Archive for August, 2013
Hank Bought A Bus
August 24th, 2013Some inspiration for the growing ranks of Cryptogon readers who are full-time vehicle dwellers/campers. Via: Hank Bought a Bus: The bus was purchased on Craigslist for $3000, and has had about $6000 in improvements. It’s not pocket change, but it’s less than a down payment on a home, and it’s less than I paid in […]
Australia: Giant Robotic Mining Trucks Haul Iron Ore
August 24th, 2013😯 Via: Medium: In the dusty red earth of Western Australia, robot trucks haul iron ore. The trucks themselves weigh about 500 tons when loaded—they are truly massive. They operate more or less on their own, navigating mining roads connecting the sprawling Pilbara iron mines with a guidance system provided by global positioning satellites, radars […]
Computer Can Read Letters Directly from the Brain
August 24th, 2013Via: Radboud University: By analysing MRI images of the brain with an elegant mathematical model, it is possible to reconstruct thoughts more accurately than ever before. In this way, researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen have succeeded in determining which letter a test subject was looking at.
‘Either Write the Software that Eats the World, or Be Eaten’
August 24th, 2013Via: TechCrunch: Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe the “widening gap between rich and poor” is temporary. Maybe the steady growth in the proportion of jobs that are part-time and/or low-paid will soon reverse. Or maybe the idea that all the homeless need are old laptops and a few JavaScript textbooks is […]
Documentary: Terms and Conditions May Apply
August 23rd, 2013Via: Terms and Conditions May Apply: Terms and Conditions May Apply (trailer) from ro*co films on Vimeo.
Costa Rica’s President Flew Narco-Jet to Hugo Chavez Funeral
August 23rd, 2013Via: Mad Cow Morning News: An American-registered drug plane has been plying the airspace over Central and South America carrying cargoes of cocaine for a good long while (authorities admit they’ve been “investigating” it since 2011) without apparent incident, until recently, when a newspaper in Costa Rica reported that the President of Costa Rica had […]
Fukushima: Radioactive Groundwater Nears Pacific
August 23rd, 2013Via: AP: Deep beneath Fukushima’s crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant’s reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific. Now, 2 1/2 years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is […]
GCHQ Intercepts Data on Middle East Fiber Optic Cables
August 23rd, 2013“It’s a definite WTF moment.” —Problems with Five Undersea Fiber Optic Cables, 2008 See: 2008 submarine cable disruption: 2008 submarine cable disruption refers to three separate incidents of major damage to submarine optical cables. The first incident caused damage involving up to five high-speed Internet submarine communications cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East […]
DARPA Wants a Synthetic Neocortex
August 23rd, 2013Via: Network World: The military’s advanced research group recently put out a call, or Request For information, on how it could develop systems that go beyond machine learning, Bayesian techniques, and graphical technology to solve “extraordinarily difficult recognition problems in real-time.” Current systems offer partial solutions to this problem, but are limited in their ability […]
The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis
August 23rd, 2013Via: Vice: When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn’t believe it. The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots […]
