Archive for December, 2019
U.S. Baghdad Embassy Attacked by Protesters Angry at Air Strikes
December 31st, 2019Via: BBC: Protesters angered by recent US air strikes targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia have attacked the American embassy compound in Baghdad. US troops fired tear gas to disperse a crowd that breached the outer wall of the compound, which is in the capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone. A guard post on the street nearby […]
Visualising the Amount of Microplastic We Eat
December 31st, 2019Via: Reuters: Microscopic pieces of plastic have been discovered in the most remote locations, from the depths of the ocean to Arctic ice. Another place that plastic is appearing is inside our bodies. We’re breathing microplastic, eating it and drinking plastic-infused water every day. Plastic does not biodegrade. Instead, it breaks down into smaller pieces, […]
Deteriorating U.S. Atomic Waste Dump in Marshall Islands to be Investigated
December 30th, 2019Via: BBC: The US Congress has demanded an investigation into a concrete dome full of nuclear waste, threatened by rising sea levels in the Marshall Islands. Dubbed “the tomb”, it holds tonnes of radioactive debris from dozens of US atomic bomb tests carried out during the Cold War. Congress wants the Department of Energy to […]
Social Credit on Campus: Colleges Are Turning Students’ Phones Into Surveillance Machines, Tracking the Locations of Hundreds of Thousands
December 29th, 2019Even though this is from the Washington Post (Bezos/CIA), it is a fascinating glimpse into the higher “education” ship of fools. Via: Washington Post: When Syracuse University freshmen walk into professor Jeff Rubin’s Introduction to Information Technologies class, seven small Bluetooth beacons hidden around the Grant Auditorium lecture hall connect with an app on their […]
These Are the World’s Healthiest Nations
December 29th, 2019Via: Bloomberg: Maybe it’s something in the gazpacho or paella, as Spain just surpassed Italy to become the world’s healthiest country. That’s according to the 2019 edition of the Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index, which ranks 169 economies according to factors that contribute to overall health. Spain placed sixth in the previous gauge, published in 2017. […]
A Big And Bizarre Drone Mystery Is Unfolding In Rural Colorado
December 28th, 2019There are no answers yet, but here’s some more speculation. Via: The Drive: Based strictly on the descriptions conveyed, it sounds like someone or some group is testing a broad-area surveillance capability with lower-end autonomous drones. This could include something as simple as having a group fly a series of planned routes and return with […]
China Launches Powerful Rocket in Boost for 2020 Mars Mission
December 27th, 2019Via: AFP: China Friday launched one of the world’s most powerful rockets in a major step forward for its planned mission to Mars in 2020. The heavy lift Long March 5 rocket carrying a test satellite payload blasted off from the Wenchang launch site on the southern island of Hainan at 8:45 pm (1245 GMT), […]
Behind the One-Way Mirror: A Deep Dive Into the Technology of Corporate Surveillance
December 27th, 2019Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: Trackers are hiding in nearly every corner of today’s Internet, which is to say nearly every corner of modern life. The average web page shares data with dozens of third-parties. The average mobile app does the same, and many apps collect highly sensitive information like location and call records even when […]
Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns
December 27th, 2019We explore a variety of explanations and conclude that falling college wealth premiums may be due to the luck of when you were born, financial liberalization and the rising cost of higher education. Maybe, but it’s incredible how the authors avoided the elephant in the room. The number of times the word technology appears in […]
Turkey Unveils First Fully Homemade Car in $3.7 Billion Bet on Electric
December 27th, 2019Via: Reuters: Turkey unveiled its first fully domestically-produced car on Friday, saying it aimed to eventually produce up to 175,000 a year of the electric vehicle in a project expected to cost 22 billion lira ($3.7 billion) over 13 years.
