University of Utah to Consider Curriculum for Future NSA Data Warehouse Employees
March 28th, 2011I have one piece of advice for anyone who wants to do this sort of work: Get 3M 1440 headphones.
If you should find yourself having to work with others, on that Christmas Eve graveyard shift, for example, a white sharpie would come in handy, too. In the past, when I worked in soul destroying environments, I found that white sharpie embellishments on personal equipment caused thieving bums to just keep moving.
Other than that, enjoy serving Vader. Your future looks bright.
Via: Daily Herald:
University of Utah officials say talks with the National Security Agency could lead to a new curriculum that would prepare students for jobs in the massive data center that the spy agency is building at Camp Williams.
Once the data center is finished, a complex network of computers will cover 100,000 square feet, with machines consuming enough electricity to power a small city.
The agency has been vague about the work that will be done at the center, but indications are the work force there will primarily be engineers who take care of the cadre of computers.
“They need kind of a new generational work force that is specialized in managing this type of center, where they are dealing with large amounts of data,” said Valerio Pascucci, an associate professor in the university’s Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute in the School of Computing.
“We are in discussion with [NSA] about creating basically a new undergraduate track, possibly in multiple departments” to join computer science disciplines with mechanical and electrical engineering, he added.
If it proceeds, the idea would be to first build an undergraduate program using existing courses and ideally have graduates ready when the data center becomes operational in 2013.
Contributions So Far In March
March 28th, 2011Thank you.
Pookie $75
JH $200 [!!!]
Messina’s Front Line Survival Gear $20
MS CA$20
RD CA$15
CS GBP30
MD $10
MW $20
JL $20
PL CA$20
Eileen ordered three Nokero N200 lights for us and had them shipped here to New Zealand (US$69). They should arrive soon. We’re looking forward to trying them out.
Earnings in February
March 28th, 2011Earnings in February totaled $1224.62. Thank you to all Cryptogon supporters who sent contributions and conducted business via Cryptogon’s affiliate links.
The Amazon component of earnings continues to be very significant, at about half of the total in February. Whether you clicked through from here and bought a used paperback for a couple of dollars or something much more expensive, it all added up. Thank you.
Remember Building 7
March 27th, 2011Via: Remember Building 7:
In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan
March 27th, 2011As part of my daily duties, I had to take remote control of the systems that these donkeys were using. Occasionally, (a couple of times per day, at least) I would see the credit summary screens for the loan applicants. The highest credit score I ever saw was something like 615. The lowest was 520. Sprinkled with bankruptcies, unpaid credit cards, default this, late that.
Every once in a while, I’d chuckle and ask the person on the phone, “And this guy can buy a $400,000 house with no money down!?”
Absolutely God damned right!
That’s what this company did. All day. Monday through Friday.
Via: New York Times:
A few weeks ago, when the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide, I wrote a column lamenting the fact that none of the big fish were likely to go to prison for their roles in the financial crisis.
Soon after that column ran, I received an e-mail from a man named Richard Engle, who informed me that I was wrong. There was, in fact, someone behind bars for what he’d supposedly done during the subprime bubble. It was his 48-year-old son, Charlie.
On Valentine’s Day, the elder Mr. Engle said, his son had entered a minimum-security prison in Beaver, W.Va., to begin serving a 21-month sentence for mortgage fraud. He then proceeded to tell me the tale of how federal agents nabbed his son — a tale he backed up with reams of documents and records that suggest, if nothing else, that when the federal government is truly motivated, there is no mountain it won’t move to prosecute someone it wants to nail. And it was definitely motivated to nail Charlie Engle.
Mr. Engle’s is a tale worth telling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its punch line. Was Mr. Engle convicted of running a crooked subprime company? Was he a mortgage broker who trafficked in predatory loans? A Wall Street huckster who sold toxic assets?
No. Charlie Engle wasn’t a seller of bad mortgages. He was a borrower. And the “mortgage fraud” for which he was prosecuted was something that literally millions of Americans did during the subprime bubble. Supposedly, he lied on two liar loans.
Research Credit: Pookie
Japanese Government Asks Water Treatment Plants Not to Take in Rainwater Due to Radiation
March 27th, 2011Via: Kyodo:
The health ministry has instructed the operator of water purification plants nationwide to temporarily stop taking in rainwater to prevent contamination in tap water following radiation leaks from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, ministry officials said Sunday.
While calling on the plants to ensure stable supply of tap water, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also proposed covering pools of the plants with tarps to keep out rainwater or to use powdered activated carbon that can help get rid of radioactive materials.
The instruction by the ministry came after radiation levels beyond Japan’s regulated standard were found in tap water at multiple purification plants in Fukushima and other prefectures including Tokyo, 220 kilometers southwest of the plant.
And Now… Al-Qaeda Has Snatched Surface-To-Air Missiles From An Arsenal In Libya
March 27th, 2011Via: AFP:
AL-QAEDA’S offshoot in North Africa has snatched surface-to-air missiles from an arsenal in Libya during the civil strife there, Chad’s President says.
Idriss Deby Itno did not say how many surface-to-air missiles were stolen, but told the African weekly Jeune Afrique that he was “100 per cent sure” of his assertion.
“The Islamists of al-Qaeda took advantage of the pillaging of arsenals in the rebel zone to acquire arms, including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries in Tenere,” a desert region of the Sahara that stretches from northeast Niger to western Chad, Deby said in the interview.
“This is very serious. AQIM is becoming a genuine army, the best equipped in the region,” he said.
His claim was echoed by officials in other countries in the region who said that they were worried that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) might have acquired “heavy weapons”, thanks to the insurrection.
Radiation in Water at Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 2: Ten Million Times Normal
March 27th, 2011Update: Proof of Partial Meltdown
Duh.
Via: Deutsche Welle:
TEPCO did retract on Sunday a previous announcement that the radiation in the water was 10 million times higher than normal, saying the mistake was due to confusion between readings of iodine and cobalt in the water. The operator did not retract the 1,000 millisieverts figure.
Olivier Isnard, an expert with the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, said the reading was “proof that the reactor core partially melted.”
—End Update—
Update: How About 100,000 Times Higher than Normal?
Via: Kyodo:
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said early Monday the concentration of radioactive substances of the puddle was 100,000 times higher than that usually measured in water in a reactor core, correcting its earlier analysis of 10 million times higher.
—End Update—
Update: And Now… “The number is not credible”
Wow. Who would believe anything that these goons say at this point?
Via: AP:
Emergency workers struggling to pump contaminated water from Japan’s stricken nuclear complex fled from one of the troubled reactors Sunday after reporting a huge increase in radioactivity — a spike that officials later apologetically said was inaccurate.
The apology came after employees fled the complex’s Unit 2 reactor when a reading showed radiation levels had reached 10 million times higher than normal in the reactor’s cooling system. Officials said they were so high that the worker taking the measurements had withdrawn before taking a second reading.
On Sunday night, though, plant operators said that while the water was contaminated with radiation, the extremely high reading was a mistake.
“The number is not credible,” said Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita. “We are very sorry.”
He said officials were taking another sample to get accurate levels, but did not know when the results would be announced.
—End Update—
Via: Los Angeles Times / AP:
The radioactivity in water in one unit of a hobbled nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan has tested 10 million times higher than normal, the plant’s operator said Sunday.
Leaked water in Unit 2 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant measured 10 million times higher than usual radioactivity levels when the reactor is operating normally, Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita told reporters in Tokyo.
Radioactivity in the air in Unit 2 measured at 1,000 millisieverts per hour — four times higher than the occupational limit of 250 millisieverts set by the government, he said.
The readings came as workers grappled with how to remove and store the highly radioactive water pooling in four troubled units at the plant.
The discovery of puddles with radiation levels 10,000 times the norm sparked a temporary evacuation of the plant on Thursday. Two workers who stepped into the water were hospitalized with possible burns.
The development set back feverish efforts to start up a crucial cooling system knocked out in a massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but has helped experts get closer to determining the source of the dangerous leak.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, speaking Sunday on TV talk shows, said the radioactive water is “almost certainly” seeping from a reactor core.
On Saturday, the utility admitted that it had failed to adequately warn workers about dangerous radioactive water at the plant.
More: CNN:
Radiation levels in pooled water tested in the No. 2 nuclear reactor’s turbine building at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are 10 million times above normal, utility company and government officials said Sunday.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency, said the surface water showed 1,000 millisieverts of radiation. By comparison, an individual in a developed country is naturally exposed to 3 millisieverts per year, though Japan’s health ministry has set a 250 millisievert per year cumulative limit before workers must leave the plant.
The 10-million-times normal reading applies to radioactive iodine-134 found in the No. 2 building’s pooled water, according to the nuclear safety agency. This isotope loses half its radioactive atoms every 53 minutes, compared to a half-life of every eight days for radioactive iodine-131 that has also been detected in recent days.
This exponentially dwindling amount of radiation means, according to Nishiyama, that it’s unlikely that sealife — and, several steps down the line, humans who might eat once contaminated seafood — will suffer greatly from the iodine-134 exposure.
Festo’s Smart Bird
March 26th, 2011Research Credit: JH
Tata to Help Sun Catalytix Commercialize Revolutionary Energy Conversion Technology
March 25th, 2011Sun Catalytix Scientific Advisory Board Chairman, Dr. John M. Deutch:
Dr. John M. Deutch is currently an Institute Professor at MIT, and as a faculty member since 1970, has served the MIT community as Chairman of the Department of Chemistry, Dean of Science and Provost. He has published over 140 technical publications in physical chemistry, as well as numerous publications on technology, energy, international security, and public policy issues. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007 and is also member of the National Petroleum Council. He serves as director for Cheniere Energy, Citigroup, and Raytheon.
Prof. Deutch has served in significant government posts throughout his career. From 1977 to 1980, Prof. Deutch served in a number of positions for the U.S. Department of Energy: as Director of Energy Research, Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Technology, and Undersecretary of the Department. In May 1995, he was sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence following a unanimous vote in the Senate, and served as DCI until December 1996.
Prof. Deutch earned a B.A. in history and economics from Amherst College, and both a B.S. in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from MIT.
Via: Livemint:
In the first such effort, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata has signed on a leading scientist from the globally renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to commercialize cutting-edge research that promises to produce cheap power from water.
Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry and energy, and his group of elite scientists at MIT attracted attention from Tata when he heard they had found a way towards one of science’s holy grails—to imitate photosynthesis, the process by which plants breathe, and produce power while doing so.
…
As he did with the Nano small car and the Swach non-electric water purifier, Tata hopes Nocera’s solution will be the latest in the group’s effort to serve the “bottom of the pyramid” and turn a profit while doing so, said a Tata group executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tata’s hope is that Nocera’s “personalized energy” can produce a stand-alone, mini-power plant, perhaps a refrigerator-sized box, that could reinvent rural electricity supply and bring power to about three billion people worldwide who don’t have it.
Nocera said MIT’s technique has seen more than a year of preliminary research and hopes to produce enough electricity from a bottle-and-half of water, however dirty, to power a small home.
“We hope to have a prototype in a year-and-a-half,” said Nocera, whose other backers include Bob Metcalfe, co-inventor of the Ethernet and a former director of the US’ Central Intelligence Agency.
