Archive for the 'Economy' Category
A Top Secret Desert Assembly Plant Starts Ramping Up to Build Northrop’s B-21 Bomber
November 13th, 2017Via: Los Angeles Times: A once-empty parking lot at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s top secret aircraft plant in Palmdale is now jammed with cars that pour in during the predawn hours. More than a thousand new employees are working for the time being in rows of temporary trailers, a dozen tan-colored tents and a vast assembly […]
Quantum Computers a Threat to Bitcoin Security
November 12th, 2017Via: MIT Technology Review: A crucial feature of Bitcoin is its security. Bitcoins have two important security features that prevent them from being stolen or copied. Both are based on cryptographic protocols that are hard to crack. In other words, they exploit mathematical functions, like factorization, that are easy in one direction but hard in […]
Recovery: Many Older Americans Are Living a Desperate, Nomadic Life
November 11th, 2017Via: MarketWatch: In her powerful new book, “Nomadland,” award-winning journalist Jessica Bruder reveals the dark, depressing and sometimes physically painful life of a tribe of men and women in their 50s and 60s who are — as the subtitle says — “surviving America in the twenty-first century.” Not quite homeless, they are “houseless,” living in […]
BitTorrent Inventor Announces Bitcoin Competitor Chia
November 9th, 2017Via: TechCrunch: A bitcoin transaction wastes as much electricity as it takes to power an American home for a week, and legendary coder Bram Cohen wants to fix that. And considering he invented the ubiquitous peer-to-peer file transfer protocol BitTorrent, you should take him seriously. Cohen has just started a new company called Chia Network […]
Big Data Meets Big Brother as China Moves to Rate Its Citizens
November 8th, 2017Behold, the biggest Magic 8 Ball ever. Via: Wired: On June 14, 2014, the State Council of China published an ominous-sounding document called “Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System”. In the way of Chinese policy documents, it was a lengthy and rather dry affair, but it contained a radical idea. What […]
Paradise Papers
November 5th, 2017Via: Guardian: The world’s biggest businesses, heads of state and global figures in politics, entertainment and sport who have sheltered their wealth in secretive tax havens are being revealed this week in a major new investigation into Britain’s offshore empires. The details come from a leak of 13.4m files that expose the global environments in […]
Saudi Billionaire Prince Alwaleed, Former Ministers Detained in Corruption Probe
November 5th, 2017What is this? Nipping a coup in the bud? Via: Reuters: One of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent businessmen and a former finance minister are among dozens detained in a probe by a new anti-corruption body, a senior Saudi official said on Sunday. The official, who declined to be identified under briefing rules, said billionaire Prince […]
Cobalt, Ontario
October 31st, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Ironically, Cobalt, Ontario—population 1,100—was built on silver. Remnants of a boom that transformed the town more than a century ago are everywhere. A mine headframe still protrudes from the roof of the bookstore, which was previously a grocery. The butcher used to toss unwanted bones down an abandoned 350-foot shaft in the middle […]
Robots to Work in 50 Wal-Marts
October 30th, 2017Via: Arkansas Online: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. customers in a few Arkansas stores will soon cross paths with robots roaming the aisles. The Bentonville company said it will begin using autonomous devices in about 50 stores next month that are programmed to scan store shelves and identify things like out-of-stock items or products incorrectly priced or […]
Nothing to Hide
October 29th, 2017Via: Vimeo: NOTHING TO HIDE (Oct. 2016) is an independent documentary dealing with surveillance and its acceptance by the general public through the “I have nothing to hide” argument.
