A remote-controlled machine gun riot dispersal tool installed on a wall near Bethlehem, just near the border of Palestine and Jerusalem. Spotted by several Palestinian news outlets, the weapon—which is equipped with cameras and is located very close to a mosque—was reportedly installed by Israeli forces on Sunday.
There’s a lot of violence in movies and TV shows. Guns, blood and murder are welcomed into the family living room by the bleary eyes of desensitized souls. But it’s entertaining! But it’s also pretty ridiculous how un-shocking it is to see. We can pass violent ads without giving it a second look. This artist wants us to hilariously think different.
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The skeletal recognition tech behind Kinect is useful for way more than just gaming. It’s good for sign language, cheating at pool, and (duh) porn
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The thought of having online X-Rated material blocked in your country may be a nightmare for many of you, so be thankful that you’re not living in Iceland right now. A proposed bill by Iceland’s Minister of Interior, Ögmundur Jónasson, states that all online X-Rated material should be banned. This is quite similar to South Korea, who itself is in the process of blocking out online adult content. The main argument proposed by the Icelandic government is that children that view online adult content are “at risk”.
The Icelandic government launched a wide consultation process on X-Rated material. The investigation showed that children at an early age who are exposed to adult content showed similar signs to victims who have been traumatized by actual sexual abuse. The government concluded that the violent nature of adult content, and it’s easy-accessibility thanks to the internet, led to an increased amount of sexual assaults. Halla Gunnarsdóttir, political adviser to Ögmundur Jónasson, stated “This move is not anti-sex. It is anti-violence because young children are seeing adult content and acting it out”.
There are several ways that Iceland can follow through with its ban on online adult content. It is considering banning all IP addresses used by X-Rated sites, and also making it illegal to use credit cards to purchase the content through websites. It could also have active volunteers, like the 800+ in South Korea, who seek out these sites and submit them to the government to be banned.
While it’s admirable that Iceland wants to ban online adult content to protect the children, its chances of doing so are very slim. According to Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the parliamentary committee in Iceland tasked to discuss the proposal, the possibility of the bill being passed is “near zero”, but they’re looking into alternate ways to protect children from online adult content. They’ve proposed filtering software and programs to educate children and parents about the dangers of adult content. We’ll wait to see what happens. Iceland has already banned the printing and distribution of X-Rated material, as well as strip clubs.
[via Daily Mail]
Iceland wants to block online adult content is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Ever get the feeling that you’ve seen it all before? University of Connecticut researcher Peter Turchin has, and he (along with Russian partners Sergey Nefedov and Andrey Korotayev) has even crafted an entire scientific theory around the idea. Cliodynamics, as it’s called, works on the view that broad trends of history occur in predictable patterns based on common factors like government strength, population size and social inequality. The surprise to Turchin is that violence outside of wars, at least in the US, triggers roughly every 50 years like clockwork: people rebel against a social crisis, but their children stay out of the fray and lead to the conditions that ultimately trigger another outbreak, like the 1970s civil rights and peace movements. Don’t set your watch to cliodynamics just yet. Many historians are still skeptical, and even supporters note that one-off events or major wars fall through the cracks. If the theory pans out, however, science could be used to help governments do the right thing before they’re made to do it at gunpoint.
[Image credit: Steve Wilson, Flickr]
Filed under: Science
Theory of cliodynamics uses science to predict history, sees violence erupt in cycles originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 20:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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