How to disappear from the Internet

And other Items of Interest

Folks, a few things for your Friday.

* Podcast: How to disappear from the internet

“On this week’s episode of the TechRepublic podcast, Frank Ahern reveals the secrets of skip tracing and social engineering. Frank also explains how to disappear completely and never be found.” Cick here.

* Why Microsoft’s ‘Tay’ AI bot went wrong

“She was supposed to come off as a normal teenage girl. But less than a day after her debut on Twitter, Microsoft’s chatbot—an AI system called “Tay.ai”—unexpectedly turned into a Hitler-loving, feminist-bashing troll. So what went wrong? TechRepublic turns to the AI experts for insight into what happened and how we can learn from it..” Read more..

[ “AI” is “Artificial Intelligence” ] [ And the whole idea of AI gives me the creeps.. Remember Hal in Space Odyssey? ]

* Cloud plus artificial intelligence is creating The Matrix (and that’s a good thing)

“A study by advisory firm Leading Edge Forum titled Embracing ‘the Matrix’ and the Machine Intelligence Era, suggests that the combination of cloud computing and artificial and machine intelligence (MI) “will increasingly be able to perform just about everything that companies and individuals do, and many things that we cannot“.” Read more..

[ .. a good thing? Replaced by a machine a “good thing”?? ]

* Just look at these crazy-spendy luxury gadgets

“The luxury tech market is full of gadgets that you did not even know you wanted … until now” VIEW THE GALLERY

… well, I think that’s enough for now. It’s Good Friday. Be well.

Today’s quote: “My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.” ~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Stanford Courses – Free, and for Everyone | More

I apologize, Dear Reader, for the lack of a post yesterday. (I’ll make today’s a little longer to make up for it.)

First item: Recently, an alert reader (you know who you are) brought to my attention the fact that Stanford University’s Engineering department had made available – to everyone – some online classes. And three of them are free.
These courses can be taken on two ‘levels’, which I think of as “very casual” and “has homework”.

• Stanford Engineering Everywhere

For the first time in its history, Stanford is offering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge to students and educators around the world. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) expands the Stanford experience to students and educators online. A computer and an Internet connection are all you need. View lecture videos, access reading lists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate with other SEE students, all at your convenience.

SEE programming includes one of Stanford’s most popular sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical engineering.

Stanford Engineering Everywhere offers:

• Anytime and anywhere access to complete lecture videos via streaming or downloaded media.
• Full course materials including syllabi, handouts, homework, and exams.
• Online social networking with fellow SEE students.
• Support for PCs, Macs and mobile computing devices.

Find out more here.

Next up; New tech could – one day – let you see through walls..

• MIT Develops New Radar Technology: Military Could See Through Walls

“Looking through walls is no longer something we read about in comic books or watch in Superman movies. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory has presented new radar technology (link to video) that would allow humans to see through a solid wall.” Read more..

And, what the hey..

• For consumers, finding competent PC support is a challenge

“What happens if something goes wrong with a Windows PC? Good luck finding honest and competent help. Right now, somewhere in the world, an incompetent support professional is performing “repairs” that make things worse and suggesting useless “upgrades” that line their pockets and slow down PCs.” Read more..

[shameless plug: or, they could just call me.]

• Netflix’s big collapse: Do you believe in streaming, international expansion?

“In the long run, Netflix’s focus on streaming and international expansion makes sense. Today, those decisions are causing a world of hurt.” Read more..

For some reason, I am finding it hard to believe it’s Wednesday already..

Today’s quote: “Depressed? Of course we’re all depressed. We’ve been so quickly, violently, and irreconcilably plucked from nature, from physical labor, from kinship and village mentality, from every natural and primordial anti-depressant. The further society “progresses,” the grander the scale of imbalance. Just as fluoride is put in water to prevent dental caries, we’ll soon find government mandating Prozac in our water to prevent mental caries.” ~ M. Robin D’Antan (I think it should be “cavities”..?)

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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