Ones and Zeros: Climate Change, China's Hipsters, Jony Ive's Apple

Our weekly round-up of the good guys and bad guys running rampant on the open Internet. See last week’s.

Apparently because he refused to sign a public apology for the PR mess that was Maps (he was also responsible for Siri and all of that fake wood). And so, the era of Jony Ive’s Apple begins.

The latest advances have all been expensive disappointments.

IBM’s supercomputer is going to med school.

“Our climate is changing,” the NYC mayor wrote, jumping on the climate change bandwagon this week. “And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be — given this week’s devastation — should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.”

Robocalls and robo-texts are banned by federal law but not emails sent to cellphones as text messages.

But even if you’re over 35, probably still a good idea to quit.

In rats at least. The process is too invasive for humans.

Which means “cultured youth.” Like hipsters here, they’re fashionable, like poetry and hate being called the “cultured youth.” Then there’s the “dumbass youth” or 2B qingnian as they’re known online, those who cling to faux rebellion out of disillusionment with their lack of future and the reality of China. From The Atlantic:

Behind these Chinese counter-cultures lies a hard reality. A recently released Pew Global Attitudes Survey showed that 81 percent of those polled in China agreed with the following statement: “The rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.” And as Foreign Policy reported last month, the country’s gender imbalance — 120 boys for every 100 girls — has put serious pressure on the nation’s bachelors. Those hunting for a bride have come to understand that they should come calling only when armed with an apartment. This, even though “the average property in a top-tier Chinese city now costs between 15 and 20 times the average annual salary.”

No surprise there.

The idea of an affordable, powerful unlocked smartphone should make everyone very very happy. It doesn’t have LTE but that’s okay.

Including genetically modified mice and special reagents, like enzymes, antibodies, and DNA strands. “This does not equate to a loss of life, but it is extremely disheartening to see years of research go down the drain,” one source said.

Most of the military’s drones are broadcasting classified data unencrypted. “If somebody could obtain reliable access to real-time Predator or Reaper video — without attribution or alerting U.S. military — that would a tremendous intel coup,” says Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

Or 10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.