Will Russia need to
invade Ukraine to “protect ethnic Russians?”
Ukraine:
Pro-Russians storm offices in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv
In Donetsk, Luhansk and
Kharkiv they clashed with police, hung Russian flags from the
buildings and called for a referendum on independence.
Ukraine's acting
president called an emergency security meeting in response.
… In a message
posted on his Facebook account, he said: "The people who have
gathered are not many but they are very aggressive. The situation
will be brought under control without bloodshed. But at the same
time, a firm approach will be used against all who attack government
buildings, law enforcement officers and other citizens."
I'm assuming this is
not related to the Ukraine. Probably not to Snowden, either. But,
like Putin, this could be someone with an old KGB mindset.
Michael Riley reports:
Hackers
who raided the credit-card payment system of Neiman Marcus Group Ltd.
belong to a sophisticated Russian syndicate that has stolen more than
160 million credit-card numbers from retailers over seven years,
according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The
Russian group is well known to U.S. authorities, who have indicted
several members and linked it to pillaging more than 100 companies,
including Citigroup Inc. and J.C. Penney Co.
Read more on Bloomberg
Businessweek.
TSA again. If you have
no choice (“You wanna fly? Den youse gotta get soiched!) have you
given “consent?”
Orin Kerr writes:
My
co-blogger
David Post says that the Fourth Amendment allows air travelers to
leave airport security screening areas if they wish without the TSA’s
permission:
I
am permitted to leave [the screening area] without TSA permission,
whether they like it or not, because the Fourth Amendment’s
prohibition on “unreasonable . . . seizures” gives me that
permission. We have a word for this, too, in the law, when
government agents don’t allow us to leave freely: ”being in
custody.” And the government cannot put me in custody when they
have absolutely no reason to believe that I have broken the law –
the 4th Amendment prohibits that. Nor can they say “you’ve
consented to being in custody when you go to the airport,” any more
than they can say “you’ve consented to being in custody whenever
you leave your home, so we can grab you and hold you whenever we damn
please.”
It’s
perhaps worth noting that the caselaw is generally to
the contrary.
Read more on WaPo
Volokh Conspiracy.
Perhaps governments
should not be allowed to build government systems. Did no one notice
this?
Diane Rado reports:
Just
hours after the state launched a new, multimillion-dollar teacher
licensing system last year, an educator logging in was shocked to
find a serious security breach.
“I
discovered that by doing a public search using any educator’s name,
ALL of our personal information is available to everyone. This is
alarming!” the educator emailed to a colleague. “I was able to
put in your name and find out your address, phone number, and Social
Security.”
During
the months ahead, the glitch-prone system that has been compared to
the Obama administration’s troubled Affordable Care Act website
incorrectly labeled one educator a felon. Others were mistakenly
listed as delinquent on child support, which could block them from
getting a license, according to records obtained by the Tribune.
In
late January, the Illinois State Board of Education abruptly canceled
its $3.6 million contract with the company hired to build the system.
That sparked a dispute over unpaid bills that remains unresolved.
Read more on Chicago
Tribune, but subscription required to read full article.
Savvy readers will just
nod their heads and know this stuff happens, and frequently. But
that doesn’t make exposure of personal information and Social
Security numbers any less concerning.
This is much more
“touchy-feely” than my suggestion that the government give every
citizen a kilo of pure cocaine. It should remove addiction from the
gene pool.
Pew
– America’s New Drug Policy Landscape
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on April 6, 2014
“The public appears
ready for a truce in the long-running war on drugs. A national
survey by the Pew Research Center finds that 67% of Americans say
that the government should focus more on providing treatment for
those who use illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Just 26%
think the government’s focus should be on prosecuting users of such
hard drugs. Support for a treatment-based approach to illegal drug
use spans nearly all demographic groups. And while Republicans are
less supportive of the treatment option than are Democrats or
independents, about half of Republicans (51%) say the government
should focus more on treatment than prosecution in dealing with
illegal drug users. By wide margins, the public views marijuana as
less harmful than alcohol, both to personal health and to society
more generally. Moreover, just as most Americans prefer a less
punitive approach to the use of drugs such as heroin and cocaine, an
even larger majority (76% of the public) – including 69% of
Republicans and 79% of Democrats – think that people convicted of
possessing small amounts of marijuana should not have to serve time
in jail.”
Perspective for my
fellow professors. (and a hint why there are so many “for
profits”)
Whoa.
Education Is A 7 Trillion Dollar Industry.
… A handy
infographic.
Perspective. (So far,
my students haven't asked me this question.)
Why
won't you DIE? IBM's S/360 and its legacy at 50
IBM's System 360
mainframe, celebrating its 50th anniversary on Monday, was more than
a just another computer.
The S/360 changed IBM
just as it changed computing and the technology industry.
… Big Blue
introduced new concepts and de facto standards with us now:
virtualisation - the toast of cloud computing on the PC and
distributed x86 server that succeeded the mainframe - and the 8-bit
byte over the 6-bit byte.
… Success was a
mixed blessing for IBM, which got in trouble with US regulators for
being "too" successful and spent a decade fighting a
government anti-trust law suit over the mainframe business.
An Adroid App for the
Bicycle club?
– tracks and records
your path, speed, distance when you drive or walk. Path Finder shows
real time data, maps out your path, shows suggestions and allows you
to save your route for future reference. It uses the GPS Sensor in
your phone to record the geographic statistics. It works on both
Driving and Walking mode.
I'm starting three Math
classes this week. These may help my students.
Calculators
& Tools
The ultimate Calculator
has to be WolframAlpha
which as you can see has a page of its own with several slideshows to
help you learn how to use it.
For drawing and
exploring graphs, use the outstanding Desmos
Graphing Calculator.
For some other useful
calculators and tools and accompanying notes see the following pages.
The pages in
the series:
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