Infinite Unknown

- Introducing Strongbox: Aaron Swartz’s Last Project (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 19, 2013):

I remain haunted by the death of Aaron Swartz.  In fact, his passing is still one of the first things I mention to people when I want to provide an example of how out of control and drunk on power the government is.  The incredible accomplishments he achieved in his short life are nothing short of extraordinary, and the fact the feds mercilessly attacked him and drove him to suicide epitomizes the unfortunate rapid decline of our culture and civilization. Amazingly, Aaron continues to bless the world with gifts from his brilliant mind even after his passing.  In this case I am referring to Strongbox, an encrypted and more secure way of providing information to journalists.  It was a project Aaron was working on with Kevin Poulsen before his death and was launched by the New Yorker a few days ago.

From Techdirt:

- Aaron Swartz’s Last Project: Open Source System To Securely & Anonymously Submit Documents To The Press (Techdirt, May 16, 2013):

The New Yorker has announced a new anonymous document sharing system called Strongbox, that will allow people to anonymously and securely submit documents to reporters from the New Yorker. Other publications have tried to set up something like this — often inspired by Wikileaks — but for the most part, they’ve been full of security holes, sometimes big and serious ones. What may be more interesting than the fact that this system is being set up is the story behind it. It’s based on DeadDrop, an open source system that was put together by Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen.

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Tags: Aaron Swartz, DeadDrop, Global News, Internet, Society, Strongbox, Technology

- Economic insanity: Obama spends $11 million to create each ‘green’ job (Natural News, May 18, 2013):

There has been nothing you could call “successful” about President Obama’s so-called “green energy” initiatives, but the worst thing of all is the billions in taxpayer dollars he has utterly wasted on failed companies who were trying to push unproven, and ultimately failed, initiatives.

Indeed, according to new data, the Obama Administration has spent an incredible $11 million for each “green” job that has been created, Breitbart News reports.

Recall for a moment that candidate Barack Obama, in 2008, promised he would create a whopping 5 million new green energy sector jobs if elected.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Economy, Energy, Global News, Government, Obama administration, Politics, Technology, U.S.

- Japan to open nuclear plant (ABC News, May 16, 2013):

Japan is about to open a 30 billion dollar state-of- the art nuclear fuel re-processing plant.

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: It took more than 20 years to build and cost nearly $30 billion. Now Japan’s state-of-the-art nuclear fuel reprocessing plant is about to open. The plant in the far north of the country will be capable of turning spent nuclear fuel into eight tonnes of plutonium each year. The Japanese say the weapons grade plutonium will only be used for power generation, but that hasn’t soothed American concerns about the security of the stockpile and the possible effect on a regional arms race. North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy was given an exclusive look inside the Rokkasho nuclear complex.

MARK WILLACY, REPORTER: With 17,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel sitting in pools like this across the country, Japan wants to reprocess it and use it again to generate electricity. It spent $28 billion building this reprocessing plant here at Rokkasho, which is capable of turning this used fuel into eight tonnes of plutonium every year. Continue reading »

Tags: Global News, Japan, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Plutonium, Technology

Related info:

- US May Face Inevitable Nuclear Power Exit (PHYS.org)

- Plastic Bags, Tape, Broomsticks Fix San Onofre Nuclear Plant Leak (ABC 10News – Video, Photo)

- Radioactive leak found at Palisades Nuclear Power Plant (RT, May 17, 2013):

Investigators have discovered a half-inch long crack around a nozzle on one of the tanks of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, and have attributed the crack to the water leakage that spilled radioactive water into Lake Michigan on May 5.

The plant, which is located on the shore of the great lake and operated by Entergy, was shut down after the water tank exceeded its site threshold and leaked. Authorities say the crack led to about 79 gallons of “slightly radioactive water” spilling from the Palisades plant into the lake, WOOD-TV reports.

The leak came from a 300,000-gallon injection and refueling tank, which floods and cools the nuclear reactor with borated water during refueling outages. It also removes heat from the reactor when there is a loss of coolant by sourcing the safety injection system.

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Tags: Energy, Environment, Global News, Health, Lake Michigan, Michigan, NRC, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, Radiation, Technology, U.S.

- Gundersen: Breaking news… Officials say U.S. nuclear plant operator “was going to do an experiment on the people of Southern California” — “That’s their words; they said it was an experiment” (AUDIO) (ENENews, May 16, 2013)

Tags: Arnie Gundersen, California, Global News, Government, Nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Politics, Society, Technology, U.S.

- Pentagon Wants ‘Human Surrogate’ for Ray Gun Tests (Wired, May 8, 2013):

The Pentagon’s electromagnetic pain weapons are about to make a new friend. It’s an anthropomorphic test dummy that’s gonna get blasted by everything the Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons agency can throw at it.

In its latest round of small business research proposals, the Navy announced it’s seeking a sensor-outfitted “human surrogate” for use in an array of non-lethal weapon tests. That includes ”electromagnetic radiation in the L, S, and W-bands,” noted the request for proposal. Even further, there are plans to subject the luckless mannequin to everything from noise, blast pressure, electrical currents, thermal energy, and light from flashbang grenades.

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Tags: Global News, Government, Military, Pentagon, Politics, Technology

- US Air Force one step closer to global strike capability as experimental aircraft exceeds Mach 5 (RT, May 3, 2013):

The US Air Force completed a nearly decade-long test program this week with the successful launch of an unmanned aircraft into hypersonic velocity, flying at more than five times the speed of sound.

Air Force officials announced Friday that the X-51A WaveRider flew for more than three minutes Wednesday, a one point hitting a speed of Mach 5.1, according to the Associated Press. The successful flight marked a turning point for the X-51A, which was designed with scramjet technology that’s capable of delivering weapons strikes around the world in only minutes.

The aircraft was designed to reach Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound) but the Air Force deemed Wednesday’s flight a success because the previous three attempts either ended in highly publicized failures or failed to reach the desired top speed.

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Tags: Air Force, Global News, Government, Military, Politics, Technology, U.S.

- Printable ‘bionic’ ear melds electronics and biology (PHYS.org, May 1, 2013):

Scientists at Princeton University used off-the-shelf printing tools to create a functional ear that can “hear” radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability

The researchers’ primary purpose was to explore an efficient and versatile means to merge electronics with tissue. The scientists used 3D printing of cells and nanoparticles followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with cartilage, creating what they term a bionic ear.

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Tags: Global News, Science, Technology

- Scientists build an insect-inspired camera system with ‘nearly infinite’ depth-of-field (May 1, 2013)

Tags: Global News, Science, Technology

- Meet “The Liberator”: The World’s First Fully 3D-Printed Firearm (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 3, 2013):

3D-printing, like decentralized crypto currencies, have the potential to change the world in which we live in extraordinary ways. Ways that are almost inconceivable at this point given we are so early in the game.  More than anything else, these technologies can empower the individual like never before, and I think that is generally a very good thing.

I first covered the impact of 3D-printing on the firearms industry in January in my post 3D-Printing Meets the 2nd Amendment, where I discussed Defense Distributed’s success in printing magazines for semi-automatic weapons.  At the time, their next major goal was to print a fully functioning firearm. They have now done just that.

From Forbes:

Eight months ago, Cody Wilson set out to create the world’s first entirely 3D-printable handgun.

Now he has.

Early next week, Wilson, a 25-year University of Texas law student and founder of the non-profit group Defense Distributed, plans to release the 3D-printable CAD files for a gun he calls “the Liberator,” pictured in its initial form above. He’s agreed to let me document the process of the gun’s creation, so long as I don’t publish details of its mechanics or its testing until it’s been proven to work reliably and the file has been uploaded to Defense Distributed’s online collection of printable gun blueprints at Defcad.org.

All sixteen pieces of the Liberator prototype were printed in ABS plastic with a Dimension SST printer from 3D printing company Stratasys, with the exception of a single nail that’s used as a firing pin. The gun is designed to fire standard handgun rounds, using interchangeable barrels for different calibers of ammunition.

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Tags: Global News, Guns, Technology