Semper Fi in His Eye
August 21st, 2007Via: SF Gate:
Semper fi in his eye: There’s no mistaking which branch of the military Nicholas Popaditch served with — his prosthetic eye is embedded with the Marine Corps emblem. Popaditch, a retired gunnery sergeant and tank commander from San Diego, was wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade in Fallujah, Iraq. He lost his right eye and most of the vision in his left.
World of Warcraft ‘Disease Model’
August 21st, 2007Via: BBC:
An outbreak of a deadly disease in a virtual world can offer insights into real life epidemics, scientists suggest.
The “corrupted blood” disease spread rapidly within the popular online World of Warcraft game, killing off thousands of players in an uncontrolled plague.
The infection raged, wreaking social chaos, despite quarantine measures.
The experience provides essential clues to how people behave in such crises, Lancet Infectious Diseases reports.
In the game, there was a real diversity of response from the players to the threat of infection, similar to those seen in real life.
The players seemed to really feel they were at risk and took the threat of infection seriously
Professor Nina Fefferman, from Tufts University School of Medicine
Some acted selflessly, rushing to the aid of other characters even though that meant they risked infection themselves.
Others fled infected cities in an attempt to save themselves.
And some who were sick made it their mission to deliberately infect others.
Researcher Professor Nina Fefferman, from Tufts University School of Medicine, said: “Human behaviour has a big impact on disease spread. And virtual worlds offer an excellent platform for studying human behaviour.
“The players seemed to really feel they were at risk and took the threat of infection seriously, even though it was only a game.”
Related: Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation
WELLS FARGO CRIPPLED BY SYSTEM FAILURES
August 20th, 2007Via: CNN:
Service problems disabled ATMs and online accounts at Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) for at least 24 hours starting Sunday afternoon, leaving some customers of the nation’s fifth-largest bank unable to get cash or use debit cards to pay for goods.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo wouldn’t say how many customers or machines were affected but acknowledged that services were down throughout the company – from personal banking Web sites and ATMs to the processing of mortgage and student loans.
“Customers may continue to experience transaction difficulties or delays in our stores, at ATMs and at the point-of-sale…and processing for some mortgage, home equity, student loans and remittances,” Wells Fargo spokeswoman Julia S. Tunis said. “Our systems teams are working to fix those problems and we hope to have all channels fully available soon.”
Angry customers complained Monday at many of the bank’s 6,000 branches nationwide. Customers could get cash if they went into a branch and talked to a teller – but they had no way of getting cash after-hours.
MSNBC: Lead in Food and Toys from China Keeps Prices Low, and Mortgage Rates Low, Too
August 19th, 2007Via: The Vanguardian:
“I think people should be careful what they wish for on China. Ya know, if China were to revalue it’s currency or China is to start making say, toys that don’t have lead in them or food that isn’t poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up too. So, I would say China is our greatest friend right now, they’re keeping prices low and they’re keeping the prices for mortgages low, too.”
Former Deutsche Bank Building on Fire in Lower Manhattan
August 18th, 2007It hasn’t collapsed yet? The second I read about this incident, I thought:
I wonder if we’re all going to get a lesson in how fire CAN cause skyscrapers to collapse…
“Look,” Fox News, et al will say about people who talk about demolition of the buildings on 9/11, “The Deutsche Bank building collapsed due to fire. God damned conspiracy theorists.”
If you’re in Manhattan, with a clear view of this scene, consider setting a video camera on a tripod, and focusing in on the base of the building; not the top floors. There will be lots of video of the top floors.
Also, extend your tripod so that the camera’s center of gravity is higher than usual, but still stable. Turn image stabilization off. Zoomed in like this, your camera might catch any weird seismic disturbances before the building begins to fall… If it begins to fall.
UPDATE: No Dander of Collapse
Via: Newsday:
A six-alarm fire in the abandoned Deutsche Bank skyscraper sent a plume of gray smoke trailing above ground zero Saturday afternoon as firetrucks and police cars raced through lower Manhattan to reach a building already decimated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Two firefighters were critically injured while trying to reach the fire, which began about a dozen floors up in the tower left vacant since Sept. 11 turned it into a toxic nightmare, fire officials said.
One firefighter suffered cardiac arrest and another smoke inhalation. A third suffered minor injuries to an ankle, fire officials at the scene said.
The fire was burning on multiple floors at the building, where construction crews had already dismantled 14 of the building’s 40 stories _ reaching the 26th floor on Tuesday. Some firefighters used stairs to reach the burning upper floors.
More than two hours after the blaze was first reported, the blaze was declared a six-alarm fire. Officials continued to push onlookers further back from the building and set up a command post on the West Side Highway. Officials could be seen poring over a map of the area.
The cause of the fire was unknown. Smoke pouring from the burning building was visible from midtown Manhattan and the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.
The acrid smell of smoke, which hung over the neighborhood for days after Sept. 11, returned to lower Manhattan along with the wail of emergency vehicles. More than three dozen fire vehicles, with more than 160 firefighters, responded to the blaze as pieces of burning debris fell from the building to the streets.
China Bans Buddhist Monks in Tibet from Reincarnating without Government Permission
August 18th, 2007Via: MSNBC:
In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.” But beyond the irony lies China’s true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region’s Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.
Cryptogon Reader Contributes $50
August 18th, 2007PR sent $50. Thank you.
Californians Rush to Pull Money from Countrywide Bank
August 17th, 2007Via: AJC:
Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and Web site of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank.
Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the United States, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable. And federal regulators said they weren’t alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank.
The mortgage lender said it would further tighten its loan standards and make fewer large mortgages. Those moves could make it harder to get a home loan and further depress the housing market.
The rush to withdraw money — by depositors that included a former Los Angeles Kings star hockey player and an executive of a rival home-loan company — came a day after fears arose that Countrywide Financial could file for bankruptcy protection because of a worsening credit crunch stemming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
The parent firm borrowed $11.5 billion Thursday by using up an existing line of credit from 40 banks, saying the money would help the lender meet its funding needs and continue to grow. But stock investors, apparently alarmed that the company felt compelled to use the credit line, sent Countrywide’s already battered stock down an additional 11 percent.
At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early ’90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names.
In west Los Angeles, a Countrywide supervisor brought in from another office served coffee to more than 25 people waiting calmly for their turn with the one clerk who could help them.
Russia: Putin Orders Strategic Bomber Patrols
August 17th, 2007Via: AP:
President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he had ordered the military to resume regular long-range flights of strategic bombers, news agencies reported, returning to a practice that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Speaking as Russian and Chinese forces held major war games exercises for the first time on Russian territory, Putin said a halt in long-range bombers’ flights after the Soviet collapse had affected Russia’s security as other nations had continued such missions — an oblique reference to the United States.
“I have made a decision to resume regular flights of Russian strategic aviation,” Putin was quoted as saying by Russian agencies.
“We proceed from the assumption that our partners will view the resumption of flights of Russia’s strategic aviation with understanding,” Putin was quoted as saying.
The war games, which took place near the Urals Mountain city of Chelyabinsk, came on the same day that Russia air force said its strategic bombers flew several missions ranging far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.
Putin said that 20 Russian bombers were involved in the exercise.
“Starting today, such tours of duty would be regular,” Putin said. “Our pilots have been grounded for too long, they are happy to start a new life.”
Soviet bombers routinely flew such missions to areas from which nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States, but stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown.
Booming oil prices over recent years have allowed Russia to sharply increase its military spending.
Clock is Ticking on Las Vegas’ Water Supply
August 17th, 2007Via: Las Vegas Now:
The news coming from the Southern Nevada Water Authority Thursday about the valley’s future water supply is worrisome. Unless we act quickly, there will be no water for hundreds of thousands of Las Vegas Valley residents in just three years.
Eyewitness News looked deeper into the problem and why time may not be on our side. Not only is this a race against time, but it’s going to cost valley residents dearly.
SNWA data shows drought conditions getting worse, not better forcing the general manager of the water authority to ask the board to spend more than $45 million to upgrade water pumps at Lake Mead.
Those pumps would be attached to the second drinking water intake at the lake and double its capacity to pump drinking water. At the current rate, the water level will drop below the first intake in less than three years drastically cutting the supply of drinking water to Las Vegas.
Then, there’s a three to five year gap before drinking water can be pumped through a proposed pipeline from White Pine County, which means the new pumps at Lake Mead need to be quickly installed.
It also means General Manager Pat Mulroy is getting more aggressive in plans to pipe in drinking water from sources other than the Colorado River.
Mulroy said, “The point I was making today is that we have run out of options. We have run out of time to ring our hands about it and try to delay it. If we do that we are putting our own families and our own security in jeopardy.”
