Category: Technology
North Korea’s Death Wish
North Korea video shows US city in flames after missile attack | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Playing with fire.
Another Round of Nuclear Powered National Starvation
North Korea to carry out third nuclear test ‘aimed at US’ – Telegraph.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the dark and cold countryside the serfs are cheering.
DiCaprio To Do Good For Environment by Flying a Jet Around the World
DiCaprio takes break to focus on the environment – Entertainment – NZ Herald News
He’d better pedal a human-powered airship around the world if he wants to avoid looking like a hypocrite.
“I would like to improve the world a bit. I will fly around the world doing good for the environment,” added DiCaprio…
Paying For Your Neighbors’ Solar Panels
Solar power adds to nonusers’ costs – SFGate.
Hey California. Guess who’s paying for your neighbor to put “free” solar panels on their roof? That’s right. You. Subsidies and higher utility bills suck money out of your pocket so the guy next door can feel better.
Misleading Headline of the Day: Conservatives Don’t Trust Science
Study: Trust in science among educated conservatives plunges | The Lookout – Yahoo! News.
Conservatives, particularly those with college educations, have become dramatically more skeptical of science over the past four decades, according to a study published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Fewer than 35 percent of conservatives say they have a “great deal” of trust in the scientific community now, compared to nearly half in 1974.
The above paragraph contains the important bit: “scientific community.” The headline should read “Conservatives don’t trust the scientific community.” When science becomes religion co-opted by the left the way it has in recent years, it’s no wonder. It has little to do with science or with conservatives going to church. Rather, it is about science ceasing to be science when it blends with politics. When that happens it becomes a religion.
In truth, science isn’t any more rational than religion. Science has not been able to describe and explain everything in logical, rational terms. The universe has so far confounded all attempts by science to define and bound it. Until science can achieve this–if it can–it remains mere theory or opinion or suggestion, which means it’s no more objective than religious thought.
Wine Cooler
Red Wine, Tartaric Acid, and the Secret of Superconductivity – Technology Review.
Last year, a group of Japanese physicists grabbed headlines around the world by announcing that they could induce superconductivity in a sample of iron telluride by soaking it in red wine. They found that other alcoholic drinks also worked–white wine, beer, sake and so on–but red wine was by far the best.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
The seizure was conducted under U.S. civil law, not criminal law. That means the affected parties need to prove that the internet domains were not engaging in illegal activity to get them back — an ugly mirror image of the country’s usual “innocent until proven guilty” right. Many of the domains were not being operated by U.S. groups. Because they used U.S. domain suffixes .net, .com, and .org, however, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was empowered to act.
Corn Pwned
As early as last July, he added, a poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers revealed something pleasantly surprising: “When asked specifically which they would be more likely to support, a candidate who supports ethanol subsidies because they are important to the Iowa economy, or a candidate who opposes them because they want to get spending under control, caucus goers prefer the candidate who opposes ethanol subsidies by a margin of 56 percent to 31 percent.”
Osprey of Gunfire: The Tiltrotor’s First Firefight
Controversial Marine Tiltrotor Fights Its First Gun Battle | Danger Room | Wired.com.
Landing near the embattled Marine infantry, the V-22 immediately came under fire — a terrifying prospect for an aircraft with very little armor. …
The V-22 couldn’t really fire back on its own: It had just a single machine gun (either a .50-caliber or .30-caliber model) fitted to the rear ramp, covering an approximately 120-degree arc behind the aircraft — an arc that, at the moment, was blocked by Marines rushing to and from the cabin. …
Before the June battle, Tiltrotor Squadron 264 had specialized in “night inserts,” speeding small groups of Marines deep into Taliban territory under the cover of darkness.
The Osprey accomplished these missions despite an accident rate several times higher than the Marines will admit, and despite engines that wear out faster than expected, resulting in a recent 60 percent increase in maintenance costs. For all the Osprey’s faults, the Corps loves the ungainly bird — so much so it wants to spend at least $8 billion on another 120 of them from manufacturers Bell and Boeing.
I suspect that the next batch of V-22s won’t be accident prone, nor will the engines wear out as fast. That’s the benefit of field experience.
NTSB: Nanny Transportation Safety Board
Why the Proposed Car Cellphone Ban Is Wrong – Popular Mechanics.
The fact is, drivers function despite all sorts of distractions: car radios, passengers, weather, roadside signs, intentionally distracting highway billboards, erratic behavior from other drivers, and so on. Learning to focus on the task at hand despite all that noise is an important part of learning to drive, and if we’re hiring school-bus drivers who have trouble paying attention to the road and maintaining proper following distances, we’ve got bigger problems than those posed by the proliferation of gadgets.
Climate Fraud Heats Up
Climategate 2 Emails Loaded with Bombshells | Heartlander Magazine.
… the Climategate 2 emails show scientists at the forefront of global warming activism acknowledging serious flaws in alarmist global warming theory, working together to hide data contradicting alarmist global warming theory, and taking concerted and nefarious action to ruin the careers of scientists and peer-reviewed science journal editors who publish studies and data that undermine alarmist global warming claims.
Steve Jobs and the Can’t Do President
Steve Jobs: Obama’s focus on excuses “infuriated” him – Political Hotsheet – CBS News
Jobs told Isaacson he was not impressed with the president after their meeting, in part because of Mr. Obama’s focus on what is not possible, rather than what is possible.
“The president is very smart. But he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done,” Jobs told Isaacson. “It infuriates me.”
California Continues Its March Towards the Precipice
California Adopts Cap-and-Trade System to Limit Emissions – NYTimes.com
Fifteen months after a similar effort died in Congress, California regulators adopted a system on Thursday for combating climate change that sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions…
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The board members seemed keenly aware that they were giving the state a policy prescription regarded as poison in some parts of the country.
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California’s ambitions are in striking contrast to those of much of the rest of the nation. A conservative political rebellion against cap and trade helped the Republican resurgence in 2010.
Nuclear Reactors: Smaller is Better
Taking a Bite out of Nuclear Reactors | EnergyBiz
Altogether, NuScale says that by taking its smaller modules and ultimately forming a 540 megawatt plant it would cost between $2.2 billion and $2.5 billion. That’s marginally less expensive per unit of output than a traditional plant.At a few billion, the company says that utilities would not be taking the kind of risks they might otherwise have to if they built a larger and centralized $10 billion facility. For most companies, the amount of money is too great, especially in the aftermath of a recession, credit crunch and Japanese nuclear crisis.
Bad Karma: The Eco-Delusion Marches On
Fisker Karma Solyndra on Wheels | Fantastical Andrew Fox.
Fisker is manufacturing these gorgeous Leonardo DiCaprio toys in Finland. And the kicker, for those of you who would still claim that the risk of half a billion tax dollars is justified by environmental gains… contrary to the company’s initial hype, the Karma will only run for thirty-two miles on its electric motors before its turbocharged gasoline engine needs to kick in (as opposed to the initial estimate of fifty miles). Once that occurs, the Karma gets about the same mileage as a Ford Explorer. Not the new Explorer, even. The older, gas-hog, body-on-frame model. We’re talking twenty miles per gallon, folks. So much for your “green investment.”
No, Bill, The Green Movement needs a Clue
Ex-President Clinton: Green movement needs money: The Associated Press
“This has to work economically,” he said. “You have to come up with the money on the front end.”
It has to work economically before anyone will willingly give you money on the front end.
Ogle Street View
Google Street View Camera Captures Naked Miami Woman On Her Front Doorstep | The Smoking Gun
She was caught sans clothes by the Google camera as she stood on the doorstep of her home, with a water jug in her hand. It is unknown why she was naked.
The New TV Box
Hulu, Billed as Tomorrow’s TV, Looks Boxed In Today – NYTimes.com
This is the future of TV? Really? Today you can watch some shows on Hulu in their entirety. But others you can’t watch at all. Most fall somewhere in between — bound by contractual handcuffs that hamper prospective viewers.
Truth to Power
Nuclear Power Is Extremely Safe — That’s the Truth About What We Learned From Japan – FoxNews.com
To think rationally about nuclear safety, you must identify the whole context. As the late, great energy thinker Petr Beckmann argued three decades ago in his contrarian classic “The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear,” every means of generating power has dangers and risks, but nuclear power “is far safer than any other form of large-scale energy conversion yet invented.”
Space Ghosts
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: the tragic speech Nixon was prepared to give – latimes.com
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
