Spills at Alberta Oil Sands Operation
July 28th, 2013Via: The Star:
Oil spills at a major oil sands operation in Alberta have been ongoing for at least six weeks and have cast doubts on the safety of underground extraction methods, according to documents obtained by the Star and a government scientist who has been on site.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has been unable to stop an underground oil blowout that has killed numerous animals and contaminated a lake, forest, and muskeg at its operations in Cold Lake, Alta.
The documents indicate that, since cleanup started in May, some 26,000 barrels of bitumen mixed with surface water have been removed, including more than 4,500 barrels of bitumen.
The scientist said Canadian Natural Resources is not disclosing the scope of spills in four separate sites, which have been off bounds to media and the public because the operations are on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, where there is active weapons testing by the Canadian military.
Research Credit: noguru
FBI Using Drones for Warrantless Surveillance Inside U.S.
July 28th, 2013Via: The Verge:
Earlier this year, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) publicly revealed for the first time in a hearing that it has been using drones to conduct surveillance operations inside the country, a striking admission, given that domestic drone is a subject of intense debate and there’s still not a clear set of rules governing the practice. Now, under prodding from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), the FBI has finally offered a few more details about its use of drones, namely, in how many cases it’s deployed them, and its rationale for not seeking a search warrant. “Since late 2006, the FBI has conducted surveillance using UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] in eight criminal cases and two national security cases,” wrote Stephen D. Kelly, the FBI’s assistant director for the Office of Congressional Affairs, in a letter to Paul. In a footnote added to this statement, Kelly explains drones were also approved in three other cases, but the FBI didn’t use them.
Egypt: Army Fires on Morsi Protestors, Many Dozens Dead
July 27th, 2013Via: Independent:
Egypt’s troubled transition reached a new nadir of bloodletting today when at least 70 supporters of toppled President Mohamed Morsi were gunned down during a sustained attack by the security services – three weeks after the army committed a similar massacre in nearly exactly the same spot.
Doctors at the scene said they believed more than 100 people may have been killed. An exact tally has not yet been confirmed, but the massacre ranks as one of the worst single incidents of violence since the fall of Hosni Mubarak two and a half years ago.
Off Topic: Assuming Access to Data Feeds for Dozens of Futures Contracts, Can You Think of a Way to Build a Sort of Half Ass NYSE Tick?
July 27th, 2013Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
I had a free month of market data from IQfeed, and I found NYSE Tick (JTNT.Z on IQfeed, $TICK on TradeStation) to be pretty interesting. Displayed as a histogram, I was using it gauge extremes. Additionally, summing the (h+l+c)/3 and displaying that along with an AverageFC of it made for a pretty nifty sentiment indicator.
In the meantime, I opened an account with a futures broker that includes free realtime feeds for a lot of different futures contracts, but that’s it. No continuous symbols/no expired contract data. No NYSE Tick, for example. It’s actually incredible what I’m getting for free with this arrangement, when you look at what TradeStation or IQfeed, including CME and ICE, costs.
As of now, I’m not sure if trading the ES is any different than drunken riverboat gambling, and I’m not even willing to spend any money on the more expensive feeds to find out. I’m essentially playing around with the data and the simulator (which I can use for free with my funded futures account) to see if I can find anything interesting. Of course, the sim means pretty much nothing. All of this said, I kinda miss those NYSE Tick widgets that I coded. Looking at the list of futures that I have access to, I started to wonder if I could make something that might work like NYSE Tick out of all of this crap.
Right now, I’m looking at ES with various sizes of tick and volume bars and the 30 minute interval. Same with TF. To these, I apply yesterday’s open, high, low, close, the initial balance from the New York session, the standard pivot points and some Xaverages. It’s an effing mess, man, but the tick and volume charts are sort of like bullet time from The Matrix for when the black boxes unfurl. Instead of that time based candle wildly blinking red and green—like some sort of broken Christmas tree light—during bursts of heavy activity, you get more candles. I don’t know if anyone is just using time based bars anymore, but if you haven’t checked out tick and volume bars, they’re definitely interesting.
Do you trade the ES successfully? If you feel like reveling which other markets/indices you consider when making trading decisions, go ahead and leave a comment or email me.
U.S. Federal Debt Has Apparently Exceeded Legal Limit
July 26th, 2013Via: ETF Guide:
U.S. federal debt has been stuck at $16,699,396,000,000.00 for 68 straight days, according to the Daily Treasury Statement on July 24. That amount is exactly $25 million less than the legal borrowing limit of $16,699,421,000,000.00 set on May 17, 2013. But that’s only part of the story.
A digger deep at the numbers actually shows the U.S. Treasury has already blown past the federal legal borrowing limit! And the mainstream media, as usual, is out to lunch. The table below shows how “Total Public Debt Outstanding” is already $38.82 billion above the statuary debt ceiling and now at $16,738,106,000,000.00.
Hacker Dies a Week Before Showing Techniques for Attacking Implanted Heart Devices That He Said Could Kill a Man from 30 Feet Away
July 26th, 2013Via: Reuters:
Well-known hacker Barnaby Jack has died in San Francisco, a week before he was due to show off techniques for attacking implanted heart devices that he said could kill a man from 30 feet away.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office said he died in the city on Thursday. It gave no details.
Jack, a security expert, became one of the most famous hackers on the planet after a 2010 demonstration in which he forced ATMs to spit out cash, dubbed “Jackpotting.”
The hacking community expressed shock as the news of his death spread via Twitter early on Friday. Jack was due to appear at the Black Hat hacking convention in San Francisco next week, demonstrating how he could attack heart devices.
…
Jack’s genius was finding bugs in the tiny computers that are embedded in equipment such as medical devices and banking machines. He received standing ovations at hacking conventions for his creativity and showmanship.
Flashback 2008: Has Cheney Been Fitted with a Kill Switch?
Neuroscientists Plant False Memories in the Brains of Mice
July 26th, 2013Via: MIT News Office:
In a step toward understanding how these faulty memories arise, MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can plant false memories in the brains of mice. They also found that many of the neurological traces of these memories are identical in nature to those of authentic memories.
“Whether it’s a false or genuine memory, the brain’s neural mechanism underlying the recall of the memory is the same,” says Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience and senior author of a paper describing the findings in the July 25 edition of Science.
The study also provides further evidence that memories are stored in networks of neurons that form memory traces for each experience we have — a phenomenon that Tonegawa’s lab first demonstrated last year.
Neuroscientists have long sought the location of these memory traces, also called engrams. In the pair of studies, Tonegawa and colleagues at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory showed that they could identify the cells that make up part of an engram for a specific memory and reactivate it using a technology called optogenetics.
Cnet Source Claims U.S. Government Trying to Obtain Keys to Encrypted Web Sessions from Companies
July 25th, 2013Via: Cnet:
The U.S. government has attempted to obtain the master encryption keys that Internet companies use to shield millions of users’ private Web communications from eavesdropping.
These demands for master encryption keys, which have not been disclosed previously, represent a technological escalation in the clandestine methods that the FBI and the National Security Agency employ when conducting electronic surveillance against Internet users.
If the government obtains a company’s master encryption key, agents could decrypt the contents of communications intercepted through a wiretap or by invoking the potent surveillance authorities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Web encryption — which often appears in a browser with a HTTPS lock icon when enabled — uses a technique called SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer.
“The government is definitely demanding SSL keys from providers,” said one person who has responded to government attempts to obtain encryption keys. The source spoke with CNET on condition of anonymity.
The person said that large Internet companies have resisted the requests on the grounds that they go beyond what the law permits, but voiced concern that smaller companies without well-staffed legal departments might be less willing to put up a fight. “I believe the government is beating up on the little guys,” the person said. “The government’s view is that anything we can think of, we can compel you to do.”
Japan to Mull Pre-Emptive Strike Capabilities
July 25th, 2013Via: Reuters:
Japan is likely to start considering acquiring the ability to launch pre-emptive military strikes in a planned update of its basic defense policies, the latest step away from the constraints of its pacifist constitution.
The expected proposal, which could sound alarm bells in China, is part of a review of Japan’s defense policies undertaken by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, an interim report on which could come as early as Friday. The final conclusions of the review are due out by the end of the year.
The hawkish Abe took office in December for a rare second term, pledging to bolster the military to cope with what Japan sees as an increasingly threatening security environment including an assertive China and unpredictable North Korea.
Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, drafted by U.S. occupation forces after its defeat in World War Two, renounces the right to wage war and, if taken literally, rules out the very notion of a standing army. In reality, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are one of Asia’s strongest militaries.
The Defence Ministry will call in the interim report for a study of how to “strengthen the ability to deter and respond to ballistic missiles”, the Yomiuri newspaper and other media said on Thursday.
But in a sign of the sensitivity, the report will stop short of specifically mentioning the ability to hit enemy bases when the threat of attack is imminent, the Yomiuri newspaper said.
The ministry will also consider buying unmanned surveillance drones and creating a Marines force to protect remote islands, such as those at the core of a dispute with China, media said.
“The acquisition of offensive capability would be a fundamental change in our defense policy, a kind of philosophical change,” said Marushige Michishita, a professor at the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies.
Obtaining that capability, however, would take time, money and training, meaning any shift may be more rhetorical than real. “It’s easier said than done,” Michishita added.
The updated guidelines could also touch on Abe’s moves toward lifting a self-imposed ban on exercising the right of collective self-defense, or helping an ally under attack, such as if North Korea launched an attack on the United States.
The defense review may also urge replacing with new guidelines a self-imposed ban on arms exports that has already been eased to let Japanese contractors take part in international projects.
Clear guidelines for companies as to what and to whom they can sell could help Japanese defense contractors such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd, and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd seek business overseas.
Some experts stressed that the changes were evolutionary rather than a sudden transformation in Japan’s defense posture.
‘If you are an American citizen and you’re fighting with al-Qaeda linked rebels in northern Syria, your passport has been found’
July 25th, 2013Via: Business Insider:
If you are an American citizen and you’re fighting with al-Qaeda linked rebels in northern Syria, your passport has been found.
Among documents recovered in northern Syria by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was a passport issued by the United States, belonging to a 32-year-old American named Amiir Farouk Ibrahim, who has dual citizenship between the United States and Egypt.
He was born in Pennsylvania, and his passport was issued in 2012.
