Nova Spivack – Minding the Planet

A recent article on Boing Boing reports the most recent round of Chinese cyberattacks on the Tibetan government in exile. China has increasingly aimed its sophisticated cyberwar teams at the low-tech, peace-loving Tibetans. I know dozens of Tibetan lamas and their staffs and they all use PC’s — and none of them know anything about [...]

by Nova Spivack, Minding the Planet, http://www.mindingtheplanet.net This news article reports that the FBI is investigating a situation in which mobsters deliberately contaminated their drug money with a virus in order to deter in-house theft by members of their organization. Several years ago, during the days of collective paranoia following 9-11, I started thinking about [...]

Here is a fascinating article about DARPA’s "high risk, high payoff" quest to develop an exotic new Hafnium bomb — a new kind of weapon that emits huge amounts of gamma rays from a very small package. This thing packs the bang of a conventional nuke in a package as small as a hand grenade [...]

This article provides some interesting details on the leading candidate for the next flu pandemic, which is overdue, and appears to be brewing in Asia. Unlike normal flu’s pandemic strains seem to have an uncanny ability to kill off people in the prime of their lives, by causing the immune system to go so far [...]

This is quite interesting. It turns out that manufacturers of color laser printers are secretly encoding tracking numbers onto every inch of every printout. These microscopic codes enable printouts to be traced back to particular printers that printed them, and thus to whomever owns those devices. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more discussion of this. [...]

From the Truly-Ludicrous-Department, the Senate may attempt to ram through a horribly shortsighted and backwards copyright bill. This bill would, among other things, eliminate centuries of fair-use precedent, make skipping commercials on digital recording devices a crime, and would make many uses of p2p networks, digital music players, digital sampling, and other forms of fair-use, [...]

Disclaimer: I try to keep this blog non-political. I am essentially a political centrist — I tend to judge each politician, plan and party on its merits rather than by any rigid ideology or party-line. I generally find most politicans, political plans and political parties to be less intelligent and less long-term-oriented than I would [...]

Recent data indicates that the pace of C02 buildup in the atmosphere is moving faster than expected, raising speculation of the dreaded “feedback effect” kicking in. Computer simulations have predicted this, now it may be happening — or it may just be a temporary anomaly. In a few years we will know, once we have [...]

There has been much recent discussion lately about alleged evidence that the Bush administration is issuing terrorist alerts for political gain. While I am not taking a position on this issue, I do have a suggestion that could eliminate any doubts, and in the process protect our upcoming elections. In order to prevent the possibility [...]

I wonder if anyone from MoveOn.Org or the Republicans will notice our GoMeme experiments? (Not that I’m taking sides — I’ll simply be happy if somebody wins the election!) Grassroots political campaigns could potentially really benefit from the techniques we’re testing here. For example, imagine a “blog meme” for a political campaign — a meme [...]

by Nova Spivack Originally published on July 28, 2004; Updated on October 10, 2011 http://novaspivack.com Should there be a Constitutional Separation of Corporation and State? Today our American democracy faces a new threat to its integrity, a threat even greater than terrorism in the long-term. This threat is the corporation. In this essay I propose [...]

Just read an interesting article about the coming end of the world, in which the author traces the recent history of rapid climate change, government cover ups, and secret preparations for the polar ice-cap melting which now seems pretty much inevitable. Fascinating read. I think it’s definitely time to go watch Waterworld again (yes, it [...]

A report has come out that the levels of asbestos in lower Manhattan were (are?) at least twice what is considered safe for humans by the FDA, and possibly worse. Levels were so high after 911 that they overloaded the tests. However, this data was purposely concealed from the public following 911. Related Posts:Peace in [...]

I just saw an interesting film, The Corporation, that suggests that many corporations (which legally have the same status as “persons” in the USA) could be clinically diagnosed as psychopaths. While I felt the film was a bit heavy-handed, there were many points that were quite thought-provoking. For example, one point the film made was [...]

A Japanese report reveals that Syrian equipment and technicians were on the train that exploded in North Korea recently. Furthermore, the report alleges that North Koreans in “protective suits” were dispatched to remove the bodies and equipment from a special section of the train. Hmm…has anyone checked the site for radioactivity? Related Posts:Excellent Strategic Analysis [...]

A new technique has been proposed that appears to be able to determine a shortlist of possible words that can occupy sections of declassified documents that have been “blacked out.” The attack makes use of some clever analytical tactics. Using this method the researchers were able to determine the identity of an intelligence agency in [...]

Here is an article that accurately depicts the carnage in Madrid. In the USA we only get highly sanitized news and war coverage is usually very minimal — but this article tells it like it really is. Perhaps if the public was shown what was war was really like there would be less of it? [...]

Good news, and good riddance to Eolas. The USPTO has nullified the Eolas plugin patent. They have 60 days to appeal though. Hopefully they will give up or at least lose on appeal. This patent has created a world of problems for third-party software developers with plugins for IE — and has given Microsoft extra [...]

A good friend, Ann Lynnworth, has started a terrific new project — to police and restore accuracy in the media. Ann writes: Watching the election news from mid-Jan to mid-Feb made me sick as I saw how misinformation was copied and pasted around the globe at lightning speed. This site is the result of wondering [...]

A leaked secret report by top Pentagon analysts claims that within 20 years Britain could become “Siberian” and Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas. In addition the report warns of nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting around the world as massive climate changes reshape the planet. Related Posts:How to Save the [...]

The Pentagon is now considering the possibility of “rapid climate change” as soon as even two decades in the future as a potential new “national security threat.” Research has shown that previous ice-ages were not gradual — rather they were sudden catastrophes — possibly triggered when the global environment reached a certain critical state. Our [...]

I read today with disgust further testimonials of shocking atrocities from defectors from the Gulags in North Korea. If you aren’t aware of the situation, you should be. Perhaps more than any other nation today, North Korea is engaged in systematic, large-scale human rights abuses — in particular, as the above cited news report alleges [...]

At Sandia National Laboratories researchers are working on a new technology that helps managers read the minds of their employees. This is supposed to help the managers assign tasks more effectively, gain insight into their employees’ states of mind, and achieve higher human performance. Technologies of this nature are useful for creating what I call [...]

Do you know about United States Patent No. 6,671,714? You should. The patent, recently granted to one Frank Weyer of Beverly Hills, California, grants the patent holder full rights to:A method for assigning URL’s and e-mail addresses to members of a group comprising the steps of: assigning each member of said group a URL of [...]

A group of climatologists met recently in England to discuss how to save the Earth from global warming. Rather than actually doing something to stop the emission of greenhouse gasses — they proposed a giant space shield and a bunch of other insane ideas. Related Posts:Big Thinkers' Most Dangerous IdeasMust-Know Terms for the 21st Century [...]

I admit it. I’m a total sucker for things like this. If the Bush Administration commits to sending a manned mission to Mars, or even just putting a permanent base on the Moon, it would definitely be a point in their favor in my mind. I really think space exploration is one of the most [...]

Today I realized that the solution to the failing patent law system in the US and abroad is not to eliminate patents, or prevent patents in certain areas. Nor is it to have more or better patent examiners, or stricter guidelines for prior art analysis and appeals. No, the solution is to keep the current [...]

The New Scientist published this scary article in reaction to new reports from the US Agriculture Department about unorthodox terrorist risk scenarios. It’s one more example of why uncontrolled genetic engineering is perhaps the greatest present long-term threat to the human species — far more dangerous in fact than nuclear weapons. If we regulate plutonium [...]