Archive for May, 2015
Ripasso Testing 34% Efficient Concentrated Solar System in Kalahari Desert
May 18th, 2015Disclosures: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand and I’m long Enphase Energy. — Via: Guardian: A new solar electricity generation system that developers claim is the most efficient in the world, is being tested in South Africa’s Kalahari desert. The Swedish company behind the project – which combines military technology with an idea […]
Oil Tycoon Wanted University of Oklahoma Earthquake Researchers Dismissed
May 18th, 2015Via: Bloomberg: Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state’s nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean’s e-mail recounting the conversation.
The One About The “U.S. Cracking Down on Militarization of Local Police”
May 18th, 2015Oh sure, and I guess all of those weapons and other equipment are just going to turn into a giant pumpkin at midnight. Via: MSNBC: The federal government will no longer provide heavy military equipment like tanks and grenade launchers to local cops following weeks of backlash against officers who confronted protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, […]
Self Driving Trucks Will Wipe Out Millions of Jobs
May 18th, 2015Via: Medium: Robot trucks also don’t need salaries?—?salaries that stand to go up because fewer and fewer people want to be truckers. A company can buy a fleet of self-driving trucks and never pay another human salary for driving. The only costs will be upkeep of the machinery. No more need for health insurance either. […]
The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades
May 18th, 2015Via: Wired: A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window. Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same […]
Missing Morgan Stanley Trader Found Dead
May 18th, 2015Via: Bloomberg: Murray Abbott, an institutional sales trader at Morgan Stanley in Toronto who had been missing since April 25, was found Monday by the shore of Lake Ontario near the city’s Beaches neighborhood where he lived. He was 36. His death wasn’t suspicious, Mark Pugash, a Toronto Police Service spokesman, said Tuesday in a […]
Why Today’s Automobile Industry Looks A Lot Like IBM in 1985
May 18th, 2015Via: TechCrunch: With the number of mobile phone subscriptions shortly expected to exceed the total global population, what is the next great connected device going to look like? Hint: It’ll have four wheels. Gartner predicts that there will be 250 million connected cars on the road by 2020. That means one in every three cars […]
BP Hires Former MI6 Boss John Sawers
May 18th, 2015Via: Guardian: BP has hired the former head of MI6 as it seeks to capitalise on his top-level diplomatic experience while dealing with some of the toughest political environments around the world. Sir John Sawers, who was head of the Secret Intelligence Service between 2009 and 2014, has joined the oil company’s board as a […]
UK Government Quietly Rewrites Hacking Laws to Give GCHQ Immunity
May 17th, 2015Via: ArsTechnica: The UK government has quietly passed new legislation that exempts GCHQ, police, and other intelligence officers from prosecution for hacking into computers and mobile phones. While major or controversial legislative changes usually go through normal parliamentary process (i.e. democratic debate) before being passed into law, in this case an amendment to the Computer […]
Whistleblower: Trident Nuclear Submarine Program
May 17th, 2015Full text: William McNeilly document (.pdf). Via: BBC: The Royal Navy is to investigate claims that security and safety procedures around the Trident nuclear submarines are inadequate. The investigation was launched after the claims were made by a submariner who has gone on the run. Able Seaman William McNeilly alleged the Trident programme was a […]
