"In 2011, Chinese spies stole the crown jewels of cybersecurity—stripping protections from firms and government agencies worldwide. Here’s how it happened....The RSA breach, when it became public days later, would redefine the cybersecurity landscape. The company’s nightmare was a wake-up call not only for the information security industry—the worst-ever hack of a cybersecurity firm to … Continue reading The RSA Hack on Wired
Category: open questions
Evil Shit on the Internet: The Spinner
"The Spinner* is a service that enables you to subconsciously influence a specific person, by controlling the content on the websites he or she usually visits.The targeted person gets repetitively exposed to hundreds of items which are placed and disguised as editorial content.-https://www.thespinner.net/ What makes this creepy as all get-out is that when we think … Continue reading Evil Shit on the Internet: The Spinner
Meritocracy, Intelligence & Education
"...we need to dismantle meritocracy.DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent......One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough … Continue reading Meritocracy, Intelligence & Education
Ordinary Invisibility
"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How’s the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes 'What … Continue reading Ordinary Invisibility
Why Do We Talk to One Another?
Open Question: Why do we talk to one another? "...To varying degrees, there is an uncrossable chasm between you and everybody you care about.There are two ways you can interpret this. One is the depressing route: to believe that your friends are not really your friends and that you don’t really know them. That you … Continue reading Why Do We Talk to One Another?
A Few Questions [For Self-Reflection]
"What haven’t I experienced firsthand that leaves me naive to how something works? As Jeff Immelt said, 'Every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it.'"—Morgan Housel, "I Have a Few Questions." Collaborative Fund. October 28, 2019. Interesting questions to ponder.
Not So Simple: Notes from a Tech-Free Life by Mark Boyle
"I intended to begin a new life without modern technology. There would be no running water, no fossil fuels, no clock, no electricity or any of the things it powers: no washing machine, internet, phone, radio, or light bulb......What are we prepared to lose, and what do we want to gain, as we fumble our … Continue reading Not So Simple: Notes from a Tech-Free Life by Mark Boyle
How Changing The Way You Sit Could Add Years To Your Life
"Replacing chair sitting and associated muscular inactivity with more sustained active rest postures may represent a behavioral paradigm that should be explored in future experimental work."—David Raichlen, et al., "Sitting, squatting, and the evolutionary biology of human inactivity." "How changing the way you sit could add years to your life." PNAS. March 31, 2020.
You Are a Strange Loop
Open Question: Is the ego a narrative fiction we create about ourselves? https://youtu.be/hQsnHkfs3sA
Kool Aid Pickles
Exactly what it says on the tin.
William Gibson on “The Jackpot Years”
https://vimeo.com/116132074 Open Question: Is a global apocalypse more likely to be a single catastrophic event or a continuous, long-duration multi-focal event? The Bedouin Way of Life in Rub' al Khali touches on one possible answer, the second.
Ferming
Open Questions: Will agriculture by fundamentally transformed in the next decade? And if so, what are the likely health implications? We are on the cusp of the biggest economic transformation, of any kind, for 200 years. While arguments rage about plant- versus meat-based diets, new technologies will soon make them irrelevant. Before long, most of … Continue reading Ferming
2020 Experiments: Exercise & Running Program
Open Question: What is a reasonable program for people to follow to develop a good level of fitness? I've been thinking a bit about the 2018 Experiment: HIIT Burpee and Running Program. The challenge of that program was to met a minimal standard for health, which I define using the American Heart Association standards: 25 … Continue reading 2020 Experiments: Exercise & Running Program
Pace Yourself
Open Question: What does it mean to "pace yourself" in modern culture? Does it mean staying with something long enough, over time, to truly develop a relationship with the material and love it? "There’s a willingness, there’s a faith, there’s a very, very magical alchemy that happens when somebody looks at something with enormous love … Continue reading Pace Yourself
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