06 AM | 09 Jan

Almost Not-There Wearables [#geekgirl] [#AR]

[Image Via: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology]

[Image Via: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology]

[From Gigaom]: “The ultimate wearable may be one we hardly even recognize is there. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology researchers published a paper (subscription required) in Nature Communications today describing an ultra-thin thin circuit that is small and flexible enough to wrap around a human hair or lay on top of a contact lens, opening up some interesting applications….The researchers were able to attach a film to a contact lens, creating a device that could be used to monitor, for example, the eye pressure of someone who has glaucoma. But there are lots of other potential uses, including long-term implants, solar cells or environmental sensors.”

11 AM | 18 Nov

“”We are not post-racism any more than we are post-feminism…” [#geekgirl]

“We are not post-racism any more than we are post-feminism. This is the context into which this video falls: a white middle-class woman playing ringleader to anonymous black women. Maybe there is a knowing wink here I missed. But I haven’t missed years of black women writing about how their bodies are used for white people to write their own scripts all over them.

Whether the project is feminism or a way of selling a song. Our sketches matter. Who gets to be in charge of our bodies matters. So I am sorry but Allen cannot be the one to say this is nothing to do with race. Racism works precisely by denying the presence of race. The privilege is to not notice it.

Does liberal feminism expect so little that we lap up the crumbs from the table? That we say to women of colour: I am afraid your concerns are a bit humourless, we will sort out the race stuff later, and by the way where did you get your nails done? Well, it’s just not good enough for this bitch.

As hard as it might be here, I still know it’s a damn sight harder for some bitches than others.”

10 AM | 26 Aug

“Coalition policies will result in a significant redistribution of wealth upwards rather than downwards…” [#geekgirl]

[From an article by Nicholas Reece]

“Consider the following Coalition policies:

■ Lower the tax-free threshold from $18,200 to $6000. This will drag more than one million low-income earners back into the tax system. It will also increase the taxes for 6 million Australians earning less than $80,000.

■ Abolish the low-income superannuation contribution. This will reimpose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation contributions for people earning less than $37,000.

■ Abolish the proposed 15 per cent tax on income from superannuation above $100,000 a year. The combined effect of these two superannuation changes is that 16,000 high-income earners with superannuation savings in excess of $2 million will get a tax cut while 3.6 million workers earning less than $37,000 will pay more than $4 billion extra in tax on their super over the next four years.

■ Abolish the means test on the private health insurance rebate. This will deliver a $2.4 billion tax cut over three years for individuals earning more than $84,001 a year, or couples earning more than $168,001. People on lower incomes will receive no benefit.

■ Introduce a paid parental leave scheme that replaces a mother’s salary up to $150,000. To put it crudely, this means a low-income mum gets about $600 per week while a high-income mum gets close to $3000.

■ Abolish the means-tested Schoolkids Bonus that benefits 1.3 million families by providing up to $410 for each primary school child and up to $820 for each high school child.

These policies will result in low- and middle-income earners paying billions of dollars more in tax while those on higher incomes receive billions in tax cuts and new benefits. Rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, the Coalition policies are a case of take from the poor and give to the rich. And this remains the case even taking into account the flow-on effects of the abolition of the carbon price and the funding of the Coalition’s paid maternity leave through a tax on big companies.”