Imagine every politician would have such a way of putting things: respectful, data-driven, and passionate.

Prof Alessandro Acquisti gives a TED talk about privacy and modern technologies. He shows studies that can acquire sensitive real-time data about people just from information on the internet (like the social security number), and shows that it’s easily possible to use targeted advertisement by using faces merged from your best friends on facebook; you don’t recognise these faces anymore, but they will subconsciously influence your behavior.

Very well made – and shocking.

“Nicht Kafka, niemals Kafka. Der hat’s nicht gerafft. Das Leben ist nicht so wie er sagt.”

<3

A rhetoric and subversive masterpiece by V. Putin on the US and conflict in Syria was published yesterday in the NYT.

You might have seen Robin Thicke’s video of the song “Blurred Lines” which got lots of PR because … women are naked in it. It’s terrible.

Now, a group of feminist law students from Auckland University posted a parody of it on Youtube – in which men are wearing underpants. Nonetheless it was deleted because the video violated its terms and conditions by displaying sexually explicit content (?!).

There were protests, and the video is up again. And it’s amazing.

(Source: samuel-warde.com)

Lawyers representing Google stated recently:

“Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient’s [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, ‘a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.”

– Source: netzpolitik.org

– Information on protests and activities vs. Google: wikipedia

Link of the day: a collection of 40 lovely and hilarious maps.

This is how the male pufferfish attracts female mates:

Source: “Role of Huge Geometric Circular Structures in the Reproduction of a Marine Pufferfish” by Hiroshi Kawase, Yoji Okata, & Kimiaki Ito (2013).