World’s Largest Aircraft Unveiled; Can Stay Airborne for Weeks
March 2nd, 2014Via: Telegraph:
The world’s largest aircraft which can stay airborne for up to three weeks and will be vital in delivering several tonnes of humanitarian aid as well as transporting heavy freight across the world, has been unveiled.
The 300ft (91m) ship is part plane, airship and helicopter, and there are plans to eventually use it to transport hundreds of tonnes of freight across difficult terrain throughout the world as well as deliver aid to risky areas.
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Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd (HAV), which created the craft, said they expect there to be as many airships as helicopters in the sky in years to come as they provide an environmentally friendly and efficient solution to transporting dozens of tonnes of freight and reaching hard to access areas.
The company also expects to create ‘luxury’ hybrids, with infinity pools stretching across hundreds of feet, and planes being used for safaris and whale watching because they run on often just one engine so are quieter than traditional vehicles.
More Pictures: Daily Mail
The TSA is Looking for Bitcoin
March 2nd, 2014The TSA didn’t find any Bitcoin “tokens,” but you’re about to read comedy gold.
Via: Daily Anarchist:
I turned back to the orange shirt and asked “What did the Bitcoin look like?” Bill chimed in and told the agent that what he was saying was impossible because Bitcoin is digital and doesn’t have have any physical manifestation. You can’t “see” Bitcoin. The orange shirt said they looked like medallions or tokens. I said I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and he simply repeated, in a child like way, that Bitcoins are like metal tokens. I told him that I didn’t have any tokens.
Research Credit: alvinroast
UKRAINE ORDERS FULL MILITARY MOBILIZATION OVER RUSSIA MOVES
March 2nd, 2014Update: New Head of Ukraine’s Navy ‘Defects’ in Crimea
Via: BBC:
The newly appointed head of Ukraine’s navy has sworn allegiance to the Crimea region, in the presence of its unrecognised pro-Russian leader.
Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky was only made head of the navy on Saturday, as the government in Kiev reacted to the threat of Russian invasion.
Russia’s troops have been consolidating their hold on Crimea, which is home to its Black Sea Fleet.
The US has warned Moscow may be ejected from the G8 for its actions.
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Here we go again.
Via: BBC:
Ukraine has ordered a full military mobilisation in response to Russia’s build-up of its forces in Crimea.
Acting President Olexander Turchynov has ordered the closure of airspace to all non-civilian aircraft.
US President Barack Obama has called Russian troop deployments a “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty”.
Ukraine has said it will seek the help of US and UK leaders in guaranteeing its security. Nato has called emergency talks to be held at 1200 GMT.
Several other measures were announced by Andriy Parubiy, chair of the national security and defence council of Ukraine:
The armed forces would be put on “full combat readiness”.
Reserves to be mobilised and trained
Emergency headquarters to be set up
Increased security at key sites, including nuclear plants.
The BBC has seen what appear to be Russian troops digging trenches on the Crimean border.
Heavily armed groups continue to occupy key sites on the peninsula, including airports and communications hubs, although there has been no actual violence.
On Saturday, Mr Obama held a 90-minute telephone conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and urged him to pull forces back to bases in Crimea.
Mr Putin said Moscow reserved the right to protect its interests and those of Russian speakers in Ukraine.
President Putin submitted his request for troops to the Russian parliament on Saturday “in connection with the extraordinary situation in Ukraine and the threat to the lives of Russian citizens”, the Kremlin said.
The US, France and Canada say they are suspending preparations for a G8 summit in the Russian resort of Sochi in June as a reaction to the deployment, with Canada also recalling its ambassador from Moscow for consultations.
LAPD Spies on Millions
March 2nd, 2014Via: L.A. Weekly:
Los Angeles and Southern California police, by contrast, are expanding their use of surveillance technology such as intelligent video analytics, digital biometric identification and military-pedigree software for analyzing and predicting crime. Information on the identity and movements of millions of Southern California residents is being collected and tracked.
In fact, Los Angeles is emerging as a major laboratory for testing and scaling up new police surveillance technologies. The use of military-grade surveillance tools is migrating from places like Fallujah to neighborhoods including Watts and even low-crime areas of the San Fernando Valley, where surveillance cameras are proliferating like California poppies in spring.
The use of militarized surveillance technology appears to be spreading beyond its initial applications during the mid-2000s in high-crime areas to now target narrow, specific crimes such as auto theft. Now, LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff are monitoring the whereabouts of residents whether they have committed a crime or not. The biggest surveillance net is license plate reading technology that records your car’s plate number as you pass police cruisers equipped with a rooftop camera, or as you drive past street locations where such cameras are mounted.
Gallery: “China’s Apocalyptic Hellscape”
March 1st, 2014Via: Time:
The smog in Beijing and parts of northern China has grown so bad that some have likened conditions to living through a “nuclear winter.”
$1 Trillion in Student Loan Debt, “Starting to Hurt Everyone”
March 1st, 2014Except the banks…
Via: Time:
Across the country, students are taking on increasingly large amounts of debt to pay for heftier education tuitions. Figures released last week by the Federal Reserve of New York show that aggregate student loans nationwide have continued to rise. At the end of 2003, American students and graduates owed just $253 billion in aggregate debt; by the end of 2013, American students’ debt had ballooned to a total of $1.08 trillion, an increase of over 300%.
Russian Parliament Formalizes Invasion of Ukraine
March 1st, 2014Via: AP:
Russia’s parliament granted President Vladimir Putin permission to use the country’s military in Ukraine and also recommended Saturday that Moscow’s ambassador be recalled from Washington over comments made by President Barack Obama.
The unanimous vote in an emergency session formalized what Ukrainian officials described as an invasion of Russian troops in the strategic region of Crimea. With pro-Russian protests breaking out in other parts of Ukraine, Moscow now could send its military elsewhere in Ukraine.
“I’m submitting a request for using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country,” Putin said before the vote.
Putin’s call came as pro-Russian demonstrations broke out in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east, where protesters raised Russian flags and beat up supporters of the new Ukrainian government.
Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation
March 1st, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say.
Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper.
“The structure of the benchmark is certainly conducive to collusion and manipulation, and the empirical data are consistent with price artificiality,” they say in the report, which hasn’t yet been submitted for publication. “It is likely that co-operation between participants may be occurring.”
The paper is the first to raise the possibility that the five banks overseeing the century-old rate — Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Societe Generale SA (GLE) — may have been actively working together to manipulate the benchmark. It also adds to pressure on the firms to overhaul the way the rate is calculated. Authorities around the world, already investigating the manipulation of benchmarks from interest rates to foreign exchange, are examining the $20 trillion gold market for signs of wrongdoing.
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Bloomberg News reported in November concerns among traders and economists that the fixing banks and their clients had an unfair advantage because information gleaned from the calls provided an insight into the future direction of prices and banks can bet on spot and derivatives markets during the call.
Abrantes-Metz and Metz screened intraday trading in the spot gold market from 2001 to 2013 for sudden, unexplained moves that may indicate illegal behavior. From 2004, they observed frequent spikes in spot gold prices during the afternoon call. The moves weren’t replicated during the morning call and hadn’t happened before 2004, they found.
Large price moves during the afternoon call were also overwhelmingly in the same direction: down. On days when the authors identified large price moves during the fix, they were downwards at least two-thirds of the time in six different years between 2004 and 2013. In 2010, large moves during the fix were negative 92 percent of the time, the authors found.
There’s no obvious explanation as to why the patterns began in 2004, why they were more prevalent in the afternoon fixing, and why price moves tended to be downwards, Abrantes-Metz said in a telephone interview this week.
Autonomous Drones Flock Like Birds
March 1st, 2014Via: Nature:
A Hungarian team has created the first drones that can fly as a coordinated flock. The researchers watched as the ten autonomous robots took to the air in a field outside Budapest, zipping through the open sky, flying in formation or even following a leader, all without any central control.
The aircraft, called quadcopters because they have four rotors, navigate using signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, communicate their positions to one another via radio and compute their own flight plans. They were created by a team of scientists led by Tamás Vicsek, a physicist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.
“This is remarkable work,” says Iain Couzin, who studies collective animal behaviour at Princeton University in New Jersey. “It is the first outdoor demonstration of how biologically inspired rules can be used to create resilient yet dynamic flocks. [It suggests] we will be able to achieve large, coordinated robot flocks much sooner than many would have anticipated.”
Ukraine to Ask for UN Security Council Session
February 28th, 2014Via: CBC:
Ukraine’s Parliament has asked the United Nations Security Council to address the country’s political turmoil.
Lawmakers on Friday adopted a resolution calling for a security council session amid growing tensions as pro-Russian gunmen asserted control over airports in the southern Crimea region.
The resolution also called on Russia to halt steps which it says are aimed against Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Russian military units were blocking an airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in Crimea near the Russian naval base while unidentified men were patrolling another airport serving the regional capital, Ukraine’s new interior minister said Friday.
Arsen Avakov said in a Facebook post that the Belbek international airport in Sevastopol is blocked by military units of the Russian navy.
“I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation,” Avakov said.
The Russian foreign ministry refused to comment while a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry also had no comment.
