Soros Nearly Doubles Down Bearish Bet Against S&P 500
August 16th, 2016Via: Market Watch:
Billionaire investor George Soros, who rose to fame and fortune by betting against sterling in 1992, on Monday showed his latest hand: nearly doubling down on his bearish bet against the market.
The 86-year-old’s fund, Soros Fund Management LLC, disclosed in a regulatory filing it had increased its bet against the S&P 500, the main index used to measure big-stock performance in the U.S., and holds put options on roughly four million shares in an exchange-traded fund that tracks the index. That is up from “puts” on 2.1 million shares as of March 31.
Meanwhile, Soros’s fund also cut sharply its position in gold, selling off the bulk of the shares it had bought last quarter in Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, and cutting sharply its position in a gold-backed ETF set up by the World Gold Council.
Aetna Ditching 70% of Its Obamacare Business
August 16th, 2016Via: Business Insider:
Aetna, one of the country’s five largest health insurers, announced on Monday evening that it would be pulling out of nearly 70% of the counties in which it offers coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
The firm said that after a review of its public-health-exchange business it determined that the nearly $300 million in pretax loss it was sustaining on an annual basis was not worth the business.
In its new plan, it will offer healthcare options through the public exchanges in just 242 of the 778 counties where it now operates. These will be mainly in Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, and Virginia.
Moronic Millennials Think Karl Marx is 3rd Party Presidential Candidate Challenging Hillary & Trump
August 15th, 2016
Via: Mark Dice:
Make Your Time: Hacking Group Purportedly Hacked NSA-Linked Equation Group, Auctioning Cyber Weapons
August 15th, 2016Real or fake, I couldn’t stop chortling while reading the text. I think I know the author.
Via: Computerworld:
Quite honestly this could be fake – even the broken English announcement could be faked to make the attackers seem to not use English as their native language – but the Shadow Brokers said on GitHub:
How much you pay for enemies cyber weapons? Not malware you find in networks. Both sides, RAT + LP, full state sponsor tool set? We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame. Kaspersky calls Equation Group. We follow Equation Group traffic. We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files.
In Bungled Spying Operation, NSA Targeted Pro-Democracy Campaigner
August 15th, 2016Via: The Intercept:
Tony Fullman is a middle-aged former tax man and a pro-democracy activist. But four years ago, a botched operation launched by New Zealand spies meant he suddenly found himself deemed a potential terrorist — his passport was revoked, his home was raided, and he was placed on a top-secret National Security Agency surveillance list.
The extraordinary covert operation, revealed Sunday by Television New Zealand in collaboration with The Intercept, was launched in 2012 after New Zealand authorities believed they had identified a group planning to violently overthrow Fiji’s military regime.
Rumor: Possible Earth-Like Planet Around Proxima Centauri
August 15th, 2016Via: PhysOrg:
The hunt for exoplanets has been heating up in recent years. Since it began its mission in 2009, over four thousand exoplanet candidates have been discovered by the Kepler mission, several hundred of which have been confirmed to be “Earth-like” (i.e. terrestrial). And of these, some 216 planets have been shown to be both terrestrial and located within their parent star’s habitable zone (aka. “Goldilocks zone”).
But in what may prove to be the most exciting find to date, the German weekly Der Spiegel announced recently that astronomers have discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, just 4.25 light-years away. Yes, in what is an apparent trifecta, this newly-discovered exoplanet is Earth-like, orbits within it’s sun’s habitable zone, and is within our reach. But is this too good to be true?
How CIA’s Palantir Wired Washington
August 14th, 2016Via: Politico:
When a little-known Silicon Valley software startup began vying for national security contracts, it went up against an entrenched bureaucracy and opposition from major contractors skilled in the Washington game.
But quickly, Palantir began pulling pages from the defense industry’s own playbook — bulking up on lobbyists, challenging the Pentagon’s contracting rules and getting members of Congress to sprinkle favorable language into defense legislation. Seven years later, the secretive firm has landed $1.2 billion worth of federal business, and critics say the legislative favors it has secured will give it a leg up on billions more.
Representatives of the firm — founded by venture capitalist and prominent Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel — insist it remains an outsider in a Washington culture deeply wedded to the status quo.
But a review of public documents and interviews with key players shows the company is no stranger to Beltway politics and influence. Its lobbying expenditures more than tripled to more than $1 million in a few short years as it enlisted lawmakers such as Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Tom Cotton of Arkansas to help it compete against established players like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. Now, about 40 percent of Palantir’s business comes from government clients, and it appears to be winning a fight with the Army over a $3 billion program to build a new battlefield intelligence network.
…
Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, got the Central Intelligence Agency to invest $2 million through In-Q-Tel, the agency’s venture capital arm. That granted Palantir access to the inner workings of government contracting — and it quickly learned how the game is played.
Nissan: Variable Compression Gasoline Engine
August 14th, 2016Via: Reuters:
Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co has come up with a new type of gasoline engine it says may make some of today’s advanced diesel engines obsolete.
The new engine uses variable compression technology, which Nissan engineers say allows it at any given moment to choose an optimal compression ratio for combustion – a key factor in the trade-off between power and efficiency in all gasoline-fuelled engines.
The technology gives the new engine the performance of turbo-charged gasoline engines while matching the power and fuel economy of today’s diesel and hybrid powertrains – a level of performance and efficiency the conventional gasoline engine has so far struggled to achieve.
…
“Everyone’s been working on variable compression and other technologies to significantly improve gasoline engine fuel economy … at least for the last 20 years or so,” said James Chao, Asia-Pacific managing director at consultant IHS.
“Increasing the fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines is critical to automakers. Not all consumers will accept a battery electric vehicle solution. But significant challenges remain, such as increased complexity and cost, as well as potential vibration issues.”
Milwaukee Mob Riots After Police Shooting
August 14th, 2016Via: Journal Sentinel:
A standoff between police and an angry crowd turned violent Saturday night in the hours after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed an armed suspect during a foot chase on the city’s north side.
After an hours-long confrontation with officers, police reported at 10:15 p.m. that a gas station at N. Sherman Blvd. and W. Burleigh St. was set on fire. Police said firefighters could not for a time get close to the blaze because of gunshots.
Later, fires were started at businesses — including a BMO Harris Bank branch, a beauty supply company and O’Reilly Auto Parts stores — near N. 35th and W. Burleigh streets, a grim and emphatic Mayor Tom Barrett said. He spoke at a midnight news conference at the District 3 police station at N. 49th St. and W. Lisbon Ave.
He and Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton pleaded with the public for calm. Barrett promised a strong police presence in coming days.
A New Wireless Hack Can Unlock 100 Million Volkswagens
August 13th, 2016Via: Wired:
Later this week at the Usenix security conference in Austin, a team of researchers from the University of Birmingham and the German engineering firm Kasper & Oswald plan to reveal two distinct vulnerabilities they say affect the keyless entry systems of an estimated nearly 100 million cars. One of the attacks would allow resourceful thieves to wirelessly unlock practically every vehicle the Volkswagen group has sold for the last two decades, including makes like Audi and S?koda. The second attack affects millions more vehicles, including Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Fiat, Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel, and Peugeot.
