From zefrank

Even mice need a helping hand now and then.

Gabrielle Giffords A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending. ….

From The Guardian: “Sam Harris, the New Atheists, and anti-Muslim animus” by Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald Two columns have been published in the past week harshly criticizing the so-called “New Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens: this one by Nathan Lean in Salon, and this one by…

Melanie Tannenbaum in Scientific American‘s PsySociety blog notes that “benevolent sexism” is a real thing that happens when something presented as a positive is still emphasizing the sex of the person, rather than their work.  If we’re talking up the importance of work-life balance and familial roles for women but…

Computer scientist and author of the book Who Owns the Future (May, 2013) Jaron Lanier argues that unless we change our attitudes towards technology and each other, whoever has the biggest CPU and largest network will own all markets. Instead, he proposes micropayments for knowledge and skills, and suggests that cloud…

James Whittaker was a director of engineering at Google. He wrote a nifty book about How Google Tests Software. I briefly was a consultant on a short-term part of a project, and met him, while I was still a grad student. He was smart, funny, and completely understood my objections…

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five of the “big six” publishers (Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Pearson, Penguin, and Macmillan). The DOJ suit asserts that the publishers— with Apple’s collaboration—colluded to raise ebook prices and force Amazon to adopt the…

Why should I be Allowed to Marry? I Chose to be Gay From The Guardian Yes, deciding to be gay was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do. But I knew it would be worth it! I salivated at the thought of spending years wondering whether or not my…