DARPA: ‘Stentrode’ Obtains Neuron Signals from Inside Blood Vessels Near Brain
February 17th, 2016Via: SlashGear:
Under DARPA’s Reliable Neural-Interface Technology program, a team from the University of Melbourne has created a new device called a ‘stentrode’ that, when implanted near one’s brain, is able to read signals from neurons. The work was done as part of a DARPA project, and it is said to be safer than implants requiring brain surgery. The device is about the size of a paperclip, according to the researchers, and it is implanted through a blood vessel.
DARPA, which seeks such devices for its various projects, detailed the prototype device in a statement today, saying the researchers performed a proof-of-concept study using sheep. The stentrode, as it’s called, takes “high-fidelity measurements” of brain cells — in the case of the sheep, the researchers took measurements of the part of the brain that controls voluntary movements.
Stents, generally speaking, are common medical tools for clearing blood vessels, among other things. The researchers in this case used readily available stent technology and transformed it into something new, adding an array of electrodes on materials designed to be stiff enough to hold them, but flexible enough to be maneuvered into a blood vessel.
Research Credit: Slartibardfast
Radioactive Material Stolen in Iraq from Oil Company — ISIS Dirty Bomb?
February 17th, 2016WND threat from Saddam Hussein: Not so much.
And now, in the Post-Mission-Accomplished era…
Via: Reuters:
Iraq is searching for “highly dangerous” radioactive material stolen last year, according to an environment ministry document and seven security, environmental and provincial officials who fear it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State.
The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, went missing in November from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford (WFT.N), the document obtained by Reuters showed and officials confirmed.
A spokesman for Iraq’s environment ministry said he could not discuss the issue, citing national security concerns. A Weatherford spokesman in Iraq declined to comment, and the company’s Houston headquarters did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
FBI Wants Apple to Create Software to Assist with Brute Forcing Password on iPhone
February 17th, 2016Via: TechDirt:
Apple’s reasonable technical assistance shall accomplish the following three important functions: (1) it will bypass or disable the auto-erase function whether or not it has been enabled; (2) it will enable the FBI to submit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE for testing electronically via the physical device port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocol available on the SUBJECT DEVICE and (3) it will ensure that when the FBI submits passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, software running on the device will not purposefully introduce any additional delay between passcode attempts beyond what is incurred by Apple hardware.
Related: Apple: A Message to Our Customers
‘Let Us Inspect Your Home For Dirty Dishes – Or We’ll Get A Warrant,’ City Says
February 16th, 2016Via: Off The Grid News:
A Minnesota city is asking a court for a warrant to enter a rental home in order to check to see if the place is clean. If the city wins the case, then inspectors apparently would be able to enter such a building anytime they wish.
The renters and tenants say they have nothing to hide but are opposing the city’s move based on principle. If they want to leave dirty dishes in the sink, they say, they it should be perfectly legal.
“Your home is your castle—irrespective of whether you rent it or own it,” said Anthony Sanders, an attorney for Institute for Justice, which is representing the renters and tenants. “What we do in our home is our business, not the government’s. The mere fact that someone rents a home, rather than owns it, should not give the government the right to disrupt their life, invade their privacy and search every nook and cranny of their home—all without providing a shred of evidence that anything is wrong. It is a fundamental violation of the Minnesota Constitution’s protection against illegal searches.”
Sanders is representing the renters as well as Jackie and Jason Wiebesick, the owners of the rental unit in Golden Valley, Minnesota.
The city of Golden Valley is asking the Minnesota Court of Appeals to grant the warrant even though there have been no allegations that ordinances have been violated. Instead, the city wants to see if the tenants are following minimal standards that include keeping the kitchen and toilet clean, the Institute said.
The NSA’s SKYNET Program May be Killing Thousands of Innocent People
February 16th, 2016
Via: Ars Technica:
In 2014, the former director of both the CIA and NSA proclaimed that “we kill people based on metadata.” Now, a new examination of previously published Snowden documents suggests that many of those people may have been innocent.
Last year, The Intercept published documents detailing the NSA’s SKYNET programme. According to the documents, SKYNET engages in mass surveillance of Pakistan’s mobile phone network, and then uses a machine learning algorithm on the cellular network metadata of 55 million people to try and rate each person’s likelihood of being a terrorist.
Patrick Ball—a data scientist and the executive director at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group—who has previously given expert testimony before war crimes tribunals, described the NSA’s methods as “ridiculously optimistic” and “completely bullshit.” A flaw in how the NSA trains SKYNET’s machine learning algorithm to analyse cellular metadata, Ball told Ars, makes the results scientifically unsound.
Somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 people have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, and most of them were classified by the US government as “extremists,” the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported. Based on the classification date of “20070108” on one of the SKYNET slide decks (which themselves appear to date from 2011 and 2012), the machine learning program may have been in development as early as 2007.
In the years that have followed, thousands of innocent people in Pakistan may have been mislabelled as terrorists by that “scientifically unsound” algorithm, possibly resulting in their untimely demise.
Petrofascism: The Koch Brothers’ Dirty War on Solar Power
February 16th, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Rolling Stone:
After decades of false starts, solar power in America is finally poised for its breakthrough moment. The price of solar panels has dropped by more than 80 percent since President Obama took office, and the industry is beginning to compete with coal and natural gas on economics alone.
But the birth of Big Solar poses a grave threat to those who profit from burning fossil fuels. And investor-owned utilities, together with Koch-brothers-funded front groups like American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), are mounting a fierce, rear-guard resistance at the state level – pushing rate hikes and punishing fees for homeowners who turn to solar power. Their efforts have darkened green-energy prospects in could-be solar superpowers like Arizona and Nevada. But nowhere has the solar industry been more eclipsed than in Florida, where the utilities’ powers of obstruction are unrivaled.
The Sunshine State has the best solarity east of the Mississippi, and the third-best rooftop solar potential in America. Yet measured by solar production, it ranks just 16th in the nation. It’s dwarfed by solar giants like California. Florida even lags behind Northern states like New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York. “It defies logic,” says former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. “It’s absolutely absurd.”
The solar industry in Florida has been boxed out by investor-owned utilities (IOUs) that reap massive profits from natural gas and coal. These IOUs wield outsize political power in the state capital of Tallahassee, and flex it to protect their absolute monopoly on electricity sales. “We live in the Stone Age in regard to renewable power,” says state Rep. Dwight Dudley, the ranking Democrat on the energy subcommittee in the Florida House. “The power companies hold sway here, and the consumers are at their mercy.”
The full political might of Florida’s IOUs was on display in December, when a deceptive campaign, funded by the state’s electric utilities, crushed a citizen-led effort to open Florida to solar competition through the 2016 ballot. “When your opponents have no ethical foundation, have unlimited resources and are willing to say and do anything to defeat you,” says Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which led the pro-solar effort, “it’s a tough hurdle to overcome.”
Three Heavily Armed Britons Arrested in Greece
February 15th, 2016Via: Guardian:
Greek police have arrested three British men in two separate operations on suspicion of trying to move a large number of guns and ammunition into Turkey.
The men, aged 22, 28 and 39 and all Iraqi Kurds with British passports, were found to have tens of thousands of small-calibre cartridges and more than 20 pistols and rifles close to the border with Turkey on Saturday evening.
The 39-year-old suspect was found to have 200,000 cartridges and four pistols on him when he was apprehended close to the Turkish border crossing. The other two had 18 rifles and 27,000 cartridges when they were detained at a town near the border after days of surveillance.
“We don’t have any evidence to connect them with Isis … we have informed Europol and Interpol,” a police official said on Sunday. The weapons were not combat rifles but could have been used for training, he added.
The suspects were due to be taken before a local magistrate on Sunday or Monday on suspicion of illegal possession of weapons and smuggling.
Research Credit: Jb
Scalia Discovered with Pillow Over His Head
February 15th, 2016Via: MySanAntonio:
When Poindexter tried to awaken Scalia about 8:30 the next morning, the judge’s door was locked and he did not answer. Three hours later, Poindexter returned after an outing, with a friend of Scalia who had come from Washington with him.
“We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled,” said Poindexter.
How About a Trump/Sanders Ticket?
February 13th, 2016I have a Facebook account that I use, 99% of the time, for comedy gold. Sometimes, the stuff that I see in my feed is so funny that I damn near fall out of my chair.
Artist: illmagore:
Artist: grrrgraphics:
Mojoptix 001: Digital Sundial
February 13th, 2016Via: Mojoptix:
