Archive for August, 2013
Will Robots Replace Rent-a-Cops?
August 31st, 2013Via: Motherboard: Has a fear of robotics ever kept anyone from robbing banks? I’m not talking about the surveillance systems, laser-armed tripwires, noisy alarms, or automated locks on the doors. I’m talking about actual robots—an evolution of the ROOMBA Vacuum cleaner, but with legs, not cute, and definitely not something you want to rob. Now, […]
Arbitrage on Equities in Millisecond Time Frames
August 30th, 2013The “national best bid and offer” prices—Aren’t. Via: Fortune: Here’s how Hendershott’s latency-arbitrage strategy worked: Redline allowed him to use its “direct market access” — cables that run directly from exchange servers to its own. Redline’s server was co-located with that of BATS Exchange so that the “latency” on information and orders coming from BATS […]
How Poverty Taxes the Brain
August 30th, 2013Via: The Atlantic Cities: Human mental bandwidth is finite. You’ve probably experienced this before (though maybe not in those terms): When you’re lost in concentration trying to solve a problem like a broken computer, you’re more likely to neglect other tasks, things like remembering to take the dog for a walk, or picking your kid […]
Homeschooling in Germany: Children Seized in Shocking Raid
August 30th, 2013Via: HSLDA: At 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, August 29, 2013, in what has been called a “brutal and vicious act,” a team of 20 social workers, police officers, and special agents stormed a homeschooling family’s residence near Darmstadt, Germany, forcibly removing all four of the family’s children (ages 7-14). The sole grounds for removal were […]
Black Budget: $52.6 Billion
August 30th, 2013Via: Washington Post: The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how […]
Shocker: Israel One of the Top Spying Threats Facing U.S. Intelligence Services
August 30th, 2013The U.S. will probably punish Israel by giving it another $115 billion. Via: The Hill: The Obama administration views Israel as one of the top spying threats facing its intelligence services, leaked documents reveal. A secret budget request obtained by The Washington Post from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden lumps Israel alongside U.S. foes Iran […]
People Leaving Ireland at Fastest Rate Since 1980s
August 30th, 2013Via: Financial Times: Ireland’s rate of emigration is continuing to increase and at one stage one person was leaving the country to live abroad every six minutes – the highest number since modern records began in the late 1980s. New figures published on Thursday show 397,500 people have emigrated since Ireland’s financial crisis began in […]
New Snowden Leak Reports ‘Groundbreaking’ NSA Crypto-Cracking
August 30th, 2013Isn’t it comforting to know that the Washington Post essentially gave editorial control over this story to the U.S. Government? Here’s a tip for real whistle blowers: Distribute your material as a torrent. That way, we wouldn’t have to deal with the god damned, enemy collaborator media censoring it. Via: Wired: The latest published leak […]
Prescription Sleeping Pill Use in America
August 29th, 2013Via: NBC: Desperate for rest in a frenzied world, at least 8.6 million Americans take prescription sleeping pills to catch some Zzzs, according to the first federal health study to focus on actual use. Between 2005 and 2010, about 4 percent of U.S. adults aged 20 and older popped popular prescription drugs such as Lunesta […]
Moon Water Discovery Hints at Mystery Source Deep Underground
August 29th, 2013Via: Space.com: Evidence of water spotted on the moon’s surface by a sharp-eyed spacecraft likely originated from an unknown source deep in the lunar interior, scientists say. The find — made by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe — marks the first detection of such “magmatic water” from lunar orbit and confirms […]
