Alabama: For Offenders Who Can’t Pay, It’s a Pint of Blood or Jail Time
October 21st, 2015Harvest time.
Via: New York Times:
Judge Marvin Wiggins’s courtroom was packed on a September morning. The docket listed hundreds of offenders who owed fines or fees for a wide variety of crimes — hunting after dark, assault, drug possession and passing bad checks among them.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” began Judge Wiggins, a circuit judge here in rural Alabama since 1999. “For your consideration, there’s a blood drive outside,” he continued, according to a recording of the hearing. “If you don’t have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood.”
For those who had no money or did not want to give blood, the judge concluded: “The sheriff has enough handcuffs.”
Efforts by courts and local governments to generate revenue by imposing fines for minor offenses, particularly from poor and working-class people, have attracted widespread attention and condemnation in recent months. But legal and health experts said they could not think of another modern example of a court all but ordering offenders to give blood in lieu of payment, or face jail time. They all agreed that it was improper.
New York City’s X-Ray Vans
October 20th, 2015Via: The Atlantic:
Dystopian truth is stranger than dystopian fiction.
In New York City, the police now maintain an unknown number of military-grade vans outfitted with X-ray radiation, enabling cops to look through the walls of buildings or the sides of trucks. The technology was used in Afghanistan before being loosed on U.S. streets. Each X-ray van costs an estimated $729,000 to $825,000.
The NYPD will not reveal when, where, or how often they are used.
“I will not talk about anything at all about this,” New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told a journalist for the New York Post who pressed for details on the vans. “It falls into the range of security and counter-terrorism activity that we engage in.”
He added that “they’re not used to scan people for weapons.”
Britain: “Submissions to Theresa May’s Child Sex Abuse Inquiry Accidentally Deleted”
October 20th, 2015Via: The Guardian:
Information provided by alleged child abuse victims to the overarching inquiry set up by Theresa May has been deleted due to a blunder, it has emerged.
Submissions sent through an online form to the inquiry between 14 September and 2 October were “instantly and permanently deleted” on Thursday before they reached staff.
The information had been sent to the “share your experience” section of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) website, set up for victims and survivors wanting to share their experiences with officials working on the probe.
Those who provided details between the two dates have now been asked to resubmit their information. The inquiry apologised for the incident and stressed that no material was at risk of disclosure.
In Nigeria, Solar-Powered Fridges at Outdoor Markets Save Food From Spoiling
October 20th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Gizmodo:
In developing countries, an unbelievable 45% of food goes bad because of a lack of cold storage. It’s an especially big problem during transportation from farms to outdoor markets, where food sits in the scorching sun for hours on end. But one startup has a solution: solar-powered refrigeration stations that could save the livelihoods of half a billion farmers worldwide.
It’s called ColdHubs, and it’s a Nigerian-based company founded by entrepreneur and radio presenter Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, who’s a farmer himself. Here’s the problem he set out to solve: Almost half the post-harvest food in developing nations like Nigeria quickly spoil because there’s nothing to keep it refrigerated, and 470 million farmers in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America lose up to 25% of their annual income because of it. There is no cool storage at local community markets, where it’s 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This income loss affects 200 million farmers in Africa alone.
So Ikegwuonu turned to solar panels. His design is an easy-to-set-up, modular, walk-in cold room that provides “24/7 off-grid storage and preservation for perishable foods.” Freshness for these fruits and vegetables skyrockets from two days to 21 days, and local farmers’ post-harvest loss is cut by 80%.
Is the Retarded Trend of Men-Wearing-Women’s-Pants a Population Reduction Program?
October 19th, 2015For a few years, I’ve been baffled by the ridiculous trend of men wearing skinny jeans.
It’s easy to just shake your head and pass this off as yet another aspect of the zombie apocalypse. (In the town closest to me, they like to add a blown-out bluetooth speaker blaring rap music to the ensemble as they stroll down the sidewalk.)
After reading the piece below, I wonder if there’s more to it than just the seemingly pointless vagaries of fashion.
Via: Stuff:
For men trying to start a family, it’s time to lose the tight jeans – and sleep naked.
Underwear choice has a huge impact on a man’s sperm count and quality, according to research from Stanford University, the Daily Mail reports.
Their findings? Breezy boxer shorts keep reproductive cells alive, while sleeping in your birthday suit gives the best results.
Stanford scientists worked with the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development on a sample of 501 men who were trying to become fathers.
Those who wore boxer shorts during the day, rather than tighter briefs, and wore nothing at all to bed, had 25 per cent less damage to their sperm.
Katherine Sapra of the NICHD said there was an association between the type of underwear worn, and semen quality.
“Reducing exposure for bed decreases DNA fragmentation; better semen quality parameters are observed in men wearing boxers during the day and none to bed.”
Allan Pacey of Sheffield University agreed, saying heat was the factor at play.
“We have known for some time that men who increase the temperature of their testicles, either through the heat exposure at work or by wearing tight underwear, have poorer semen quality compared to men whose testicles are cooler,” he said.
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[???] “We Can Only Assume Gender-Specific Clothing Is On Its Way Out”
Emails Reveal Tony Blair’s “Deal In Blood” with George Bush Over Iraq War
October 19th, 2015Via: Daily Mail:
A bombshell White House memo has revealed for the first time details of the ‘deal in blood’ forged by Tony Blair and George Bush over the Iraq War.
The sensational leak shows that Blair had given an unqualified pledge to sign up to the conflict a year before the invasion started.
It flies in the face of the Prime Minister’s public claims at the time that he was seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
He told voters: ‘We’re not proposing military action’ – in direct contrast to what the secret email now reveals.
Research Credit: emulsified
Government of South Korea and Samsung Developing Robots to Manufacture Consumer Electronics
October 19th, 2015Via: The Korea Herald:
South Korea’s government said Monday that it will join forces with Samsung Electronics Co. to develop precision manufacturing robots that could open new horizons for the local manufacturing sector.
The plan calls for 16.75 billion won ($14.8 million) worth of taxpayers’ money to be invested in the next three years to develop key components that can allow more robotic parts to be made in the country and lower overall prices of industrial machines, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said.
Developed robots can be used to make small products like mobile phones and consumer electronic products that require a high degree of precision, it said, adding all technology developed will be used to assist small and medium-sized robotics companies.
“Emphasis will be placed on developing precision speed reducers, motors, controllers and sensor encoders that are currently expensive and imported from abroad,” it said.
“Development of these parts should be completed by late 2018.”
Social Skills Are Last Line of Defense for Humans Seeking Work
October 19th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
David Deming, an associate professor of education and economics at Harvard University, has found that jobs requiring social interaction are growing relative to work that doesn’t, and such skills may offer some protection from robotic takeover. Certain high-level professions that demand technical expertise and low-skill work that can be done by a greater share of the population often have in common a need for language, creativity, flexibility and physical dexterity, all things humans currently can do better than machines.
Almost all job growth since 1980 has been in work that is social-skill intensive, according to research from Deming published in August. Occupations that require high levels of analytical and mathematical reasoning but little social interface — for example statistical clerks and machinists — have “fared especially poorly,” he wrote. Meanwhile real wage growth has been strongest in jobs that require workers to have both math and social skills, such as registered nurses, designers and financial managers.
Workhorse Drone Company Tests Package Deliveries in Ohio
October 18th, 2015Via: USA Today:
A drone company is ready to start testing package deliveries in Ohio, but it’s not named Amazon or Google.
Workhorse Group Inc. and the University of Cincinnati have been working for years to launch drones from the top of delivery trucks that look like typical UPS or U.S. Postal Service box trucks.
On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration granted the Workhorse team a two-year certificate to test drone deliveries at the Wilmington Air Park in Ohio, a closed airport on land five miles square. A drone nicknamed HorseFly is designed to launch off the top of Workhorse’s electric truck and drop a package right at a doorstep.
Van/Inverter/Freezer Story Updated
October 17th, 2015I’ve updated, Ask the Cryptogonners: Run Freezer Off Van and 12v Inverter?
If you don’t want to click through, the short answer is: Yes, it works great.
