After ‘Jeopardy!’ Victory, Watson Headed to Hospitals
February 17th, 2011Via: AP:
Fresh off its shellacking of two human champions of the “Jeopardy!” television show, a computer program developed by IBM Corp. will soon get a workout in two hospitals that have signed up to test the technology.
The agreements with the Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine will be the program’s first real-world tests outside of the trivia game show and IBM’s laboratories.
Related: IBM’s Watson: How About, “We’re Fucked” for $100, Alex
U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’
February 17th, 2011Reminder: If you ever visit cryptogon.com and see the Seized-By-Homeland-Security message, keep cryptogon.ch handy.
Via: Raw Story:
Approximately 84,000 websites were shut down and wrongfully accused of having links to child pornography as part of “Operation Protect Our Children,” a new joint operation between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ).
The DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Tuesday that it had executed seizure warrants against ten domain names of websites engaged in the distribution of child pornography, but during the operation the domain name of a large DNS service provider was also mistakenly seized, TorrentFreak reported.
The domain name mooo.com, which belongs to the DNS provider FreeDNS, hosted 84,000 subdomains, all of which were seized and replaced with a Homeland Security Investigations banner.
“On Friday February 11th at around 9:30 PM PST mooo.com (the most popular shared domain at afraid.org) was suspended at the registrar level,” the FreeDNS owner said in a statement. “Freedns.afraid.org has never allowed this type of abuse of its DNS service. We are working to get the issue sorted as quickly as possible.”
Map: Where Americans Are Moving
February 17th, 2011I wonder if there’s an international version. *chuckle*
Via: Forbes:
More than 10 million Americans moved from one county to another during 2008. The map below visualizes those moves. Click on any county to see comings and goings: black lines indicate net inward movement, red lines net outward movement.
New Zealand: Rural Broadband Scheme ‘Destructive’
February 17th, 2011Via: New Zealand Herald:
John Key says he wants to “streamline and improve” bureaucracy.
Bill English says the country can’t afford waffly policy.
Great. They can do away with the Ministry of Economic Development. That should save billions and get rid of policy that is not only waffly but downright destructive.
The decision to start commercial negotiations with Telecom and Vodafone about handing over $285 million to improve rural broadband services is a case in point.
Either the ministry supplied bad advice to Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce, or it is shielding a decision he made for his own political or philosophical reasons.
Because be in no doubt, this is a bad decision that will not only saddle rural areas with sub-standard service, it will entrench existing monopolies and blight international standing as a place to invest or do business.
Curveball’s Nonsense Led U.S. to War in Iraq?
February 16th, 2011We’re to believe that al-Janabi made it all happen.
It’s fascinating how Project for the New American Century, with its vigorous agitating for regime change in Iraq, wasn’t mentioned in this piece at all.
The U.S. was going to whack Iraq, al-Janabi or no al-Janabi.
Via: Guardian:
In a small flat in the German town of Erlangen in February 2003, an out-of-work Iraqi sat down with his wife to watch one of the world’s most powerful men deliver the speech of his career on live TV.
As US secretary of state, Colin Powell gathered his notes in front of the United Nations security council, the man watching — Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, known to the west’s intelligence services as “Curveball” — had more than an inkling of what was to come. He was, after all, Powell’s main source, a man his German handlers had feted as a new “Deep throat” — an agent so pivotal that he could bring down a government.
As Curveball watched Powell make the US case to invade Iraq, he was hiding an admission that he has not made until now: that nearly every word he had told his interrogators from Germany’s secret service, the BND, was a lie.
Everything he had said about the inner workings of Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons programme was a flight of fantasy – one that, he now claims was aimed at ousting the Iraqi dictator. Janabi, a chemical engineering graduate who had worked in the Iraqi industry, says he looked on in shock as Powell’s presentation revealed that the Bush administration’s hawkish decisionmakers had swallowed the lot. Something else left him even more amazed; until that point he had not met a US official, let alone been interviewed by one.
“I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime,” he told the Guardian in a series of interviews carried out in his native Arabic and German. “I and my sons are proud of that, and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”
Serious Doubt Cast on FBI’s Anthrax Case Against Bruce Ivins
February 16th, 2011Via: Salon:
From the start, it was obvious that the FBI’s case against Ivins was barely more persuasive than its case against Hatfill had been. The allegations were entirely circumstantial; there was no direct evidence tying Ivins to the mailings; and there were huge, glaring holes in both the FBI’s evidentiary and scientific claims. So dubious was the FBI’s case that even the nation’s most establishment media organs, which instinctively trust federal law enforcement agencies, expressed serious doubts and called for an independent investigation…
…
But yesterday, the National Academy panel released its findings, and it produced a very unpleasant surprise for the FBI (though it was entirely unsurprising for those following this case). As The New York Times put it in an article headlined “Expert Panel Is Critical of F.B.I. Work in Investigating Anthrax Letters”: “A review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s scientific work . . . concludes that the bureau overstated the strength of genetic analysis linking the mailed anthrax to a supply kept by Bruce E. Ivins”; while the panel noted that the genetic findings are “consistent” with the claim that Ivins mailed the letters and can “support” an association, the evidence is far from “definitive,” as the FBI had long suggested. The report, commissioned by the FBI, specifically concluded that “the scientific link between the letter material and [Ivins’] flask number RMR-1029 is not as conclusive as stated in the DOJ Investigative Summary.” This morning’s Washington Post article — headlined: “Anthrax report casts doubt on scientific evidence in FBI case against Bruce Ivins” — noted that “the report reignited a debate that has simmered among some scientists and others who have questioned the strength of the FBI’s evidence against Ivins.”
Rising Food Prices Push Millions Around the World Into Extreme Poverty
February 16th, 2011Via: New York Times:
A sharp rise in food prices since June has pushed 44 million people in developing countries into extreme poverty — having to live on less than $1.25 a day — according to a new study by the World Bank.
The bank’s price index soared 29 percent from January 2010 to January 2011 (15 percent just from October to January). Wheat, maize, sugar and edible oils have seen the sharpest price increases in the last six months, with a relatively smaller increase in rice. The rising prices have increased the vulnerability of economies, particularly those that import a high share of their food and have limited capacity for government borrowing and spending.
Borders Files for Bankruptcy, Will Close Some Stores
February 16th, 2011Recovery.
Via: Bloomberg:
Borders Group Inc., the number-two U.S. bookstore chain, filed for bankruptcy in New York today after management changes, job cuts and debt restructuring failed to make up for sagging book sales in the face of competition from Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Borders will shut about 30 percent of “underperforming” stores “in the next several weeks” and restructure with $505 million in so-called debtor-in-possession financing from lenders led by GE Capital, according to a statement. The 40-year-old chain listed debt of $1.29 billion and assets of $1.28 billion as of Christmas 2010 in its Chapter 11 petition filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The company plans to restructure and continue to operate.
“Borders Group does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor,” the company’s president, Mike Edwards, said today in a statement. The filing will give it “time to reorganize in order to reposition itself to be a successful business for the long term.”
Residential Energy Storage with Underground Flywheels
February 16th, 2011Update 2013: Velkess: New Residential Scale Flywheel Design
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A reader asked if I knew of a better way of storing energy for an off grid house than the ancient and familiar lead acid battery bank. Knowing that there really isn’t, I thought I’d try to be funny, so I said, “How about a big flywheel?”
To my surprise, the guy wrote back and asked, “Do you know anyone who builds residential scale flywheel systems?”
I looked and, as far as I can tell, there isn’t anyone who offers a flywheel system for residential use, at any price. There are several companies that sell flywheel based UPS systems for data centers. I may be wrong, but it appears that those systems are designed to run for only about ten seconds while a backup diesel generator starts up.
I spent a few minutes looking into whether or not anyone had tried to use flywheels in a residential context.
Look at this: Popular Science, October 1979, Basement Flywheel Stores Solar Energy at 15,000 RPM:
Popular Science Depiction of Flywheel for Residential Energy Storage, 1979
Millner is building a one-tenth capacity working model of the giant system shown on our cover. The 500 pound flywheel will store up to four kilowatt hours. (A house-sized system would store about 40 kWh to meet the 25-kWh daily demand of an average home. Mechanical losses siphon off an extra five kWh. The rest remain in the wheel.) The flywheel will be suspended by six magnetic bearings (see diagram) when energy is being stored. Current from the solar array will drive an advanced permanent-magnet motor generator mounted on the flywheel shaft to accelerate the flywheel. When energy is to be withdrawn, the motor generator, plus a sophisticated semiconductor circuit, will convert mechanical energy storred in the spinning mass into a steady supply of AC for use in the house.
…
The entire assembly—bearings, motor generator, and flywheel—will be enclosed in a sealed vacuum container that doubles as a safety enclosure. This will be lowered into a concrete pit below the garage of a solar-powered test house MIT is building.
Isn’t it weird how an article that’s over three decades old reads pretty much like one written today when it comes to the topic of people being able to store energy that they collect on their own properties?
Anyway, so what happened? How did this project turn out?
This is from, Performance Testing and Economic Analysis of a Photovoltaic Flywheel Energy Storage and Conversion System:
A subscale prototype of a flywheel energy storage and conversion system for use with photovoltaic power systems of residential and intermediate load-center size has been designed, built and tested by MIT Lincoln Laboratory. System design, including details of such key components as magnetic bearings, motor generator, and power conditioning electronics, is described. Performance results of prototype testing are given and indicate that this system is the equal of or superior to battery-inverter systems for the same application. Results of cost and user-worth analysis show that residential systems are economically feasible in stand-alone and in some utility-interactive applications.
I felt pretty frustrated after reading all of this. Why can’t I buy one of these for my house?!
So, I searched again and found Regenerative Power and Motion. Their goal is to actually build these underground flywheel systems for homes and businesses. As of right now, though, it’s still not an option.
In 2011, are we any closer to being able to buy what MIT built and demonstrated to work all the way back in 1979? I guess not.
Deficit: Biggest Share of Economy Since 1945
February 15th, 2011Via: AP:
Not since World War II has the federal budget deficit made up such a big chunk of the U.S. economy. And within two or three years, economists fear the result could be sharply higher interest rates that would slow economic growth.
The budget plan President Barack Obama sent Congress on Monday foresees a record deficit of $1.65 trillion this year. That would be just under 11 percent of the $14 trillion economy — the largest proportion since 1945, when wartime spending swelled the deficit to 21.5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.
The danger is that a persistently large gap in the budget could threaten the economy. Investors would see lending their money to the U.S. as riskier. So they’d demand higher returns to do it. Or they’d simply put their cash elsewhere. Interest rates on mortgages and other debt would rise as a result.
