On Costliest U.S. Warship Ever, Navy Can’t Get Munitions on Deck
July 30th, 2019Put a few F-35s on it. She’ll be right.
Via: Bloomberg:
Only two of 11 elevators needed to lift munitions to the deck of the U.S. Navy’s new $13 billion aircraft carrier have been installed, according to a Navy veteran who serves on a key House committee.
“I don’t see an end in sight right now” to getting all the elevators working on the USS Gerald R. Ford, the costliest warship ever, Democratic Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia said in an interview. The ship was supposed to be delivered with the Advanced Weapons Elevators, which are moved by magnets rather than cables, working in May 2017.
Gigantic, Mysterious Radiation Leak Traced to Facility in Russia
July 29th, 2019Via: New Scientist:
The source of a gigantic, mysterious leak of radioactive material that swept across Europe in 2017 has been traced to a Russian nuclear facility, which appears to have been preparing materials for experiments in Italy.
The leak released up to 100 times the amount of radiation into the atmosphere that the Fukushima disaster did. Italian scientists were the first to raise the alarm on 2 October, when they noticed a burst of the radioactive ruthenium-106 in the atmosphere. This was quickly corroborated by other monitoring laboratories across Europe.
Georg Steinhauser at Leibniz University Hannover in Germany says he was “stunned” when he first noticed the event. Routine surveillance detects several radiation leaks each year, mostly of extremely low levels of radionuclides used in medicine. But this event was different.
“The ruthenium-106 was one of a kind. We had never measured anything like this before,” says Steinhauser. Even so, the radiation level wasn’t high enough to impact human health in Europe, although exposure closer to the site of release would have been far greater.
…
The leak was unusual because the release was limited to radioactive ruthenium. “If there is a reactor accident, one would expect the release of radioactive isotopes of many different elements,” says Steinhauser. Exactly why such a specific element was released remained a mystery until Steinhauser learned that an Italian nuclear research facility had ordered a consignment of cerium-144 from Mayak before the incident. “There are several indications that the release of ruthenium-106 was linked to this order,” he says.
“Trillion-Dollar Annual Deficits”
July 29th, 2019You’ve got unshakable, bipartisan control of a ship of fools.
Enjoy the 2020 election circus!
Via: Bloomberg:
The Treasury Department is expected to hold its quarterly note and bond sales at record levels for the third straight time as Washington’s latest budget deal shows that the U.S.’s debt binge will continue.
President Donald Trump once said he would eliminate the national debt, but now he’s set to approve a budget that will help usher in trillion-dollar annual deficits. In part because of that, Wall Street securities firms predict that a boost in Treasury issuance may be coming in a year’s time.
…
With the president shoving aside past Republican orthodoxy on fiscal restraint and the issue not prominent among Democrats campaigning to take his job, Washington is showing no signs of slowing spending.
The House passed the debt-ceiling expansion and budget bill on July 25 and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he expects his chamber to clear it this week for Trump’s signature.
Oh, Look, Rats!
July 29th, 2019Rats. Rats. Rats.
In other news:
Trump and Clinton Associate, Jeffrey Epstein, Purchased Child Sex Slave, Bragged About It
Back to our regularly scheduled programming…
Rats. Rats. Rats.
Or was it, Storm Area 51?
Jeffrey who?
Via: Paul Watson:
Tesla Announces Megapack: Utility-Scale Energy Storage
July 29th, 2019Big guns.
Via: Tesla:
Less than two years ago, Tesla built and installed the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in Hornsdale, South Australia, using Tesla Powerpack batteries. Since then, the facility saved nearly $40 million in its first year alone and helped to stabilize and balance the region’s unreliable grid.
Battery storage is transforming the global electric grid and is an increasingly important element of the world’s transition to sustainable energy. To match global demand for massive battery storage projects like Hornsdale, Tesla designed and engineered a new battery product specifically for utility-scale projects: Megapack.
Megapack significantly reduces the complexity of large-scale battery storage and provides an easy installation and connection process. Each Megapack comes from the factory fully-assembled with up to 3 megawatt hours (MWhs) of storage and 1.5 MW of inverter capacity, building on Powerpack’s engineering with an AC interface and 60% increase in energy density to achieve significant cost and time savings compared to other battery systems and traditional fossil fuel power plants. Using Megapack, Tesla can deploy an emissions-free 250 MW, 1 GWh power plant in less than three months on a three-acre footprint – four times faster than a traditional fossil fuel power plant of that size. Megapack can also be DC-connected directly to solar, creating seamless renewable energy plants.
For utility-size installations like the upcoming Moss Landing project in California with PG&E, Megapack will act as a sustainable alternative to natural gas “peaker” power plants. Peaker power plants fire up whenever the local utility grid can’t provide enough power to meet peak demand. They cost millions of dollars per day to operate and are some of the least efficient and dirtiest plants on the grid. Instead, a Megapack installation can use stored excess solar or wind energy to support the grid’s peak loads.
Capital One Data Breach Hits More than 100 Million People Applying for Credit
July 29th, 2019Via: CBS:
Capital One said a hacker got access to the personal information of over 100 million individuals applying for credit. The McLean, Virginia-based bank said Monday it found out about the vulnerability in its system July 19 and immediately sought help from law enforcement to catch the perpetrator.
The FBI has arrested the person, reportedly in Seattle, according to a report in The Washington Post. Court records state a woman, identified as Paige A. Thompson, was arrested on charges of computer fraud and abuse Monday, according to CNET. Prosecutors say the hack took place between March 12 and July 17.
6G Mobile Networks: “Real-Time Remote Access to Human Brain-Level AI”
July 29th, 2019Mmm hmm.
Via: Venture Beat:
As 5G networks continue to expand in cities and countries across the globe, key researchers have already started to lay the foundation for 6G deployments roughly a decade from now. This time, they say, the key selling point won’t be faster phones or wireless home internet service, but rather a range of advanced industrial and scientific applications — including wireless, real-time remote access to human brain-level AI computing.
That’s one of the more interesting takeaways from a new IEEE paper published by NYU Wireless’s pioneering researcher Dr. Ted Rappaport and colleagues, focused on applications for 100 gigahertz (GHz) to 3 terahertz (THz) wireless spectrum. As prior cellular generations have continually expanded the use of radio spectrum from microwave frequencies up to millimeter wave frequencies, that “submillimeter wave” range is the last collection of seemingly safe, non-ionizing frequencies that can be used for communications before hitting optical, x-ray, gamma ray, and cosmic ray wavelengths.
Apple Contractors Regularly Hear Siri Recordings of Drug Deals, Medical Details and People Having Sex
July 29th, 2019
Via: Guardian:
Apple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or “grading”, the company’s Siri voice assistant, the Guardian has learned.
Although Apple does not explicitly disclose it in its consumer-facing privacy documentation, a small proportion of Siri recordings are passed on to contractors working for the company around the world. They are tasked with grading the responses on a variety of factors, including whether the activation of the voice assistant was deliberate or accidental, whether the query was something Siri could be expected to help with and whether Siri’s response was appropriate.
Apple says the data “is used to help Siri and dictation … understand you better and recognise what you say”.
But the company does not explicitly state that that work is undertaken by humans who listen to the pseudonymised recordings.
Apple told the Guardian: “A small portion of Siri requests are analysed to improve Siri and dictation. User requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analysed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements.” The company added that a very small random subset, less than 1% of daily Siri activations, are used for grading, and those used are typically only a few seconds long.
A whistleblower working for the firm, who asked to remain anonymous due to fears over their job, expressed concerns about this lack of disclosure, particularly given the frequency with which accidental activations pick up extremely sensitive personal information.
1,400 Arrested at Moscow Election Protest
July 28th, 2019Via: AFP:
Russian police arrested nearly 1,400 people as they gathered in Moscow at the weekend to demand free and fair elections, a monitor said Sunday, the biggest such crackdown in years.
About 3,500 people took part in the unauthorised protest on Saturday according to official figures, after authorities blocked prominent opposition candidates from taking part in municipal elections.
‘Top Gun’ Sequel, Co-Produced by China’s Tencent, Drops Japanese and Taiwanese Flags
July 26th, 2019Via: Japan Times:
Eagle-eyed viewers have spotted a curious discrepancy in the first trailer for “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the beloved ’80s classic “Top Gun,” which Paramount debuted Thursday — the patches on the iconic leather jacket worn by star Tom Cruise no longer bear the Taiwanese and Japanese flags.
One possible reason for the difference could be that “Top Gun: Maverick” is being produced, in part, by Tencent Pictures, a Chinese film distributor and production company.
