Skepticism as eHarmony Defends Its Matchmaking Algorithm - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/skepticism-as-eharmony-defends-its-matchmaking-algorithm.html?ref=science&a;
Skepticism as eHarmony Defends Its Matchmaking Algorithm - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/skepticism-as-eharmony-defends-its-matchmaking-algorithm.html?ref=science&a;
Iceland, Prosecutor of Bankers, Sees Meager Returns - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/world/europe/iceland-prosecutor-of-bankers-sees-meager-returns.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — As chief of police in a tiny fishing town for 11 years, Olafur Hauksson developed what he thought was a basic understanding of the criminal mind. The typical lawbreaker, he said, recalling his many encounters with small-time criminals, “clearly knows that he crossed the line” and generally sees “the difference between right and wrong.”
Today, the burly, 48-year-old former policeman is struggling with a very different sort of suspect. Reassigned to Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, to lead what has become one of the world’s most sweeping investigation into the bankers whose actions contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008, Mr. Hauksson now faces suspects who “are not aware of when they crossed the line” and “defend their actions every step of the way.”
Shell’s Move to Fix Drill Vessels Imperils Arctic Plans - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/business/shells-move-to-fix-drill-vessels-imperils-arctic-plans.html
Shell retire deux de ses engins de forage de l’Arctique pour réparations et révisions, pour une durée inconnue (sans doute longue).
The new potential delay in drilling does not necessarily doom Shell’s seven-year, $4.5 billion quest to open a new oil frontier in the far north, but it may strengthen the position of environmentalists who have repeatedly sued to stop or postpone exploration that they claim carries the risks of a spill nearly impossible to clean up.
Ce qui donne du poids aux avis des écologistes.
“Shell can’t get away from the fact this has been a difficult, complex operation that didn’t go well,” said Lois Epstein, an environmental engineer at The Wilderness Society and a member of an Interior Department advisory panel on offshore drilling safety. “They knew they were under tremendous scrutiny and they still couldn’t perform.”
La plate-forme Kulluk s’est échouée le 1/01/13 sur les côtes de l’Alaska : ▻http://www.odin.tc/news/read.asp?articleID=1687 ou ▻http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/news/t/developpement-durable-1/d/en-video-la-plateforme-petroliere-kulluk-sest-echouee-en-alaska_437 (avec vidéo)
Pour le navire de forage Noble Discoverer, il avait « failli aller à la côte » en juillet 2012 après avoir rompu ses amarres…
Il a subi une explosion à bord en novembre et avait été interdit de navigation par la Coast Guard pour des problèmes portant sur l’équipement anti-pollution et la sécurité de l’équipage…
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/noble-discoverer-investigation-arctic-drill-ship_n_2372482.html
John E. Karlin, Who Led the Way to All-Digit Dialing, Dies at 94
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/business/john-e-karlin-who-led-the-way-to-all-digit-dialing-dies-at-94.html
A generation ago, when the poetry of PEnnsylvania and BUtterfield was about to give way to telephone numbers in unpoetic strings, a critical question arose: Would people be able to remember all seven digits long enough to dial them?
Obama’s Turn in Bush’s Bind
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/world/obamas-turn-in-bushs-bind-with-defense-policies.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&page
Un article qui se focalise sur les similitudes et les différences entre Bush fils et Obama en matière de politique étrangère, avant que le problème de fond ne soit évoqué tout à fait en fin d’article sans être développé.
some national security specialists said questions about the limits of executive power to conduct war should not depend on the person in the Oval Office.
“That’s not how we make policy,” said Douglas Ollivant, a former national security aide under Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama and now a fellow at the New America Foundation. “We make policy assuming that people in power might abuse it. To do otherwise is foolish.”
Keeping Secrets
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/public-editor/national-security-and-the-news.html
... when the government’s only chance of keeping an inconvenient truth out of the news media is to warn of a national security threat, it’s amazing how these threats pop up.
... lorsque la seule chance du gouvernement d’éloigner les médias d’une vérité qui dérange est de mettre en avant une menace pour la sécurité nationale, il est incroyable de voir combien ces menaces se multiplient.
Weapons Seizure in Yemen Raises Worries of Iran’s Influence (via Angry Arab, qui fait remarquer que les informations ci-dessous sont évoquées assez nonchalamment dans cet article) :
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/world/middleeast/weapons-seizure-in-yemen-raises-worries-of-irans-influence.html
The seizure follows past joint operations by Yemen and the United States, including American Navy Tomahawk missile strikes against reputed Al Qaeda encampments in 2009 about which the governments issued false or misleading statements.
Investigations by members of the Yemeni Parliament and by Amnesty International later found that in one of those attacks, many civilians had been killed by American-made BLU-97 cluster munitions. The United States has not taken responsibility for the deaths or fully acknowledged its role, raising questions about the Pentagon’s honesty and transparency regarding its security collaboration with Yemen.
Why Would You Ever Give Money Through Kickstarter ? - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/magazine/why-would-you-ever-give-money-through-kickstarter.html?pagewanted=all
Kickstarter et la culture du cadeau (via @ou_pas sur Twitter)
In his book “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” the anthropologist David Graeber examines our history of debt and money, concluding, in part, that humans do not naturally tend toward impersonal, reciprocal exchange. Instead, exchange usually develops in cultures first as a part of a larger social and cultural ritual. One of the most compelling cultures Graeber profiles is the Tiv of West Africa, who have very particular rules about exchange. For starters, they believe that bringing an economic transaction to full completion is essentially immoral, or at least frowned upon, because it implies that one party doesn’t want anything to do with the other in the future. If a Tiv man or woman gives you a gift, you are supposed to respond with another gift of slightly greater or lesser value. The outstanding debt between the two of you is a signal that your relationship is going to continue. To respond with a gift of equal value would be to say implicitly that you wish to even things out and draw your relationship to a close.
Kickstarter is run according to a similar form of gift logic. The artists create a short video, explaining themselves and conveying their personality. People contribute to them because they’re friends who know the artist personally; they’re fans engaged in a highly personal if unidirectional relationship with the artist; or simply because they’re intrigued by the project and want some sense of participation in it. (Though it has been estimated that only 10 to 20 percent of contributors find projects this way, through the Kickstarter site rather than through the artists’ own social-media promotions — and on average, these people donate less money.)
Seeking Redress for a Mother’s Life in a Workhouse
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/world/europe/seeking-redress-in-ireland-over-magdalene-laundry.html
In 1995 they found their mother, Margaret Bullen, here in the Sean MacDermott Street Laundry — one of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries, or workhouses for girls — where she had toiled since 1967, six days a week, without pay. They were shocked by her appearance. “She was very disheveled and looked more than 20 years older than she was,” Ms. Long said. “She was 42, but we were looking at a pensioner’s face. It was hard work, poor nutrition and forced labor.”
Ms. Long was among those present in the Irish Parliament on Tuesday as the government made public a 1,000-page report that concluded that there was “significant state involvement” in the incarceration of thousands of women and girls in a system of slave labor that continued until 1996. And she and her sister were among those disappointed when the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, failed to issue an official and unambiguous apology for the state’s role.
Magdalene laundries survivors threaten hunger strike
Women seeking redress from Irish state after being ordered to work unpaid in institutions run by Catholic church from 1920s
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/magdalene-laundries-hunger-strike
Silver Becomes Her, in a Show’s Portraits - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/fashion/silver-becomes-her-in-a-shows-portraits.html?_r=0
Amy Hempel’s silver white hair is a fact of life. But more than that, it is a banner of identity. Ms. Hempel, the short story writer, recalled recently that a former beau had spied her as she was running to meet him for a movie date. As she caught up with him, he murmured appreciatively: “I knew that was you. I saw that flag of hair.”
US-Iran. Qu’est-ce qui empêcherait l’ayatollah Ali Khamenei de dormir sur ses deux oreilles ? Une attaque américaine ou israélienne contre les installations nucléaires iraniennes ?
Que nenni. Une frappe américaine (ou israélienne ) lui permettrait de rassembler le peuple autour de lui et de sauver une théocratie en perte de vitesse.
Alors de quoi aurait vraiment peur le pouvoir iranien ?
D’un Tahrir Square version iranienne ?
Du militant des droits de l’homme Nasrin Sotoudeh qu’il a mis sous les verrous ?
De la baisse drastique (45 %) des exportations pétrolières l’année dernière ?
De la dévaluation catastrophique de leur monnaie ?
Des élections présidentielles de 2013 ?
Moi qui ne sait pas grand-chose sur l’Iran, j’ai trouvé ce billet d’Alizera Nader, « senior policy analyst » de la RAND Corporation, très instructif.
Reading Chuck Hagel in Tehran - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/opinion/reading-chuck-hagel-in-tehran.html?_r=0
Bon, la RAND, ce n’est pas exactement un petit labo de gôche !
Et je t’ai choisi un lien relativement « objectif » ! ▻http://www.indepthinfo.com/rand
Drone Strikes’ Dangers to Get Rare Moment in Public Eye
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/with-brennan-pick-a-light-on-drone-strikes-hazards.html
The killing of Mr. Jaber, just the kind of leader most crucial to American efforts to eradicate Al Qaeda, was a reminder of the inherent hazards of the quasi-secret campaign of targeted killings that the United States is waging against suspected militants not just in Yemen but also in Pakistan and Somalia. Individual strikes by the Predator and Reaper drones are almost never discussed publicly by Obama administration officials. But the clandestine war will receive a rare moment of public scrutiny on Thursday, when its chief architect, John O. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism adviser, faces a Senate confirmation hearing as President Obama’s nominee for C.I.A. director.
Tiré du même article :
Not long afterward, the C.I.A. began quietly building a drone base in Saudi Arabia to carry out strikes in Yemen. American officials said that the first time the C.I.A. used the Saudi base was to kill Mr. Awlaki in September 2011.
La médiatrice du NYTimes, sur l’article : ▻http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/the-times-was-right-to-report-at-last-on-a-secret-drone-
One of its revelations is the location of a drone base in Saudi Arabia. The Times and other news organizations, including The Washington Post, had withheld the location of that base at the request of the C.I.A., but The Times decided to reveal it now because, according to the managing editor Dean Baquet, it was at the heart of this particular article and because examining Mr. Brennan’s role demanded it.
...
The government’s rationale for asking that the location be withheld was this: Revealing it might jeopardize the existence of the base and harm counterterrorism efforts. ”The Saudis might shut it down because the citizenry would be very upset,” he said.
Internet lore: The great GIF debate | The Economist
▻http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/02/internet-lore #GIF #GIFs #format #image
The main question seems to be whether an acronym’s coiner has the right to determine its pronunciation. Most of the time, speakers are happy to defer to inventors. The PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format, designed to avoid patent and other disputes in the 1990s, stipulates in its specification document that its phonetic form is “ping”. Members of the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which spawned JPEG, have always insisted it be pronounced “jay-peg”. No one minds.
Except that JPEG is not the format’s proper name. In fact, the acronym refers to the compression algorithm, not the encapsulating file type, which is correctly known as JPEG Interchange Format. Or JIF.
Fresh From the Internet’s Attic
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/fashion/common-on-early-internet-gif-files-make-comeback.html
The Internet, it seems, has found its version of vinyl chic.
J’avais pas vu ce truc avec les photos de Eadweard Muybridge
▻http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/01/best-animated-gifs
Growing Numbers of Start-Ups Are Worth a Billion Dollars - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/technology/growing-numbers-of-start-ups-are-worth-a-billion-dollars.html?pagewanted=al
“There are #disruptions everywhere,” said Robert Tinker, the chief executive of MobileIron, which makes software for companies to manage smartphones and tablets.
Raging (Again) Against the Robots - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/sunday-review/raging-again-against-the-robots.html?src=recg
The Philosophy of Data - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/opinion/brooks-the-philosophy-of-data.html?hp&_r=1&
Une institution universitaire étasunienne résiste aux menaces d’assèchement de fonds et décide de maintenir un débat sur le BDS contre les territoires occupés palestiniens...,
Amid Criticism, College Says Event on Israel Can Proceed ▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/nyregion/despite-criticism-brooklyn-college-says-speakers-on-israel-can-still-appear
... et, plus encore, le New York Times appuie cette décision.
Litmus Tests ▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/opinion/litmus-tests-for-israel.html?_r=3&
One dispiriting lesson from Chuck Hagel’s nomination for defense secretary is the extent to which the political space for discussing Israel forthrightly is shrinking. Republicans focused on Israel more than anything during his confirmation hearing, but they weren’t seeking to understand his views. All they cared about was bullying him into a rigid position on Israel policy. Enforcing that kind of orthodoxy is not in either America’s or Israel’s interest.
Brooklyn College is facing a similar trial for scheduling an event on Thursday night with two speakers who support an international boycott to force Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories. While this page has criticized Israeli settlements, we do not advocate a boycott. We do, however, strongly defend the decision by the college’s president, Karen Gould, to proceed with the event, despite withering criticism by opponents and threats by at least 10 City Council members to cut financing for the college. Such intimidation chills debate and makes a mockery of the ideals of academic freedom.
RAMZY MARDINI (a Middle East analyst at the Jamestown Foundation and a former State Department official) ▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/opinion/after-assad-chaos.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
L’opposition syrienne officialisée par les « amis du peuple syrien », qui est-elle ? A coté des « djihadistes », des Ahmed Chalabi.
...[the] new opposition coalition formed in Doha, Qatar (...) is facing the prospect of defections and, worse, disintegration. Narrow interests are taking precedence; Islamists are overpowering secularists; exiles are eclipsing insiders; and very few members seem to have credibility on the ground back home.
(...)
“The U.S. is empowering the Ahmad Chalabis of Syria,” argued one prominent dissident, referring to the Iraqi expatriate who presented himself, before the 2003 American invasion, as a leader with the political legitimacy to take over from Saddam Hussein. Many of Syria’s opposition leaders are acting like Chalabists: frustrating practical negotiations out of opportunism rather than principle, in the hopes of securing the spoils that will come when the Assad regime falls.
The coalition’s president, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, has emerged as a symbolic figurehead. A former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Mr. Khatib lacks the experience to play the jarring game of opposition politics. And Riad Seif, a key American ally and longstanding dissident in Syria, is being marginalized. Both leaders have been sidelined by the expatriate businessman Mustafa Sabbagh, whose moneyed Syrian Business Forum is suspected of being a Qatari front group. Mr. Sabbagh is virtually unknown to most Syrians because he has long been based outside Syria and lacks the respect of veteran dissidents.
Syria’s minorities are also underrepresented. Syria’s Kurdish parties have not joined the coalition, and only three Christians are members. Two represent the Assyrians, but have spent decades in Europe; the other, the S.N.C.’s president, George Sabra, is viewed first and foremost as a communist. The majority of Syria’s 2.5 million Christians, who are ethnic Syriacs, aren’t represented at all. Bassam Ishak, a prominent Syriac, was barred from joining it. Mr. Ishak’s résumé didn’t include loyalty to the S.N.C., which has practically become a prerequisite for membership.
(...)
The best hope for Syria’s future is a political settlement, not armed victory. But without a truly representative opposition, that hope will remain elusive.
Un personnage de Quentin Tarantino dans la réalité des Etats Unis
Chris Kyle, Author of ‘American Sniper’ Reported Killed in Texas - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/us/chris-kyle-american-sniper-author-reported-killed.html?_r=0
... two weeks into his time in Iraq, he found himself staring through his scope into the face of an unconventional enemy. A woman with a child standing close by had pulled a grenade from beneath her clothes as several Marines approached. He hesitated, he wrote, then shot.
“It was my duty to shoot, and I don’t regret it,” he wrote. “My shots saved several Americans, whose lives were clearly worth more than that woman’s twisted soul.”
Over time, his hesitation diminished and he became proficient at his job, credited with more than 150 kills. In his book, he describes shooting a fighter wielding a rocket launcher 2,100 yards away, a very long distance for a sniper and his farthest ever.
Dans son film Inglorious Basterds Quentin Tarantino décrit un jeune soldat assez sympathique qui devient la vedette des médias sous le contrôle de Goebbels. Vu qu’Inglorious Basterds est une sorte de fable sanguinaire marqué par un sarcasme omniprésent, il me semble permis de comparer ce personnage avec le vétéran américain qui vient de se faire tuer par un camarade.
Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), (is) a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation’s Pride), starring as himself.
▻http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds
Mr. Kyle’s autobiography was published in January 2012 and became a nonfiction best seller. It turned Mr. Kyle into a celebrity, appearing on talk shows like “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
The sudden success of the book surprised no one more than Mr. Kyle, the son of a church deacon who was initially rejected by the Navy when he tried to join in the mid-1990s, because of pins in his arm from a rodeo injury. His first book signing drew 1,200 people. About 850,000 print and e-book editions were sold.
In an interview with The New York Times in March, Mr. Kyle — who received two Silver Stars and five Bronze medals for valor — said he had hesitated to write about his experiences. But he was persuaded to move forward after hearing that other books about members of the SEALs were in the works.
“I wanted to tell my story as a SEAL,” he said. “This is about all the hardships that everybody has to go through to get the respect and the honor.”
Allez voir le film de Tarantino, vous y découvrirez une forte ressemblance des attitudes affichés par les protagonistes et une déscription de l’explolitation des héros par la machine de propagande nazie digne des médias du pouvoir actuel.
A lire aussi : ▻http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sniper-chris-kyle-investigation-20130203,0,4541295.story
Son assassin présumé ...
... Routh appeared to be one of the nation’s numerous unemployed veterans, and Kyle was one of the crop of Navy SEALs to leave the anonymity of military service and enter the public sphere.
Tarantino s’intéresse indirectement aux conséquences de la violence, il décrit comment ses protagonistes utilisent des symboles afin de pouvoir vivre avec la violence qu’ils excercent. C’est également décrit dans l’autobiographie du tireur d’élite. D’après les reportages connus à cette heure un soldat risque de « déraper » s’il ne sait pas employer cette méthode - les mots et symboles idéologiques sont nécessaire afin de digérer la contradiction entre sa vie personelle humaine et la tâche inhumaine à accomplir.
His autobiography was unapologetically politically incorrect, reflecting the man: During one visit home between deployments, Kyle got a tattoo of a crusader cross on his arm.
“I wanted everyone to know I was a Christian,” Kyle wrote. “I had it put in in red, for blood. I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting. I always will. They’ve taken so much from me.”
Kyle won adulation and a spotlight and appeared on the NBC reality show “Stars Earn Stripes,” in which “celebrities are challenged to execute complicated missions inspired by real military exercises.”
Le résumé des événement est court : Ce sont toujours le petits gens qui paient avec leur vie pour le profit des grands.
Oil Tax Forces Greeks to Fight Winter With Fire - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/world/europe/oil-tax-forces-greeks-to-fight-winter-with-fire.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc
By SUZANNE DALEY
Published: February 3, 2013
ATHENS — Even in the leafy northern stretches of this city, home to luxury apartment buildings, mansions with swimming pools and tennis clubs, the smell of wood smoke lingers everywhere at night.