Did you know that the symbol for power / standby mode used on  most electronics today has existed since 1973?  At the time, it was included in a standard created by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for use on various electrically powered equipment.  Originally this symbol was meant to be used for  “Standby” mode.  It wasn’t until 2004 that its current more generic “Power” meaning was adopted in a standard released by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).  The symbol is composed of two superimposed numbers, 1 meaning on, and 0 meaning off.
Ecuador is on track to become the world’s first nation to create its own digital currency. The country’s central bank announced last week (link in Spanish) that it would begin distributing the yet-to-be-named currency in December.
Backed by liquid assets, the currency will initially rely on demand to dictate how much will enter the marketplace, the bank explained.
But I’m not quite sure that without the neutral side of the Internet—the livestreams whose “packets†were fast as commercial, corporate and moneyed speech that travels on our networks, Twitter feeds which are not determined by an opaque corporate algorithms but my own choices,—we’d be having this conversation.
The first Man Booker prize longlist to include American authors has divided headline writers into those who prefer “Commonwealth writers edged out†and those who have chosen “Donna Tartt snubbedâ€.
Of the 13 novelists on the longlist, four are American—Siri Hustvedt, Joshua Ferris, Karen Joy Fowler and Richard Powers—six are British, two are Irish and just one is a Commonwealth writer, from Australia. This means there are no Caribbean or African authors up for the award…
First awarded in 1969, the Man Booker prize was, until this year, open only to novels by writers from Britain and the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe. At the end of 2013 entry was opened up to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in Britain.
The judges considered 154 novels, of which 44 were by authors who are now eligible under the new rules. Commonwealth submissions totalled 31 this year, compared with 43 in 2013.
