Australia: Electricity Networks Propose Connection Fees for All Homes – Including Off-Gridders
September 28th, 2015The mask comes off.
Behold…
Via: SolarChoice:
Australia’s major power networks are calling for compulsory connection fees for all homes and businesses – even if they are not connected to the grid – and penalties for those who disconnect, as part of a last-ditch effort to protect their declining revenue streams.
The Energy Networks Association says the proposals are deliberately calibrated to stop people from leaving the grid, and thereby triggering what is often described as the “death spiral”, as networks seek to recover lost revenues from those consumers who remain.
The shift from centralised generation to a decentralised grid based around solar and storage is seen as inevitable, and many analysts say that networks will have to change the way they do business, or even write down the value of their assets.
But the networks are digging in, refusing to countenance write-downs, and now want consumers to pay for the networks whether they use them or not. Alternatively, they want any households that leave the grid to pay their “historic” share of grid capacity as a penalty for leaving.
Eyes Down, Minds Elsewhere, ‘Deadwalkers’ Are Among Us
September 28th, 2015Via: Washington Post:
You have seen the zombie-like creatures walking among us. In fact, you may be one of them, moseying along with your eyes fixated on that tiny screen that rests in the palm of your hand.
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“Some data suggests that at any given moment on the streets of America, 60 percent of pedestrians are distracted while walking, meaning either on the phone or doing something on their phone,” said Alan S. Hilibrand of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. “It’s a bit of a startling number.”
Hilibrand, vice chairman of orthopaedic surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, has seen evidence of what he calls “digital deadwalkers” on center-city streets.
“We’ve had people come into the emergency room who were hit by cars,” he said. “They’re looking at their phone and not paying attention to the fact that a vehicle is making a turn.”
DARPA: Soldier Brain Implants to Improve Artificial Intelligence [???]
September 28th, 2015Via: Fusion:
For decades, DARPA, the secretive research arm of the Department of Defense, has dreamed of turning soldiers into cyborgs. And now it’s finally happening. The agency has funded projects that involve implanting chips into soldiers’ brains that they hope will enhance performance on the battlefield and repair traumatized brains once the fog of war has lifted.
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Creating super soldiers isn’t the only thing that DARPA is trying to do. According to Jacobsen’s new book, published by Little, Brown, government scientists hope that implanting chips in soldiers will unlock the secrets of artificial intelligence, and allow us to give machines the kind of higher-level reasoning that humans can do.
“When you see all of these brain mapping programs going on, many scientists wonder whether this will [be what it takes] to break that long-sought barrier of AI,” said Jacobsen in a phone interview.
New Zealand: Fair Go for Solar Initiative
September 27th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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For people in New Zealand: Please consider getting the word out about the Fair Go for Solar Initiative by the Greens.
GCHQ Mass Surveillance: KARMA POLICE
September 26th, 2015Via: The Intercept:
THERE WAS A SIMPLE AIM at the heart of the top-secret program: Record the website browsing habits of “every visible user on the Internet.”
Before long, billions of digital records about ordinary people’s online activities were being stored every day. Among them were details cataloging visits to porn, social media and news websites, search engines, chat forums, and blogs.
The mass surveillance operation — code-named KARMA POLICE — was launched by British spies about seven years ago without any public debate or scrutiny. It was just one part of a giant global Internet spying apparatus built by the United Kingdom’s electronic eavesdropping agency, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.
The revelations about the scope of the British agency’s surveillance are contained in documents obtained by The Intercept from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Previous reports based on the leaked files have exposed how GCHQ taps into Internet cables to monitor communications on a vast scale, but many details about what happens to the data after it has been vacuumed up have remained unclear.
Recovery: Caterpillar to Cut at Least 10,000 Jobs, First Time in Company’s 90 Year History That “Revenues Have Decreased Four Years in a Row”
September 24th, 2015Via: Chicago Tribune:
Construction and mining equipment maker Caterpillar plans to lay off 10,000 workers — or more — in a bid to save $1.5 billion a year in operating costs, it announced Thursday.
Nearly half of those job losses — 4,000 to 5,000 salaried and management employees — will come before the end of 2016, with most completed this year, the company says in an SEC filing.
Doug Oberhelman, CEO of the Peoria-based firm, blamed “challenging marketplace conditions” in the energy and mining sectors, as Caterpillar, one of Illinois’ biggest employers, revised downward its sales projections for 2015 by $1 billion, to $48 billion.
It noted in a news release that this is the “company’s third consecutive down year for sales and revenues, and 2016 would mark the first time in Caterpillar’s 90-year history that sales and revenues have decreased four years in a row.”
In 2016, Passports Required to Clear Airport Security in New York, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Louisiana and American Samoa
September 24th, 2015Via: Money:
The reason: At some point in 2016—the precise date hasn’t yet been announced—driver’s licenses from those states will no longer be considered sufficient to clear airport security and board an airplane.
This new policy is a result of the Real ID act, passed by Congress in 2005 as a counterterrorism measure to standardize the reliability and efficacy of personal identification. Unfortunately, the driver’s licenses of that handful of states did not make the cut, failing to provide enough security features in the cards themselves or enough verification of identity and immigration status in the application processes.
The Department of Homeland Security began rolling out Real ID in 2014. Phase one involved restricted government areas, and phases two and three concerned semi-restricted areas like nuclear power plants. But phase four touches federally regulated aircraft—and therefore will affect millions of people.
General Atomics Wants to Install 150-Kilowatt Laser Onto its Avenger UAV
September 23rd, 2015Via: DefenseOne:
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., or GA-ASI, the San Diego-based company that makes the Predator and Reaper drones, is undertaking a privately funded study to integrate a 150-kilowatt solid-state laser onto its Avenger (née Predator-C) drone. If the company gets its way, a drone with a high-energy laser will be a reality at some point in 2017, company executives told Defense One.
Millions of Americans Raiding Their Retirement Savings
September 23rd, 2015Via: Money:
With the effects of the financial crisis still lingering, 30 million Americans in the last 12 months tapped retirement savings to pay for an unexpected expense, new research shows. This undercuts financial security and underscores the need for every household to maintain an emergency fund .
Boomers were most likely to take a premature withdrawal as well as incur a tax penalty , according to a survey from Bankrate.com. Some 26% of those ages 50-64 say their financial situation has deteriorated, and 17% used their 401(k) plan and other retirement savings to pay for an emergency expense.
DHS Wants Boeing to Test a Brain Chip in Firm’s Self-Destructing ‘Black’ Spyphone
September 23rd, 2015Via: NextGov:
The Department of Homeland Security is funding a Boeing company to create a “brain chip” for its self-destructing Black smartphone that could be adapted for any device, DHS officials say.
The technology powering the devices potentially could identify the user’s walking style, for example. Officials would be alerted if the gait does not match the authorized user’s walk – a red flag the phone might have fallen into the wrong hands, officials said.
The “secret sauce” of the mobile device is a so-called neuromorphic computer chip that simulates human learning, Vincent Sritapan, the program manager for DHS’ mobile device security program, told Nextgov.
Gait recognition — driven by the phone’s accelerometer, GPS and the chip — is but one of many kinds of continuous ID verification intended to tighten access controls on mobile devices.
Boeing and HRL Laboratories, a software firm jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors, are partnering under a DHS project worth $2.2 million over 2.5 years.
