Chasing Dragons

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 183

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Mengele's Skull' by Thomas Kennan and Eyal Weizman at cabinetmagazine.org

• 'How Israeli Drone Pilots Made Their Life-and-Death Choices Over Gaza' by Noah Shachtman at dangerroom

• 'The Troubling Dean to Professor Ratio' by John Hechinger at businessweek.com

• 'Manufacturing Taste: The (Un)Natural History of Kraft Dinner' by Sasha Chapman at thewalrus.ca

Image credit: quapan

Related articles

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 168

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 167

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 172

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 174

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Scientists Discover How Social Isolation Damages Young Brains' by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway at solitarywatch.com

• 'The Terrorism Delusion' by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewardt in the journal International Security

• 'Taxes and the Wealthy: Effects of Raising Top Tax Rates' by Martin Hart-Lansberg at sociologicalimages

• 'The Impact of Economics Blogs' by David McKenzie and Berk Ozler at worldbank.org

• 'You Might Have Missed: Drones, Targeted Killing, and National Security' by Micah Zenko at onpoliticspowerandprevention

Photo credit: Randy Le'Moine Photography

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 172

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'The Era of Cheap Food May be Over' by Larry Elliot at guardian.co.uk

• 'Militarism: A Mini-Forum' at societyandspace.com

• 'Bright Lights, Big City' by PD Smith at peterdsmith.com

• 'The Drake Equation as Infographics: Do Extraterrestrials Exist?' at infosthetics.com

Enjoy the weekend!

Photo credit: Newtown Grafitti

Weekend Reading Roundup v.170

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'From Bug Drones to Disease Assassins, Super Weapns Rule U.S. War Game' by David Axe at dangerrroom

• 'The Everydayness of War' by John Lucaites at nocaptionneeded.com

• 'Toward a New Geopolitics?' by Richard Falk at guernicamag.com

• 'Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)' at iconicphotos

Photo credit: Matthew Venn

Enjoy the bank holiday weekend!

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 163

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'A Snitch's Dilemma' by Ted Conover at nytimes.com (corruption, surveillance, and murder in the war on drugs at a micro-level)

• 'Music: The Internet's Original Sin' by Cory Doctorow at locusmag.com

• 'Apes with Apps' by Ken Schweller at spectrumieee.org

• 'Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They are From Nigeria?' by Cormac Herley at research.microsoft.com

• 'Drone Hijacking? That's Just the Start of GPS Troubles' by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai at dangerroom

Have a good weekend!

Photo credit: William Warby

Call for Papers: Networked World? The Politics of Cyberspace and Social Media

The new editoral team at POLITICS--of which I am a member--has made a commitment to providing a venue for timely research-led contributions that analyse contemporary political dynamics. To this end, we have issued a call for papers that examine the politics of cyberspace. Please see below for further details.

Call for Papers: Networked World? The Politics of Cyberspace and Social Media

Digital media are having a profound effect on politics and international relations. States and organisations are increasingly investing in defensive measures to stave off cyber attack. Less malicious uses of social media are no less prevalent; during the Arab Spring, e-technologies provided a medium that enabled and encouraged protesters to challenge their governments; politicians rely on Facebook, blogs and Twitter to help their election campaigns; and the proliferation of these technologies has led to a wide-ranging debate on the storage and use of personal information.

Politics invites articles for a Special Issue on the broad impact of social media, cyberspace and digital technologies on politics and international relations. Submissions may address broad themes relevant to the topic, including, but not limited to,the following:

• cyber warfare and cyber security;

• politics of hacking and cyber crime;

• attempts to control the Internet in both authoritarian and democratic states;

• role of social media in revolution and democratic transitions;

• role of social media in elections and campaigns;

• e-governance and the application of information and communication technology for delivering government services;

• debates over privacy and data sharing;

• issues of fairness and access to the emerging digital economy.

Articles may be in either of the formats accepted by Politics:

• short form: up to 4,000 words maximum;

• longer research feature: up to 6,000 words maximum.

Deadline for submission is 1 December 2012.

Further information on how to contact us or where to submit a paper can be found here.

Image credit: Patrick Hoesly

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 133

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'After David Cameron's EU Treaty Veto: The Seven Key Questions Britain Must Face' by Toby Helm, Daniel Boffey, Heather Stewart, and Peter Beaumont at guardian.co.uk

• 'We're Blind to Our Blindness. We have Very Little Idea of How Little We Know. We're not Designed to' by Daniel Kahneman at independent.co.uk

• 'Why the Native American Fashion Trend is Pissing Off Real Native Americans' by Lisa Hix at collectorsweekly.com (an excellent article let down by a really problematic title)

• 'Visualizing Everything that Facebook Knows About You' at infosthetics.com

• 'Dear Reviewers, A Word?' by Brian C. Rathbun at duckofminerva

Image credit: Byzantine_K

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 116

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• '#riotcleanup or #riotwhitewash?' by Sofia Himmelbau at universityforstrategicoptimism 

• 'How Language Affects Colour Perception' by Mark Frauenfelder at boingboing.net

• 'Hug a Hoody' at iconicphotos

• "I'd Drunk Too Much. I was Irresponsible, Criminal": Nick Clegg on his Regrets' by Cole Morton at (shudder) dailymail.co.uk

• 'David Cameron and the Bullingdon Night of the Broken Window' by Jim Pickard at westminsterblog

• 'Nick Clegg Gets Asked About his Arson on Radio Nottingham' at youtube.com (he freezes and then freaks out)

Photo credit: Dave Hogg

Simulating Meltdown

The nuclear situation in Japan continues to raise concerns that the dangers have been downplayed by national authorities and members of international community. Given how alienated most people are from any understanding how technologies like nuclear reactors operate--and I place myself fully in the relatively clueless category here--it has been easy for misinformation and disinformation provided from various parties to spread.

Moreover, the lack of widespread numeracy--and the requisite skills to interpret probabilities-- has transformed valuable information about increased risks into 'we're all going to die' panic through what Francois Debrix has referred to as the 'tabloid terror' of the 24 hour news cycle.

While the fascination with horrible nuclear induced annihilation has always been a feature of the atomic age from the start--J. Robert Oppenheimer's 'Iam death, the destroyer of worlds' comment sets the tone--the actual mundane of details of how a nuclear power plant functions have not garnered the same kind of sustained public attention.

Enter Kennesaw State University's Nuclear Power Plant Simulator. Not only does it provide an interactive overview of how a reactor works, it also allows you to see if you are a budding Otto Hahn or wilting Homer J. Simpson.

This is a brilliant example of intelligent engagement by a higher education institution.

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 85

After a holiday break, we have an extensive weekend reading roundup:

• 'Can Sitting Too Much Kill You' by Travis Saunders at scientificamerican.com (for anyone who works from a desk, this is a must read)

• 'The Hipster in the Mirror' by Mark Greif at nytimes.com

• 'Christopher Nolan's Interview with Brother Jonathan in the "Inception" Shooting Script' by Kristopher Tapely at incontention.com

• 'Reflecting on 2011: The Year Online Organizers Got Real' by Joe Solomon at netsquared.org

• 'The Myth of the Overpaid Public Worker' at globalsociology.com

• 'The Aesthetics of the War in Afghanistan' by David Campbell at david-campbell.org

• 'Revising Huck Finn, Revising History' by Thomas Norman DeWolf at guernicamag.com

• 'Separating Terror from Terrorism' by Scott Stewart at stratfor.com

Happy new year and enjoy the weekend!

Photo credit: MJTR (' *w* )