#BENOBO

Raymond Loewy: the man who designed everything

Clemency for Torturers, but Not for Edward Snowden

Circa 2008, Barack Obama gave his supporters reason to believe that if he were elected, he would protect whistleblowers and obey U.S. law on the subject of torture.

He has disappointed on both subjects.

Long before Edward Snowden exposed mass surveillance on Americans by the NSA, the Obama Administration was aggressively persecuting former civil servants who blew the whistle on objectionable behavior during the Bush Administration.

Source

Experimenting with Biochip Implants

Typical Motherboard/Vice documentary. Short, entertaining and slightly provocative. Unfortunately, it often remains only a glimpse from one perspective. But hey. Seven exciting minutes.

Humanity just made a small, bloody step towards a time when everyone can upgrade themselves towards being a cyborg. Of all places, it happened in the back room of a studio in the post-industrial German town of Essen. It’s there that I met up with biohacker Tim Cannon, and followed along as he got what is likely the first-ever computer chip implant that can record and transmit his biometrical data. Combined in a sealed box with a battery that can be wirelessly charged, it’s not a small package. And as we saw, Cannon had it implanted directly under his skin by a fellow biohacking enthusiast, not a doctor, and without anesthesia. Called the Circadia 1.0, the implant can record data from Cannon’s body and transfer it to any Android-powered mobile device. Unlike wearable computers and biometric-recording devices like Fitbit, the subcutaneous device is open-source, and allows for the user the full control over the data.

If you want to know more about biohacking, check out Biohackers: A journey into cyborg America from the Verge and the Feature on AlJazeera.

TSA worker who was injured in today’s LAX shooting.

If a police officer’s job is to uphold and enforce the law — literally their one and only job description — and you knew that almost half of police officers think they’re above the law, what does that say? If half of them admitted it on a survey how many more do you think actually feel this way? 

What if I told you half of doctors don’t care about patient well-being, or half of farmers don’t care about growing crops, or half of our presidents dislike the public?

The Associated Press’s Matt Lee is one of only a small handful of real journalists left in Washington DC. Today, he challenged the State Department’s spokesperson Marie Harf over the Obama administration’s lack of transparency.

Dallas Police say mentally ill man lunged at them right before opening fire on him. Surveillance video later surfaces contradicting that story, showing police shoot a man for no apparent reason.

http://photoshtab.ru/2011/08/tibet/

Sky burial 

(Tibetan: བྱ་གཏོར་, w bya gtor), lit. ”alms for the birds” is a funerary practice in the Chinese provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia proper wherein a human corpse is incised in certain locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements (mahabhuta) and animals – especially predatory birds. The locations of preparation and sky burial are understood in the Vajrayana traditions as charnel grounds.

How Oreos Work Like Cocaine

Research made national news this week that the cookies are more addictive than psychoactive drugs. That claim may be exaggerated, but the neuroscience of junk food addiction is nonetheless fascinating and relevant—mentally, physically, and socially.

Anonymous campaign pushes authorities to demand reopening of Maryville rape case

A tidal wave of media coverage and a powerful Internet campaign have rekindled interest in a small-town sexual assault case in rural Missouri, and now the state’s lieutenant governor is ordering an investigation to get underway.