TBC: Morning Musing 2.23.15

I’m going mostly light this Monday morning cuz, let’s be honest, who wants to think too hard on a Monday morning?

First, now you can find out whether you’ve been spied on:

Find Out if You’ve Been Spied on-and Join the Fight for Privacy

Because of the ruling, there is an opportunity for people to try to find out if their communications were among those shared by NSA with GCHQ. Intelligence agencies use information like ip addresses and email addresses as “selectors” when sifting through the massive quantities of data they collect. GCHQ will comply with the IPT’s ruling by searching “selectors” it received from the NSA prior to December 2014.

But this won’t happen automatically. People need to actually file requests with the IPT. To help people do so, PI is collecting people’s names, numbers, and emails in order to assist them in asserting their rights and finding out whether those selectors were subject to unlawful sharing. If they were, PI will help individuals seek a declaration that that person’s privacy rights have been violated under Article 8 and Article 10 of the UK Human Rights Act, the law that codified the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Once the IPT issues a declaration for an individual, that individual can also request that their records be deleted. There’s no need to be a UK citizen-anyone can participate.

Jump!

Next up, on the origin of languages:

Indo-European Languages Originated 6,000 Years Ago in Russian Grasslands

Proto-Indo-European is the ancestral tongue of 400 languages and dialects, including English, German, Italian, Greek, and Hindi. It appeared in historic records dating back 3,700 years, but researchers have long debated over where and when Proto-Indo-European originated and how it spread. Some say it happened around 9,000 years ago in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and then dispersed along with agriculture; others think that it arose between 6,500 and 5,500 years ago in the grassy steppe lands of Ukraine and Russia, north of the Black and Caspian seas.

Now, two new analyses-one linguistic, one genetic-both offer evidence to support the Steppe Hypothesis, which suggests that language spread westward along with innovations related to pastoral farming: horse domestication, wheeled vehicles, and wool weaving.

Finally, this is just very cool:

Cymatics: When Science And Music Dance

When you weave science and music together, what happens?

Only some of the most mind blowing, jaw dropping visuals you’ll ever see.

So how you doin’?  ðŸ˜€