Notices by Doc Edward Morbius ⭕ (dredmorbius@mastodon.cloud), page 2

John Hancock will include fitness tracking in all life insurance policies

> John Hancock, one of the oldest and largest North American life insurers, will stop underwriting traditional life insurance and instead sell only interactive policies that track fitness and health data through wearable devices and smartphones, the company said on Wednesday....

https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/19/john-hancock-will-require-fitness-tracking-for-all-life-insurance-policies/

#privacy
#SurveillanceCapitaalism
#surveillance

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, and so I'd like to expresss appreciation

To Sci-Hub, Library Genesis, B-ok.org, and the other services which allow me to access information, current and old, much of it not otherwise available, and which would cost me years of income.

I literally could not research or write as I have without this.

Please support these organisations and efforts if you can. This benefits me directly through their capabilities, archives, and availability....

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/LCStmkrHiUy

In the twenty-first century censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information. We just don't know what to pay attention to, and often spend our time investigating and debating side issues. In ancient times having power meant having access to data. Today having power means knowing what to ignore.

~ Yuval Noah Harari

#InformationOverload
#FilterFailure
#information

@bgcarlisle Hot take:

Critic of academic Open Access criticises open-access academic activists for opening academic access

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/hBmpUaA6Skd

#OpenAccess
#SciHub
#AaronSwartz

Oh, and that bit I said a ways back about just blocking quietly? Yeah, I struggle with that one to and am biting my tongue as I write this.

But try, really.

In completely unrelated news, if someone's being generally helpful and you're meeting that with snark and 'tude, yeah, you're likely gonna see blocks.

Life is hard, we're all fighting a difficult battle. Be good.

@syndikalista I'm somewhat familiar with French patterns of comms and transport from WWII history: the French rail lines all headed to Paris. This created several problems. Mostly: all war materiel had to move through Paris before getting to the front, and the Germans could hop on any line and reach the heart of the country.

Telegraph lines tend to follow RR lines, so the patterns are similar.

There's also the Roman roads history, somewhat indicated.

@benhamill

The Royal Persian Road was built between 550 and 486 BCE, by Cyrus II and Darius I, and was about 1500 miles long

It ran between Susa, Persia, and Saedes on the Aegean coast of modern Turkey. Its path likely followed an earlier track, dating to 3500 BCE.

Covering the entire route took 90 days, though royal post riders could travel it in 20, along a fully guarded route and post-stations a day's ride apart.

-- David Christian's "Big History", relying on Herodotus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road

@aral You can't venture-capital your way out of a problem you venture-capitalled your way into in the first place.

Q: How private is Mastodon / GNU Social?

A: Not very. Use email, XMPP, or other secure, encrypted protocols if you need privacy.

See: https://community.highlandarrow.com/notice/826830