DARPA Cyber Chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko Heads To Google
April 15th, 2013Via: The Security Ledger:
Noted hacker and innovator Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a project manager for cyber security research at DARPA for the past three years- will be setting up shop in the Googleplex, according to a post on his Twitter feed.
GOLD GAP DOWN
April 15th, 2013Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Gold Set for Worst Two-Day Loss Since 1983
Via: Reuters:
Gold headed for its biggest two-day drop in 30 years on Monday as funds accelerated their exits from the market, and investors also cut exposure to oil, copper and grain after underwhelming Chinese growth data.
The precious metal slid further into bear territory, dropping more than $30 in a matter of minutes at one point. Losses widened to more than 6 percent at the lows as prices breached support at $1,400 per ounce after falling 5.3 percent on Friday.
—
$1403.
Hot knife through butter.
Next likely support: $1300.
—
Bloody knuckles over that weekly 200 EMA. You have to see this, keep in mind, this is the weekly interval:
Spot Gold, Weekly Interval
—
$1445. Longs trying to bounce it.
—
Sitting exactly on the weekly 200 EMA.
—
Through it. New low: $1425, possibly overshoots. Longs definitely had the same idea as me. They’re trying these levels now in an attempt to get a hammer formed on one of these supports. Bounce is pretty feeble so far.
—
That 38.2% level fib retracement caught it for a few minutes. The weekly 200 EMA is $1439.
—
From a couple of days ago: “Shorts should consider paring it down, closing it out or reversing it long (short term) into $1450.”
I show a low just now of $1448.91.
Let’s see if it holds.
‘News Is Bad for You – And Giving up Reading it Will Make You Happier’
April 15th, 2013“I hear from people who had read Cryptogon for years, and report to me how their quality of life improved dramatically since shutting out this type of information.”
Via: Guardian:
News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether.
Hacked Photos Show Colin Powell at Bohemian Grove
April 14th, 2013Via: cryptome (.pdf):
Guccifer: Colin Powell and Bohemians April 9, 2013
Related: Guccifer Emails Link Tony Blair to Top-Secret Bohemian Grove Gathering
Shocker: Solar Panels Could Destroy U.S. Utilities, According to U.S. Utilities
April 14th, 2013Via: Grist:
Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground.
That is not wild-eyed hippie talk. It is the assessment of the utilities themselves.
Back in January, the Edison Electric Institute — the (typically stodgy and backward-looking) trade group of U.S. investor-owned utilities — released a report [PDF] that, as far as I can tell, went almost entirely without notice in the press. That’s a shame. It is one of the most prescient and brutally frank things I’ve ever read about the power sector. It is a rare thing to hear an industry tell the tale of its own incipient obsolescence.
…
The thing to remember is that it is in a utility’s financial interest to generate (or buy) and deliver as much power as possible. The higher the demand, the higher the investments, the higher the utility shareholder profits. In short, all things being equal, utilities want to sell more power. (All things are occasionally not equal, but we’ll leave those complications aside for now.)
Now, into this cozy business model enters cheap distributed solar PV, which eats away at it like acid.
…
It’s worse than that, though. Solar power peaks at midday, which means it is strongest close to the point of highest electricity use — “peak load.” Problem is, providing power to meet peak load is where utilities make a huge chunk of their money. Peak power is the most expensive power. So when solar panels provide peak power, they aren’t just reducing demand, they’re reducing demand for the utilities’ most valuable product.
But wait. Renewables are limited by the fact they are intermittent, right? “The sun doesn’t always shine,” etc. Customers will still have to rely on grid power for the most part. Right?
This is a widely held article of faith, but EEI (of all places!) puts it to rest. (In this and all quotes that follow, “DER” means distributed energy resources, which for the most part means solar PV.)
Due to the variable nature of renewable DER, there is a perception that customers will always need to remain on the grid. While we would expect customers to remain on the grid until a fully viable and economic distributed non-variable resource is available, one can imagine a day when battery storage technology or micro turbines could allow customers to be electric grid independent. To put this into perspective, who would have believed 10 years ago that traditional wire line telephone customers could economically “cut the cord?” [Emphasis mine.]
Guess At Satoshi’s Fortune: USD$100 Million
April 14th, 2013This reminds me of the proles debating aspects of the lottery in 1984. *chortle* But I went on to read both pages of the thread anyway.
Via: Bitcoin Talk:
I’ve estimated a lower bound of current Satoshi’s fortune. My estimation is that he owns more than 1M BTC, or 100M USD at current change. [sic]
Cliodynamics
April 14th, 2013Via: Wired:
In Isaac Asimov’s classic science fiction saga Foundation, mathematics professor Hari Seldon predicts the future using what he calls psychohistory. Drawing on mathematical models that describe what happened in the past, he anticipates what will happen next, including the fall of the Galactic Empire.
That may seem like fanciful stuff. But Peter Turchin is turning himself into a real-life Hari Seldon — and he’s not alone.
Turchin — a professor at the University of Connecticut — is the driving force behind a field called “cliodynamics,” where scientists and mathematicians analyze history in the hopes of finding patterns they can then use to predict the future. It’s named after Clio, the Greek muse of history.
…
What Turchin and his colleagues have found is a pattern of social instability. It applies to all agrarian states for which records are available, including Ancient Rome, Dynastic China, Medieval England, France, Russia, and, yes, the United States. Basically, the data shows 100 year waves of instability, and superimposed on each wave — which Turchin calls the “Secular Cycle” — there’s typically an additional 50-year cycle of widespread political violence. The 50-year cycles aren’t universal — they don’t appear in China, for instance. But they do appear in the United States.
The 100-year Secular Cycles, Turchin believes, are caused by longer-term demographic trends. They occur when a population grows beyond its capacity to be productive, resulting in falling wages, a disproportionately large number of young people in the population, and increased state spending deficits. But there’s a more important factor, one that better predicts instability than population growth. Turchin calls it “elite overproduction.” This refers to a growing class of elites who are competing for a limited number of elite positions, such as political appointments. These conflicts, Turchin says, can destabilize the state.
Many of these issues persist in industrial societies. Although population growth is no longer likely to result in mass starvation, it can push the supply of labor beyond demand, leading to increased unemployment.
Then you have the 50-year cycles of violence. Turchin describes these as the building up and then the release of pressure. Each time, social inequality creeps up over the decades, then reaches a breaking point. Reforms are made, but over time, those reforms are reversed, leading back to a state of increasing social inequality. The graph above shows how regular these spikes are — though there’s one missing in the early 19th century, which Turchin attributes to the relative prosperity that characterized the time.
He also notes that the severity of the spikes can vary depending on how governments respond to the problem. Turchin says that the United States was in a pre-revolutionary state in the 1910s, but there was a steep drop-off in violence after the 1920s because of the progressive era. The governing class made decisions to reign in corporations and allowed workers to air grievances. These policies reduced the pressure, he says, and prevented revolution. The United Kingdom was also able to avoid revolution through reforms in the 19th century, according to Turchin. But the most common way for these things to resolve themselves is through violence.
Research Credit: noguru
California Zombie Apocalypse: People Petition to Confiscate Guns
April 14th, 2013Via: Mark Dice:
Elysium
April 14th, 2013Report Uncovers ‘Water-Apartheid’ in the Occupied West Bank
April 14th, 2013Via: Common Dreams:
A new report on Israel’s water grab in the occupied West Bank links the widespread deprivation of Palestinian water rights to Israel’s settlement expansion strategy, saying both demonstrate “a clear testament to its colonial and apartheid motives.”
Published Monday by the Ramallah-based human rights organization Al-Haq, “Water for One People Only: Discriminatory Access and ‘Water-Apartheid’ in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” (pdf) reports that Israel has claimed up to 89% of an underground aquifer that is largely located in the West Bank, giving Palestinians only access to the remaining 11%.
The water grab has fueled increased discrepancy in water usage in the region with the 500,000 Jewish settlers consuming approximately six times the amount of water used by the 2.6 million Palestinians living in the West Bank—with the discrepancy growing even greater when agricultural water use is accounted for.
“There is a grave injustice in the division of water, and the results have been catastrophic,” Tawfiq Salah, mayor of West Bank village al-Khader, told Al-Monitor.
The report cites a number of efforts—including the continued establishment of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, the transfer of control of Palestinian water infrastructure to Israel’s national water company, ‘Mekorot,’ and finally the Oslo Accords—all which have effectively diminished Palestinian water rights and granted Israel sweeping authority over the vital resource.
Research Credit: emulsified
