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'Armani Communist' divides China

When Liu Bo attended a regional communist party event as the official ambassador of local students it wasn't his youthful demeanour which made the biggest impression.

Nor was it the remarks which the 14-year-old made to the Shenzhen People's Political Consultative Conference, calling for the greater use of non-exam based assessments in the Chinese education system.
What made people stare, and what rapidly become a major topic of conversation as photos of Liu spread across Chinese social media this week, was what he was wearing.

Around his neck was a red scarf of the type worn by Chairman Mao's Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution and now standard issue wear for the Communist Party Youth League. But Liu had paired that with what was taken to be an Armani suit, because of the lapel badge he was wearing with the distinctive logo of the Italian luxury brand.

In the eyes of many Chinese observers this was not so much a wardrobe malfunction as a clash of ideologies in a single outfit. Some on China's micro blogging platform Weibo dubbed Liu the "Armani Youngster" and attacked his choice of clothing.

PM left red nosed by censorship protest

When Malaysian police warned activist and graphic designer Fahmi Reza that his Twitter account was under surveillance after he posted an image of the prime minister, Najib Razak, as a clown, they probably hoped such behaviour would stop.

But then members of an art collective, Grupa posted even more clownish images of the premier to express their solidarity with him and to champion the ideal of free speech.

The pictures have spread across social media with the hashtag #KitaSemuaPenghasut which translates as "we are all seditious".

Fahmi's mockery of the prime minister was part of a wider reaction to news last week, when the country's attorney-general cleared Mr Najib of any corruption relating to a long-running financial scandal.

too-lazy-to-sub dept.

James Reinders: Parallelism Has Crossed a Threshold

Is the parallel everything era here? What happens when you can assume parallel cores? In the second half of our in-depth interview, Intel’s James Reinders discusses the fading out of single-core machines and the ramifications of the democratization of parallel computing, remarking “we don’t need to worry about single-core processors anymore and that’s pretty significant in the world of programming for this next decade.” Other topics covered include the intentions behind OpenHPC and trends to watch in 2016.

First half: A Conversation with James Reinders

Sensors, not CPUs, are the tech that swings the smartphone market

Flash back a quarter of a century: I’m sourcing components for a consumer virtual reality system. An accelerometer is an absolute necessity in a head-mounted display, because it senses the motion of the head. Accelerometers exist in silicon, but priced at US$25 apiece, their only customer is the automotive industry - sensors used to trigger deployment of the airbags in a crash.

In the end, I invented my own sensor, because silicon accelerometers cost too much.

A few hundred million smartphones later, accelerometers and gyroscopes have become cheap as chips. Literally. From twenty-five dollars to less than twenty-five cents, the conjunction of Moore’s Law and Steve Jobs made these sensors cheap and abundant.

With many smartphones using high-quality accelerometer/gyroscope sensors, the groundwork had been laid for Google’s Cardboard - really no more than a cheap set of plastic lenses set at the right distance from a smartphone screen. Everything else about the Cardboard experience happened inside the smartphone - because the smartphone suddenly had the right suite of sensors to generate a head-tracking display.

Theoretically, Google’s Cardboard should give you the same smooth virtual reality experience as Samsung’s Gear VR. But it’s like chalk and cheese: Cardboard does the job, but it always feels as though you’re fighting the hardware, where Gear VR feels as comfortable as an old shoe.

The reason for that lies with the sensors built into Gear VR. Oculus CTO John Carmack worked with Samsung to specify an accelerometer/gyroscope sensor suite that could feed Samsung's flagship Galaxy S6 smartmobe with a thousand updates a second. The average sensors, on a typical smartphone - even the very powerful Galaxy S6 - won’t come anywhere near that.

Head tracking can only be as good as the sensors used to track the head. The proof of this is the difference between Galaxy S6 in Cardboard, and Galaxy S6 in Gear VR - try both and see for yourself.

This is one bleeding edge in the smartphone sensor arms race. Within the next eighteen months, every high-end smartphone will specify incredibly sensitive and fast accelerometers and gyroscopes. Smartphones work well both in the palm of your hand and when mounted over your eyes. Every major manufacturer will have their own Gear VR-like plastic case for wearing their latest top-of-the-line handset. Except at the very high end - the province of serious gamers and information designers - smartphones and VR will become entirely interchangeable.

[...] Back during the Cold War, the Soviets were caught out shining laser beams onto the windows at the White House, reading voices out of the reflections. The White House responded by pointing speakers at their windows, playing music just loud enough to drown out any other signal. We may need a new app for our smartphones, one that keeps just enough music piping out its speaker to confound anyone using our newly sensitive accelerometers against us.

According to the National Bureau of FUD, 189% of all tasks that can be done on personal computers are undeniably better suited for mobile devices, especially such tasks as video rendering, content creation, high performance computing, data entry, industrial control, gaming, and mass data storage. In light of these shocking statistics, we must ask ourselves whether the Personal Computer is dead? Then ask ourselves the same question again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

        Why ask the question so much? Because a group of computer users, who are obviously stuck in the past, keeps on insisting that the personal computer, what with its disturbing open standards and accountability and user-serviceable parts could possibly provide some sort of equivalent experience to utter glory, nay, utter perfection in the form of mobile devices. According to reputable sources with whom I have made acquaintance, touch interfaces are vastly superior to traditional interfaces such as keyboards and mice in terms of speed, durability, smudge-capacity, reliability, and accuracy. It is clear that the market has spoken on these matters, as, according to figures provided by the Microsoft Institute of Making Windows 8 and 10 Sound Like Good Ideas, mobile devices outsell personal computers by a factor of one hundred million billion to one.

        Fortunately, there are ways of assisting users of personal computers with their apparent mental illness. There is a very large and vocal contingent of PC software developers who are ready and willing to make mobile-like user interfaces across every single modern application, regardless of whether it “makes sense” or “actively impedes users”. Things like sandwich menus, over-sized buttons, endless hidden levels of displays to change even the simplest of options, forced updates, no promises of stability, the removal of clearly labeled icons, graphics drawn by a mentally deranged and disabled seven-year-old, the destruction of operating system choice, endless tracking, and large swathes of bright pastel colors are sure to cause even the most hardened “power user” to come to his or her senses and embrace the superiority of mobile platforms.

        Microsoft, to their credit, has led the charge on ensuring that personal computer users can experience the joys of mobile computing, even with mice, keyboards, and all of the negative features mentioned before. Microsoft pioneered the mobile-ification of user interfaces with Windows 8, a monumental, immensely popular, and well received step forward for the company. Just three years later, they even had the grace to not only make Windows 10 upgrades free, but to force users to upgrade whether they wanted to or not (this was done to take care of the last few holdouts stranded with “well designed” desktop operating systems). Furthermore, because Windows 10 mandates Secure Boot, users can feel safe in the knowledge that no one can ever change their operating system to some inferior, non-mobile version and that, in order to upgrade, they can experience the unparalleled joys of buying an entire new computer!

        Even open source software developers are taking up the challenge of converting their existing user bases. Just look at the unparalleled successes of Gnome 3 and Ubuntu's Unity user interface! Not only were they well received, but they caused a number of people to become converts to the One True Platform.

        In conclusion, the personal computer is dead. There is no question about it. Anything that personal computers can allegedly do is done better and faster by mobile devices, regardless of what “users” say.

Rouhani in Europe: Italy covers nudes for Iran president

Italian hospitality for the visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has stretched to covering up nude statues.

Mr Rouhani and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi spoke at Rome's Capitoline Museum after Italian firms signed business deals with Iran.

But several nudes there were hidden to avoid offending the Iranian president.

Italy also chose not to serve wine at official meals, a gesture France, where Mr Rouhani travels next, has refused to copy.

An Islamic republic, Iran has strict laws governing the consumption of alcohol.

Mr Rouhani is in Europe on a five-day tour seeking to boost economic ties after the implementation of a deal on rolling back Iran's nuclear activity saw sanctions lifted.

"Iran is the safest and most stable country of the entire region," the Iranian president told Italian business leaders.

He also stressed growth would be key to combating extremism, saying "unemployment creates soldiers for terrorists".

Monday saw contracts worth around €17bn ($18.4bn; £12bn) signed between Iran and Italian companies.

On Tuesday, Mr Rouhani also met Pope Francis, who urged Iran to work with other Middle Eastern countries against terrorism and arms trafficking, the Vatican said.

Mighty No. 9 Suffers Another Delay, Inafune "Sincerely Sorry" for Disappointing Fans

Mighty No. 9, Keiji Inafune's spiritual successor to Mega Man, has been delayed again. The announcement was made in an update to Kickstarter backers, where Inafune--who created Mega Man along with a number of iconic properties for Capcom, before leaving in 2010--explained developer Comcept encountered "critical" issues in the game's online matchmaking.

Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. 9 delayed … again

Mighty No. 9 is a lesson for future Kickstarters

"We started to record meteorology at the coldest point in the last 10,000 years."

https://vimeo.com/14366077

George Washington slave book pulled after criticism

A children's picture book about George Washington and his slaves has been pulled by publishers Scholastic.

A Birthday Cake for George Washington tells the story of Washington's slave Hercules, a cook, and his daughter.

It had been criticised for its images of smiling slaves, and described as being "highly problematic".

Scholastic said in a statement that without more historical context, the book "may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves".

The book, telling the story of Hercules and Delia making a cake together, had been released on 5 January. It was met with a barrage of one-star reviews on Amazon, with readers describing it as "disgustingly inaccurate", and one writing: "I can't believe people are celebrating a children's story that depicts happy, joyful slaves."

Scholastic's description of the story had read: "Everyone is buzzing about the president's birthday! Especially George Washington's servants, who scurry around the kitchen preparing to make this the best celebration ever. Oh, how George Washington loves his cake! And, oh, how he depends on Hercules, his head chef, to make it for him. Hercules, a slave, takes great pride in baking the president's cake."

Auschwitz price-fixing claims: Israel police arrest nine

Nine executives at Israeli travel agencies have been arrested on suspicion of fixing the price of high school students' trips to former Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz.

Police say they are investigating allegations of a secret price-fixing arrangement by companies who organise the trips for students.

Investigators have raided the homes of executives and frozen bank accounts.

At least six travel agencies are accused of violating competition rules.

They are suspected of colluding on prices before responding to an education ministry tender to take students to Holocaust memorials.

When the Israeli education ministry approached a number of different companies, it received identical quotes.

Reports say the alleged collusion was aimed at artificially inflating prices.

Rubio: "we make deals with Iran, we betray our allies like Israel"

...You forgot to say Saudi Arabia.

Long exchange between Trump and Cruz over Cruz's citizenship. It seems most of the boos around this portion are pro-Trump.

~40 minutes in. Carson: "I was mentioned." Host: "You were?" Carson: "He said 'everybody'."

~86 minutes in. Christie trying to be the NSA's top cheerleader yet again. No Rand on stage to balance him out anymore.

~95 minutes in. Kasich: "I believe in the PTT."

~100 minutes in. Trump cuts in to call Jeb weak. Are the boos for Trump or Jeb?

~124 minutes in. Some kind of heckling. "We want ----."

Christie calls FBI Director Comey a friend.

~131 minutes in. Rubio calls Snowden a traitor who committed treason while bashing Cruz.

~134 minutes in. Bush talks about encryption/cybersecurity. "NSA should be put in charge of the civilian side of [cybersecurity]." "If you can encrypt messages, ISIS can." Narrowly avoids endorsing backdoors, but he's a Bush so we know how much that's worth.

Kasich's closing statement mentions reform of military contractor spending. Bencarson.com's closing statement mentions bencarson.com. Rubio: a Hillary Clinton-based closing statement. Cruz: mentions a Benghazi movie, panders to military and law enforcement. Trump: mentions the 10 sailors in Iran, something about making America good again.