Archive for January, 2017
Nuclear ‘Doomsday Clock’ Ticks Closest to Midnight in 64 Years
January 26th, 2017Via: Reuters: Atomic scientists reset their symbolic “Doomsday Clock” to its closest time to midnight in 64 years on Thursday, saying the world was closer to catastrophe due to threats such as nuclear weapons, climate change and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president. The timepiece, devised by the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and […]
Trump Calls for 20% Tax on Mexican Imports to Pay for Border Wall
January 26th, 2017Update: Trump, Mexican President Agree to Not Debate Wall in Public *phew* Via: The Hill: President Trump agreed not to publicly discuss payment of the border wall during an hourlong call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Friday. “With regards to the payment of the border wall, both Presidents recognized their clear and very public […]
DragonflEye Project Wants to Turn Insects Into Cyborg Drones
January 26th, 2017Via: IEEE: As hard as we’re trying, it’s going to be a very long time before we’re able to build a robotic insect that’s anywhere near as capable or versatile as a real one. So for now, we rely on a cybernetics approach to get real insects to do our bidding instead. Over the past […]
Trump Open to CIA Using Torture
January 25th, 2017Cut off funding to ISIS. Stop giving them weapons. Stop training them. Use special forces, and work with the Russians, to kill ISIS leaders. You know, do the opposite of what the Obama regime did. Via: ABC: In an exclusive interview with ABC News, President Donald Trump said he “absolutely” thinks waterboarding works and would […]
Robotic Fabricator Could Change the Way Buildings Are Constructed
January 25th, 2017Via: MIT Technology Review: So what is the state-of-the-art for construction robots? Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Markus Giftthaler at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland and a few pals who have developed a new class of robot capable of creating novel structures on a construction site. They call their new […]
Musk Apparently Not Joking About Tunnel Boring Venture
January 25th, 2017Is this real? Via: Electrek: If you weren’t convinced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk was serious about launching a new company to start digging tunnels, maybe you will be now that he is putting a timeline on the project. He announced early this morning that they have made “exciting progress” and that he expects to […]
Trump Executive Orders on Immigration This Afternoon
January 25th, 2017I don’t know what category to use for this post. I’m actually in favor of the wall, and I think that Trump is acting responsibly by securing the border. Sovereign states secure their borders. This is first-day-of-class political science. Nothing controversial. The U.S., however, looks like a failed state when it comes to the border […]
Massive Networks of Fake Accounts Found on Twitter
January 25th, 2017Via: BBC: Massive collections of fake accounts are lying dormant on Twitter, suggests research. The largest network ties together more than 350,000 accounts and further work suggests others may be even bigger. UK researchers accidentally uncovered the lurking networks while probing Twitter to see how people use it. Some of the accounts have been used […]
Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs
January 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Automation means wells need only five workers, down from 20.
U.S. Solar Industry Passes Oil, Coal and Gas for Job Creation
January 24th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: ComputerWorld: Solar employment now accounts for the largest share of workers in the U.S. power generation field, surpassing coal, gas and oil, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In 2016, the solar workforce increased by 25% over the […]
