Tuesday Morning: Toivo’s Tango
Did you know the tango evolved into a Finnish subgenre? Me neither, and I’m part Finn on my mother’s side of the family. Both my grandmother and great-grandmother spoke Finn at home after their immigration to the U.S., but apparently never passed the language or Finnish music on to my mother and her siblings. The Finnish tango became so popular a festival — the Tangomarkkinat — was established to celebrate it.
The tango makes its way back again, nearly 9000 miles from its origin to Finland, in this music video. The performer featured here is a very popular Argentine tango singer, Martin Alvarado, singing in Spanish a popular Finnish tango, Liljankukka, written by Toivo Kärki. If you search for the same song and songwriter in YouTube, you’ll trip across even more Finnish tango.
Let’s dance…
Police raid in Belgium today
There were more arrests in Belgium today in connection to Paris attack in November. Not many details yet in the outlets I follow, suggesting information is close to the vest; there was more information very early, which has now moved off feeds, also suggesting tight control of related news. A raid in the southern Brussels suburb of Uccle resulted in the arrest of three persons now being questioned. This raid follows the arrest last Friday of Mohamed Abrini, who has now admitted he is the man seen in security camera video as the ‘man in the hat’ observed just before the bombing of the Brussels’ airport. Thus far, intelligence gathered from suspects and locations indicates a second attack had been planned, attacking the Euro 2016 football championship. Worth noting the media has now been reporting only the given name and a family name first initial for some of those arrested recently.
Up All Night growing, annoying some Parisians
This Occupy movement subset called ‘Up All Night’ or ‘Night Rising’ (Nuit debout) has been rallying during evening hours, protesting austerity-driven labor reforms, France’s continued state of emergency after November’s terrorist attacks, and more. The number of protesters has grown over the last 12 days they have taken to the streets, driven in part by the Panama Papers leak. The crowd has annoyed those navigating the area around the Place de la Republique where the Nuit debout gather. (More here on video.)
Upset over Burr-Feinstein draft bill on encryption continues
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) issued a statement last night conveying their displeasure with this proposed bill which would mandate compliance with law enforcement access to encrypted digital content. The CTA’s 2200 members include Apple, Google, Microsoft, and any consumer electronic technology manufacturer featured at the annual Consumer Electronics Show each year. This formal statement follows a wave of negative feedback from technology and privacy experts since the draft bill was revealed late last week.
Odds and ends
- Cellebrite makes the news again, this time for a ‘textalyzer’ (Ars Technica) — Huh. What a coincidence that an Israeli company attributed with the cracking of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c is now commercializing a device for law enforcement to use on drivers’ cellphones. Do read this piece.
- DARPA still fighting for relevance with its Squad X initiative (Reuters) — Not a single mention of exoskeletons, but enough digital technology to make soldiers glow in the dark on the battlefield.
- Microsoft’s director of research calls some of us chickenshit because AI is peachy, really (The Guardian) — Uh-huh. This, from the same company that released that racist, sexist POS AI bot Tay not once but twice. And we should all just trust this stuff in our automobiles and in the military. Ri-ight.
- Farmers watching more than commodities market and the weather (Fortune) — Chinese IP rustlers are sneaking commercially-developed plant materials back to PRC. Hope the Chinese realize just how likely American farmers are to use firearms against trespassers.
- CDC’s deputy director on Zika: “Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought” (Reuters) — I swear multiple news outlets including WaPo have changed the heds on stories which originally quoted this statement. Zika’s observed destruction of brain cells during research is really distressing; so is Zika’s link to Guillain-Barre syndrome in addition to birth defects including microcephaly. In spite of the genuine and deep concern at CDC over this virus’ potential impact on the U.S., the CDC is forced to dig in sofa cushions for loose change to research and fight this infectious agent. Absolutely ridiculous, like we learned nothing from our experience here with West Nile Virus.
That’s it, off to mix up my tango with a whiskey foxtrot. See you tomorrow morning!
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I wonder if the MPAA / RIAA are going to join the chorus of folks opposing this piece of crap legislation from Feinstein & Burr… after all it will be alot easier for pirates to copy those blu-ray movie and music discs, especially the new 4k discs with enhanced encryption..
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Of course, the NRA should join in since this is a restriction on a technology that was declared a weapon some time ago.
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While they are considering who can and cannot use encryption (cell phone makers vs. bankers), how will they get around the equal protection clause in the Constituion?
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And there is that bit about this being a government mandated restriction of free speech …
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Mohamed Abrini, who has now omitted he is the man seen in security camera video
‘admitted’, I would think. Automiscorrect FTW!
This is well worth reading:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/04/12/life-a12.html
The Great Orange Satan has a diary about CREDO going after the Burr-Feinstein bill (with a link to a petition). The diary also has a comment wondering who actually wrote the bill – which is a good question.
P J Evans (12:10) — Thanks for the heads up, it was my bloody auto-incorrect. Definitely not what I typed in plain text.
But ‘any scenario in which [AI] is an existential threat to humanity is not just around the corner‘, he said. Jeebus, I can’t even type a simple paragraph without code reinterpreting my words *today*.
The practice in Euro media of reporting only first names and surname initials is common; largely required by their privacy laws. There are many instances in German media where even convicted criminals are referred to only by first name and surname initial. Moreover, publishing the images of their faces is similarly frowned upon because of their privacy laws.
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Would you rather that way, or the way we blast the lives, images an identities of the accused (or “persons of interest”) across the front pages and evening news. Even though they don’t have juries (as a rule) in Euro-land, their practice does a better job of respecting whatever presumption of innocence they might have than ours does, fer sher.
In regard to ZIKA, do you recall a couple of research reports early on that connected the ZIKA effects to the pesticide instead of the mosquito? The pesticide was/is sprayed on water for ingestion by the mosquito larvae, whose genetic development it is supposed to ‘adjust’. The research suggested the mosquito-adjusting ‘adjusted’ water could be the vector, instead of the mosquito, the fluids of human beings (one would expect also other life-forms) drinking the pesticide ‘adjusted’ water being ‘adjusted’ as, but not exactly as, the fluids of the mosquito larvae. At the larval early-fetus level a good deal is similar between life-forms.
I don’t recall any answers being given to the scientific reports, which seemed to be just ignored. Oddly, since the nature of the research would seem to require replication or refutation, at least denial. Instead, the researchers’ reports appeared, then disappeared from media. Scary in itself. Scarier still if the research was correct and suppressed…
On the other hand, what if it was/is a secondary purpose? An intended side-effect, perhaps a bio-warfare agent test project. Something similar to the supplying of sewer-water to indigenous Americans during their boxcar transports from where they were in the government’s way and were cleared from to plots of ‘Reservation’ assigned them, usually in “Indian Territory” (the future state of Oklahoma, property the original treaty for which specified being only ‘loaned’ by the U.S. government, and to revert when the indigenous died out and no longer needed it). The connection between ‘unclean water’ and consumption (TB) being known, the intention of supplying the custodially confined indigenous unclean water was clearly to hurry them along to not needing Reservation territory sooner. Why not the same today? Have human beings in positions of power changed?
In today’s ZIKA case, the portion of the world-population who cannot afford to buy their drinking water, having not even that much value as consumers, are clearly surplus, and the dearth of CDC funding is clear, needing no explanation: “Nothing to look for, nothing to research, no cures required, or wanted; back to your labs, boil potatoes in your retorts; nothing here for you to do…”
I think you must have missed the fact that they’ve imaged the Zika virus.
scribe (3:06) — The manner in which they handled the reporting of suspects IDs is different than it was in November or March, privacy laws or no. They didn’t merely say suspects had been arrested or taken in for questioning, which would offer nothing in terms of ID at all. Nor did they offer full names, suggesting these persons were going to be charged with crimes. What’s different is this mid-way first name+initial, as if they were masking the relationships of the individuals with others. Two of the individuals taken in one of the raids share a last name beginning with K — are they related? Who knows? Is this really more of an attempt to prevent tip-off to other family members involved in the planning who also have the same last name? Or were reports intended to stir to traceable action any affiliates who would recognize [(First Name A+Initial K) + (First Name B+Initial K)]?
evangelista (6:47) — I’ve pointed out in a previous comment that if this was a pesticide poisoning, there would have been increases in microcephaly and Guillain-Barre in areas where the pesticide has been used in the past *without Zika’s presence* and *without Aedes aegypti* — but no.
And I’m pretty sure after a mass pesticide poisoning, there would be documentation and protests. Even an outcry and study as small as that in Flint Michigan revealed the lead poisoning.
P J Evans (8:02) — Thanks — I guess my use of the word “observed” was too subtle, hmm?