CIA, FBI Agents Advising Ukraine Government
May 4th, 2014Via: AFP:
Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government, a German newspaper reported Sunday.
Citing unnamed German security sources, Bild am Sonntag said the CIA and FBI agents were helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure.
It said the agents were not directly involved in fighting with pro-Russian militants. “Their activity is limited to the capital Kiev,” the paper said.
Black Hawk Helicopter: Pilot Optional
May 3rd, 2014Via: Wired:
The Army’s most iconic helicopter is about to go pilotless.
The U.S. Army and defense contractor Sikorsky Aircraft demonstrated hover and flight capability in an “optionally piloted” version of the Black Hawk helicopter last month. It’s part of the Army’s effort to reduce troops and costs, in this case by letting the five-ton helicopter carry out autonomous expeditionary and resupply operations.
Sikorsky has been working on the project since 2007 and convinced the Army’s research department to bankroll further development last year.
“Imagine a vehicle that can double the productivity of the Black Hawk in Iraq and Afghanistan by flying with, at times, a single pilot instead of two, decreasing the workload, decreasing the risk, and at times when the mission is really dull and really dangerous, go it all the way to fully unmanned,” said Chris Van Buiten, Sikorsky’s vice president of Technology and Innovation.
The Optionally Piloted Black Hawk (OPBH) operates under Sikorsky’s Manned/Unmanned Resupply Aerial Lifter (MURAL) program, which couples the company’s advanced Matrix aviation software with its man-portable Ground Control Station (GCS) technology. Matrix, introduced a year ago, gives rotary and fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft a high level of system intelligence to complete missions with little human oversight.
“The autonomous Black Hawk helicopter provides the commander with the flexibility to determine crewed or un-crewed operations, increasing sorties while maintaining crew rest requirements,” said Mark Miller, Sikorsky vice president of Research and Engineering, in a statement. “This allows the crew to focus on the more ‘sensitive’ operations, and leaves the critical resupply missions for autonomous operations without increasing fleet size or mix.”
The autonomous Black Hawk fits into the larger trend of the military finding technological ways of reducing troop numbers. Earlier this month, Darpa announced a new program called Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) that will develop a portable, drop-in autopilot to reduce the number of crew members on board, making a single pilot a “mission supervisor.”
Research Credit: emulsified
Stephen Hawking: Artificial Intelligence Doom
May 3rd, 2014Via: Independent:
Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history.
Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.
FBI Releases Heavily Blacked Out Sandy Hook Records
May 2nd, 2014Via: The Courant:
The FBI has released about 175 pages of heavily blacked-out documents from the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre investigation.
Of the 175 pages released in response to a Courant Freedom of Information request, 64 were completely redacted and most of the other 111 pages were heavily redacted. The Courant submitted the request in January after state police released a report on the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting that left 20 first-graders and six women dead at the Newtown school.
The names of all witnesses interviewed by federal agents have been removed and there are no references to attempts by federal authorities in Washington, D.C., to recover information from a computer disk that shooter Adam Lanza destroyed.
‘Solar’ Jet Fuel Made Out of Thin Air (Average Efficiency of 1.73%)
May 2nd, 2014This is nowhere near viable (at least in terms of what is publicly acknowledged), but I thought it was interesting anyway.
Via: Chemistry World:
The dream of producing hydrocarbon fuels from carbon dioxide and sunlight is one step closer thanks to chemists in Europe who have made jet fuel from scratch in a solar reactor for the first time. Although the chemists only produced enough kerosene to fill a glass jar, they believe a full-scale solar concentrator could produce 20,000 litres of jet fuel a day.
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
May 2nd, 2014Kindle edition available! haha
Via: Amazon:
If our technological society collapsed tomorrow, perhaps from a viral pandemic or catastrophic asteroid impact, what would be the one book you would want to press into the hands of the postapocalyptic survivors? What crucial knowledge would they need to survive in the immediate aftermath and to rebuild civilization as quickly as possible—a guide for rebooting the world?
More Than 92 Million Americans Remain Out Of Labor Force
May 2nd, 2014Via: CBS:
Despite the unemployment rate plummeting, more than 92 million Americans remain out of the labor force.
The unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent in April from 6.7 percent in March, the lowest it has been since September 2008 when it was 6.1 percent. The sharp drop, though, occurred because the number of people working or seeking work fell. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not count people not looking for a job as unemployed.
Miami’s Poor Live on $11 a Day as Boom Widens Wealth Gap; “This Is Where the Gentleman Ate the Homeless Guy’s Face”
May 2nd, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
As the luxury bus ferried a dozen of his clients past building sites, Miami property consultant Peter Zalewski rattled off names of 50 area high-rises being financed by money from Venezuela, Hong Kong and Argentina.
Blocks away, locals live on as little as $11 a day.
It’s another boom in Miami, which has been at the mercy of real-estate speculators since the 1920s. The latest influx of capital is deepening inequality in a city where the distribution of wealth more closely resembles a developing country than the most advanced industrialized nation.
“Miami isn’t the gateway to Latin America; Miami has the same economic demographics as Latin America,” said Pedro “Joe” Greer, a doctor whose 25 years of work treating the homeless and uninsured there earned him the nation’s highest civilian honor — the Presidential Medal of Freedom — in 2009. “Seventy percent of the families we work with bring in less than $25,000 a year.”
Miami’s Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, is the third-highest among U.S. cities after Atlanta and New Orleans. It’s higher than in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro and mirrors Mexico City’s level. The city is also the toughest for low-wage workers to rise, according to a Bloomberg analysis of the upward mobility of fast-food employees.
…
“Imagine six towers — two condos and four hotels — all standing above you,” he said as they passed the site where Kuala Lumpur-based Genting Bhd. (GENT) hopes to build the world’s largest casino. “If you look to your left, this is where the cannibal incident happened two years ago. This is where the gentleman ate the homeless guy’s face.”
Similar: Favelas, Brazilian Megaslums
Microsoft Includes XP Users in IE Patch
May 1st, 2014*chortle*
Via: BBC:
Microsoft has said users of its Windows XP operating system will also get the security update it has issued to fix a flaw in the Internet Explorer browser.
It issued the update on Thursday to fix a bug that let hackers gain access and user rights to computers.
Microsoft ended support for Windows XP earlier this month, ceasing to issue bug fixes or security updates for it.
But the firm said it decided to make an exception as the flaw was discovered just days after the support ended.
“Even though Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft and is past the time we normally provide security updates, we’ve decided to provide an update for all versions of Windows XP,” Adrienne Hall, general manager of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, said in a blog post.
“We made this exception based on the proximity to the end of support for Windows XP.”
The flaw was reported earlier this week and there had been uncertainty over whether XP users would get the update when it was released.
New Zealand: Commercial Solar Boom Underway
May 1st, 2014The crooked power companies have gone too far. With electricity demand flat and prices nearly doubling since 2000, people are fighting back.
This is just the beginning.
What we’re dealing with in New Zealand is sort of mini, South Pacific version of Enron.
I’ll have a lot more to write about this, but I want to wait until I have the pictures to go with it. *hint*
Via: New Zealand Herald:
The rapid growth of solar in New Zealand’s commercial market has begun with economic viability proven and systems put to a myriad of uses throughout the country.
