Archive for June, 2012
Michigan: Nuclear Power Plant Shut Down After Leak
June 13th, 2012I’ve been following the Michigan/Indiana radiation spike meme for days, but I haven’t seen anything to convince me that anything weird was actually happening there. And now… Via: Reuters: Entergy Corp shut its 793-megawatt Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan on Tuesday due to leakage from a refueling water tank, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission […]
Mexico’s Largest Television Network Sold Favorable Election Coverage to Top Politicians
June 13th, 2012Via: Narco News Bulletin: The US Embassy in Mexico City in 2009 issued a series of cables indicating that Mexican political candidates, “are paying networks to provide them with television coverage” and that leading presidential contender Enrique Peña Nieto, in particular, “is paying media outlets under the table for favorable news coverage.” The documents were […]
Quick Note for Members of the Private Jet and Personal Submarine Class Who Read Cryptogon
June 13th, 2012Amazon will pay me commissions on your new laptop purchases: Apple MacBook Pro MC975LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display, 2.3 GHz, 256 GB SSD Apple MacBook Pro MC976LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display, 2.6 GHz, 512 GB SSD Thank you.
Indians in Gated Communities Meet Their Neighbors Online
June 12th, 2012So it goes… Via: Washington Post: Sumit Jain has fond memories of his childhood in a small town where everybody knew everybody. But as a young man, he moved to a big city for work and began living in an apartment building. Jain said he soon missed feeling connected to a community. That sense of […]
Russia Is Sending Syria Attack Helicopters
June 12th, 2012Here it is, in black and white: The Real Reason to Intervene in Syria: Cutting Iran’s link to the Mediterranean Sea is a strategic prize worth the risk. We’re not done with the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran. Given that the current round of negotiations with the world’s major powers will not fundamentally […]
Gamer Plays Civilization II for Almost 10 Years, Turns World Into ‘Hellish Nightmare of Suffering and Devastation’
June 12th, 2012Via: Reddit: I’ve been playing the same game of Civ II for 10 years. Though long outdated, I grew fascinated with this particular game because by the time Civ III was released, I was already well into the distant future. I then thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the […]
The Uncanny Valley – First English Translation Authorized and Reviewed by Mori
June 12th, 2012Slashdot posts a lot of garbage, but this reminds me of why I still persevere with that site. Via: IEEE: More than 40 years ago, Masahiro Mori, then a robotics professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, wrote an essay on how he envisioned people’s reactions to robots that looked and acted almost human. In […]
In-Q-Tel
June 12th, 2012I haven’t posted any stories about in-Q-Tel in a while. Via: Mercury News: Silicon Valley in years past has supplied surveillance satellites, missiles and electronic warfare gadgets to the government. But more recently, a dazzling array of other innovations has grabbed the interest of the country’s covert operatives. Nearly a third of the 87 companies […]
Water Grab in Kansas Oil Boom
June 12th, 2012Via: CNN: In the farm country of southern Kansas, water is a precious commodity. And not just for farming — for fracking. In hydraulic fracturing, water is injected into the ground at a high pressure to help crack shale rock and bring oil to the surface. The industry says it takes as much as 2 […]
Gates Grants: Galvanic Bracelets that Measure Student Engagement
June 12th, 2012Ok, kids, time for school. Don’t forget your GPS trackers, breakfast sticks, RFID cards and… Via: Washington Post: In the ‘you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff’ category, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending about $1.1 million to develop a way to physiologically measure how engaged students are by their teachers’ lessons. This involves “galvanic skin response” bracelets that […]
