The Critical Questions. I did this week's reading for my IR&R 2 course. And according to my prof's last 2 sets of comments, I am not allowed/supposed to write reflection papers which are based on my usual critical questions/misgivings with the readings. So… [Flailing in the Surf]

U.S. funds study of tech monocultures [InfoWar Monitor]

The National Science Foundation has granted $750,000 to two universities to study how diversifying information systems and software could help fend off future cyberattacks, the agency said Tuesday.

The study, proposed by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of New Mexico almost a year ago, will seek to identify commonalities in software that could be used as the basis for attacks. Such common vulnerabilities would point to a computer “monoculture”–a population so homogeneous that a single threat could destroy it.

GOP Steal Compter Files – No Film at 11. John Moltz brings to our attention a story from Calpundit. A Republican Senate staffer accesed files on a Democratic staffers computer and then leaked them to the press. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said yesterday that a… [Eat Your Vegetables]

Patent Poet. Ray Kurzweil has been awarded a patent for his AI-based ” target=”_blank”>cybernetic poetry software. (via NYTimes) Kurzweil, a successful developer of AI-based technologies and author of several books including The Age of Spiritual Machines, has an elaborate website promoting AI… [grandtextauto.org]