Vinyl LPs Sell More Than CDs For The First Time In 3 Decades
September 10th, 2020Via: Synthtopia:
Vinyl LPs are a more important physical format for music than CDs for the first time in more than 30 years, according to the latest revenue figures from the RIAA (pdf).
54 Percent of Americans Won’t Take COVID-19 Vaccine
September 10th, 2020Via: Axios:
Only 14% of Americans think a coronavirus vaccine will be widely available before the November election, and even if it is, most Americans say they won’t take it, according to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Northrop Grumman Wins $13.3 Billion Contract To Build New ICBM
September 10th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
Defense firm Northrop Grumman has announced it has landed a major defense contract to lead in developing America’s Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program.
It won a whopping $13.3 billion Air Force contract to build the Pentagon’s next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), crucial in nuclear deterrence.
A Northrop Grumman press release said that a team nationwide that will include over 10,000 engineers, scientists and technicians will spend eight-and-a-half years building the new missile, with an expected operational goal of 2029.
China Begins Massive Stockpiling of Commodities
September 10th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
China has announced it plans to boost its strategic commodities reserves to assuage anxiety over energy and food security. Starting in 2021, it will make what Bloomberg calls “mammoth” purchases of crude, strategic materials, and farm goods, officials apparently say. This is being done to ensure China can ride out any repeat of this year’s supply disruptions, or a deterioration in trade relations with the US, for example. This is apparently part of the shift to “internal circulation”, or greater self-reliance, which is already being flagged, and which will kick in for the five year plan 2021-25.
NSA Chief Who Oversaw Sweeping Domestic Phone Surveillance Joins Amazon Board As Director
September 9th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
Just days after Amazon published a scathing letter slamming President Trump for not allowing the American multinational tech company to get the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, which instead was awarded to Microsoft, Amazon’s board has just appointed former NSA head and retired general of the US Army Keith B. Alexander as a director.
Alexander will also serve on the board’s audit committee, according to Bloomberg on Wednesday. The company which has long faced criticism and scrutiny over its deep CIA ties and collaboration, especially given its prior $600 million contract with the CIA for cloud computing services, will now have a well-known national security state hawk who was commander of US Cyber Command from May 2010 to March 2014.
Crucially his tenure as Director of the National Security Agency went for nearly a decade, from August 2005 to March 2014. From there he founded a cybersecurity technology company in 2014, of which he’s still leads as Co-CEO and president, called IronNet Cybersecurity, Inc.
This is the very NSA chief who was the face of the agency’s mass sweeping up of Americans’ communications exposed by Edward Snowden’s leaks. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit earlier this month ruled the invasive NSA program was “illegal” and that US officials lied about it.
Related: Amazon Wants Alexa to Move Into Your Apartment Before You Do
New Zealand Is About to Test Long-Range Wireless Power Transmission
September 9th, 2020Via: Singularity Hub:
Now, if New Zealand startup Emrod has its way, Tesla and Marconi’s dreams may merge. The company is building a system to wirelessly beam power over long distances. Earlier this month, Emrod received funding from Powerco, New Zealand’s second biggest utility, to conduct a test of its system at a grid-connected commercial power station.
The company hopes to bring energy to communities far from the grid or transmit power from remote renewable sources, like offshore wind farms.
How It Works
The system consists of four components: A power source, a transmitting antenna, several (or more) transmitting relays, and a rectenna.
First, the transmitting antenna transforms electricity into microwave energy—an electromagnetic wave just like Marconi’s radio waves, only a bit more energetic—and focuses it into a cylindrical beam. The microwave beam is sent through a series of relays until it hits the rectenna, which converts it back into electricity.
With safety in mind, Emrod is using energy in the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band, and keeping the power density low. “It’s not just how much power you deliver, it’s how much power you deliver per square meter,” Emrod founder, Greg Kushnir, told New Atlas. “The levels of density we’re using are relatively low. At the moment, it’s about the equivalent of standing outside at noon in the sun, about 1 kW per square meter.”
But if it works as intended, the beam won’t ever contact anything but empty air. The system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on.
The technology—power transmission via microwave energy—has been around for decades. But to make it commercially viable, you have to minimize energy losses. Kushnir said metamaterials developed in recent years are the difference-maker.
MKULTRA and the CIA’s War on the Human Mind
September 9th, 2020Book: Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer
Via: Mises Institute:
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a fearsome reputation. The author and executor of countless coups and political assassinations, the CIA is notorious for waterboarding, “extraordinary rendition,” regime change, kidnapping, narcotics smuggling, financing of guerrilla wars, and many other unsavory activities around the world, including against Americans, even inside the United States.
But “fearsome” does not mean “flawless.” The CIA has failed at least as often as it has succeeded, and sometimes the failures are so flagrant—such as sending thousands of anticommunist guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines in Korea, Eastern Europe, China, and Southeast Asia during the Cold War, where nearly all of them died—that CIA insiders wryly refer to their organization as “Clowns In Action.”
Which is it? Is the CIA a dastardly menace or a hotbed of horrible mistakes? If Stephen Kinzer’s new book, Poisoner in Chief, is any indication, the answer is both.
Sweden Close To Victory Over Coronavirus; Never Had A Lockdown Or Mask Mandate
September 9th, 2020Via: Summit News:
As the rest of Europe and the world remains under the grip of draconian rules and the threat of new lockdowns, Sweden, which allowed its citizens to remain free throughout the entire pandemic, has pretty much declared victory over the coronavirus.
The country now has one of the lowest infection rates on the planet, and it’s difficult not to admire how it has handled the past year, with no strict lockdown or compulsory face mask rules. All businesses, schools and public places remained open in Sweden for the duration.
“Sweden has gone from being the country with the most infections in Europe to the safest one,” Sweden’s senior epidemiologist Dr. Anders Tegnell commented to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Amazon Wants Alexa to Move Into Your Apartment Before You Do
September 9th, 2020Via: Vice:
On Thursday, Amazon announced a new program called Alexa for Residential that would make it cheaper for apartment complexes to integrate Alexa and Amazon devices into their rental units. This should come as no surprise, especially considering that the pandemic has allowed Amazon to grow even more entrenched in our daily lives.
Before you move in, a smart speaker will be installed that will need no set-up from you—it can even give you a tour before you move in and answer questions about the rental unit. According to The Verge, Amazon insists property managers won’t access any tenant data and all voice recordings will be deleted daily, all in the name of offering “custom voice experiences that go beyond the walls of their apartments.”
Australia Flies Journalists Out of China After Questioning by State Security Officials
September 9th, 2020The irony is incredible. Who will fly the Australian journalists experiencing late night police shakedowns… out of Australia?
Via: CBC:
Two Australian foreign correspondents were flown out of China for their safety after being questioned by China’s state security ministry, the Australian government said on Tuesday.
The correspondents for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Australian Financial Review (AFR) sought shelter in the embassy in Beijing and the consulate in Shanghai as diplomats negotiated with Chinese officials to allow them to leave the country, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said.
Negotiations over the two journalists — the ABC’s Bill Birtles and the AFR’s Michael Smith — reached the highest level of the Australian government, a source told Reuters.
Chinese police entered the homes of the two men, who lived in Shanghai and Beijing, after midnight last Wednesday and told them they were barred from leaving China, Smith said.
