› added 11 years ago

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TIL India is launching its mass electronic surveillance program in 2014. It will give 9 Indian govt. agencies—incl. the tax dept—the power to access, in real-time, phone conversations, text, emails, web search data & social media activity WITHOUT the approval of the courts or parliament.

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via reddit.com

yj5p TIL that the murderers of Emmett Till, who was killed on this day in 1955 for whistling at a white woman, gave a full confession detailing the murder to Look Magazine, after they were aquitted of murder by an all white jury.
XP6D TIL Alexander the Great’s will called for the “transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction… to bring the largest continent to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties”
JkOj TIL that so many American Indians joined the military during WW2 that had all Americans joined at the same proportion, conscription would not have been necessary. The Blackfeet tribe mocked the idea of a draft: “Since when has it been necessary for Blackfeet to draw lots to fight?”
bBoQ TIL in a 1945 Alexander Fleming warned that massive use of penicillin could lead to the propagation of mutant forms of bacteria that would resist the drug.
5VJPR TIL that our voice has a considerable influence on how we are perceived by other people. A single spoken word is enough to obtain personality ratings that are highly consistent across independent listeners. Based on voice samples, AI can predict how a speaker tends to be perceived by other people.