42% of Americans Have Less Than $10,000 Stashed Away for Retirement [???]
March 6th, 2018Can this possibly be right?
Via: CNBC:
At this rate, retirement is more of a fantasy than a reality for many people in this country.
About 42 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for when they retire, according to a study by GoBankingRates released Tuesday.
The No. 1 reason most people cited for not stashing more away was because they didn’t earn enough to save, followed by the fact that they were already struggling to pay bills, GoBankRates said. The personal finance site polled more than 1,000 adults online in February.
Is Google Going Underground With Hypersonic Tech?
March 6th, 2018Via: IEEE:
Google is carrying out research on hypersonics, probably for new technologies to slash the cost of geothermal energy and tunneling. It could also be acquiring a Washington-based startup called HyperSciences that has already built prototype devices.
…
The technology being developed by HyperSciences should make it cheaper to reach much higher temperatures even deeper down, up to 7 kilometers below the surface. Every few seconds, a concrete projectile is boosted down the drill shaft at over Mach 5 by a combustible mixture of air and diesel gases. The projectile then vaporizes cleanly at the rock face, breaking it up.
Once the well is complete, pipes containing silicone oil rather than water would transfer heat to the surface, where thermoelectric generators would convert it directly into electricity. HyperSciences says such a system will be more efficient than solar panels or wind turbines, and cheaper than conventional carbon-based power stations.
HyperSciences is also developing a tunneling system using the same hypersonic projectile technology. It claims that its so-called Hyper Tunnel Boring and Mining System will be five times cheaper than today’s tunnel boring machines, and be able to dig tunnels two and a half times faster.
Acquiring HyperSciences would pit Google head to head with Elon Musk. His The Boring Company is trying to dramatically improve the cost and speed of tunnel boring, in order to build tunnels for Hyperloop trains and subterranean networks of car-carrying electric sleds.
Uber and Lyft Drivers’ Median Hourly Wage Is Just $3.37 (Update: Author Admits Flaws)
March 5th, 2018Update: Uber, Lyft Drivers Might Make More than $3.73/Hour, MIT Paper Author Says
Via: USA Today:
After a working paper published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claimed 74% of Uber and Lyft drivers take home less than minimum wage, the paper’s author said his analysis might be wrong.
The paper suggested median profit for Uber and Lyft drivers is $3.37 per hour after vehicle expenses but before taxes, far less than the federal minimum wage in most states. Findings were based on a survey of more than 1,100 Uber and Lyft drivers.
Uber and Lyft criticized the findings, saying the survey questions were flawed.
Stephen Zoepf, the paper’s lead author, responded to the criticisms Monday, thanking Uber’s chief economist for his feedback.
“In retrospect the survey questions could and should have been worded more clearly,” Zoepf said in a statement. He also called on Uber to make an “honest and public assessment” of the range of ride-hailing driver profit after the cost of acquiring, operating and maintaining a vehicle.
Zoepf proposed two different results. In an adjusted scenario using monthly revenue numbers when available and calculating hourly numbers using the working schedule reported, median profit rises to $8.55. In another method, using reported hourly revenue numbers when available, median profit rises to $10 per hour.
The author said he “will be conducting a thorough revision of the paper.”
In both scenarios, some drivers are still making less than minimum wage in their state and some drivers lose money, according to Zoepf.
—
Via: Guardian:
Uber and Lyft drivers in the US make a median profit of $3.37 per hour before taxes, according to a new report that suggests a majority of ride-share workers make below minimum wage and that many actually lose money.
Researchers did an analysis of vehicle cost data and a survey of more than 1,100 drivers for the ride-hailing companies for the paper published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. The report – which factored in insurance, maintenance, repairs, fuel and other costs – found that 30% of drivers are losing money on the job and that 74% earn less than the minimum wage in their states.
The findings have raised fresh concerns about labor standards in the booming sharing economy as companies such as Uber and Lyft continue to face scrutiny over their treatment of drivers, who are classified as independent contractors and have few rights or protections.
‘Dorm Living for Professionals Comes to San Francisco’
March 5th, 2018The New York Times is promoting Khrushchyovka-style living in San Francisco for $1,400 to $2,400 a month.
Via: New York Times:
Shared bathrooms at the end of the hall and having no individual kitchen or living room is becoming less weird for some of the city’s workers thanks to Starcity, a new development company that is expressly creating dorms for many of the non-tech population.
…
The average one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco rents for $3,300 a month, but Starcity rooms go for $1,400 to $2,400 a month fully furnished, with utilities and Wi-Fi included.
“If you think about the most private things that you do, a lot of them are related to the bathroom,” said Mr. Dishotsky, 34. “So that’s probably the hardest part.”
Related: L.A. Coliving: PodShare
YOUTUBE DELETES ENTIRE HEALTH RANGER VIDEO CHANNEL
March 4th, 2018The Health Ranger YouTube channel is currently returning:
“This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”
Well, I went through being added to Google’s shit list over a decade ago.
So…
I have no idea why people who deal with alternative information continue to rely on Google’s platforms, given the company’s long history of censorship and fraudulent activity. To put it simply, you went to Darth Vader to publish videos, blogs and other information about the Rebel Alliance. WTF did you think was going to happen? Even I was guilty of this. The first couple of years of Cryptogon took place on Blogger, which was/is owned by Google.
I realized my mistake in 2006, got over it and moved on.
Back when I ditched Google, it was less obvious to many just how diabolical Google was. But what did people—who knew better or should have—do after this came out back in 2015?
Yawn. Snore. They kept publishing to GoogleTube.
Yes, Google are crooks. Yes, they steal money you have earned. Yes, they screw with search results. Yes, they ban you from advertising. Yes, yes, yes, and a whole lot more. These might have been interesting insights back in the mid 2000s, but the fact that people are just figuring this out now is the most disturbing aspect of this mess, in my opinion.
Even worse, some are proposing Facebook as a viable alternative.
*sigh*
Hopefully, this will cause at least a few more people to wake up and move to other platforms—but please not Facebook!
Via: Natural News:
In the latest gross violation of free speech committed by radical left-wing tech giants, YouTube has now deleted the entire Health Ranger video channel, wiping out over 1,700 videos covering everything from nutrition, natural medicine, history, science and current events.
Research Credit: Pookie
Men’s Sperm Counts Are Dropping, and Scientists Don’t Know Why
March 4th, 2018Via: Yahoo News:
The topic of overpopulation has been much discussed over the past few decades, but what if the real issue is a severe decline in population?
It sounds like something straight out of a dystopian nightmare, but new research shows sperm counts are drastically dropping across the Western world.
Researchers from Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Jerusalem announced this week that sperm count in men residing in developed countries has dropped by a whopping 50 percent over the past 40 years. They claim this alarming trend could potentially result in a decline in male health, fertility and possibly even extinction if the trend doesn’t turn around.
“This study is an urgent wake-up call for researchers and health authorities around the world to investigate the causes of the sharp ongoing drop in sperm count,” explained study co-author Hagai Levine.
After data was collected from 185 studies looking at sperm count and concentration in men from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand from 1973 to 2011, researchers found that total sperm count declined by 59.3 percent and sperm concentration declined by 52.4 percent.
Data from men in South America, Asia and Africa were also examined, however, no serious decline was detected. Researchers did note that not as many studies have been conducted in these regions.
Researchers didn’t look into reasons why the drop in sperm count occurred, but noted that the phenomenon has been previously linked to factors ranging from exposure to chemicals and pesticides to lifestyle choices, including smoking, obesity and stress. They are worried that if things keep heading in this direction, the human race could be doomed.
MI5 Agents Can Commit Crime in UK, Government Reveals
March 3rd, 2018Shocker.
Via: Guardian:
MI5 agents are allowed to carry out criminal activity in the UK, the government has acknowledged for the first time.
The prime minister was on Thursday forced to publish the text of a direction to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, the spying watchdog, on governing “security service participation in criminality”.
It instructs the IPCO to oversee the participation of MI5 agents in criminal activity, which was previously conducted by the now-defunct office of the Intelligence Services Commissioner, under a secret order referred to as the “third direction”.
However, guidance about when British spies can commit crimes, and how far they can go, remains confidential.
40Hz Audio and Visual Stimuli and Alzheimer’s
March 2nd, 2018Via: Nature:
In March 2015, Li-Huei Tsai set up a tiny disco for some of the mice in her laboratory. For an hour each day, she placed them in a box lit only by a flickering strobe. The mice — which had been engineered to produce plaques of the peptide amyloid-? in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease — crawled about curiously. When Tsai later dissected them, those that had been to the mini dance parties had significantly lower levels of plaque than mice that had spent the same time in the dark1.
Tsai, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, says she checked the result; then checked it again. “For the longest time, I didn’t believe it,” she says. Her team had managed to clear amyloid from part of the brain with a flickering light. The strobe was tuned to 40 hertz and was designed to manipulate the rodents’ brainwaves, triggering a host of biological effects that eliminated the plaque-forming proteins. Although promising findings in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease have been notoriously difficult to replicate in humans, the experiment offered some tantalizing possibilities. “The result was so mind-boggling and so robust, it took a while for the idea to sink in, but we knew we needed to work out a way of trying out the same thing in humans,” Tsai says.
Related: Does Listening to a 40 Hz Tone Reverse the Progress of Alzheimer’s?
Dumping U.S. Debt, a Possible Weapon in Global Trade War
March 2nd, 2018Via: Reuters:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to slap stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum has rattled financial markets and stirred fears that some trading partners might retaliate by dumping U.S. Treasuries.
Should China, Japan and other nations, which have recycled their trade dollars through their Treasuries holdings, suddenly decide to whittle them down, markets could be in for a rough ride.
Tor Is a Foreign Policy Weapon of the U.S. Government
March 2nd, 2018Via: Yasha Levine:
For years, the Tor Project — along with other U.S. government crypto tools like Signal — has been seen in almost religious terms by the privacy community as the only way to protect people from government spying online.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation held up Tor as the digital equivalent of the First Amendment. The ACLU backed it. Fight for the Future, the hip Silicon Valley activist group, declared Tor to be “NSA-proof.” Edward Snowden held it up as an example of the kind of grassroots privacy technology that could defeat government surveillance online and told his followers to use it. Prominent award-winning journalists from Wired, Vice, The Intercept, The Guardian and Rolling Stone — including Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Andy Greenberg — all helped pump up Tor’s mythical anti-state rebel status. Even Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary whistleblower, was convinced that Tor was vital to the future of democracy. Anyone who questioned this narrative and pointed to Tor’s lavish government support was attacked, ridiculed, smeared and hounded into silence. I know because that’s what Tor supporters tried to do to me.
But the facts wouldn’t go away.
The initial evidence that I had gathered in my reporting left little room for doubt about Tor’s true nature as foreign policy weapon of the U.S. government. But the box of FOIA documents I received from the BBG took that evidence to a whole new level.
Why would the U.S. government fund a tool that limited its own power? The answer, as I discovered, was that Tor didn’t threaten American power. It enhanced it.
The FOIA documents showed collaboration between the federal government, the Tor Project and key members of the privacy and Internet Freedom movement on a level that was hard to believe:
The documents showed Tor employees taking orders from their handlers in the federal government, including plans to deploy their anonymity tool in countries that the U.S. was working to destabilize: China, Iran, Vietnam, Russia. They showed strategy sessions, discussions about the need to influence news coverage, and control bad press. They featured monthly updates that described meetings and trainings with the CIA, NSA, FBI, DOJ and State Department. They revealed plans to funnel government funding to run Tor “independent” nodes. Most shockingly, the FOIA documents put under question Tor’s pledge that it would never put in any backdoors that gave the government secret privileged access to Tor’s network under question.
