The One About David Cameron and the Pig
September 22nd, 2015If you’re sick of this story, I’ll apologize right away.
Very briefly, my guess about this story is that it’s a warning to Cameron about something he has done, is about to do, or is refusing to do. It’s a strong warning. Maybe other photos exist of Cameron; much more shocking photos.
The reason these guys are allowed into positions of apparent power is because their tickets can be punched at any time should the need arise.
Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Again, just a guess.
Via: Independent:
Ashcroft writes: “[Cameron] also got involved in the notorious Oxford dining society, the Piers Gaveston, which specialises in bizarre rituals and sexual excess.
“A distinguished Oxford contemporary claims Cameron once took part in an outrageous initiation ceremony involving a dead pig. His extraordinary suggestion is that the future PM inserted a private part of his anatomy into the animal’s mouth.”
Ashcroft said the source was an MP who first made the allegation at a business dinner in June 2014 – saying he had seen photographic evidence of the “disgusting ritual”.
Ashcroft said he is aware that the MP made the allegation on two separate occasions, providing more detail, including “the dimensions of the alleged photograph” and the “name of the individual who he claims has it in his keeping”.
Homeless Tech Bus Drivers Live in Cars
September 21st, 2015Via: NBC:
Drivers of Silicon Valley’s tech bus shuttles might not earn enough pay to have a stable place to live in the Bay Area.
San Francisco Chronicle reported that two Apple shuttle bus drivers live in their own vehicles, though one would only speak anonymously.
“Living in a car is hard,” Scott Peebles, 53, said on the record. He has lived in his car for two months while continuing to drive Apple employees to the company campus. “I don’t care who you are. . . It’s too small of a space.”
Apple’s Electric Car: 2019
September 21st, 2015Via: Wall Street Journal:
Apple Inc. is accelerating efforts to build an electric car, designating it internally as a “committed project” and setting a target ship date for 2019, according to people familiar with the matter.
The go-ahead came after the company spent more than a year investigating the feasibility of an Apple-branded car, including meetings with two groups of government officials in California. Leaders of the project, code-named Titan , have been given permission to triple the 600-person team, the people familiar with the matter said.
Apple has hired experts in driverless cars, but the people familiar with Apple’s plans said the Cupertino, Calif., company doesn’t currently plan to make its first electric vehicle fully autonomous. That capability is part of the product’s long-term plans, the people familiar with the matter said.
Apple’s commitment is a sign that the company sees an opportunity to become a player in the automotive industry by applying expertise that it has honed in developing iPhones—in areas such as batteries, sensors and hardware-software integration—to the next generation of cars.
Real Headline: “Marines Test Google’s Latest Military Robot”
September 21st, 2015Via: PC World:
The latest version of a walking, quadruped battlefield robot from Boston Dynamics, the military robotics maker owned by Google X, was tested by U.S. Marines last week.
Spot weighs about 70kgs, is electrically operated and walks on four hydraulically-actuated legs. It’s controlled via wireless by an operator who can be up to 500 meters away.
It underwent trials and testing at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia as part of evaluations by the Marines on future military uses of robotic technology. In a series of missions, it was evaluated in different terrains including hills, woodlands and urban areas.
Half in U.S. Continue to Say Gov’t Is an Immediate Threat
September 21st, 2015Via: Gallup:
Almost half of Americans, 49%, say the federal government poses “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens,” similar to what was found in previous surveys conducted over the last five years. When this question was first asked in 2003, less than a third of Americans held this attitude.
Low Profile Solar Panels for People Living in Vans
September 21st, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Cops are the biggest problem for people who live in vehicles. Normal solar panels on a van would be a dead giveaway that someone doesn’t have a mortgage or a landlord.
Check out this couple’s almost invisible installation of three Renogy 100 watt flexible solar panels on the roof of their van.
Via: Exploring Alternatives:
Artificial Leaf Harnesses Sunlight for Efficient Fuel Production
September 20th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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I like reading the artificial leaf news, even though there are always tall hurdles ahead of the technology becoming practical. In this iteration of the artificial leaf, for example, the system only works for about 40 hours.
I wondered how much money was being spent on this potentially game changing research. Here you go:
On Monday, April 27, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a five-year, $75 million renewal of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP).
That’s a lot of money, right?
In alternative energy research, that’s a decent chunk of change over five years. But relative to other programs, you don’t want to prioritize research into technologies that lead to ubiquitous, clean, cheap energy. Oh hell no. That’s just crazy.
There are much more important programs out there! Take the F-35, for example, where I doubt that $75 million down the gurgler would even register anywhere in the annals of that disaster:
The F-35 has come to symbolize all that’s wrong with American defense spending: uncontrolled bloat, unaccountable manufacturers (in this case, Lockheed Martin), and an internal Pentagon culture that cannot adequately track taxpayer dollars.
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It’s no small irony that on the same day the change in Air Force strategy was revealed, Winslow Wheeler, a staff member at the Project On Government Oversight and a long-time critic of the F-35 program, reported that American taxpayers will pay between will pay between $148 million and $337 million per jet in 2015, depending on the model.
“A single Air Force F-35A costs a whopping $148 million. One Marine Corps F-35B costs an unbelievable $251 million. A lone Navy F-35C costs a mind-boggling $337 million. Average the three models together, and a ‘generic’ F-35 costs $178 million,” Wheeler wrote.
“It gets worse. These are just the production costs. Additional expenses for research, development, test and evaluation are not included,” he added.
And don’t believe the hype about Air Force contracts changing because of the F-35 debacle, either.
See: Long Range Strike Bomber:
The Air Force plans to purchase 80–100 LRS-B aircraft at a cost of $550 million each, at 2010 prices.
And if those things only wind up costing $550 million each, I’m Santa Claus.
Yep, clean energy is expensive.
Via: Caltech:
Generating and storing renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, is a key barrier to a clean-energy economy. When the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) was established at Caltech and its partnering institutions in 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub had one main goal: a cost-effective method of producing fuels using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, mimicking the natural process of photosynthesis in plants and storing energy in the form of chemical fuels for use on demand. Over the past five years, researchers at JCAP have made major advances toward this goal, and they now report the development of the first complete, efficient, safe, integrated solar-driven system for splitting water to create hydrogen fuels.
Flying Robots Replace Oil Roughnecks
September 20th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
Oil rig inspection is a dangerous business. Traditionally roughnecks dangled from a wire, in gale-force winds if needed, to manually log wear and tear on the girders. Assessments include giant chimneys — called flare stacks — that belch fire during million-dollar-a-day shutdowns.
Increasingly the industry has found that swapping abseiling humans for small drones equipped with high-definition and thermal cameras can save time, cut costs and improve safety.
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The next milestone for inspection drones is automating their flight. “We still have to send out an oil and gas inspection engineer and a drone pilot. Our vision is total automation,” says Blackford.
Apple Meets California Officials to Discuss Self-Driving Car
September 19th, 2015Via: Guardian:
Apple executives have discussed their plans for an “autonomous vehicle” with officials at California’s department of motor vehicles (DMV), the Guardian has learnt.
According to documents obtained by the Guardian, Mike Maletic, a senior legal counsel at Apple, had an hour-long meeting on 17 August with the department’s self-driving car experts Bernard Soriano, DMV deputy director, and Stephanie Dougherty, chief of strategic planning, who are co-sponsors of California’s autonomous vehicle regulation project, and Brian Soublet, the department’s deputy director and chief counsel.
The discussions come as Google and Uber are both advancing their plans to develop self-driving cars. Google already has a fleet of robot cars on the streets of California and is planning to have several hundred built in the near future.
Last month, the Guardian disclosed that Apple had looked into booking a secure car testing site in California to road-test its vehicle, codenamed Project Titan. Maletic wrote the mutual confidentiality agreement signed by GoMentum Station, a disused military base near San Francisco with miles of empty streets for driverless cars, when Apple inquired about testing there in May.
The department would not comment on what was discussed at the August meeting, beyond saying that “the Apple meeting was to review [the] DMV’s autonomous vehicle regulations.”
Japan Curtails Its Pacifist Stance
September 19th, 2015Via: The Atlantic:
Seven decades after its surrender ended World War II, Japan took its most significant step away from the pacifist foreign policy that shaped 70 years of its post-war history.
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The bill passed on Friday does not change Article 9’s language. That would require a constitutional amendment and two-thirds support in both houses of the Diet, which Abe and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lack. Instead, it reinterprets it to allow for “collective self-defense.”
Japanese forces will now be able to assist the U.S. and other allies if those allies were attacked, although there would still be limits on the scope and scale of Japanese assistance. The BBC notes, for example, that Japan could now shoot down a North Korean missile fired at the U.S. and provide logistical support to South Korea if Pyongyang invaded, but could not deploy Japanese troops to Korea.
