Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Facing Three Felony Indictments
August 3rd, 2015Via: WFFA:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton surrendered at the Collin County Jail Monday morning on three felony indictments.
Paxton’s security detail drove him in a black Chevy Tahoe into a garage at the jail and away from cameras. The attorney general did not appear in public.
Once inside, Paxton was fingerprinted, photographed, booked and released on personal recognizance bonds.
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Paxton faces three criminal charges – two first-degree felonies for securities fraud and a third-degree felony for failing to register with the state to sell securities.
Paxton is accused of having defrauded two individuals of more than $100,000. He doesn’t have to resign while he fights the charges.
Puerto Rico Fails to Make $58-Million Debt Payment
August 3rd, 2015Via: AP:
The government of Puerto Rico confirmed Monday that it had failed to make a $58-million debt payment, a significant escalation of the fiscal crisis facing the U.S. island territory.
Big U.S. Coal Miner Alpha Natural Files for Bankruptcy
August 3rd, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in NZ. I’m long Enphase Energy.
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The price of solar power will continue to fall, until it becomes the cheapest form of power in a rapidly expanding number of national markets. By 2026, utility-scale solar will be competitive for the majority of the world, according to BNEF. The lifetime cost of a photovoltaic solar-power plant will drop by almost half over the next 25 years, even as the prices of fossil fuels creep higher.
Solar power will eventually get so cheap that it will outcompete new fossil-fuel plants and even start to supplant some existing coal and gas plants, potentially stranding billions in fossil-fuel infrastructure. The industrial age was built on coal. The next 25 years will be the end of its dominance.
—The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change Forever
Via: Reuters:
Alpha Natural Resources Inc, one of the largest U.S. coal companies, became the latest in the hard-hit industry to seek bankruptcy on Monday.
The move comes as President Barack Obama is expected to unveil tough new measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Alpha blamed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy on tougher regulatory standards and policies that favor renewable energy, as well tumbling prices for its coal.
Alpha is the world’s third-largest supplier of metallurgical coal used in making steel and has also been hit by a slowdown in China.
Walter Energy Inc and Patriot Coal Corp also filed for bankruptcy protection this year. Energy Future Holdings Corp, a power company that also has a large coal mining business, has been in bankruptcy since 2014.
Alpha Natural, with total liabilities of $7.11 billion, has reported adjusted losses for the past 14 quarters.
“Gene Drive” Technology
August 3rd, 2015Via: Independent:
A powerful new technique for generating “supercharged” genetically modified organisms that can spread rapidly in the wild has caused alarm among scientists who fear that it may be misused, accidentally or deliberately, and cause a health emergency or environmental disaster.
Google Auto
August 2nd, 2015Via: Guardian:
It was Google Auto LLC that applied for the international vehicle identification number (VIN) codes to identify each new self-driving car, just like any other production vehicle. Google Auto also liaised with America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and organised emissions testing in California. To avoid onerous safety requirements and crash tests, Google Auto’s cars would be lightweight low speed vehicles (LSVs), capable of a top speed of only 25mph.
Paperwork filed by Google Auto with the NHTSA, and seen by the Guardian, indicates that the cars are rear-wheel drive in design, with each wheel having its own braking system. The cars are powered by a modest 20-30kW electric motor from a lithium ion battery. All the cars built so far have been assembled on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, by Google’s manufacturing partner, the engineering firm Roush.
About 60 Donations Represent 1/3 of All ’16 Campaign Cash
August 2nd, 2015Via: AP:
An Associated Press analysis of fundraising reports filed with federal regulators through Friday found that nearly 60 donations of a million dollars or more accounted for about a third of the more than $380 million brought in so far for the 2016 presidential election. Donors who gave at least $100,000 account for about half of all donations so far to candidates’ presidential committees and the super PACs that support them.
Bin Laden Family Members Killed in Jet Crash
August 1st, 2015Via: BBC:
Family members of Osama Bin Laden were on board a plane which crashed in Hampshire, the Saudi Arabian embassy in the UK has said.
The private jet crashed near Blackbushe Airport, Yateley, on Friday killing the pilot and all three passengers.
In a statement on Twitter, the Saudi ambassador to the UK, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud, offered condolences to the Bin Laden family.
The embassy said it was in contact with the British crash investigators.
The statement said: “His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud… has paid his condolences to the family and relatives of Mohammed bin Laden at Blackbushe airport in Britain for the great loss they have suffered as a result of the crash of the plane that was carrying the family.”
The embassy added that it was working with the British authorities to ensure the speedy handover of the bodies for funerals and burials in Saudi Arabia.
The plane – an Embraer Phenom 300 – is reported to have belonged to an aviation firm owned by the Saudi-based family of the former al-Qaeda leader.
Research Credit: Jb
Facebook’s Solar-Powered Internet Plane Looks Like a Stealth Bomber
July 30th, 2015Pics at the link. Woh.
Via: The Verge:
Facebook’s plans to become a flying internet service provider for the developing world are coming to fruition. The company today introduced Aquila, a high-flying, long-endurance plane that will bring basic internet access to the developing world. A working model of the plane is now ready for testing, Facebook said.
Facebook’s shallow, V-shaped plane has the wingspan of a Boeing 737. But even fully loaded down with communications gear, Aquila only weighs between 880 to 1,000 lbs — about a third the weight of a Prius. “When deployed, it will be able to circle a remote region for up to 90 days, beaming connectivity down to people from an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 [feet],” the company said in a blog post. This means the planes will be flying at an altitude above commercial aircraft, and even above the weather.
This is how it will work: Facebook will have lasers on the ground that can locate the dome-shaped optical head, located on the bottom of the plane, in the air — basically shooting a laser at a dime-sized target that is more than 10 miles away. The plane will first hone in on the general location of the laser on the ground, proceeding to target it further and lock onto the location so that it can start beaming down the internet. Because the plane requires a connection with the lasers on the ground though, you might experience a slower connection when it’s raining or cloudy.
Windows 10 Delivers Updates to Other Users on the Internet Via Peer-to-Peer by Default
July 30th, 2015Update: Windows 10 Default Privacy Settings: “Vague and Bordering on Scary”
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By dumb luck, I just found a setting that indicates that Windows 10 delivers updates to other computers over the Internet via peer-to-peer networking.
Not good if you’re like most people in New Zealand on metered Internet connections!
Once I got over my shock at this “feature” and disabled it, I looked for a mention of this elsewhere and yep, there it is. The author of the article below had also lived in NZ.
It makes great sense for distribution on the LAN, but no thanks to being a part of Microsoft’s involuntary CDN/botnet on the WAN side. Holy shit. I mean, what could possibly go wrong on the WAN side with this? Attackers will never get control of that thing to distribute payloads of doom to hundreds of millions of Windows 10 machines. Right?
Anyway, I wonder what other gems are packed inside this thing!? (I’ve only installed Windows 10 on a junker laptop to experiment with so far.)
Via: TNW News:
Windows 10 launched on July 29 to much fanfare — it’s a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users — but along with the privacy issues, there’s another small thing you should check: by default, Windows 10 uses your internet connection to share updates with others across the internet.
The feature, called Windows Update Delivery Optimization is designed to help users get updates faster and is enabled by default in Windows 10 Home and Pro editions. Windows 10 Enterprise and Education have the feature enabled, but only for the local network.
It’s basically how torrents work: your computer is used as part of a peer to peer network to deliver updates faster to others. It’s a great idea, unless your connection is restricted.
More: Windows 10 “Wi-Fi Sense” Insanity
Robots: The Growing Threat to the Service Industry
July 30th, 2015Via: Value Walk:
Soon McDonald’s and Burger King Worldwide Inc (NYSE:BKW) will have no need for anyone to run a burger kiosk other than a 20-something with mad technology skills; everything from order entry to burger preparation and delivery will be automated (and faster and without the asinine errors that plague this low-education industry today).
Hotels will no longer need check-in clerks at the front desk. Starbucks won’t need baristas. Nursing homes won’t need nurses, or at least not so many nurses. Self-driving cars will do away with taxi (and Uber) drivers completely.
And if you think a few aggrieved taxi drivers blocking some roadways in Paris are a problem for lawmakers, just wait until vast swaths of the service industry are losing jobs in massive numbers to technology that increases productivity and profits.
Outrage is going to flow across the American economy … and lawmakers are going to react by banning technology applications in various instances. The bans won’t last, of course. Technology will win out, because technology companies have the cash to ultimately buy/sway lawmakers.
Nevertheless, it promises to be an ugly transition to a more robotic future…
Related: Seattle Hikes Minimum Wage to $15 Per Hour
Self Driving Trucks Will Wipe Out Millions of Jobs
Manufacturing of Asus Graphics Cards Now 100% Automated
