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The Future of Tech, News and making sense of it all!
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Google's flashy visionary and Facebook's hacker boy-king are putting their heads together - but they're not cooperating to drum up more likes or clicks, thank goodness.
The pair, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have teamed up for social good, establishing a science research prize that's already awarded $33 million in its inaugural round.
A Big Stakes Science Fair
The award, known as the Breakthrough Prize, will be doled out to five winners each year, though a robust selection of 11 recipients were announced in the first round. The founding members of the new science foundation have committed to establish five annual prizes of $3 million for outstanding research that advances cures for intractable diseases.
Other founding members of the Breakthrough Prize include the wives of both Brin and Zuckerberg, who are both more science-minded than their tech-star partners. Anne Wojcicki, married to Brin, is the founder of 23andme.com - a genetics startup. Priscilla Chan, Zuckerberg's wife, graduated from medical school after meeting Zuck at Harvard and was accepted to a prestigious pediatric residency at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) last year.
"Priscilla and I are honored to be part of this," Zuckerberg wrote in the prize's announcement. "We believe the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences has the potential to provide a platform for other models of philanthropy, so people everywhere have an opportunity at a better future."
Apple chairman Art Levinson will serve as the new foundation's chairman, rounding out the trifecta of major tech companies with a hand in the new science prize.
From disheveled boardroom 20-something to amoral hacker, Zuckerberg's image runs the gamut - and it isn't always flattering. But in 2012, the Facebook founder ran up a tab as the second biggest philanthropist in the U.S., giving away 18 million shares of Facebook stock valued at $498.8 million to a health and education foundation in Silicon Valley.
Brin is no stranger to writing epic tax deductible checks - or to co-founding his own nonprofit. Beyond Google's own active nonprofit arm, the quirky Google co-founder has donated millions to foundations ranging from fighting poverty in the Bay Area to Parkinson's disease research.
For more on the prize, the Breakthrough Foundation's site has the full list of its first prize recipients.
Photo by Taylor Hatmaker.
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As I stated previously, the constitution obviously does not apply to bad cops who shoot other cops. It would appear I'm not the only one that feels this way......
Big Bear Burning: Was Dorner Lynched?
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2013/02/13/big-bear-burning-was-dorner-lynched/
I was born in Mississippi in 1949. Around that time one of the easiest ways to lynch an entire African-American family was to set the house on fire and shoot people as they ran out. That tactic took fewer people than the average hanging, and you didn't have to show your face.
The technique also worked well in Al-Qaeda's massacre at the American embassy in Benghazi.
And it worked at Big Bear, too.
The San Bernadino County Sheriff's knew the grenades they fired into the cabin were highly flammable, and would be set off by a spark. Or a gun shot.
Either the sheriff's people were stupid about that or the Sheriff lied when he said they had not intended to burn Dorner.
The cabin was surrounded. A siege was in order, not a lynching. Certainly emotions ran high. Anger. Adrenalin surf. But the public has a right to expect that their law enforcement personnel are professional and disciplined. And have an interest in justice rather than revenge.
Law enforcement failed on all of those accounts at Big Bear.
Dorner may very well have been the vicious killer he was painted as.
But the way that law enforcement behaved that night at Big Bear resembled the sort of undisciplined, fury-driven madness that characterized the Ku Klux Klan of my home state. Or terrorists at Benghazi. One can argue that the motivations may have been different, but the results are indisputably the same.
I have written about a number of the many strange, suspicious aspects of this case: L.A.'s "Killer Cop:" Was He Set Up? but law enforcement's stonewalling, lack of transparency and blood lust to revenge their own losses raises a questions, destroys their credibility, further damages the shaky trust they have with the public and makes a lot of people wonder, "what was so important to cover up that they have to made sure he never got a chance to speak in court?"
I took some minor licks in the 1960s, most notably when a Madison County (Mississippi) deputy wanted to beat the hell out of me and my best friend Arthur for bringing water to a school teacher from Ohio whose car radiator had overheated on Highway 55 during a civil rights march.
I outran the sucker in my 426 Hemi Plymouth, otherwise I might not be writing this right now. I have seen the face of undisciplined law enforcement and know what it looks like.
And right now, it looks a lot like Big Bear.
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A plane carrying a military delegation from Guinea to attend an annual armed forces day in Liberia crashed Monday in the Liberian town of Charlesville, Monrovia said.
"There has been a plane crash in Charlesville at about five miles (eight kilometres) from the Roberts International Airport," said Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown.
Authorities do not yet know if there were casualties, nor what kind of plane was involved or how many people were on board, said Brown, who was on his way to the scene.
"This plane was bringing the Guinean delegation from Conakry to Monrovia. This delegation was to attend the armed forces day in Liberia," he said.
Liberia holds an armed forces day each year to recognise its military, often inviting delegations from neighbouring countries, including Guinea, its neighbour to the north.
Roberts International, Liberia's main airport, is located about 65 kilometres southeast of Monrovia.
Much of the area where the plane went down is covered in deep forest.
Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.
SEE ALSO: 10 Reasons Iran's New Jet Will Never Leave The Ground >
SEE ALSO: Astonishing Pre-Afghan War Photos Show Everyday Life In Peaceful Kabul >
SEE ALSO: 29 Images Of Marine Drill Instructors Screaming In People's Faces >
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This all should be a good discussion on upcoming the HTTP://noagendashow.com
Ron Paul Calls on United Nations (Which He Doesn't Believe In) to Confiscate RonPaul.Com
http://gawker.com/5983066/ron-paul-calls-on-united-nations-which-he-doesnt-believe-in-to-confiscate-ronpaulcom
Rogers has had an unlocking policy in place for awhile, but it isn't what most would call reasonable: an unlock isn't even an option until the contract is over, which could involve a 3-year wait and obsolete hardware that isn't worth the effort. Logic is about to prevail, thanks in part to pressure from proposed CRTC guidelines on customer rights. A policy change in March will see Rogers unlock devices as long as they've been on the network for at least 90 days, delivering freedom while the equipment is still relevant. Subscribers will just have to swallow the $50 fee, although that's a relative bargain next to buying outright.
The provider is also making a gesture of goodwill to those who frequently cross into the US through a new roaming add-on launching this spring. Border-hoppers will have the option to pay $8 to get a quick, 50MB hit of data for one day. It's not quite the revolution the carrier claims when many of us could blow past the limit within minutes -- Instagram, anyone? Still, it's good enough for emergency directions or an email check among those of us who won't commit to a permanent roaming plan.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Source: Rogers
Read more of this story at Slashdot.