Archive for March, 2014
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions in March
March 18th, 2014This is the most exclusive club of Cryptogon contributors in a long time! Thanks to Pookie for sending $75 and thanks to DM for sending $15.
Earnings in January and February
March 18th, 2014Thanks to the handful of people who kept Cryptogon going in January and February. Total earnings in January came to $1176.06. Total earnings in February came to $804.64. Thank you, contributors from February: MH $20 PT $50 TM $10 Eileen $75 Pookie $75 Thanks also go out to the owners of greenfriar.com and mindfulstyle.com for […]
Amazon France Terminates Cryptogon’s Affiliate Account
March 18th, 2014First amazon.de, now amazon.fr. I don’t know what’s going on out there in Amazon land. If they punch my ticket on amazon.com, I might finally have to drop the curtain on this Cryptogon show. — Bonjour, Nous vous remercions pour votre participation au Programme Partenaires d’Amazon EU. Nous sommes au regret de vous informer que […]
The One About Satellites Beaming Power Down to Earth Is Making the Rounds Again
March 17th, 2014*roll eyes* Via: Wired: For decades, the Pentagon has been the world’s largest oil consumer, and as global petroleum prices continue to rise, the military has been searching for feasible energy alternatives. Now they’re looking in space. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is building technology that will allow the military to capture solar power […]
A Tale of Two Internets
March 15th, 2014It sounds a lot like U.S. politics: “A world where you think you are making choices, but in reality, your options are narrowed and refined until you are left with merely the illusion of control.” Via: Scientific American: Imagine an Internet where unseen hands curate your entire experience. Where third parties predetermine the news, products […]
Forests Around Chernobyl Aren’t Decaying Properly
March 15th, 2014Via: Smithsonian: Nearly 30 years have passed since the Chernobyl plant exploded and caused an unprecedented nuclear disaster. The effects of that catastrophe, however, are still felt today. Although no people live in the extensive exclusion zones around the epicenter, animals and plants still show signs of radiation poisoning. Birds around Chernobyl have significantly smaller […]
1996: The Public School Nightmare
March 15th, 2014Via: tysknews.com: How did a Prussian system of dumbing children down take hold in American schools?
Wireless Electricity: “It’s Perfectly Safe”
March 15th, 2014No thanks. Via: CNN: Don’t worry about getting zapped: Hall assures that the magnetic fields used to transfer energy are “perfectly safe” — in fact, they are the same kind of fields used in Wi-Fi routers. In the house of the future, wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet. If all goes […]
RUSSIAN FORCES SEIZE GAS FACILITY INSIDE UKRAINE
March 15th, 2014Via: Telegraph: Ukraine’s military mobilised to thwart an apparent Russian advance for the first time on Saturday night as Kiev sent paratroops to defend a gas facility near Crimea with tensions high in the hours leading up to Sunday’s independence referendum. The foreign ministry in Kiev denounced an “invasion” by Russia’s forces into its mainland, […]
Bill Gates on Automation Eliminating Jobs: “Labor Demand for Lots of Skill Sets Will be Substantially Lower”
March 15th, 2014Via: Business Insider: Big changes are coming to the labour market that people and governments aren’t prepared for, Bill Gates believes. Speaking at Washington, D.C., economic think tank The American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, Gates said than within 20 years, a lot of jobs will go away, replaced by software automation (“bots” in tech slang, […]
