It's all Stanford's Fault (at least according to the NY Times) - What I am reading 12/24/2014

Washington Post - The viral claim that a black person is killed by police ‘every 28 hours’ -

Debunked

The report’s author, Arlene Eisen, wrote in an article in September that the use of “every 28 hours” as a standalone figure oversimplifies the point made in her report, which was to “prevent future extrajudicial killings of Black people by those paid or sanctioned (security guards and vigilantes) by the national security state, it is important to know that these killings are a result of the perpetual war on Black people.”

...

Yet the methodology of this report is curious.
It takes into account deaths that do not seem to fit into the report’s description of “thinking and practice of a government and a society that will spare no cost to control the lives of Black people.” For example, a 24-year-old woman died in July 2012 at her birthday party, where she hugged an off-duty police officer from behind. He was carrying a loaded gun, which allegedly went off and killed her. A 59-year-old woman died after she was hit by a police officer driving his patrol car responding to an emergency call. A 31-year-old man was fatally shot by police when he ignored commands to stop eating a homeless man’s face.

I don't know about you but I think maybe if someone was eating my face I would want the police to shoot and kill him.  Look, I don't want to underplay the how serious a problem police violence can be but this report was obviously trying to reach a specific conclusion and did everything short of just making numbers up in order to reach that conclusions.  And BTW shame on Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, who should know better, for using these numbers.  Why no one ever called him out on his BS on Red Eye I'll never understand.  

Endgadget - Ireland: US courts need our permission to view emails stored on Dublin server -

The country has just filed court papers echoing Microsoft's sentiments that the US court should ask Irish authorities for help if it wants to look at the user's emails. Redmond's main argument is that if a US search warrant can't be used in a foreign land, then a court order also shouldn't have any power over data stored overseas. According to that filing, Ireland will consider and process any request asking for access to the data in question "as expeditiously as possible," but US courts are obligated to respect Irish sovereignty.

I would think this would go without saying but...

Infosec Institute - How to Become a Cyber Security Expert -

it is not easy to become a cyber security expert, and nobody can expect acquiring all the knowledge required overnight. Instead, strenuous work is expected prior to taking pride in knowing many aspects of the whole cyber security concept. Below, we are going to highlight some simple and yet highly efficient guidelines that you are more than welcome to follow. Using these guidelines as your backbone, you will get the chance to excel in cyber security and make a huge difference over time,

They seem to follow the underpants gnomes business plan here:

1.  Collect underwear
2.  ???
3.  Profit

only in this case it is:

1.  Study
2.  Get Certified
3. Start own business
4.  Profit

The fact that they sell cybersecurity training and certification packages is merely coincidental.

Lifehacker - How to Better Retain Information from Books, Articles, and More -

Basically it boils down to take notes and read the same book over and over. (So apparently despite what teachers keep telling us, memorization and repetition work)

NY Times - A Brand New World In Which Men Ruled -

A long article (long long article) lamenting the fact that Stanford's early 90's diversity efforts didn't result in more female tech entrepreneurs.  The thing is as you read the article it quickly comes out that part of the reason is that more men were willing to take more risks and I don't know what you do about that.