What Happens When Unlimited Runs Out?
January 20th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s unlimited three-year loans to euro-region banks may give Italy and Spain only temporary respite from the region’s debt crisis.
Two-year Italian and Spanish notes rallied since the ECB said Dec. 8 that it planned to offer as much liquidity as banks wanted in exchange for eligible collateral. The gain on the short end of the market outpaced longer-dated debt on concern the nations’ austerity plans won’t plug deficits and reduce Europe’s largest debt load. Yields on Italian two-year notes fell to the least relative to 10-year bonds in 21 months.
“This is about buying time,” said John Davies, a fixed- income strategist at WestLB AG in London. “It’s only when the market believes Italy and Spain have returned to sustainable debt levels that you can say the crisis has truly ended.”
Side by Side
January 20th, 2012Via: Side by Side:
Related: Eastman Kodak Files for Bankruptcy Protection
Edible Microchips to Monitor Drug Taking Habits
January 20th, 2012I wonder if people will tell Siri to remind them to take their digestible sensors?
Via: Independent:
An edible microchip that records the precise details of a patient’s pill regime will be available in Britain by the end of year following a commercial deal that opens the door to an era of digital medicines.
An American biomedical company has signed up with a British healthcare firm to sell digestible sensors, each smaller than a grain of sand, that can trigger the transmission of medical information from a patient’s body to the mobile phone of a relative or carer.
The aim is to develop a suite of “intelligent medicines” that can help patients and their carers keep track of which pills are taken at what time of day, in order to ensure that complex regimes of drugs are given the best possible chance of working effectively.
Ultimately, the plan is for every one of the many pills taken each day by some of the most chronically-ill patients, especially those with mental health problems, to be digitally time-stamped as they are digested within the body.
The healthcare company Lloyds- pharmacy said it intends to sell the edible microchips of Proteus Biomedical of California by the end of the year, as part of a trial to test whether NHS patients would be prepared to pay privately to ensure that they or their relatives take the right medicines at the right time.
Air Force’s Top Brain Wants a ‘Social Radar’ to ‘See Into Hearts and Minds’
January 20th, 2012Another one for your bulging For-Fuck’s-Sake-Roll-Eyes file folder.
Via: Wired:
Chief Scientists of the Air Force usually spend their time trying to figure out how to build better satellites or make jets go insanely fast. Which makes Dr. Mark Maybury, today’s chief scientist, a bit of an outlier. He’d like to build a set of sensors that peer into people’s souls — and forecast wars before they erupt.
Maybury calls his vision “Social Radar.” And the comparison to traditional sensors is no accident, he tells Danger Room. “The Air Force and the Navy in this and other countries have a history of developing Sonar to see through the water, Radar to see through the air, and IR [infrared] to see through the night. Well, we also want to see into the hearts and the minds of people,” says Maybury, who serves as the top science advisor to the Air Force’s top brass.
But Social Radar won’t be a single sensor to discover your secret yearnings. It’ll be more of a virtual sensor, combining a vast array of technologies and disciplines, all employed to take a society’s pulse and assess its future health. It’s part of a broader Pentagon effort to master the societal and cultural elements of war — and effort that even many in the Defense Department believe is deeply flawed. First step: mine Twitter feeds for indications of upset.
More FFS: Special Forces Get Social in New Psychological Operation Plan
Genetics Researcher Killed in Texas
January 20th, 2012Flag for those maintaining lists of dead scientists.
Via: ABC News:
A Texas medical student well-known in her community as an Iranian activist was mysteriously shot and killed in her car, just yards from her home.
…
Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30, was driving through her Houston townhouse complex around midnight on Monday when she was shot dead through her car window.
Bagherzadeh was studying molecular genetic technology at the Texas Medical Center.
Pentagon-Funded ‘Fun to Play’ Games Would Crowdsource Weapons Testing
January 20th, 2012Via: Nextgov:
The Pentagon plans to fork over $32 million to develop “fun to play” computer games that can refine the way weapons systems are tested to ensure they are free from software errors and security bugs, according to a Defense Department solicitation.
The goal is to create puzzles that are “intuitively understandable by ordinary people” and could be solved on laptops, smartphones, tablets and consoles. The games’ solutions will be collected into a database and used to improve methods for analyzing software, according to the draft request for proposals put out by the military’s venture capital and research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
As weapons systems have become complex, the military’s methods for verifying that the software running on them is glitch-free and secure against hackers has fallen short. Formal verification is the process analysts use, through the application of mathematical theories, to determine if software code is free from bugs. Crowdsourcing this complicated task would help the Pentagon cut costs while it grapples with a shortage of computer security specialists.
“Formal verification has been too costly to apply beyond small, critical software components,” the document said. “This is particularly an issue for the Department of Defense because formal verification, while a proven method for reducing defects in software, currently requires highly specialized talent and cannot be scaled to the size of software found in modern weapon systems.”
DARPA’s three-year experiment, known as Crowdsourced Formal Verification, will address the question: How can developers translate formal verification problems into compelling puzzles people will want to solve?
The agency estimates that it will spend $4.7 million on the project this year.
U.S. Government’s Takedown of Megaupload ‘Sets a Terrifying Precedent’
January 20th, 2012Of course, the sycophantic New Zealand government went along with Uncle’s whims.
Via: AP:
One of the world’s most popular file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, and its founder and several company officials were accused of facilitating millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content.
A federal indictment accused Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to make it easier for authorities to go after sites with pirated material, especially those with overseas headquarters and servers.
The news of the shutdown seemed to bring retaliation from hackers who claimed credit for attacking the Justice Department’s website. Federal officials confirmed it was down Thursday evening and that the disruption was being “treated as a malicious act.”
A loose affiliation of hackers known as “Anonymous” claimed credit for the attack. Also hacked was the site for the Motion Picture Association of America and perhaps others.
Megaupload is based in Hong Kong, but some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Va., which gave federal authorities jurisdiction, the indictment said.
The Justice Department said in a statement said that Kim Dotcom, 37, and three other employees were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Three other defendants are at large.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that, “This kind of application of international criminal procedures to Internet policy issues sets a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?”
Andrea Rossi Claims E-Cat Prototypes Submitted for UL Approval
January 19th, 2012Many of you are interested in Andrea Rossi and the E-cat technology. You’re submitting several stories and wondering what I think about all of this.
Here’s what I think:
I put about equal odds on one of these three outcomes:
1. Andrea Rossi is the real deal and I’ll soon be able to buy an E-cat for use in my house
2. Andrea Rossi will be assassinated
3. Andrea Rossi will wind up in prison for fraud
This saga has dragged out long enough, and I’ve given it an appropriate amount of coverage (some would argue too much, other would argue not enough), but it’s time for Rossi to put his box up for sale and let the chips fall where they may.
Via: PESN:
Rossi said that they have sent prototypes to UL, and they are working with them to get the home unit certified for “UL approval”.
IMF Seeks to Raise Lending Power by Up to $500 Billion Amid Europe Crisis
January 19th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
The International Monetary Fund is proposing to raise its lending capacity by as much as $500 billion to insulate the global economy against any worsening of Europe’s debt crisis.
The Washington-based lender is aiming to increase its resources after identifying a potential need for $1 trillion in financing in coming years, an IMF spokesman said in a statement. The IMF is studying options and will not comment further until it has consulted its members, the fund said. To incorporate a cash buffer, the lender is seeking a total $600 billion.
No One Knows Truth About $300 Billion Bonds From Alleged Crash
January 19th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
Chris Estrella, a Filipino social worker, says he led a troop of five porters out of a Mindanao jungle in January 2000 with a weather-beaten iron and leather box crammed with $25 billion of U.S. government bearer bonds.
Related: Two Japanese Citizens Carrying $134 Billion Worth of Undeclared, Possibly Counterfeit U.S. Bonds…
