Giuliani Associates Charged with Illegally Funneling Cash to Pro-Trump Group
October 10th, 2019Via: Reuters:
Two foreign-born Florida businessmen who have helped President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani investigate political rival Joe Biden were arrested in a scheme to illegally funnel money to a pro-Trump election committee and other U.S. political candidates, prosecutors said on Thursday.
The arrest of Ukraine-born Lev Parnas and Belarus-born Igor Fruman at an airport outside Washington carrying one-way tickets to Vienna was the latest dramatic development in a political saga that threatens Trump’s presidency.
Prosecutors said Parnas and Fruman conspired to contribute foreign money including at least $1 million from an unidentified Russian businessman to candidates for federal and state offices to buy influence.
Prosecutors separately said they donated $325,000 to a pro-Trump political action committee called America First Action in May 2018, and the money was falsely reported as coming from a purported natural gas company set up to conceal its true source, according to the indictment.
Dyson Has Scrapped Its Electric Car Project
October 10th, 2019Via: BBC:
Dyson, the UK-based company best known for its vacuum cleaners, has scrapped a project to build electric cars.
The firm, headed by inventor Sir James Dyson, said its engineers had developed a “fantastic electric car” but that it would not hit the roads because it was not “commercially viable”.
In an email sent to all employees, Sir James said the company had unsuccessfully tried to find a buyer for the project.
Burisma Paid Joe Biden $900,000 for Lobbying – Ukrainian MP
October 9th, 2019Hmm…
Via: Interfax Ukraine:
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden received $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Group, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada member Andriy Derkach said citing investigation materials.
Derkach publicized documents which, as he said, “describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.” at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine’s press center in Kyiv on Wednesday.
“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.
He also publicized sums that were transferred to Burisma Group representatives, in particular Hunter Biden, a son of the former U.S. vice president.
18-Year Old U.S. Soldiers Now Entering Afghanistan 18 Years After War Began
October 9th, 2019Even though Private Nines is from North Carolina, this story reminds me of: Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed:
Terry was the quintessential product of Middle America. Sown like patriotic seed on the plains, his destiny was to be harvested for the nation’s use…
So it goes, generation after generation.
Via: ZeroHedge:
This week America’s longest war in Afghanistan turned eighteen, and so did its youngest solder. To mark the occasion, ABC News profiled the US occupation’s newest American member: “Pvt. Hunter Nines is about to join a war nearly as old as he is,” the report said.
Reflecting on his first impending deployment with the Army Pvt. Nines said, “I didn’t have a lot of thoughts on Afghanistan in particular.” He was but 7 months when the war began with the arrival of US troops on Oct. 7, 2001 following the 9/11 attacks. “I honestly just had the notion of I wanted to serve, and wherever that is, that’s where I’ll go.”
Thermoelectric Generator: Cold Side Radiates Heat Built Up from Day to Sky at Night
October 9th, 201925 mW/square meter is close to nothing, but it’s an interesting idea.
Via: Joule:
A large fraction of the world’s population still lacks access to electricity, particularly at night when photovoltaic systems no longer operate. The ability to generate electricity at night could be a fundamentally enabling capability for a wide range of applications, including lighting and low-power sensors. Here, we demonstrate a low-cost strategy to harness the cold of space through radiative cooling to generate electricity with an off-the-shelf thermoelectric generator. Unlike traditional thermoelectric generators, our device couples the cold side of the thermoelectric module to a sky-facing surface that radiates heat to the cold of space and has its warm side heated by the surrounding air, enabling electricity generation at night. We experimentally demonstrate 25 mW/m 2 of power generation and validate a model that accurately captures the device’s performance. Further, we show that the device can directly power a light emitting diode, thereby generating light from the darkness of space itself.
More: The Anti-Solar Panel – A Device That Generates Electricity From Darkness
Water Bottles Accumulate Bacteria Like ‘Barnacles on a Boat’ and Must be Cleaned Once a Week
October 9th, 2019haha. Unless the water bottles belong to my children, in which case the bottles require thorough washing every few days.
Via: Daily Mail:
A microbiologist has warned that your water bottle may be a portable Petri dish if it is not cleaned properly.
The bacteria accumulation is being compared to ‘barnacles on a boat’ and the most dangerous ones come from the outside world, which can cause strep and staph infections.
To transform the infected vessel back to a healthy water bottle, it is suggested that you clean every inch with hot, soapy water and a bottle brush, and do so at least once a week.
Millions Brace for Unprecedented Power Cuts in California
October 9th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
It was a once-unthinkable move: purposely shutting off power to millions of people and plunging a major metropolitan area into darkness.
And yet, on Wednesday, utility PG&E Corp. began cutting electricity to almost 800,000 California homes and businesses — representing roughly 2.4 million people — to prevent wildfires as high winds are forecast to whip through the state. The outages will hit 34 counties, including much of the San Francisco Bay area, triggering a scramble by residents to prepare for what may be days without power.
For PG&E, forced into bankruptcy by devastating fires that its equipment has ignited over the past two years, there is no alternative. The shutoff is a key strategy for preventing its power lines from sparking another deadly — and costly — conflagration. It’s largely unprecedented. Never before have California utilities intentionally put so many people out of power for their own safety. Nor have they darkened heavily populated cities in addition to rural areas.
Nobel Awarded for Lithium-Ion Batteries and Portable Power
October 9th, 2019Via: Quanta Magazine:
Three researchers were honored with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry this morning for their roles in the development of lithium-ion batteries, a technology that has made possible our mobile electronic civilization of cellular phones and electric cars. John Goodenough of University of Texas, Austin, M. Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University and Akira Yoshino of Meijo University share equally in the prize.
The Biggest Lie Tech People Tell Themselves – And The Rest Of Us
October 9th, 2019Via: Vox:
Imagine you’re taking an online business class — the kind where you watch video lectures and then answer questions at the end. But this isn’t a normal class, and you’re not just watching the lectures: They’re watching you back. Every time the facial recognition system decides that you look bored, distracted, or tuned out, it makes a note. And after each lecture, it only asks you about content from those moments.
This isn’t a hypothetical system; it’s a real one deployed by a company called Nestor. And if you don’t like the sound of it, you’re not alone. Neither do the actual students.
When I asked the man behind the system, French inventor Marcel Saucet, how the students in these classes feel about being watched, he admitted that they didn’t like it. They felt violated and surveilled, he said, but he shrugged off any implication that it was his fault. “Everybody is doing this,” he told me. “It’s really early and shocking, but we cannot go against natural laws of evolution.”
As a reporter who covers technology and the future, I constantly hear variations of this line as technologists attempt to apply the theory Charles Darwin made famous in biology to their own work. I’m told that there is a progression of technology, a movement that is bigger than any individual inventor or CEO. They say they are simply caught in a tide, swept along in a current they cannot fight. They say it inevitably leads them to facial recognition (now even being deployed on children), smart speakers that record your intimate conversations, and doorbells that narc on your neighbors. They say we can’t blame these companies for the erosion of privacy or democracy or trust in public institutions — that was all going to happen sooner or later.
…
JFK Airport’s Terminal 1 Launches Facial Recognition Boarding
October 8th, 2019Via: New York Times:
A biometric self-boarding gate has officially been launched at John F. Kennedy International Airport’s Terminal 1, officials said Tuesday.
Lufthansa has deployed the paperless, high-tech boarding process – which uses facial recognition technology to verify travelers with a photo capture — at its largest US gateway at the Queens airport.
Air France, Japan Airlines, and Norwegian Airlines are expected to follow suit at the terminal, officials said.
