John McAfee Wanted for Murder
November 13th, 2012He became a drug crazed lunatic, or ???
Boy, this is a weird one.
Via: Gizmodo:
Antivirus pioneer John McAfee is on the run from murder charges, Belize police say. According to Marco Vidal, head of the national police force’s Gang Suppression Unit, McAfee is a prime suspect in the murder of American expatriate Gregory Faull, who was gunned down Saturday night at his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye.
Details remain sketchy so far, but residents say that Faull was a well-liked builder who hailed originally from California Florida. The two men had been at odds for some time. Last Wednesday, Faull filed a formal complaint against McAfee with the mayor’s office, asserting that McAfee had fired off guns and exhibited “roguish behavior.” Their final disagreement apparently involved dogs.
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Since our piece ran on last week, several readers have come forward with additional information that sheds light on the change in McAfee’s behavior. In July of 2010, shortly before Allison Adonizio pulled the plug on their quorum-sensing project and fled the country, McAfee began posting on a drug-focused Russian-hosted message board called Bluelight about his attempts to purify the psychoactive compounds colloquially known as “bath salts.”
Writing under the name “stuffmonger,” a handle he has used on other online message boards, McAfee posted more than 200 times over the next nine months about his ongoing quest to purify psychoactive drugs from compounds commercially available over the internet. “I’m a huge fan of MDPV,” he wrote. “I think it’s the finest drug ever conceived, not just for the indescribable hypersexuality, but also for the smooth euphoria and mild comedown.”
Petition to Let Texas Secede from the U.S. to be Reviewed by the White House
November 13th, 2012Comedy Gold.
Via: Houston Chronicle:
Well, Texas, you have done it.
As of 3:40 p.m. ET, more than 25,000 Texans have already signed the petition on The White House website to let Texas peacefully secede from United States of America and “create its own NEW government.”
Obama Considering John Kerry for Secretary of Defense
November 13th, 2012Via: Washington Post:
President Obama is considering asking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to serve as his next defense secretary, part of an extensive rearrangement of his national security team that will include a permanent replacement for former CIA director David H. Petraeus.
Although Kerry is thought to covet the job of secretary of state, senior administration officials familiar with transition planning said that nomination will almost certainly go to Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Big Picture: Syria Conflict
November 12th, 2012Via: Boston Globe:
In a conflict dragging on into its twentieth violent month, today was an especially deadly day in Syria, where rebels are fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad. A pair of car bombs exploded, one in Hama and one in Damascus, and both sides claimed wildly different casualty totals. Intense shelling of rebel positions served as counterpoint. But even an especially deadly day here makes it just one of many in the conflict that has claimed as many as 35,000 victims since it began with street protests on March 15, 2011. Over a quarter of a million refugees have fled to Syria’s neighbors, and the UN puts the number of internally displaced at over a million. Gathered here are images from the last month in the Mediterranean country of 22 million.
SPAIN SUSPENDS HOUSE EVICTIONS FOR TWO YEARS
November 12th, 2012Via: BBC:
Spanish banks are to suspend evictions for the next two years for the most vulnerable people.
An estimated 350,000 families have been evicted from their homes since Spain’s property market crashed in 2008, at the beginning of the economic crisis.
The announcement comes three days after a woman in northern Spain took her own life, just before she was due to be evicted from her home.
It is not clear how they will decide who the most vulnerable people are.
An Electrode Spun from a Single Carbon Fiber Can Record Neurons in Living Animals
November 12th, 2012Via: MIT Technology Review:
Connecting a human brain to a computer is as much a materials science problem as a biology one. What kind of interface is delicate enough not to damage nerve tissue, but resilient enough to last decades?
Researchers have come up with what they call a “stealthy neural interface” made from a single carbon fiber and coated with chemicals to make it resistant to proteins in the brain.
The new microthread electrode, designed to pick up signals from a single neuron as it fires, is only about 7 micrometers in diameter. That is the thinnest yet developed, and about 100 times as thin as the conventional metal electrodes widely used to study animal brains.
“We wanted to see if we could radically change implant technology,” says Takashi Kozai, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and the lead author on the paper, published today in the journal Nature Materials. “We want to see an electrode that lasts 70 years.”
CNN Article Bashes the Growing Number of People That Question Mass Media
November 12th, 2012Via: Vigilant Citizen:
In the past year or so, we’ve seen several mass media outlets “reporting” on the popularity of conspiracy theories and of alternative news. However, in every case, the resulting article is not an objective report on a growing phenomenon but an all-out hit piece, bashing those who dare questioning the “official story” dictated by mass media with strong words and specific labels.
A recent article published on CNN entitled Still ‘paranoid’ after all these years does a great job at equating all those who use critical thinking before guzzling down the toxic drink that is mass media with all kinds of crazy. The word “paranoid” is used about ten times in the article as well as the words “panic”, “wingnut”, “lunatic”, “dupes”, “derangement”, “irrational”, “extremism”, “idiot”, “fearful” and “insecurity”.
Related: CNN and the Business of State-Sponsored TV News
Microsoft Wants to Know How Many Friends You’ve Got in Your Living Room
November 12th, 2012I didn’t even know what this Kinect camera was for. I had to search for information on it.
Kinect is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console and Windows PCs. Based around a webcam-style add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 console, it enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller, through a natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands.
Via: Telegraph:
One of Microsoft’s latest patent applications is a humdinger. It proposes to turn the Kinect camera into a snitch for movie studios, reporting back just how many friends you’ve got in your living room and what they’re watching. Think that sounds alarmist? Here’s what it actually says: “The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.” It’s that blatant – a system to spy on private viewing habits.
If put into practice, Microsoft’s plan could mean that the film you’re watching suddenly stops playing if it detects that you’ve got more people squashed on to the sofa than the licence allows. You’d then be prompted to buy a more expensive licence to keep watching. It’s as if Big Brother had built 1984’s Telescreen not to monitor the population but to ensure no one was pirating the Two Minutes Hate.
In all likelihood, Microsoft will struggle to actually apply this patent in the real world. While copyright holders would be delighted, customers would be turned off by such a draconian system. But that’s what’s interesting about this application and patent applications in general: they often reveal what companies would do if they could get away with it. The black and white drawings and blandly technical language can cover immoral, scary and downright evil ideas.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
Sandy Aftermath: Description of Situation Inside FEMA Camp
November 12th, 2012Via: Reuters:
Inside the giant billowy white tents, the massive klieg lights glare down from the ceiling all night long. The air is loud with the buzz of generators pumping out power. The post-storm housing — a refugee camp on the grounds of the Monmouth Park racetrack – is in lockdown, with security guards at every door, including the showers.
No one is allowed to go anywhere without showing their I.D. Even to use the bathroom, “you have to show your badge,” said Amber Decamp, a 22-year-old whose rental was washed away in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
The mini city has no cigarettes, no books, no magazines, no board games, no TVs, and no newspapers or radios. On Friday night, in front of the mess hall, which was serving fried chicken and out-of-the-box, just-add-water potatoes, a child was dancing and dancing — to nothing. “We’re starting to lose it,” said Decamp. “But we have nowhere else to go.”
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It has taken three days for the tents to get warm.
Power workers from out of state who are helping utilities restore electricity to the area were starting to bed down in the tent city, too. Some empty vodka bottles appeared on the muddy street. There were now far more men than women or children, and the women said it was impossible not to notice the leering of some men.
Brian Skorupski, a manager with Tolland, Connecticut-based Asplundh Line Construction, had just rolled in with 50 workers, who were there to help restore power. Skorupski is used to his house in the suburbs. He missed his king-sized bed with his Hotel Collection sheets. “The only thing worse than this is sleeping in your truck,” he said.
IDF Fires Warning Shot into Syria After Shell hits Golan
November 11th, 2012Via: Jerusalem Post:
Israel says further attacks from Syria will “illicit a vigorous response” from IDF, sends letter to UN warning Syrians to avoid spillover; Incident marks first time IDF has fired at Syria since 1973 Yom Kippur War.
