Poor Often Don’t Have Legal Representation in Court
March 18th, 2013Via: New York Times:
Today, many states and counties do not offer lawyers to the poor in major civil disputes, and in some criminal ones as well. Those states that do are finding that more people than ever are qualifying for such help, making it impossible to keep up with the need. The result is that even at a time when many law school graduates are without work, many Americans are without lawyers.
The Legal Services Corporation, the Congressionally financed organization that provides lawyers to the poor in civil matters, says there are more than 60 million Americans — 35 percent more than in 2005 — who qualify for its services. But it calculates that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet. In state after state, according to a survey of trial judges, more people are now representing themselves in court and they are failing to present necessary evidence, committing procedural errors and poorly examining witnesses, all while new lawyers remain unemployed.
Research Credit: RP
Lockheed Martin Developing Desalination Method That Uses Much Less Energy Than Reverse Osmosis
March 18th, 2013Via: Reuters:
A defense contractor better known for building jet fighters and lethal missiles says it has found a way to slash the amount of energy needed to remove salt from seawater, potentially making it vastly cheaper to produce clean water at a time when scarcity has become a global security issue.
The process, officials and engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp say, would enable filter manufacturers to produce thin carbon membranes with regular holes about a nanometer in size that are large enough to allow water to pass through but small enough to block the molecules of salt in seawater. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
Because the sheets of pure carbon known as graphene are so thin – just one atom in thickness – it takes much less energy to push the seawater through the filter with the force required to separate the salt from the water, they said.
The development could spare underdeveloped countries from having to build exotic, expensive pumping stations needed in plants that use a desalination process called reverse osmosis.
“It’s 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger,” said John Stetson, the engineer who has been working on the idea. “The energy that’s required and the pressure that’s required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less.”
Cost of America’s Latest War in Iraq Could Grow to More than $6 Trillion
March 18th, 2013Via: Reuters:
The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.
The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.
When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war’s death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said.
The report, the work of about 30 academics and experts, was published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.
It was also an update of a 2011 report the Watson Institute produced ahead of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks that assessed the cost in dollars and lives from the resulting wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
The 2011 study said the combined cost of the wars was at least $3.7 trillion, based on actual expenditures from the U.S. Treasury and future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans.
That estimate climbed to nearly $4 trillion in the update.
The estimated death toll from the three wars, previously at 224,000 to 258,000, increased to a range of 272,000 to 329,000 two years later.
Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years.
…
The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it. The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women’s rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system, the report said. Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud, it said.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
EU: GOVERNMENT THEFTS FROM BANK ACCOUNTS MAY HAPPEN IN OTHER COUNTRIES
March 17th, 2013The Washington Post took the words right out of my mouth:
The best the rest of the world can hope for is that Cyprus’s case is sufficiently unique that it won’t spark panic in Athens and Madrid (or in Lisbon, Dublin and Rome).
Via: New York Times:
In a move that could set off new fears of contagion across the euro zone, anxious depositors drained cash from automated teller machines in Cyprus on Saturday, hours after European officials in Brussels required that part of a new 10 billion euro bailout be paid for directly from the bank accounts of ordinary savers.
The move — a first in the three-year-old European financial crisis — raised questions about whether bank runs could be set off elsewhere in the euro zone. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the group of euro area ministers, declined early Saturday to rule out taxes on depositors in countries beyond Cyprus, although he said such a measure was not currently being considered.
Although banks placed withdrawal limits of 400 euros, or about $520, on A.T.M.’s, most had run out of cash by early evening. People around the country reacted with disbelief and anger.
“This is a clear-cut robbery,” said Andreas Moyseos, a former electrician who is now a pensioner in Nicosia, the capital. Iliana Andreadakis, a book critic, added: “This issue doesn’t only affect the people’s deposits, but also the prospect of the Cyprus economy. The E.U. has diminished its credibility.”
The Internet Is a Surveillance State
March 17th, 2013Via: CNN:
The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we’re being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period.
Increasingly, what we do on the Internet is being combined with other data about us. Unmasking Broadwell’s identity involved correlating her Internet activity with her hotel stays. Everything we do now involves computers, and computers produce data as a natural by-product. Everything is now being saved and correlated, and many big-data companies make money by building up intimate profiles of our lives from a variety of sources.
Facebook, for example, correlates your online behavior with your purchasing habits offline. And there’s more. There’s location data from your cell phone, there’s a record of your movements from closed-circuit TVs.
This is ubiquitous surveillance: All of us being watched, all the time, and that data being stored forever. This is what a surveillance state looks like, and it’s efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell.
Power Out
March 17th, 2013Update: Power On Again
—
We’ve just had the first good rain in months and the power got knocked out. If updates lag, you’ll know why.
CYPRUS: GOVERNMENT TAKES UP TO 10% OF INDIVIDUALS’ FUNDS ON DEPOSIT WITH BANKS AS PART OF BAILOUT AGREEMENT
March 16th, 2013Via: BBC:
People in Cyprus have reacted with shock to news of a one-off levy of up to 10% on savings as part of a 10bn-euro (£8.7bn; $13bn) bailout agreed in Brussels.
Savers could be seen queuing at cash machines amid resentment at the charge.
The deal reached with euro partners and the IMF marks a radical departure from previous international aid packages.
President Nicos Anastasiades defended it as a “painful” step, taken to avoid a disorderly bankruptcy.
The Cypriot leader, who was elected last month on a promise to tackle the country’s debt crisis, will address the nation on Sunday.
…
People in Cyprus with less than 100,000 euros in their accounts will have to pay a one-time tax of 6.75%, Eurozone officials said.
Those with greater sums will lose 9.9%.
Cypriot bank officials quoted by AP news agency said depositors could access all of their money except the amount set by the levy.
The levy itself will not take effect until Tuesday, following a public holiday, but action is being taken to control electronic money transfers over the weekend.
Co-operative banks, the only ones open in Cyprus on Saturday, closed after people started queuing to withdraw their money.
“This is robbery and we must get the EU to stop this,” Alan, a British expatriate saver in Cyprus, told BBC News.
More: Savers Bear Brunt of Unprecedented Cyprus Bailout
Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Scale CHIMP Robot Has Four Limbs, But Moves on Treads Like a Tank
March 16th, 2013Via: CMU:
A team from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center is building a new class of robot to compete in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Robotics Challenge — a human-size robot that moves, not by walking, but on rubberized tracks on the extremities of each of its four limbs.
Though the appearance of the CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform, or CHIMP, is vaguely simian, its normal mode of locomotion will be much like that of a tank, with the tracks of all four limbs on the ground. This configuration would offer a particular advantage when moving over debris and rough terrain. But CHIMP also can move on the treads of just two limbs when needed, such as when it must use one or more limbs to open a valve, or to operate power tools.
CHIMP will have to do that and more during the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), in which robots will have human-like capabilities to respond to calamities such as the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Climbing ladders and driving vehicles are among the obstacles robots will face in environments engineered for people.
Oregon Company to Sell Drone Defense Technology to Public
March 16th, 2013Any guesses as to what this is?
Maybe… Blind the drones’ cameras with lasers? They would have to be sure they weren’t lasing something with a human pilot, though. Hmm.
Via: U.S. News and World Report:
Do you want to keep drones out of your backyard?
An Oregon company says that it has developed and will soon start selling technology that disables unmanned aircraft.
The company, called Domestic Drone Countermeasures, was founded in late February because some of its engineers see unmanned aerial vehicles—which are already being flown by law enforcement in some areas and could see wider commercial integration into American airspace by 2015—as unwanted eyes in the sky.
“I was personally concerned and I think there’s a lot of other people worried about this,” says Timothy Faucett, a lead engineer on the project. “We’ve already had many inquiries, a lot of people saying ‘Hey, I don’t want these drones looking at me.'”
Domestic Drones Countermeasures was formed as a spin-off company from Aplus Mobile, which sells rugged computer processors to defense contractors—though the company won’t discuss its specific technology because it is still applying for several patents. Faucett says that work has helped inform its anti-drone technology.
The company will sell land-based boxes that are “non-offensive, non-combative and not destructive.” According to the company, “drones will not fall from the sky, but they will be unable to complete their missions.”
Though Faucett wouldn’t discuss specifics, he says the boxes do not interfere with a drone’s navigation system and that it doesn’t involve “jamming of any kind.” He says their technology is “an adaptation of something that could be used for military application” with the “combat element replaced with a nondestructive element.”
Research Credit: RP
What’s a Good Google Reader Alternative for Android?
March 16th, 2013Several months ago, I bought a Samsung Galaxy Note II to deal with customer service issues related to a business that my wife and I run. Yes, knowing everything I know about these devices, I use one anyway.
People in New Zealand aren’t accustomed to good customer service. I’ve found that when I reply to questions very fast, people are more likely to order. It’s not rocket science, but most businesses in New Zealand don’t understand this. Anyway, so, yes, I sometimes use an Android personal bugging device.
I started out with just emails from that business on the device. Then I added my email account at my mother in law’s business. Then Cryptogon emails…
Ok, besides responding to customers, here’s what I do with the Galaxy Note II:
In Google Reader, I could look through my feeds and “star” all of the stories that I wanted to read later. Then, when I was on my real computer, I could pull up Google Reader and see all of the stories that I starred on my phone. From phone to web interface, The Vengeful Google Skynet syncs the stories I select in the background.
I think most of the Android feed readers offer a feature like this, but what I liked about Google Reader is that it was the simplest one I could find. It’s just bare bones, no distractions. I don’t want side scrolling picture collages and all of this TwitFace sharing whizbangery I’m seeing on some of these apps. I just want to read a wall headlines and be able to select some stories on the phone to appear as a list in my browser later on.
I’d gladly pay for an app that does this without advertising.
Any ideas?
There are so many Android feedreaders. I’m hoping that one of you can suggest something so I don’t have to play app roulette to find something good.
Via: NPR:
Google’s announcement this week that it will kill its Reader product on July 1 prompted moans of despair from those who rely on the free RSS service to monitor headlines. To illustrate the level of dependency they’ve come to feel, some are comparing the move to Google abandoning search.
The complaints are still rolling in — as of Friday afternoon, a petition at Change.org had gathered more than 100,000 signatures, protesting the move Google announced on its blog Wednesday. Google says that while the service it began in 2005 “has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined.”
That decline has been attributed to people relying on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook both to stay current on headlines, and to stay connected with a community of people they’re interested in — two strengths that helped Google Reader’s fast initial growth.
Many observers see the move to retire Reader as Google prodding its users to engage more fully with Google+, the social network. Some folks will likely do that — but many people are also looking for new RSS readers, and they’re comparing notes about possible contenders.
In the discussions, a consensus of criteria emerged, calling for a simple and reliable RSS reader that serves up headlines, stories and news digests in an efficient design, without advertising. And it should work well in both browsers and smartphones’ operating systems.
At the website Replace Reader, which uses tweets to tally votes for Google replacements, the Feedly service was in the lead, with NewsBlur in second place.
Not far behind was The Old Reader, which is reportedly based on an older design of Google Reader. Or you can go in the other direction, visually at least, and try out Netvibes, which has a glossy, customizable look. In a similar vein, there’s Flipboard, but the smooth design of that service is only available on smartphones and tablets.
Similarly, Taptu offers a sharp, clean user experience, and it offers versions for Nook and Blackberry users, as well. In the future, another option might come from Digg; the link-sharing community says it’s building its own reader service.
