These pages are a modest attempt to provide up-to-date news that is relevant to the areas of mathematics, education, computer science or information technology. Reader should keep in mind that old links often disappear.
11/27/15
TechNews for the week: November 25; November 23;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
US accuses Syria of buying oil from Isis; The refugee debate hides the real threat from the Islamic State; What the ruins of Kobane tell us about the destruction of Syria;
What ISIS Really Wants; On the Impossibility of Fighting ISIS; Islamic State's Favorite Strategy Book Explains Recent Terrorist Attacks;
What Saudi Arabia is - and isn't - doing in the fight against the Islamic State; Compare Saudi Arabia to the Islamic State and You might get sued;
Turkey 'shoots down Russian warplane on Syria border'; Britian's prime minster pushes for more action against Islamic State;
Khamenei warns US using 'money and sex' to infiltrate Iranian policymakers;
In first majority-Muslim U.S. city, culture shock and fears of loss;
Coal-State Democrats Press Obama To Abandon Climate Change Plan;
State, Utah GOP appear headed to court over election law - again;
Democrat John Bel Edwards wins race for Louisiana governor;
Crisis of confidence plagues police in wake of deadly officer-involved shootings;
Trump claims 'thousands and thousands' of people in New Jersey cheer the 9/11 attacks; Why the media won't say Donald Trump is lying;
Ben Carson stumbles on American history, again; Democrats Attack Republican Rhetoric on Islam;
GOP establishment fears Donald Trump could permanently tarnish Republican party image; Trump won't rule out independent run for president;
Cruz claims general election viability;
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
Policy Repercussions of the Paris Terrorist Attacks; Moody's Calls Cyber Attack Part of Credit Analysis;
NSA Collected Americans' E-mails Even After it Stopped Collecting Americans' E-mails; The NSA may not need backdoors;
Why citizens need encryption as a fundamental human right; Google Reports 2.2 Million Takedown Requests Daily;
NSA Lectures on Communications Security from 1973;
Voter Surveillance;
Math and science
UMaine To Unveil Ocean Simulator; Researchers Devise Safer "Water-In-Salt" Alternative To Lithium-Ion Batteries;
Blue Origin Launches, Lands Fully Reusable Rocket; Stratasys puts 3D printers to work for brain surgery practice;
10 Maps That Will Change How You View The World;
Web and computing issues
ICANN Report Shows $2.5 Million Spent Lobbying U.S.;
9 Scripting Languages You Need To Know ; How Windows 10 search works;
6 mobile payment apps you can trust;
SC Politics
Supreme Court putsbrakes on Captain Sam's Spit development;
Charleston City Council votes against height reduction for Sgt. Jasper;
Finance and Economics
US third-quarter growth revised higher; Health Insurance Providers Hit by Obamacare Fears;
Election cycle to weigh on US markets; Understanding Donald Trump's Stance on China;
Could Saudi Arabia Really Go Bankrupt? ECB Head Says He "Won't Hesitate" to Expand QE;
Electric Car Sales Lower Than Predicted For Many Reasons; Derailments Expected Every Other Year If Oil Train Terminal Is Built;
Craft brewer shuts its doors, a year after raising concerns about pay-to-play in Boston;
Other news
How do Americans view government? Survey finds both distrust and hope; The Unsuitability of English;
61-year-old runner caught cheating in Marine Corps Marathon;
Who Is The Richest Person Ever;
Education:
New Graduates of Elite Colleges Flock to the Same Kinds of Jobs;
Oklahoma Colleges Cutting Costs, Pulling Resources In Preparation Of Budget Shortfall; University Of Iowa Lowers Test Score Bar, Increases In-State Aid;
Campus Libraries Rethink Focus as Materials Go Digital;
Owner of Florida For-Profit Chain Is Convicted of Theft and Conspiracy;
College sports programs are making more money than ever - and spending it just as fast; Budget disparity growing among NCAA Division I schools;
'College' Football Has Almost Nothing to Do With College at All;
11/20/15
TechNews for the week: November 20; November 18; November 16;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
Hollande: Paris attacks an 'act of war' by Islamic State; France launches strikes on Isis in Syria; Islamic State threatens attack on Washington, other countries;
Serbian police arrest man carrying Syrian passport with exact same details as document found on Paris bomber;
Leader of Islamic State in Libya believed killed in U.S. airstrike; Iraqi divisions undermine battling Isis; ISIS oil revenue 'damaged' by airstrikes, low price;
Paris: The War ISIS Wants; The Attacks in Paris Reveal the Strategic Limits of ISIS; In Rise of ISIS, No Single Missed Key but Many Strands of Blame;
Clinton Wants Social Media Companies to Help Fight Terrorism;
U.S. Republicans seek to shut door on Syrian refugees after Paris;
Senate Republicans Say Congress Will Not Approve UN Climate Funding; Budget deal puts U.S. on brink of losing its status as the world's scientific leader;
Americans see a government of, by and for the rich; Federal attempts to reform troubled police departments bring mixed results;
Donald Trump unleashes raging 12-tweet barrage, threatens lawsuit at 'irrelevant' rival;
World track body suspends Russia from competition following doping revelations;
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
November Crypto-Gram Newsletter, Doxing, Surveillance and More; Terrorism fears magnify threats, real or not; Reputation in the Information Age;
Islamic State Encryption Guide; ISIS uses messaging app to communicate with each other;
Paris Terror Attacks Renew Debate Over Encryption in Apps; Terrorists Used Double ROT-13 Encryption; Attacks Blamed on Strong Cryptography and Edward Snowden;
Inside the world of the Islamic State's propaganda machine; Is Anonymous' war on ISIS doing more harm than good?
ISIS 'evidence' of how it brought down the Russian plane with an IED;
Turkey Blocks Reddit Under Internet Censorship Law;
Naval Academy Midshipmen Win Cyber Policy Competition; The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA);
U.S. federal agencies Refuse to Attend Briefing on U.S. Personnel Breach;
IT staffer fired in data breach affecting 6 million Georgia voters;
Did Carnegie Mellon Attack Tor for the FBI;
Math and science
Harvard physicist has a radical new theory for why humans exist;
By one measure, this El Nino is the strongest ever recorded;
US Military's Use Of Lasers Date Back To 1973;
Expensive running shoes are no better, and often worse, than cheaper ones;
Web and computing issues
Facebook to use Safety Check tool more widely after Paris attacks; Columbia professor warns of dangers of our online footprint, offers tools of 'resistance';
Don't want to install that smartphone app. With Google, you may not have to;
Five apps for benchmarking your hardware; Five apps for better Gmail; 15 simple, powerful Excel functions you need to know;
SC Politics
SC congressman just showed how not to respond to the Paris attacks;
Battle over Captain Sam's Spit grows as coastline shrinks; How do we save our power grid from rising sea-levels?
Stavrinakis lost the election as much as Tecklenburg won it; In South Carolina, sexualized politics spreads like a disease;
Finance and Economics
Saudi Arabia is pumping its way into a major crisis; Japan falls back into recession;
The Reality Of How Terrorism Affects The Economy;
Coal To Remain Important Player In Electricity Production Globally; US Natural Gas Production Capacity Increases While Oil Decreases;
Link Between Induced Seismicity, Oil and Gas Production Important To Study;
Intel Warns Drone Laws Could Lead To R&D Outsourcing; Congress OKs Space Act;
Judge Says Digital Streaming Service Infringes Broadcasters' Rights;
Other news
Nate Silver On 2016 Presidential Race; States, Ranked by How Likely You Are to Die in a Car Accident;
Jokes That Only the Smartest People Can Understand;
Education:
How Should Students Gauge the Payoff When Choosing a College; Debate over what counts as a high-quality degree;
Expectations About Academic Rigor; Public-University Group Expands 'Personalized Learning' Efforts;
Overseas Students Pour Into Some American Campuses, but Other Colleges Haven't Kept Up With the Growth;
Gallup Survey On Perceptions Of Computer Science Field; Kentucky Teachers Support Next Generation Science Standards;
3 Ways the Education Dept. Stands Accused of Mismanaging Student Aid;
On 2 Campuses Where Heads Rolled, Opposition to Protests Reverberates; How Missouri's Deans Plotted to Get Rid of Their Chancellor;
U. of Montana to Eliminate 52 Faculty Jobs as Part of Budget Cuts;
Education Management Corp. Will Pay $95.5 Million to Settle Whistle-Blower Lawsuit; New Jersey College Accused of Exploiting State Labor Law to Trample Faculty Rights;
Sudden Closure Of Florida For-Profit College May Have Violated Federal, State Law;
Money in College Athletics: The $10-Billion Sports Tab; Missouri football coach to resign after the season;
11/13/15
TechNews for the week: November 13; November 11; November 9;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
Dozens dead in Paris; state of emergency declared; blog;
Syrian army breaks two-year siege at Aleppo airbase; Kurdish and U.S.-led forces launch offensive in Iraq;
'Jihadi John' targeted by U.S. drone strike in Syria; The US military is finally trying to shut down ISIL's oilfields;
Most Israelis support extrajudicial killings; Warnings of war as Israeli PM embarks on US visit; Israeli airstrike near Damascus airport;
'Made in Israel' under scrutiny: E.U. sets new rules for products from Jewish settlements;
China, Taiwan leaders pledge peaceful ties at historic meeting; Burma's opposition party clinches seats to govern the country's parliament and choose its president;
The Supreme Court could soon deliver a crushing blow to the Sixth Amendment;
Obama administration supports legislation to rewrite Civil Rights Act to address gender discrimination;
Report: In tough times, police start seizing a lot more stuff from people;
Republicans still can't explain why their economic ideas keep failing; Rising Income Inequality Causes Republicans to Shift Rhetoric-But Not Policy;
Why no one's dropping out of the GOP presidential race; GOP debate was an insult to knowledge, common sense;
Cruz pulls a Perry at debate; no one notices;
Donald Trump's 95-minute rant: 'How stupid are the people of Iowa?';
On The Defensive, Ben Carson Unleashes Litany Of Anti-Obama Conspiracy Theories; Ben Carson and the conservative culture of victimization;
Why Ben Carson has no business near the Oval Office;
Charles Koch has no plans to back a candidate in Republican primary;
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
NSA discloses most zero-day flaws it finds, but won't say if it uses them first;
Hackers Linked to Breaches of FBI Accounts; U.S. Adds More Charges Against JPMorgan Hackers;
Hacking Culture Grows in Ukraine Amid Russian Insurgency; Europe Takes Action Against Iran-Linked Cyber Spies;
Ransomware Is Getting Sophisticated; Betting Ticket Forged Based on Selfie;
Personal Data Sharing by Mobile Apps; Amid Racial Tensions, the Role of Yik Yak Is Complicated;
Good Article on the Blockchain; The great chain of being sure about things;
Math and science
Russia accused of state-sponsored doping; ban on athletes urged;
Chinese University Researchers Discover New Method Of Manipulating Small Materials; Chinese Scientists Create Ultra-Thin Radar Absorbing Material;
Researchers Engineering New Material To Filter Salt Out Of Seawater;
Ancient river network discovered buried under Saharan sand;
What happens to your body when you run an ultramarathon; 10 things no one tells you before you run an ultra-marathon;
Google's self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly;
The impossible braid puzzle;
Web and computing issues
10 Top Programming Languages For Learning To Code; Tech Learning: How to Evaluate Web Resources; The Harvard Guide;
Google Inbox makes managing low priority emails a snap; Find missing emails more easily in Gmail;
Google Maps gets offline search and directions; Turn your old phone into a home security camera you can watch from anywhere;
Microsoft's Plug-in Makes It Easy to Tweet PowerPoint Slides;
What Google's New Open-Source Software Means for Artificial-Intelligence Research;
FCC Refuses to Enforce Website 'Do Not Track' Requests;
SC Politics
Lawmakers' descriptions of expenses are often as clear as mud;
Finance and Economics
UAE minister: Oil prices to have 'correction' in 2016;
What the Keystone Pipeline's Death Really Means; TransCanada Says It Could Resubmit Keystone Application Under Next President;
Oil-By-Rail In The Northwest Considered As Alternative To Keystone; Texas Utilities Offer Free Overnight Usage Due To Abundant Wind Power;
Coal, Other Pipelines Next In Environmentalists' Sights;
Report Highlights Talent Pools Of Top US Tech Firms; The Assault On Federally Supported Science;
Federal Research Funding A "Key Enabler" Of Innovation;
Why the GOP Can't Stop Talking About the Gold Standard; Why Data Is the New Business Currency;
Republican Plan To Sell Off Your Public Land Shaping Up To Be Major Election Issue;
Other news
How Richard Nixon Created Hillary Clinton; Bill O'Reilly makes a mess of history;
Video: Idea that matters; When Free Speech Becomes a Political Weapon;
Education:
Statistics Show College Graduation Rates Differ By Race, First-Generation Students Often Struggle To Finish; Study: The nation's high school dropout rate has fallen;
The States with the Most Affordable Colleges;
Baby Boomers Are Ending Higher Education As An American Equalizer; State Policies On Undocumented College Students Vary;
High Pay for Presidents Is Not Shown to Yield Any Fund-Raising Payoff; A Major Barrier to Alumni Giving: Graduates' Mistrust;
Obama Administration To Remodel Post-Secondary Accreditation System; Accreditation Reformers Propose a Model of Their Own;
Embattled U. Missouri President Resigns After Mounting Protests Over Racism; In Missouri, the Downfall of a Business-Minded President;
How the Missouri Protests Might Change the Game for Other Colleges; College President Apologizes for Handling of Ex-Trustee's Sudden Hire;
Community College Fires Instructor Over Math Quiz on Pimps and Prostitutes;
Report Lends Support to 'Corequisite' Remediation ;
Upheaval Highlights Football Players' Power; A Year After Fake-Classes Investigation, Chapel Hill Fires 2 More Employees;
U. Illinois Fires Athletic Director After Full Report of Former Coach's Misconduct; Another Athletics Administrator at U. of Minnesota Quits;
11/6/15
TechNews for the week: November 6; November 4; November 2;
War, Politics and Reports (Also, see Finance and Economics)
How ISIS Spread in the Middle East; Russian bombing of Syrians under ISIS control making more join the terrorist group;
Power Struggle in Iran Intensifies Ahead of Key Elections; Iran says may quit Syria talks, in worsening spat with Saudi rival; Obama's strategy shift on Syria;
AP Interview: Peres says Israel could face an eternal war; Palestinian shooting attacks signal escalation in West Bank;
Israeli forces shoot dead 72-year-old Palestinian woman;
Netanyahu's new media adviser said Obama's Iran policy is 'modern anti-Semitism'; Pentagon says US-Israel defense cooperation goes both ways;
Turkey election: Ruling AKP regains majority;
House Passes Highway Bill Under New Speaker Paul Ryan; How Hundreds Of Lawmakers Ended Up Voting To Give Banks $17 Billion;
Republicans would tank the economy again, given another chance; Republicans openly feud as Ryan and Trump offer different approaches to Medicare;
Religious Objections on Obamacare Get U.S. Supreme Court Review;
Elections reveal a map with sharper borders; Ohio voters just took a big step to fight gerrymandering;
George H.W. Bush slams Cheney and Rumsfeld in new book. He also faults his son;
CNN Investigation Suggests Ben Carson Fabricated Violent Juvenile Past; Carson implosion isn't good news for Republican elites. It's good news for Trump;
Ben Carson's most controversial beliefs and statements; Carson Admits to Lying About Getting Into West Point;
Fox Business reshuffles GOP debate lineup, sends campaigns reeling; GOP attacks "mainstream media" and the invocation of "gotcha question" to excuse poor performance;
New G.O.P. Debate Format Forbids Questions About Things Candidates Said, Did (Satire);
Math, science and technology:
Security issues
Battle Heats Up Over Exports of Surveillance Technology; Conference: The Effects of Surveillance on the Victims;
U.S., U.K. to Test Cyber Attack on Financial Centers; British Surveillance Plan Would Require ISP Storage;
Privacy Group Says Study Shows Apps 'Betray Us'; Analyzing Reshipping Mule Scams;
Rarely used legal tactic shields federal agents who kill someone;
Math and science
George Boole: how a Victorian mathematics don became a digital pioneer; 2,000 year old 'computer' discovered: How tech and shipwrecks are rewriting human history;
Dust Bowl May Still be Impacting the Soil in America;
Humanist vs Islamic perspectives on science and the modern world;
Web and computing issues
The Internet's future is in the hands of a man who calls most security experts 'crazy';
SC Politics
Capitol Gains: S.C. lawmakers profit from government connections; Ethics Panel to discuss money Harrell owes;
S.C. lawmakers look to head off eminent domain for proposed pipeline;
Nearly half of tri-county schools are above capacity, with Dorchester 2 the most crowded;
Do Charleston officers follow rules about not shooting at fleeing cars?
Finance and Economics
U.S. added 271,000 jobs in October; jobless rate falls slightly to 5 percent;
What a Return to the Gold Standard Means for Your Money; FACT CHECK: Do Tax Cuts Grow The Economy?
One of the most lucrative Social Security strategies for married couples is being eliminated;
Nation's Aging Infrastructure Threatens Public Safety;
TransCanada denies politics behind Keystone delay request; State Dept. rejects request for Keystone delay; Obama administration nixes Keystone XL pipeline;
Senate Backs Resolution To Scrap EPA Clean Water Rules; New York Probing ExxonMobil For Allegedly Misleading Public About Climate Change;
Saudi Arabia Disputes S&P Downgrade;
Drone Delivery Faces Several Hurdles;
Other news
Having too much free time in retirement could backfire; Segment of middle-aged white Americans dying at startling rate;
The Least and Most Popular Modern U.S. Presidents;
History That Makes Us Stupid;
Education:
Shift Away From Remedial Courses Leaves Questions for Colleges Everywhere;
How to Talk About What's Happening to College Prices; Tuition and Fees: 1998-99 Through 2015-16;
Many Colleges Now See Centers for Teaching With Technology as Part of 'Innovation Infrastructure';
Coalition Sheds (a Little) More Light on New Application System;
CFPB Says Federal Loan Servicers Misled Borrowers; How Many College Students Are Going Hungry?
Briefs Submitted To Supreme Court In Texas Affirmative Action Case; Big businesses back Affirmative Action;
Analysis Looks At Role Of For-Profit Accreditors; U.S. to Put New Requirements on Accreditors;
Florida For-Profit Medical College Shuts Down; Paine College Says It Can't Pay Some Salaried Employees;
Wittenberg University President Resigns Abruptly Amid Harsh Budget Cuts;
What Colleges Might Lose by Banning Yik Yak;
NCAA Says Division I Athletes' Rate of 'Graduation Success' Is Higher Than Ever;