UK Spies Continue “Quantum Insert” Attack via LinkedIn, Slashdot Pages
November 11th, 2013Via: Ars Technica:
Der Spiegel suggests that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British sister agency to the NSA, used spoofed versions of LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to serve malware to targets. This type of attack was also used to target “nine salaried employees” of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the global oil cartel.
Amazon and U.S. Postal Service Beginning Sunday Deliveries in Los Angeles and New York City
November 10th, 2013Compare and contrast: Most people in NZ will only receive mail three days per week starting in 2015.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
The postal service will deliver Amazon packages on Sundays in the L.A. and New York metropolitan areas at no extra charge starting this week. The service will expand to other cities next year.
Giant online retailer Amazon.com Inc. is turning up the heat on rivals this holiday season and beyond under a new deal with the U.S. Postal Service for delivering packages on Sundays.
Starting this week, the postal service will bring Amazon packages on Sundays to shoppers’ doors in the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan areas at no extra charge. Next year, it plans to roll out year-round Sunday delivery to Dallas, New Orleans, Phoenix and other cities.
International Construction Firm Balfour Beatty Considering Drone Workers
November 10th, 2013Via: Technology Advice:
Most people associate drones with military and counter-terrorism programs, but Balfour Beatty CIO Danny Reeves wants to use them for a rather different purpose. Speaking at the Fujitsu Forum, he told Techworld that unmanned aerial vehicles could be used to build walls, and improve project efficiency.
Balfour Beatty is a international construction and engineering firm that specializes in large-scale projects and building management. Their revenue for 2012 was approximately $17 billion, with an operating income of just under $500 million, so presumably they have the resources to commission a fleet of construction drones. Reeves also spoke of the potential for drones to monitor sprawling project sites, hopefully reducing communication errors and wasted labor on large sites.
Related: Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
Meet the American Nomads of Walmart’s Plentiful Parking Lots
November 9th, 2013This was my dad’s cunning plan: At 80-years-old, and in poor health, set off with his cat and a .357 magnum—for Arizona.
If he had gone through with it, he would probably be dead by now.
He held off, waiting for his arthritis pain to improve. It didn’t improve, but rather worsened until he couldn’t move at all. I happened to call and he happened to answer and he said something like, “This is it. I’m on my way out.” As in dying, not headed to Arizona.
Despite infuriating my sister to the point where she didn’t want to know him anymore, she took him to the emergency room, stayed with him through a couple of weeks in the hospital and then took him into her own home—where he is continuing to drive her nuts. (There’s a lot more. You don’t want to know and I don’t want to tell you, but those who have experienced eldercare nightmares will be nodding heads in grim understanding.)
My sister is a sort of dog rescue lady, and she has a no-dogs-on-the-furniture rule. To make a long story short, see the picture below:
Crusty and Friends
To all daughters who rescued your elderly fathers from certain death in a Walmart parking lot or other grim circumstances, I salute you. May your mental health recover, someday.
Via: Wired:
If you’ve ever tried to sleep in your car on a long trip without planning ahead, you may have run into the law at some point. Each U.S. city has a different policy and tolerance for car-sleeping and it’s hard to find a legit spot if you don’t know where exactly you’ll be stopping.
What you can count on is one of Walmart’s over 3,000 stores being nearby. The company’s policy of allowing overnight stays in their parking lots is intended to boost sales, but has the tangential effect of creating a subculture around its locations (though they’re still at the mercy of local laws).
The two separate Walmart parking lots in Flagstaff, Arizona are specifically known for their long-term residents, and this past summer photographer Nolan Conway spent several days making a series of portraits of both the overnighters and the people who call these asphalt grids a temporary home.
“Flagstaff is the one place in Arizona where it’s not too hot in the summer and a lot of people who live in their cars or RVs stay there,” he says.
Obamacare: Tens of Millions Forced Out of Health Insurance They Had
November 9th, 2013Via: McClatchy:
Even as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans, his administration knew that tens of millions of people actually could lose those their policies.
“If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period,” Obama said as he pitched the plan, the unqualified promise he made repeatedly.
Yet advisers did say in 2010 that there were large caveats and that anyone whose insurance plan changed would lose the promised protection of being able to keep existing plans. And a report in 2010 said that as many as 69 percent of certain employer-based insurance plans would lose that protection, meaning as many as 41 million people could lose their plans even if they wanted to keep them and would be forced into other plans. Another 11 million who bought their own insurance also could lose their plans. Combined, as many as 52 million Americans could lose or have lost old insurance plans.
Solid Concepts Unveils First 3D-Printed Metal Gun
November 9th, 2013I don’t like 1911s on the best of days, and I was thinking, “No way that thing will cycle properly. Even once.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
Via: Guns:
Solid Concepts is taking 3D printing over a threshold with their just-announced 3D printed stainless steel handgun. A 1911, the Solid Concepts pistol is chambered for full-power centerfire .45 ACP cartridges.
The company is out to prove a point, that 3D printing has reached a level of maturity and precision that they can make a traditional firearm with the leading-edge technologies. Naturally, they are working with industrial-scale 3D printers, not the types of devices hobbyists have at home.
“Solid Concepts is a world leader of 3D printing services, and our ability to 3D print the world’s first metal gun solidifies our standing,” explained Alyssa Parkinson in the company announcement. “The gun is a classic 1911, a model that is at once timeless and public domain. It functions beautifully: Our resident gun expert has fired 50 successful rounds and hit a few bull’s eyes at over 30 yards. The gun is composed of 30-plus 3D printed components with 17-4 stainless steel and Inconel 625 materials. We completed it with a selective laser sintered (SLS) 3D-printed hand grip, because we’re kind of crazy about 3D printing.”
Apparently the only part of the gun that was not 3D-printed was the magazine. All of the other handgun’s components — including the rifled barrel — were 3D-printed.
New Artificial Blood Made In Transylvania (Yes, Really)
November 9th, 2013Via: Smithsonian:
Science, in all its grand ambition and contemporary sophistication, doesn’t quite have what it takes yet to replicate anything like blood. It not only delivers oxygen and essential nutrients, but also serves a host of other functions crucial for our survival, such as fighting infections, healing injuries and regulating hormones. So far, researchers have concentrated the bulk of their efforts on the more modest goal of creating something that can at least effectively carry out the vital role of transporting oxygen throughout the body.
This kind of “artificial blood” would be a useful substitute for critical circumstances such as medical emergencies, when the body can’t do this on its own. It could also be designed to be sterile, unlike real blood, which can be infected and infect others during a transfusion. And while donated blood requires refrigeration, a synthetic version could be made to last longer and be readily available for various life-or-death situations, even on the battlefield.
The latest bearer of hope for such a potential breakthrough comes from a research facility located in the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca, of all places. (Yes, Translyvania is a real place in Romania.) Researcher Radu Silaghi-Dumitrescu, a professor at Babes-Bolyai University, has been working on a unique concoction and his work has progressed to the point where he and his team successfully transfused a blood substitute into mice—without them experiencing any ill effects, according to a report by the Romanian news outlet Descopera. He intends for the lab-engineered blood to work inside the body for several hours or even up to an entire day as the body replenishes itself.
Research Credit: cgroove69
Philippines Typhoon: At Least 10,000 Dead?
November 9th, 2013Via: Reuters:
One of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines province of Leyte, a senior police official said on Sunday, with coastal towns and the regional capital devastated by huge waves.
Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of the area in its path as it tore through the province on Friday, said chief superintendent Elmer Soria, a regional police director.
Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many described as similar to a tsunami, which leveled houses and drowned hundreds of people.
The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,000 killed.
“We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said, based on their estimate, 10,000 died,” Soria told Reuters. “The devastation is so big.”
—
Via: CNN:
A day after Super Typhoon Haiyan roared into the Philippines, officials predicted that the death toll could reach 1,200 or more.
“We estimate 1,000 people were killed in Tacloban and 200 in Samar province,” Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, said of two coastal areas where Haiyan hit first as it began its march Friday across the archipelago.
The Red Cross said it would have more precise numbers Sunday. But experts predicted that it will take days to get the full scope of the damage wrought by a typhoon described as one of the strongest to make landfall in recorded history.
Man Spent 34 Years in Prison for Murder He Didn’t Commit
November 9th, 2013Via: USA Today:
A man who spent 34 years behind bars for a decades-old killing was freed from jail Friday after his conviction was overturned.
Kash Delano Register, 53, walked out of a downtown jail at about 4:30 p.m. and was greeted by family members and attorneys.
…
Register was convicted of killing Jack Sasson, 78, in April 1979 and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. He always maintained his innocence.
Superior Court Judge Katherine Mader threw out the conviction on Thursday, ruling that prosecutors used false testimony at trial and failed to disclose exculpatory evidence.
Two Admirals Face Probe in Navy Bribery Scheme
November 9th, 2013[???]
Via: Washington Post:
Two U.S. admirals — including the director of naval intelligence — are under investigation as part of a major bribery scandal involving a foreign defense contractor, Navy officials announced Friday night.
Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch, the service’s top intelligence officer, and Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations, were placed on leave Friday, and their access to classified material was suspended, the Navy said in a statement.
Both admirals are being investigated for their ties to a Singapore-based defense contractor, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, whose chief executive was arrested in September on charges that he bribed other Navy officers into giving him classified or privileged information in exchange for prostitutes and cash.
Two Navy commanders and a senior Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent have already been arrested, and a captain was relieved of his ship’s command last month in connection with the case.
But the announcement that two admirals in charge of protecting the Navy’s secrets have been swept up in the investigation makes the crisis the worst to tar the Navy since the 1991 Tailhook scandal, when a convention of naval aviators sexually assaulted scores of women.
