aren’t a union member, your pay is influenced by the strength or weakness of organized labor. The presence of unions sets off a wage race to the top. Their absence sets off a race to the bottom.” — Eric Liu
Watch This: View from the World’s Most Advanced Surveillance Drone
If you want to see scary science fiction in real life, watch this video. For the first time, the U.S. Department of Defense gives us a glimpse into its new surveillance system—one that puts George Orwell’s to shame. This big brother is capable of some serious spying, and his name is Argus. Argus is actually a pretty clumsy acronym: Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System. But there’s nothing clumsy about its capabilities. Argus has the world’s highest resolution camera, which records 1.8 billion pixels in real-time. The sensor itself is classified, but the DoD gave PBS a bit of a teaser for the NOVA special “Rise of the Drones.” In the video Yiannis Antoniades, an engineer contracted to design the sensor, shows us an Argus-eye view of the world. Once mounted on a drone, Argus can fly around and record video from an altitude of 17,500 feet. The view is breathtaking. And we’re talking the take-your-breath-away-because-this-is-so-frightening kind of breathtaking. While keeping tabs on a 15-square-mile swath of ground, Argus allows operators to zoom in on up to 65 different people in real-time. It can see you walking down the sidewalk. It can see what you’re wearing. It can see what you’re doing with your arms. It can see when you stop to tie your shoe. Getting this kind of resolution from this altitude is unprecedented. And this is the stuff they’re willing to show us. WOW. (Source: azspot, via vikingbitch)
Every state should offer early voting as well.
(Source: end-the-republican-mafia, via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
Will smart machines create a world without work?
“The vast majority of people do routine work. The human economy has always demanded routine work,” says software entrepreneur Martin Ford. He worries that machines will take all those routine jobs, leaving few opportunities for ordinary workers. In his book “The Lights in the Tunnel,” Ford foresees a computer-dominated economy with 75 percent unemployment before the end of this century; the vast majority of workers, he predicts, won’t be able to develop the skills necessary to outrun job-killing computers and robots. “People talk about the future, creating new industries and new businesses,” Ford says. “But there’s every indication that these are not going to be in labor-intensive industries. … Right from the get-go, they’re going to be digital.” Consider the great business successes of the Internet age: Apple employs 80,000 people worldwide; Google, 54,000; Facebook, 4,300. Combined, those three superstar companies employ less than a quarter of the 600,000 people General Motors had in the 1970s. And today, GM employs just 202,000 people, while making more cars than ever. As far back as 1958, American union leader Walter Reuther recalled going through a Ford Motor plant that was already automated. A company manager goaded him: “Aren’t you worried about how you are going to collect union dues from all these machines?” “The thought that occurred to me,” Reuther replied, “was how are you going to sell cars to these machines?” (Source: azspot)
Jamie’s explanation of this scene was wonderful. I know in the film it’s used as a sort of comedic moment, but Jamie’s articulation of it was far more interesting. He talked about how slaves were kept from cultivating identities and fully expressing themselves. So when presented with the opportunity, they would have wanted to shine and be seen. He drew a parallel to today, when black people make it and get some money, many times we are flashy. It’s a demonstration. ‘Yes we made it. And you cannot ignore us.’
(Source: thebrittaoftimelines, via pricklylegs)
Stupid Right-Wing Tweets: Tucker Carlson Edition
A tweeter named Copperbird replied aptly: “hey Tucker, fighting for your country is not the same as being beaten by your boyfriend or husband. Sad you don’t get that.”
Tame Impala [Modular Studio Session]
a cool performance of three great songs
Assemblyman Pushes for Native American Day to Replace Columbus Day
Instead of Columbus Day, California Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, D-West Covina, has introduced legislation that would recognize the second Monday in October as Native American Day.
(via sp-a-m)
"Last Friday, on the same day that Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment, prosecutors from Ortiz’s office stood in a Boston courtroom and allowed a former state representative named Stephen “Stat” Smith to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for rigging absentee ballots in three elections. Swartz’s lawyers asked for the same consideration, that Swartz be allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Prosecutors refused.
So, given that Ortiz will not explain herself, we’ll just have to presume she believes that illegally manipulating the outcome of elections, which are the essence of our democracy, is less serious an offense than downloading an online archive of obscure academic articles."
It doesn’t matter what Carmen Ortiz says at this point; she drove a brilliant young man to death and nothing she says can bring him back. The only good thing to come of this is that Ortiz’s political career is as dead as the young man she hounded.
(via diadoumenos)"The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."
Middlemarch (1871) - George Eliot
