U.S. Nuclear Upgrade Over the Next Decade: $350 Billion to $400 Billion
November 4th, 2013Via: Reuters:
The U.S. nuclear arsenal needs a multi-billion dollar overhaul in the coming decade to ensure the weapons’ safety and effectiveness, defense officials said on Tuesday, despite warnings from arms control groups that the effort is unaffordable and unnecessary.
Assistant Defense Secretary Madelyn Creedon told a panel in the U.S. House of Representatives that modernization work on the aging weapons was needed to give policymakers the confidence they need to pursue President Barack Obama’s goal of deeper cuts to the nuclear stockpile.
“Modernization work of this kind is expensive, but there is no doubt that the investment … is necessary,” Creedon told lawmakers examining a program to reduce the number of warhead types for U.S. nuclear bombs and to put guidance systems on the weapons.
“There is not a cost-effective alternative that meets the military requirements and policy objectives,” she said, adding that the B61 gravity bomb, which is deployed in Europe, is a “cornerstone” of the U.S. nuclear deterrence commitment to NATO.
The United States is currently at the start of what Air Force General Robert Kehler, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, told the panel was a “multi-decade effort to recapitalize our nuclear deterrent force and its supporting infrastructure.”
In addition to modernizing 1970s-era weapons, in some cases replacing 1960s-model vacuum tubes with current-day electronics, the Pentagon plans to upgrade much of its so-called triad of delivery systems, including a new class of ballistic missile submarines and a new type of long-range bomber.
The non-partisan Stimson Center think-tank last year estimated the total cost of the nuclear upgrade over the next decade, including weapons, infrastructure and delivery systems, at between $350 billion and $400 billion.
It’s All E-Commerce Now
November 4th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review:
“Omnichannel” is a buzzword that describes a survival strategy. Threatened by the growth of low-cost online merchants, traditional retailers are reacting by following customers onto the Internet. Macy’s does it as well as any. On its website, it installs 24 different tracking cookies on a visitor’s browser. On TV, it runs ads with Justin Bieber that urge millennials to download its mobile app, which tells them which of the chain’s stores is closest to their location. Once inside, they can use the app to scan QR codes on a pillowcase or a pair of shoes. Online orders now ship from the backrooms of 500 Macy’s stores that this year began acting as mini distribution centers.
Obamacare Open Thread
November 4th, 2013Do we need an Obamacare open thread? Here it is, just in case.
Three Guys Built a Better Healthcare.gov
November 3rd, 2013Via: The Atlantic Wire:
The Affordable Health Care act rollout was an unmitigated disaster thanks in large part to a cluttered website that both didn’t work and was offensively ugly. Maybe things would not have gone so poorly if HealthCare.gov looked something like this.
No one knows the resources that went into building HealthCare.gov, but the government quickly realized it wasn’t enough after that terrible first day, so they decided to bring in a crew of leading tech experts to fix the website’s many, many problems. But the job was already at least partially completed by three unknown coders living in San Francisco.
Meet the Health Sherpa, the website HealthCare.gov probably should have been. George Kalogeropoulos, Ning Liang and Michael Wasser saw the troubled launch and decided they could do a better health care enrolment website better than the government and, by golly, they succeeded.
Related: ObamaCare Cancelled Your Health Insurance. Now, Send us your Letter. [h/t] pookie
Last Year President Obama Reportedly Told His Aides That He’s ‘Really Good At Killing People’
November 3rd, 2013Via: Business Insider:
This will not go over well for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
According to the new book “Double Down,” in which journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann chronicle the 2012 presidential election, President Barack Obama told his aides that he’s “really good at killing people” while discussing drone strikes.
Peter Hamby of The Washington Post reported the nugget in his review of the book.
Autodesk’s Idea to Knit the Hyperloop Out of Carbon Fiber
November 3rd, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
The tube in Musk’s plan is made out of prefabricated steel sections that must be welded together. Critics have pointed out that could leave the Hyperloop prone to air leaks, which would undermine the internal low-pressure system it needs to run. Brandt, who studied building technology at Harvard University and holds the title of technology futurist at Autodesk, proposes making the tube out of one very long stretch of braided carbon fiber infused with an epoxy resin. The strong, lightweight material is used to make everything from jumbo jets to race cars.
There are machines that can churn out limited qualities of the braided carbon fiber. Brandt envisions building a supersize version and mounting it onto a rig loaded with reels of carbon fiber so it could roll along the Hyperloop’s route. Working at a rate of 1 meter per minute, this factory on wheels could weave a Hyperloop tube from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than two years, and, says Brandt, require fewer support pylons. “Elon’s estimate calls for about $2.6 billion for concrete, but we’d get that down to more like $1.5 billion,” he says.
How to Get an A- in Organic Chemistry
November 2nd, 2013I mainly liked her description of organic chemistry, which made me laugh, but I was shocked to learn that she’s my age and has small children.
Having children has easily lowered my IQ 20 points and I feel lucky to be able to function at all. However, even when I was still sharp, before baby brain and Internet brain, I would have really struggled with ochem. To imagine going through that now… Man, after my kids have been fed, bathed and tucked into bed at night, I feel lucky if I can manage to drink a couple of beers and play Bloons.
Via: New York Times:
So what is organic chemistry, anyway? And why is it so difficult? Basically, orgo examines how molecules containing carbon interact, but it doesn’t require equations or math, as in physics. Instead, you learn how electrons flow around and between molecules, and you draw little curved arrows showing where they go. This “arrow pushing” is the heart and soul of orgo. Figure 1 (pictured above left) shows the arrow pushing mechanism for a simple reaction, adding acidified water (H3O+) to a carbon molecule called an alkene (don’t worry, this is all the orgo you’ll have to learn).
Learning how to interpret the hieroglyphics is pretty easy. The hard part is learning where to draw the little arrows. To do this, you learn rules about how molecules behave. For instance, in the third step of the drawing above, you can see an arrow pointing from the “O” (oxygen) of OH2 to a plus sign (a positive charge). This means oxygen is donating electrons to a positively charged carbon atom. After you draw oxygen donating electrons to a positive carbon a zillion times, it becomes second nature. An arrow pointing from a plus sign toward oxygen then seems viscerally wrong, like ketchup on sushi.
But the rules have many, many exceptions, which students find maddening. The same molecule will behave differently in acid or base, in dark or sunlight, in heat or cold, or if you sprinkle magic orgo dust on it and turn around three times. You can’t memorize all the possible answers — you have to rely on intuition, generalizing from specific examples. This skill, far more than the details of every reaction, may actually be useful for medicine.
“It seems a lot like diagnosis,” said Logan McCarty, Harvard’s director of physical sciences education, who taught the second semester. “That cognitive skill — inductive generalization from specific cases to something you’ve never seen before — that’s something you learn in orgo.”
1983: How a War Game Brought the World to the Brink of Nuclear Disaster
November 2nd, 2013Via: Guardian:
Chilling new evidence that Britain and America came close to provoking the Soviet Union into launching a nuclear attack has emerged in former classified documents written at the height of the cold war.
Cabinet memos and briefing papers released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a major war games exercise, Operation Able Art, conducted in November 1983 by the US and its Nato allies was so realistic it made the Russians believe that a nuclear strike on its territory was a real possibility.
Google Barges Part of Glass Marketing Effort?
November 2nd, 2013Via: CBS:
Google’s mysterious floating barge on San Francisco Bay will feature luxury showrooms and a party deck for the tech giant to market Google Glass and other gadgets to invitation-only clients, multiple sources told KPIX 5.
The project, which has been in the planning stages for more than a year, was created at Google[x], the secret facility that Google reportedly runs near its corporate headquarters in Mountain View. It is personally directed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and is Google’s attempt to upstage rival Apple and its chain of popular retail stores, sources said.
A source who has been onboard the vessel, which is moored off San Francisco’s Treasure Island under tight security, told KPIX 5 the first three floors are designed to serve as “dazzling showrooms” that can be outfitted with chrome features and floor lighting. There is an upper “party deck” meant to feature bars, lanais and other comforts so Google can fete its upscale customers.
Alleged LAX Gunman Had ‘New World Order’ Conspiracy Theory Tract
November 2nd, 2013Update: Picture of LAX Shooter? [NSFW]
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Via: NBC:
The man who allegedly killed a TSA worker and wounded three others at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday had anti-government literature in his possession outlining an alleged conspiracy to create a single global government, law enforcement sources tell NBC News.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the material recovered from Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, after the shootout at LAX appeared to have been prepared by a group called “New World Order.” One source said it also expressed animus toward racial minorities.
Related: 23 Enigma
