Archive for January, 2018
USAF Is Jamming GPS In The Western U.S. For Largest Ever Red Flag Air War Exercise
January 27th, 2018Via: The Drive: The year’s first iteration of the USAF’s premier set of aerial war games, known commonly as Red Flag, is kicking off today at Nellis Air Force Base just outside of Las Vegas, but this exercise will be different than any in the past. Not only is it the largest of its kind […]
Canadian Billionaires Murdered
January 27th, 2018Via: National Post: Toronto police say a six-week examination of an enormous amount of evidence leads them to believe billionaire pharmaceutical giant Barry Sherman and his philanthropist wife Honey Sherman were the targeted victims of a double murder. Barry Sherman, 75, who founded the generic drug manufacturing giant Apotex, and Honey Sherman, 70, were found […]
East China Sea: Worst Tanker Oil Spill in Decades
January 26th, 2018Via: Reuters: The worst tanker oil spill in decades is unfolding across hundreds of miles of the East China Sea after an Iranian oil tanker carrying more than 100,000 tonnes of toxic oil collided with a freighter and exploded, killing all 32 crew onboard. The ship burned, spewing its cargo, for more than a week […]
Tesla Gigafactory Production Problems Worse than Previously Disclosed
January 26th, 2018The Hacker News comments on this are interesting. Via: CNBC: Tesla’s problems with battery production at the company’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, are worse than the company has acknowledged and could cause further delays and quality issues for the new Model 3, according to a number of current and former Tesla employees. These problems include […]
Trump Attends World Economic Forum
January 25th, 2018Via: Reuters: Donald Trump flew into the sanctum of the global elite on Thursday to promote his tax cuts and deregulation policies to CEOs and bankers, many of whom are eager to invest in the United States despite reservations about his turbulent presidency. The first sitting U.S. president to visit the World Economic Forum in […]
Ex-Montana House Majority Leader Gets 18 Years for Drug Trafficking
January 25th, 2018Via: Great Falls Tribune: A former leader of the Montana House of Representatives who once supported funding for an anti-drug campaign was sentenced to 18 years in prison Thursday for his central role in a methamphetamine trafficking ring. Michael Lange, the Republican House majority leader during the 2007 Legislature, arranged deliveries of at least 20 […]
Biggest Washington DC Lobbyist Is Now Google
January 25th, 2018Via: Register: For the first time, an internet company has become the largest lobbyist in Washington DC. With the release of fourth quarter lobbying figures – a legal requirement – it has been revealed that Google (well, Alphabet) spent no less than $18m in 2017 to lobby lawmakers in the US capital: a 17 per […]
Monkeys Cloned in World First
January 25th, 2018Via: Independent: Two monkeys are the first ever primates to be cloned using the technique that created Dolly the sheep. The technique brings the prospect of cloned human beings even more closer. But scientists caution that there may be no good reason to create such clones, and that ethical and legal questions need to be […]
Grid Up. Grid Down.
January 24th, 2018The grid has been having intermittent issues since last night’s thunderstorm, and the power was off for most of the afternoon today. Back to posting early AM NZ time tomorrow, assuming the power stays on.
When It Comes to Voice Identification, the “NSA Reigns Supreme”
January 23rd, 2018Via: The Intercept: These and other classified documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden reveal that the NSA has developed technology not just to record and transcribe private conversations but to automatically identify the speakers. Americans most regularly encounter this technology, known as speaker recognition, or speaker identification, when they wake up Amazon’s Alexa […]
