Why FIFA Refuses to Sanction Goal-Line Technology

Technology is everywhere in soccer. From hi-tech fabrics, divot-defying cleats, and dynamic new ball technology, sports firms such as Adidas and Nike are constantly pushing the boundaries for new and innovative products. And the matches you see on TV are the best yet, with FIFA, who owns the television rights, sticking cameras everywhere they can possibly stick them so that TV spectators can enjoy the hits--and misses--from every conceivable angle.

There is, however, one blind spot. And perhaps it is where the game needs it most: on the goal line. And on Sunday morning, at approximately 10.38 EST [Ed: And at least once in every U.S. match], we had glaring proof that FIFA needs to move with the times and start using technology as a fifth pair of eyes. On Saturday the footballing body's secretary general, Jerome Valcke, stated that the next World Cup might well have an extra pair of assistant referees, one behind each goal, "to have more eyes helping [the referee] to make decisions."

Fast Company

A Colossal Fracking Mess

Vanity Fair

The Good Life

"Today the good life means making full use of science and technology — without succumbing to the illusion that they can make us free, reasonable, or even sane. It means seeking peace — without hoping for a world without war. It means cherishing freedom — in the knowledge that it is an interval between anarchy and tyranny."

John Gray

Thanks Melvillian

Gene data for all 'within a decade'

Genetic information will be available to most people in the developed world within 10 years, allowing better treatment and safer prescription of drugs.

Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, believes mass genome sequencing of individuals would soon be possible at a cost of less than $1,000 per person.

Telegraph

The Menace of Mechanical Music

"I foresee a marked deterioration in American music and musical taste, an interruption in the musical development of the country, and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue -- or rather by vice -- of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines."


John Philip Sousa, "The Menace of Mechanical Music," Appleton's Magazine, Vol. 8 (1906).

New law changes cigarette packaging

Iowa public health experts say new federal regulations will change cigarette packaging.

The Iowa Department of Public Health says starting Tuesday words such as "light," "mild" and "low-tar" will be banned from describing cigarettes on packaging. The department says the regulation was enacted because the terms can "mislead consumers into thinking certain types of cigarettes are safer."

Bonnie Mapes is a director for the department's Tobacco Use Prevention and Control division. Mapes says consumers might notice packaging color and design changes too. She says regardless, "there's just no such thing as a safe cigarette."

Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb

Artificial Immortality

A song by Christian progressive death/metalcore band Becoming the Archetype.





Technology will conquer, Biology will fall
Machines provide the means for the chosen few
To rise up and be "immortal"
Discard the body to elevate the intellect
Remove the head, remove the soul, implant the artificial
Remove the head, remove the soul, dehumanize…NO!

Shake off the chains
The constraints of your mortality
This new evolution puts "perfection" within our grasp
Discard the body to elevate the intellect
Remove the head, remove the soul, implant the artificial
Remove the head, remove the soul, dehumanize…NO!

I am not a mechanism
I am part of the resistance
I am an organism
An animal, a creature, I AM A BEAST!

The Mother of All Invention

The most unsung birthday in American business and technological history this year may be the 50th anniversary of the Xerox 914 photocopier. Although it was introduced at New York’s Sherry-Netherland Hotel on September 16, 1959, commercial models were not available until March 1960. The first machine, delivered to a Pennsylvania metal-fastener maker, weighed nearly 650 pounds. It needed a carpenter to uncrate it, an employee with “key operator” training, and its own 20-amp circuit. In an episode of Mad Men, set in 1962, the arrival of the hulking 914 helps get Peggy Olson her own office, after she tells her boss, “It’s hard to do business and be credible when I’m sharing with a Xerox machine.”

The Atlantic

The Campaign for Phonetic Spelling

The campaign for simple spelling, which activists say started more than 100 years ago, is experiencing a revival with kids who have taken wholeheartedly to phonetic spelling in electronic messages.

"I think right now the young people are sending us a text message," said protester Roberta Mahoney, a former Fairfax County school principal who was dressed in a yellow-and-black-striped bumble bee costume. "They're saying enough of this foolishness."

Washington Post