NBC: Revolution
May 15th, 2012Via: YouTube:
Semi-Related: The E-bomb: Defence Secretary Warns Of EMP Weapons Threat
Beyond the Black Rainbow: ‘A Reagan-Era Fever Dream’
May 15th, 2012Via: YouTube:
DataKiller Instantly Obliterates Data on Magnetic Media
May 15th, 2012It makes a satisfying pop sound.
Via: Engadget:
Platform of Japan demonstrated the information obliterating devices at the Information Security Expo. A large powerful magnet realigns the bits on the surface of the drive’s platters eliminating all trace of the data that existed before, without physically damaging the hardware. With just the push of a button a Data Killer can wipe practically any magnetic media, including tapes or an aging floppy disk. The data disposals even come in different sizes, allowing you to kill just a single 3.5-inch disk or up to 14 at a time. The larger models can even accept an intact laptop.
Canon: Fully Automated Digital Camera Manufacturing by 2015
May 15th, 2012Via: AP:
Canon Inc. is moving toward fully automating digital camera production in an effort to cut costs — a key change being played out across Japan, a world leader in robotics.
If successful, counting on machines can help preserve this nation’s technological power — not the stereotype of machines snatching assembly line jobs from workers, Jun Misumi — company spokesman, said Monday.
The move toward machine-only production will likely be completed in the next few years, perhaps as soon as 2015, said Misumi, although he declined to give specific dates.
Japanese manufacturers have been moving production abroad recently to offset the earnings damage from the soaring yen.
And fears are growing about a hollowing-out of Japan Inc. as jobs move to China, India and the rest of Asia, where labor costs are cheaper.
Misumi was adamant that jobs won’t be cut at Canon.
“When machines become more sophisticated, human beings can be transferred to do new kinds of work,” he said.
Kodak Park Had a Nuclear Reactor
May 14th, 2012Via: Democrat and Chronicle:
For more than 30 years, Kodak Park was home to a little-known underground labyrinth containing a small nuclear research reactor, one of the few of its kind in the world.
It wasn’t a power plant, and carried no risk of explosion. Nothing ever leaked. Eastman Kodak Co. officials say the research device was perfectly safe.
Still, the reactor was locked down, remotely surveilled and tightly regulated — mainly because it contained 3½ pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Profits: Louisiana is the World’s Prison Capital
May 14th, 2012Via: Times Picayune:
Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.
The hidden engine behind the state’s well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.
The Urban Farming Guys in India
May 14th, 2012Via: Urban Farming Guys:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Florida Farm Workers Tell How Drugs, Debt Bind Them in Modern Slavery
May 14th, 2012Via: Tampa Bay Times:
LeRoy Smith thought he had hit rock bottom when he found himself trolling Atlanta’s gay district, looking to exchange sex acts for a hot hit off a crack pipe. Then he wound up on a Florida farm near the small town of Hastings, being bilked blind, he says, by a man with a fifth-grade education, sweating all day for a few dirty dollars, with no way to escape from the middle-of-nowhere camp.
He did not think slavery existed in modern America. He knows better now.
The recruiters had found LeRoy Smith playing chess in a park in Jacksonville on May 1, 2010. They pegged him for a black man with a back strong enough for farm work and an addiction strong enough to stick around and work for nothing. He was hooked on crack, but he had enough sense to recognize peonage when he saw it, and to slip away by night to safety.
And now he’s talking. He filed a lawsuit last month in federal court against the man he says enslaved him. And he’s talking to the Tampa Bay Times in hopes that publicity will cleanse Florida of indentured servitude.
The man he accuses says it’s all a lie. Confronted with the allegations, Ronald Uzzle dismissed them and told a reporter to get off his property.
Gold
May 14th, 2012Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
The mega monthly candle ascending triangle… failed.
The traditional Fibonacci retracements are in green on the chart below.
Spot Gold Monthly Interval
230,000 Unemployed Lost Benefits Over Weekend
May 14th, 2012Vi: The Hill:
More than 230,000 unemployed workers will lose their jobless benefits this weekend as portions of federal programs expire across several states.
All told, 409,300 long-term unemployed Americans in 27 states will have lost upward of 20 weeks of federal unemployment benefits by this past Saturday, even as the many state jobless rates remain high, according to a new analysis by the National Employment Law Project (NELP).
The latest batch of cuts affects 236,300 unemployed people in eight states — California (11%), Texas (7%) Pennsylvania (7.5%), Florida (9%), Illinois (8.8%) North Carolina (9.7%) Colorado (7.8%) and Connecticut (7.7%) — half of which have jobless rates above the 8.1 percent national average posted in April.
“A growing number of long-term unemployed workers are being left behind,” said Christine Owens, executive director of the NELP.
“Job openings are not taking the place of these cuts,” Owens said.
