Digital Crumble

Jan 25

“A bus driver has smashed his vehicle into traffic and pedestrians in the western Indian city of Pune, killing nine people and injuring 27 others.” BBC News - ‘Berserk’ India bus driver kills nine in Pune

Bangalore. Tea specialty place.

Me: Excuse me, what temperature water are you going to infuse the white tea in?
Waiter: 80 to 100 degrees.
Me: Er... 80 or 100? It can make a big difference.
Waiter: 80 to 100, maximum 100.
Me: But... Which temperature exactly?
Waiter: 100 degrees maximum. Not more than 100 degrees.
Me: Well, of course it's not more than 100 degrees!
Friend: Please make the water 80 degrees only for the white tea, OK?

“Apple’s profit of $13.1 billion was equal to their revenue in Q4 2010, as Jordan Golson notes. To be clear, that was just a year and a quarter ago. That’s how quickly Apple is growing.” Apple’s Massive Numbers And Some Context | TechCrunch

Jan 23

“I’ve known plenty of couples who have shared passwords, and not a single one has not regretted it,” said Mr. Biddle in an interview, adding that the practice includes the unspoken notion of mutually assured destruction if somebody misbehaves. “It’s the kind of symbolism that always goes awry.” Teenagers Sharing Passwords as Show of Affection - NYTimes.com

“Her son was taken aback but then relied on a tried-and-true excuse for saying no. “He blamed it on his parents,” Ms. Lender said of her son. “He said, ‘If I give you my password, my mom will have a cow.’ ” Teenagers Sharing Passwords as Show of Affection - NYTimes.com

“Sharing passwords, she noted, feels forbidden because it is generally discouraged by adults and involves vulnerability. And there is pressure in many teenage relationships to share passwords, just as there is to have sex.” Teenagers Sharing Passwords as Show of Affection - NYTimes.com

“They say they know such digital entanglements are risky, because a souring relationship can lead to people using online secrets against each other. But that, they say, is part of what makes the symbolism of the shared password so powerful.” Teenagers Sharing Passwords as Show of Affection - NYTimes.com

“The only conceivable legitimate reason for exhibiting a white tiger would be for educational purposes to clearly and unequivocally illustrate to the public the process of natural selection and how, when a deleterious recessive genetic mutation randomly occurs that is disadvantageous for the survival of the animal, such as white color in a tropical jungle environment, the animal does not survive to pass on that genetic mutation or disadvantageous characteristic to its offspring.” All White Tigers Are Inbred and are Not Purebred|Big Cat Rescue

Jan 22

“In such an environment, Omar is lucky that the exculpatory evidence was presented at all. As he returns to enforced solitary confinement once more, it’s hard not to wonder whether finally, after 64 months of hideous imprisonment, his long journey to some sort of justice is finally near. But then I recall some of the most chilling words ever uttered by the administration: that, even if detainees are eventually acquitted in their military trials, they might be held indefinitely in Guantánamo anyway.” The trials of Omar Khadr, Guantánamo’s “child soldier” | Andy Worthington

“She was the first to say that the teenagers at risk off line are the same ones who are at risk online,” said Alice Marwick, a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft who works closely with Dr. Boyd. “It’s not that the Internet is doing something bad to these kids, it’s that these bad things are in kids’ lives and the Internet is just a component of that.” Danah Boyd - Cracking Teenagers’ Online Codes - NYTimes.com

“By focusing on a range of issues — sexual predation, teenage suicide, bullying, sexting, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual trafficking — Dr. Boyd has shown, often to the dismay of those in the tech community who believe that the Internet is the ultimate equalizer, that issues of race, class and gender persist in the virtual world just as in the real world. The children in families characterized by alcohol and drug abuse, financial stress, divorce and sexual abuse reveal their struggles online just as they do off.” Danah Boyd - Cracking Teenagers’ Online Codes - NYTimes.com

“She now calls herself an activist and a scholar. Her Twitter handle is “social media scholar, youth researcher & advocate.” She is also working on a long overdue book for Yale University Press, “The Social Lives of Networked Teens.” (The title, she said jokingly, should really be “It’s Complicated.”)” Danah Boyd - Cracking Teenagers’ Online Codes - NYTimes.com

“The most deadly misconception about American youth has been the sexual predator panic,” she said. “The model we have of the online sexual predator is this lurking man who reaches out on the Internet and grabs a kid. And there is no data that support that. The vast majority of sex crimes against kids involve someone that kid trusts, and it’s overwhelmingly family members.” Danah Boyd - Cracking Teenagers’ Online Codes - NYTimes.com

“More worrying, however, than these poignant demonstrations of the stunted growth of Omar’s adolescent mind, is the psychological impact of indefinite detention. A number of medical experts, who reviewed the results of mental status tests administered by his lawyers, stated that he had been severely traumatized by his experiences. Dr. Eric Trupin, who has conducted extensive research on the effects of incarceration on adolescents, explained, “The impact of these harsh interrogation techniques on an adolescent such as O.K. [Omar], who also has been isolated for almost three years, is potentially catastrophic to his future development. Long-term consequences of harsh interrogation techniques are both more pronounced for adolescents and more difficult to remediate or treat even after such interrogations are discontinued, particularly if the victim is uncertain as to whether they will resume. It is my opinion, to a reasonable scientific certainty, that O.K.’s continued subjection to the threat of physical and mental abuse places him at significant risk for future psychiatric deterioration, which may include irreversible psychiatric symptoms and disorders, such as a psychosis with treatment-resistant hallucinations, paranoid delusions and persistent self-harming attempts.” The trials of Omar Khadr, Guantánamo’s “child soldier” | Andy Worthington

“Damien Corsetti looks at me with his small eyes and says, “Look, they leave us alone in this room, they give me a roll of duct tape to tie you to the chair, I turn off the light and in five hours you sign a piece of paper for me saying that you’re Osama bin Laden.” Former US interrogator Damien Corsetti recalls the torture of prisoners in Bagram and Abu Ghraib | Andy Worthington

Digital Crumble

Crumbly on the outside, sweet and squishy inside. An attempt to bake sense into my online wanderings.

Bangalore. Tea specialty place.