YouTube enlists Google+ to fix the world's worst comments

YouTube’s comments section, that notorious bastion of hostility toward women, people of color, rational thought, empathy, and the English language, is finally getting a makeover. In a series of sweeping changes that begin rolling out today, the space below YouTube videos will transform to what Google is calling "conversations that matter to you." But they will also be tied to the commenter’s Google+ account — a step that could alienate users even as it promises to supply the social network with timely new content.

Beginning this week, the new design will start appearing on the discussions tab for existing channels. The goal for comments, say YouTube's product designers: relevance, not recency. Before now, comments appeared on YouTube in reverse chronological order, with the most recent posts appearing at the top of the feed. The result is a largely undifferentiated stack of comments that often displays the internet hive mind at its worst. On popular videos, comment threads stretch into the thousands, and getting through all of them is practically impossible. "We’ve always been excited about the opportunity that comments give us," says Nundu Janakiram, a YouTube product manager, in an interview with The Verge. "We also know we have a lot of room for improvement."

India among NSA’s favorite surveillance targets, latest Snowden disclosure reveals

Boundless Informant was primarily used to track and organize internet data (DNI) and telephone metadata (DNR). The program is also used to provide summaries of the information the NSA collects from India and around the world, meaning Boundless Informant likely lays the groundwork for some of the most important intelligence activity carried out by the NSA.

DNI and DNR are then stored in an NSA storage file known as GM-PLACE. Documents seen by The Hindu Times show records from at least 504 DNR and DNI collection sources in India alone.

Boundless Informant was not used to intercept messages or communication. However, it does count and categorize phone calls and internet records in an easy-to-use database that allows the NSA to quickly track individuals.

PRISM, a massive clandestine service used for data mining first disclosed in June 2013, gathered intelligence on “certain specific issues not related to terrorism” from major web services like Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Microsoft and Google, among others.

Heavy gunfire, explosions reported inside Nairobi's Westgate mall

At least three Westerners were among the militants that perpetrated the Nairobi mall siege, Kenya’s foreign minister said Monday. “Two or three Americans” and “one Brit” were among the perpetrators, Amina Mohamed said in a Monday interview with PBS Newshour. The Americans of Somali or Arab origin were 18 to 19 years old and resided “in Minnesota and one other place.” The British extremist was a female who has “done this many times before,” Mohamed said.

Obama's 'independent' NSA review board staffed with administration insiders

Among the most significant results — seemingly, at least — came in early August when Pres. Obama said he was tasking an “independent group to step back and review our capabilities — particularly our surveillance technologies.”

The agency would consider for the White House ways the administration can “maintain the trust of the people,” “make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used” and “ask how surveillance impacts our foreign policy, particularly in an age when more and more information is becoming public,” the president said.

However, Stephen Braun wrote for the Associated Press over the weekend that the review board established after that Aug. 9 address is raising almost as many questions as the NSA operations they were put together to investigate.

“But with just weeks remaining before its first deadline to report back to the White House, the review panel has effectively been operating as an arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA and all other US spy efforts,” Braun wrote.

Boston Festival of Indie Games

Boston Festival of Indie Games hosted almost 130 unique independently developed games, drawing submissions mostly from New England and nearby Montreal. Veteran development teams from sponsor companies were easy to spot, with polished graphic displays and multiple machines for festival attendees. Others brought little more than their game, with nothing but a laptop and a hand drawn sign to indicate their presence. Indies invited the Boston gaming community to spend time with their untried ventures, asking for critical feedback and (hopefully) a digital vote in the Figgies Award competition in return.

In order to support the growing BFIG demand for 2013, the festival's staff turned to Kickstarter. The project asked for $15,000 to support necessities like larger space rental, and travel expenses to attract stronger keynote speakers. At the same time organizers also promised that no funds would go towards paying event staff.

source polygon.com

Uruguay First To Fully Legalize Marijuana

The President of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, has been on a mission to deal with the rise in illegal drug trade and trafficking which has plagued the region.

An Institute for Regulation and Control of Cannabis would be created, with the power to grant licenses for all aspects of a legal industry to produce marijuana for recreational, medicinal or industrial use.

The government will purchase marijuana from licensed growers and distribute it to pharmacies, while private citizens will be permitted to grow the plant for personal use.

Uruguay is now at the forefront of globally reforming our ever costly, and perpetually failing archaic drug policies. If this endeavor succeeds, Uruguay will become the first nation that will allow its citizens to legally grow and consume marijuana for non-medical purposes.