Sunday, March 05, 2017

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Aussie’s Weird Immigration Interview in the U.S.
Via: news.com.au: “Have you been here before?” “Yes.” “How long are you here?” “10 days.” “What will you be doing?” “Vacationing.” Thornton told news.com.au he got the sense he was about to be allowed in, so he picked up his bags as the officer asked one last question. “What do you do for a living?” […]
Britain: Surge in Children Being Admitted to Hospital for Sleeping Disorders
Via: Telegraph: Three times as many children under 14 are being admitted into hospital with sleeping disorders than ten years ago as technology keeps many awake at night. Households where both parents work are also pushing bedtimes later, with a lack of sleep raising fears of poor school performance and later life health woes. It […]
Electronic Energy Meters’ False Readings Almost Six Times Higher Than Actual Energy Consumption
Via: Science Bulletin: Some electronic energy meters can give false readings that are up to 582% higher than actual energy consumption. This emerged from a study carried out by the University of Twente (UT), in collaboration with the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS). Professor Frank Leferink of the UT estimates that potentially inaccurate meters […]

Yesterday

U.S. Airport Pat-Downs Are About to Get More Invasive
Via: Bloomberg: While few have noticed, U.S. airport security workers long had the option of using five different types of physical pat-downs at the screening line. Now those options have been eliminated and replaced with a single universal approach. This time, you will notice. The new physical touching—for those selected to have a pat-down—will be […]

Mar 02

The Master Microfixer Teaching the World to Fix iPhones
Idea for a great little business. Via: Motherboard:
Why Amazon’s Data Centers Are Hidden in Spy Country
Yeah, I guess you’d be nuts to think that Amazon built out infrastructure in this area to be in close proximity to CIA. That’s just a coincidence, as usual: The fact that northern Virginia is home to major intelligence operations and to major nodes of network infrastructure isn’t exactly a sign of government conspiracy so […]

Mar 01

Lithium Ion Like Battery with 3X the Energy Density, Sodium Glass Electrolyte
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — I’ll reiterate the usual warning when posting about battery technology “breakthroughs.” Laboratory experiments have virtually nothing to do with finished products that you and I can buy. Indeed, DO NOT hold your breath waiting for this. That said, it’s VERY interesting, if you’re like me […]
Congress Told to Brace for ‘Robotic Soldiers’
In other news: Via: The Hill: House lawmakers were warned Wednesday that artificial intelligence could soon be used by potential adversaries in military operations. Jason Healey, a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, told members of a House panel with oversight of the Pentagon that he expects the capabilities to be developed […]
‘Facebook Artificial Intelligence Spots Suicidal Users’
The Facebook bots will also be used to, “Identify posts by terrorists among other concerning content.” Mmm hmm. Via: BBC: Facebook has begun using artificial intelligence to identify members that may be at risk of killing themselves. The social network has developed algorithms that spot warning signs in users’ posts and the comments their friends […]
All New Taxis in Beijing Must Be Electric
Great, now don’t charge them with electricity generated by burning coal. Via: National Business Daily: All newly added or replaced taxies in the city of Beijing will be converted from gasoline to electricity, according to a draft work program on air pollution control for Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and surrounding areas in 2017.

Feb 28

Trump Open to Legal Status for Some Undocumented Immigrants in Sharp Departure from Campaign Stance
Just after the election, I wrote, “What’s he going to do? Deploy the U.S. Marines to places like Santa Ana and wide swaths of Los Angeles County? Good luck with that.” Maybe someone finally convinced him that mass roundups would go very badly. Via: CNBC: President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is open to legal […]

Feb 27

Trump Seeks U.S. Military Spending Boost, Domestic Cuts
Mmm hmm. Via: Reuters: President Donald Trump is seeking what he called a “historic” increase in defense spending, but ran into immediate opposition from Republicans in Congress who must approve his plan and said it was not enough to meet the military’s needs. The proposed rise in the Pentagon budget to $603 billion comes as […]
RCMP Commissioner Warns Continued IT Failures Will Have ‘Catastrophic’ Consequences
Via: CBC: Canada’s top cop is warning that ongoing computer network failures and slipshod service from Shared Services Canada could have “catastrophic” consequences for police and the public. CBC News has obtained a blistering Jan. 20, 2017, memo to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale in which Commissioner Bob Paulson details how critical IT failures have […]
DHS Quietly Testing Mandatory Facial Recognition of Passengers *Exiting* U.S.
Via: Professional Troublemaker: We’re all used to having to identify ourselves as we enter a country. It is the only way we can hope to have any attempt at a secure border. But, so-called “exit controls,” where documents are checked as travelers are leaving the country, were popularized last century by Nazi Germany as a […]
Boston Dynamics: Handle
Via: Boston Dynamics: Handle is a research robot that stands 6.5 ft tall, travels at 9 mph and jumps 4? ?feet vertically. ?It uses electric power to operate both electric and hydraulic actuators, with a range of about 15 miles on one battery charge. ???Handle uses many of the same dynamics, balance and mobile manipulation […]
SpaceX to Fly Passengers On Private Trip Around the Moon in 2018
Via: space.com: SpaceX will fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon in 2018, the company’s founder Elon Musk announced Monday (Feb. 27). The private spaceflight company will use its Falcon Heavy rocket to send the two paying passengers into space aboard one of the company’s Dragon spacecraft. The two private citizens, who […]
Cameras, Microphones and Sensors on 3,200 Street Lights in San Diego
Via: Reuters: General Electric will put cameras, microphones and sensors on 3,200 street lights in San Diego this year, marking the first large-scale use of “smart city” tools GE says can help monitor traffic and pinpoint crime, but raising potential privacy concerns. Based on technology from GE’s Current division, Intel Corp and AT&T Inc, the […]

Feb 25

Cobalt Hoarding Ahead of Assumed Electric Car Boom
Via: Reuters: Investors are buying up physical cobalt anticipating that shortages of the metal, a key component of lithium-ion batteries used in electrical cars, will spur prices to their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis. Prices for cobalt metal have climbed nearly 50 per cent since September to five-year peaks around US$19 ($NZ26.50) a […]
How EV West Recovers Battery Modules from Wrecked Tesla Vehicles
Ever wonder what the highest power density battery modules in the world look like? Via: Jehu Garcia:

Feb 24

Fasting Diet ‘Regenerates Diabetic Pancreas’
Via: BBC: The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers. Restoring the function of the organ – which helps control blood sugar levels – reversed symptoms of diabetes in animal experiments. The study, published in the journal Cell, says the diet reboots the body. Experts said […]
Illegal Fundraiser for the Clintons Made Secret Tape Because He Feared Being Assassinated
Via: Daily Mail: A Chinese-American businessman at the center of a Clinton campaign finance scandal secretly filmed a tell-all video as an ‘insurance policy’ – because he feared being murdered. In footage provided exclusively to DailyMail.com, Johnny Chung spills details on how he illegally funneled money from Chinese officials to Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election bid. […]

Feb 23

Most Scientists ‘Can’t Replicate Studies by Their Peers’
Via: BBC: Science is facing a “reproducibility crisis” where more than two-thirds of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist’s experiments, research suggests. This is frustrating clinicians and drug developers who want solid foundations of pre-clinical research to build upon. From his lab at the University of Virginia’s Centre for Open Science, immunologist […]
Private Prisons Back In Mix For Federal Inmates
Via: NPR: New Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rescinding an Obama-era memo that directed the Justice Department to reduce the use of private prisons, NPR’s Carrie Johnson reports Sessions writes in the order that returning to the Bureau of Prisons’ earlier approach would provide flexibility. “The memorandum changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the […]
U.S. WC-135 Nuclear Sniffer Plane Left UK, Heading Towards Norway and the Barents Sea
Via: The Aviationist: The WC-135 Constant Phoenix has launched from RAF Mildenhall earlier today for a mission towards northern Europe and the Barents Sea. Interestingly, an RC-135W spyplane has launched from the same base on the same route. What’s their mission? … Whereas it was not the first time the Constant Phoenix visited the British […]
AI Learns to Write Its Own Code by Stealing from Other Programs
Via: New Scientist: OUT of the way, human, I’ve got this covered. A machine learning system has gained the ability to write its own code. Created by researchers at Microsoft and the University of Cambridge, the system, called DeepCoder, solved basic challenges of the kind set by programming competitions. This kind of approach could make […]

Feb 22

AMD’s Ryzen Launches March 2
My nine year old son has watched me build a few high end PCs and he wants to build his own so badly that he can practically taste it. For months, I’ve been saying, “Wait for Ryzen, you must, young Padawon.” After many years, AMD will again be offering strong alternatives to Intel’s CPUs. Ryzen […]
Tesla Will Double Number of Supercharger Locations in North America in 2017
Via: The Verge: Tesla will double the number of Supercharger locations in North America in 2017, the company revealed today in its quarterly letter to shareholders. The company currently has 2,636 Superchargers at 373 locations across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and plans to have twice as many locations open by the end of […]
French Military Trains Eagles to Hunt Drones
Via: Reuters: In a battle between ancient arts and modern technology, France’s army is teaching birds of prey to bring down remote-controlled drones when they enter no-go urban airspace. Four golden eagles are getting military training for combat against battery-charged drones that just about anybody can buy in a local store, and fly into security-sensitive […]

Feb 21

UPS Tries Arming Its Brown-Clad Drivers With an Octocopter Drone
Via: Bloomberg: United Parcel Service Inc. sees a day when your latest purchase may be dropped off not by a brown-clad delivery driver, but by an octocopter drone. The world’s largest courier took a step closer to that future on Monday, launching an unmanned aerial vehicle from the roof of a UPS truck about a […]
Philadelphia: Heroin Hellscape
Via: Philly News: Along a half-mile gorge cut by a Conrail line that runs through Kensington and Fairhill, tens of thousands of used syringes and their tossed off orange caps cover the sloping ground like a plague of locusts. The contaminated needles make conditions so hazardous that even some police officers are reluctant to traverse […]
Florida Man Charged With Plotting to Bomb Target, Wanted to Buy Stock Cheap
Via: Reuters: A Florida man has been charged with plotting to plant bombs in at least 10 Target Corp stores and then profit when the blasts caused the company’s stock price to fall, federal prosecutors have said. Charles Barnett, 48, of Ocala, had asked a law enforcement informant to put the homemade bombs on the […]
Robots Poised to Take Over Wide Range of Military Jobs
Via: San Diego Union Tribune: The wave of automation that swept away tens of thousands of American manufacturing and office jobs during the past two decades is now washing over the armed forces, putting both rear-echelon and front-line positions in jeopardy. “Just as in the civilian economy, automation will likely have a big impact on […]
‘Mismatch’ Between the way Our Senses Evolved and Modern World Is Making Us Ill
Via: Independent: The modern world is radically at odds with the way human senses have evolved, helping to make us short-sighted, obese and depressed, scientists have warned. Spending large amounts of time indoors under artificial light and staring at computer screens has helped produce a “myopia epidemic” with as many as 90 per cent of […]

Feb 19

Bill Gates Warns Tens of Millions Could be Killed by Bio-Terrorism
Mmm hmm. Tell me another one, Bill. U.S. Researchers Trying to Create Pandemic Avian Flu Baxter International “Unintentionally” Sent Flu Samples to Companies that Contained H5N1 Avian Flu Scientist Makes H5N1 Highly Contagious New Bird Flu ‘Has Unique Traits’ Bird Flu Researchers to Continue Work on Engineered Virus Scientists Sequence Black Death Bacteria DNA Britain: […]

Feb 18

GM Plans to Build, Test Thousands of Self-Driving Bolts in 2018
Via: Reuters: General Motors Co plans to deploy thousands of self-driving electric cars in test fleets in partnership with ride-sharing affiliate Lyft Inc, beginning in 2018, two sources familiar with the automaker’s plans said this week. It is expected to be the largest such test of fully autonomous vehicles by any major automaker before 2020, […]

Feb 17

White House Denies Report it Might Call up National Guard for Immigration Roundup
This is what I wrote on election day: The thing about Trump that scares the crap out of me the most is his pledge to round up people who are in the U.S. illegally. I’m very much for securing the border. I’m not for mass arrests. Danger. Danger. Red flag. What’s he going to do? […]
Flashback 2013: Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA, While Keeping His Washington Post Readers in the Dark
Not only do I buy a lot of homeschooling books for my children from Amazon, but Cryptogon depends on affiliate commissions from Amazon. Several retailers in New Zealand simply buy stuff at retail from Amazon and then send it over to NZ. (That should give you an idea of how broken retailing is in NZ […]
AI-Powered Body Cams for Police
Via: Vocativ: The police body camera industry is the latest to jump on the artificial intelligence bandwagon, bringing new powers and privacy concerns to a controversial technology bolstered by the need to hold police accountable after numerous high-profile killings of unarmed black citizens. Now, that tech is about to get smarter. Last week, Taser, the […]
Elon Musk Is Really Boring
Via: Bloomberg: As Musk tells it, the L.A. traffic jam was a breaking point. Screw it, he thought, I’ll do tunnels myself. Within days of his tweetstorm, he acquired a domain name—BoringCompany.com—and appointed a leader for the project, Steve Davis, a senior SpaceX engineer who designed the guidance systems for the company’s first rocket. The […]
Cassie – Next Generation Robot
Via: Oregon State University: Related: Agility Robotics

Feb 15

U.S. Solar Capacity Nearly Doubles in One Year, Blows Away Previous Records
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Green Tech Media: In its biggest year to date, the United States solar market nearly doubled its annual record, topping out at 14,626 megawatts of solar PV installed in 2016. This represents a 95 percent increase over the previous record of 7,493 megawatts installed […]
Four Kinds of Dystopia
Via: expressiveegg: The reader can decide for herself under which of above we currently struggle to eke out a life worth living. I would like to suggest that all modern societies are both Kafkaesque and Phildickian with either a Huxleyan or Orwellian overarching framework; modern, western, capitalist societies tend to be basically Huxleyan (HKP) and […]

Feb 14

Daimler to Convert Engine Production to Electric at Its Largest Factory
The simplicity of EV powertrains, compared to internal combustion, means that, “The plant will require significantly fewer employees.” Via: Electrek: Daimler has ambitious plans for electric vehicle production. It is among the few major automakers that not only have accepted the transition to fully electric propulsion in the auto industry, but who have also committed […]
Flynn’s Takedown, “A Soft Coup”
In case anyone is keeping score, there was a faction allied with Trump that claimed that they were going to steal the election from Hillary, who was obviously well into the process of stealing the election for herself (see Bernie). Post election, Hillary’s faction obviously hasn’t just shrugged its shoulders and said, “Oh well.” Via: […]
For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region’s Power
Via: Bloomberg: Wind turbines across the Great Plains states produced, for the first time, more than half the region’s electricity Sunday. The power grid that supplies a corridor stretching from Montana to the Texas Panhandle was getting 52.1 percent of its power from wind at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, Little Rock, Arkansas-based Southwest Power Pool […]

Feb 13

DroneSeed
Forestry jobs? *poof* Via: Vimeo: DroneSeed: First Video of a Drone Planting a Tree from DroneSeed on Vimeo.
Proterra CEO Thinks One Third of New Transit Buses Will be Electric by 2020
Via: Green Car Reports: While electric cars continue to establish a beachhead in the consumer market, electric buses are making quick inroads with U.S. city transit authorities. Several companies already manufacture electric buses, which now operate in several cities around the country. But the CEO of electric-bus maker Proterra believes these vehicles will soon challenge […]
Toshiba: ‘Going Concern’ Warning
Via: Bloomberg: Toshiba Corp. shares fell as much as 3.1 percent after the Nikkei newspaper said the company will warn that it may not be able to continue as a going concern when it reports earnings later on Tuesday. Toshiba is getting ready to announce a writedown of as much as 700 billion yen ($6.1 […]
Elon Musk: Humans Must Merge with Machines or Become Irrelevant in AI Age
haha oh sure. Via: CNBC: Billionaire Elon Musk is known for his futuristic ideas and his latest suggestion might just save us from being irrelevant as artificial intelligence (AI) grows more prominent. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said on Monday that humans need to merge with machines to become a sort of cyborg. “Over time […]

Feb 12

California: Evacuations Ordered Below Oroville Dam
Via: Mercury News: An emergency evacuation was ordered for Oroville-area residents by the state Department of Water Resources, which predicted that the auxiliary spillway at the Oroville Dam could fail Sunday night. Related: Feds and State Officials Ignored Warnings 12 Years Ago
Our 9,000-Year Love Affair With Booze
Via: National Geographic: Alcohol isn’t just a mind-altering drink: It has been a prime mover of human culture from the beginning, fueling the development of arts, language, and religion.

Feb 11

Strange WikiLeaks Tweets
Via: Press for Truth:
The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet, It’s the End of the Middle Class
Via: Wired: At a time when the Trump administration is promising to make America great again by restoring old-school manufacturing jobs, AI researchers aren’t taking him too seriously. They know that these jobs are never coming back, thanks in no small part to their own research, which will eliminate so many other kinds of jobs […]

Feb 10

Leaked DHS Report: Trump Border Wall to Cost $21.6 Billion, Take 3.5 Years to Build
Via: Reuters: President Donald Trump’s “wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border would be a series of fences and walls that would cost as much as $21.6 billion, and take more than three years to construct, based on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security internal report seen by Reuters on Thursday. The report’s estimated price-tag is much […]
CIA Files Reveal How U.S. Used Psychics to Spy on Iran
Via: Miami Herald: “The stuff that the CIA has declassified is garbage,” one of the Grill Flame psychics, Joseph McMoneagle, told the Miami Herald. “They haven’t declassified any of the stuff that worked.” Agreed Edwin May, a physicist who oversaw parapsychology research for government intelligence agencies for 20 years: “The psychics were able to tell, […]
Republicans and Democrats Reportedly Using Self-Destructing Message Apps to Avoid Leaks
Via: The Verge: Trump administration members and other Republicans are using the encrypted, self-destructing messaging app Confide to keep conversations private in the wake of hacks and leaks, according to Jonathan Swan and David McCabe at Axios. Axios writes that “numerous senior GOP operatives and several members of the Trump administration” have downloaded Confide, which […]

Feb 09

Cortana Now Reminds You to Do the Things You Promised in Emails
haha. Just cut to the chase and release a Cortana anal suppository. Via: The Verge: Microsoft is adding a new feature to Cortana today that will remind you to keep your promises. Suggested reminders lets Cortana remind you when you’ve promised to do something in an email. Microsoft is using machine learning to highlight phrases […]
Record Number Renounce U.S. Citizenship in 2016
Via: U.S. News and World Report: A record number of individuals renounced their U.S. citizenship or chose to expatriate in 2016, according to data published by the Internal Revenue Service today. The government agency, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department, publishes the names of those individuals in a list each quarter, in accordance with […]
As Goldman Embraces Automation, Even the Masters of the Universe Are Threatened
Via: MIT Technology Review: At its height back in 2000, the U.S. cash equities trading desk at Goldman Sachs’s New York headquarters employed 600 traders, buying and selling stock on the orders of the investment bank’s large clients. Today there are just two equity traders left. Automated trading programs have taken over the rest of […]

Feb 08

NSA Contractor Indicted Over Mammoth Theft of Classified Data
Via: Reuters: A former National Security Agency contractor was indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges he willfully retained national defense information, in what U.S. officials have said may have been the largest heist of classified government information in history. The indictment alleges that Harold Thomas Martin, 52, spent up to 20 […]
Bank of America Opens Branches Without Employees
Via: Reuters: Bank of America Corp has opened three completely automated branches over the past month, where customers can use ATMs and have video conferences with employees at other branches, according to spokeswoman Anne Pace. Like many U.S. banks in recent years, Bank of America has been reducing its overall branch count to cut costs […]
Hydrologist Needed
A friend, and Cryptogon reader, is behind an effort to protect a valued body of water in New Zealand. She requires an experienced hydrologist for a paid consulting job involving, “A critical review of a critique of a heavily math-based, computer conceptual model.” If you know of a hydrologist who would like a consulting job, […]
Intel to invest $7 Billion in Factory in Arizona, Employ 3,000
Via: CNBC: Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday, where the company announced it will invest $7 billion in a factory employing up to 3,000 people. The factory will be in Chandler, Arizona, the company said, and over 10,000 people in the Arizona area will support the factory. Krzanich confirmed […]
Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
Via: CityLab: Major cities throughout the U.S. have spent millions on mobile surveillance tools—but there are still few rules about what happens to the information they capture.
Google’s New AI System Unscrambles Pixelated Images
Via: Guardian: Google’s neural networks have achieved the dream of CSI viewers everywhere: the company has revealed a new AI system capable of “enhancing” an eight-pixel square image, increasing the resolution 16-fold and effectively restoring lost data. The neural network could be used to increase the resolution of blurred or pixelated faces, in a way […]

Feb 07

One in 14 Catholic Priests Accused of Abuse in Australia
Via: AFP: Seven percent of Catholic priests were accused of abusing children in Australia between 1950 and 2010 but the allegations were never investigated, “shocking and indefensible” data showed Monday during an inquiry into paedophilia in the church. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard that 4,444 alleged incidents of pedophilia […]

Feb 06

Britain: Electric Vehicle Registrations Rise to Record in January
Via: Guardian: Alternative fuel vehicles, mainly electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf, increased by a fifth to reach a record 4.2% share of new vehicle registrations, beating a previous high of 3.6% in November last year. Petrol cars were also up strongly, gaining 8.9%, with diesel car registrations down 4.3%, continuing the fall seen […]
Trump Threatens to Defund ‘Out of Control’ California
Via: McClatchy: President Donald Trump is threatening to withhold federal funds from “out of control” California if the state declares itself a sanctuary state. “If we have to, we’ll defund,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly before the Super Bowl. “We give tremendous amounts of money to California, California in […]
Peak “Sharing” Economy
Via: Quartz: We may have already reached peak “sharing” economy. Average monthly earnings on “labor” platforms such as Uber, which use technology to match workers (like drivers) to people who need a service (like riders), peaked in June 2014, according to new data from the JPMorgan Chase Institute, the research arm of JPMorgan Chase. On […]
Inside Amazon’s Robot-Run Supermarket that Needs Just 3 Human Workers
Via: New York Post: The ground level of the futuristic prototype — a supermarket-sized version of its recently unveiled “Amazon Go” convenience store, with a bigger layout that could span anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 square feet — would be devoted to goods that shoppers typically like to touch, sources briefed on the plans told […]
“Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars”
Via: Bloomberg: In 2010, an advanced aircraft engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center named Mark Moore published a white paper outlining the feasibility of electric aircrafts that could take off and land like helicopters but were smaller and quieter. The vehicles would be capable of providing a speedy alternative to the dreary morning commute. Moore’s […]
Pentagon Hasn’t Disclosed Thousands of Air Strikes by U.S. Army Helicopters and Drones
Via: Military Times: The American military has failed to publicly disclose potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted over several years in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, a Military Times investigation has revealed. The enormous data gap raises serious doubts about transparency in reported progress against the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban, and calls into question […]

Feb 05

FedEx Bets on Automation as It Prepares to Fend Off Uber and Amazon
Via: MIT Technology Review: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight, your FedEx package might someday be delivered by a robot. Rob Carter, FedEx’s chief information officer, says the shipping giant is considering small vehicles that could drive around neighborhoods and make deliveries without human drivers. … FedEx is also researching ways it […]

Feb 04

Europe: Vegetable Shortages Due to Weather
Via: Reuters: British supermarkets have taken to rationing shoppers to three iceberg lettuces per visit after bad weather hit growing conditions in Spain, leading to a shortage in supplies that is set to continue through to March. Tesco (TSCO.L), Morrisons (MRW.L) and Sainsbury’s (SBRY.L) have all imposed restrictions on bulk purchases after production in Spain […]
Fukushima Reactor Radiation Levels Soaring Unexpectedly
Via: ScienceAlert: The radiation levels inside Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor No. 2 have soared in recent weeks, reaching a maximum of 530 sieverts per hour, a number experts have called “unimaginable”. Radiation is now by far the highest it has been since the reactor was struck by a tsunami in March 2011 – […]

Feb 03

The Surgeon Giving His Patients VR Instead of Sedatives
Via: BBC: The surgeon makes his first cut and blood spills down Ana’s leg. She’s surrounded by medical equipment – stools, trolleys, swabs, syringes – with super-bright surgical lamps suspended above the bed. Her vital signs are displayed on monitors just behind. But Ana is oblivious. She’s immersed in a three-dimensional re-creation of Machu Picchu. […]
The End of Employees Via: Wall Street Journal: Never before have American companies tried so hard to employ so few people. The outsourcing wave that moved apparel-making jobs to China and call-center operations to India is now just as likely to happen inside companies across the U.S. a

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