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United States

Cuba Calculates Cost of 54yr US Embargo At $1.1 Trillion 540

Posted by samzenpus from the big-money dept.
First time accepted submitter ltorvalds11 writes Cuba says its economy is suffering a "systematic worsening" due to a US embargo, the consequences of which Havana places at $1.1 trillion since Washington imposed the sanctions in 1960, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar against gold. "There is not, and there has not been in the world, such a terrorizing and vile violation of human rights of an entire people than the blockade that the US government has been leading against Cuba for 55 years," Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno told reporters. He also blamed the embargo for the difficulties in accessing internet on the island, saying that the United States creates an obstacle for companies providing broadband services in Cuba. Additionally, he said that the area is one of the "most sensitive" to the embargo, with economic losses estimated at $34.2 million. It is also the sector that has fallen "victim of all kinds of attacks" by the US, as violations of the Cuban radio or electronic space "promote destabilization" of Cuban society, the report notes. The damage to Cuban foreign trade between April 2013 and June 2014 amounted to $3.9 billion, the report said. Without the embargo, Cuba could have earned $205.8 million selling products such as rum and cigars to US consumers. Barack Obama last week signed the one-year extension of the embargo on Cuba, based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, created to restrict trade with countries hostile to the U.S..

Comment Upstate South Carolina and the CATBUS (Score 1) 491

by EmagGeek (#47870979) Attached to: To Really Cut Emissions, We Need Electric Buses, Not Just Electric Cars

Our area just picked up a few Proterra electric buses for use in the Catbus system, which serves Clemson University and the surrounding areas. There were some huge federal grants involved, and they have been riddled with problems, but have finally started running and carrying passengers. We're mostly a rural area and the bus system is free for all to use - paid for by Clemson University student fees and some taxpayer money from surrounding municipalities (Cities of Clemson, Seneca, Pendleton, and Central, afaik).

The buses are neat. They use overhead inductive chargers that are located at various places around town. I haven't ridden one yet (I prefer to get around by bicycle), but I hear they're pretty nice.

I am sure the impact on air quality is almost unmeasurable in our vast expanse of rural countryside, but in cities the impact could be huge.
Earth

UN Study Shows Record-High Increases For Atmospheric CO2 In 2013 427

Posted by timothy from the where-would-you-move? dept.
Figures released Tuesday by a United Nations advisory body reveal that 2013 saw new recorded highs for both carbon dioxide and methane, as well as the largest year-over-year rise in carbon dioxide since 1984, reflecting continuing worldwide emissions from human sources but also the possibility that natural sinks (oceans and vegetation) are near their capacity for absorbing the excess. From the Washington Post's account: The latest figures from the World Meteorological Organization’s monitoring network are considered particularly significant because they reflect not only the amount of carbon pumped into the air by humans, but also the complex interaction between man-made gases and the natural world. Historically, about half of the pollution from human sources has been absorbed by the oceans and by terrestrial plants, preventing temperatures from rising as quickly as they otherwise would, scientists say. “If the oceans and the biosphere cannot absorb as much carbon, the effect on the atmosphere could be much worse,” said Oksana Tarasova, a scientist and chief of the WMO’s Global Atmospheric Watch program, which collects data from 125 monitoring stations worldwide. The monitoring network is regarded as the most reliable window on the health of Earth’s atmosphere, drawing on air samples collected near the poles, over the oceans, and in other locations far from cities and other major sources of pollution. The new figures for carbon dioxide were particularly surprising, showing the biggest year-over-year increase since detailed records were first compiled in the 1980s, Tarasova said in an interview. The jump of nearly three parts per million over 2012 levels was twice as large as the average increase in carbon levels in recent decades, she said.

Comment Consensus does not have a bad reputation (Score 1) 770

by EmagGeek (#47853745) Attached to: How Scientific Consensus Has Gotten a Bad Reputation

In fact, consensus is a very valuable part of the cooperative scientific process.

The bad reputation belongs to those who attempt to use consensus as a substitute for proof. People like the IPCC, EPA, NOAA, NASA, and governments all over the world who are trying to use this climate change bogeyman as an excuse to foist oppressive political and economic regimes on free (and not free) people.

Comment Re:This is BAD. Very very BAD. (Score 1) 254

by EmagGeek (#47851187) Attached to: UCLA, CIsco & More Launch Consortium To Replace TCP/IP

Not just content control, but complete and total usage control. Using this technology, ISPs could prevent you opening a connection to anyone they didn't want you to connect to, because all of your outgoing connections would have to be "approved" by their router.

This is all about ending the free and open Internet as we know it today and completely privatizing control over it.
Cellphones

NVIDIA Sues Qualcomm and Samsung Seeking To Ban Import of Samsung Phones 110

Posted by samzenpus from the sue-baby-sue dept.
Calibax writes NVIDIA has filed complaints against Samsung and Qualcomm at the ITC and in the U.S. District court in Delaware. The suit alleges that the companies are both infringing NVIDIA GPU patents covering technology including programmable shading, unified shaders and multithreaded parallel processing. NVIDIA is seeking damages and a ban on U.S. import of a number of devices with Snapdragon and Exynos processors until there is an agreement on licensing.

Comment Yes, absolutely, and we already have the tech (Score 1) 448

by EmagGeek (#47828155) Attached to: Could Tech Have Stopped ISIS From Using Our Own Heavy Weapons Against Us?

It's called a GBU-24 with an MK-84 payload. We had every capability of destroying the equipment, and come to think of it we could destroy it any time we wanted to provided we can find it.

Our problem is not the lack of technology. The problem is the lack of a CiC with a set of testicles.

Comment Ugh, not this show again (Score 0) 226

Okay, let's set aside for just one brief moment that a goodly part of the science portrayed on the show is just plain wrong, and discuss instead what I think is a much more interesting topic: Trying to take a show that is centered around brilliant people and making it not only acceptable, but very funny to stupid people.

Don't you agree that it is an exercise in futility to make an attempt at incorporating low-brow, "everyman" humor into this show? Let's face it, nobody who is as smart as Sheldon or Leonard are would find any of the humor in the show consistent, let alone funny.

I recall one episode (forgive me for not remembering the title) where Leonard suggests that Sheldon drink plenty of fluids - maybe it was the one when Sheldon got sick right before the trip to Switzerland or something - but in any case his retort was something like "well what else would I drink? Maybe gasses or ionized plasma?"

Someone as smart as Sheldon, especially a theoretical physicist, knows that gasses and ionized plasmas ARE fluids - the obvious mistake here being to imply that the term "fluid" is interchangeable with the term "liquid," when it is not.

I've found the show to be chock full of these kinds of glaring inconsistencies and falsehoods. It leads me to believe that the show's writers either don't really listen to you, or go over the material and change it after you've edited it, or something else. Can you enlighten us?
Biotech

Researchers Harness E. Coli To Produce Propane 82

Posted by samzenpus from the fill-the-tank dept.
Rambo Tribble writes A team of British and Finnish scientists have used the common bacteria Escherichia coli to produce the environmentally-friendly fuel propane. By introducing enzymes to modify the bacteria's process for producing cell membranes, they were able directly produce fuel-grade propane. While commercial application is some years off, the process is being hailed as a cheap, sustainable alternative to deriving the gas from fossil fuel production. As researcher Patrik Jones is quoted as saying, "Fossil fuels are a finite resource and...we are going to have to come up with new ways to meet increasing energy demands."
Science

Taking the Ice Bucket Challenge With Liquid Nitrogen 182

Posted by samzenpus from the coldest-shower dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes As a trend, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge seems a bit played out—who hasn't yet dumped a bucket of icy water over his or her head for charity? But that didn't stop Canadian chemist Muhammad Qureshi from executing his own sublimely scientific, potentially dangerous variation on the theme: After donating to the ALS Association, he proceeded to douse himself with a bucket of liquid nitrogen. Anyone who's taken a chemistry class, or at least watched the end of Terminator 2, knows that liquid nitrogen can rapidly freeze objects, leaving them brittle and prone to shattering. Pouring it on your skin can cause serious frostbite. So what prevented that bucketful of liquid nitrogen from transforming Qureshi into a popsicle? In two words: Leidenfrost effect. Named after 18th century scientist Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, the effect is when a liquid comes near a mass that's much warmer than the liquid's boiling point, which (in the words of Princeton's helpful physics explainer) results in an insulating vapor layer that "keeps that liquid from boiling rapidly." In other words, the vapor makes the liquid "float" just above the surface of the object, rather than coming into direct contact with it.
United States

Google's Megan Smith Would Be First US CTO Worthy of the Title 117

Posted by Soulskill from the knows-how-to-program-her-VCR dept.
theodp writes: Bloomberg is reporting that Google X's Megan Smith is the top candidate for U.S. Chief Technology Officer. With a BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and experience ranging from General Magic to Google, Smith would arguably be the first U.S. CTO worthy of the title (the outgoing U.S. CTO has a bachelor's in Econ; his predecessor has a master's in Public Policy). "Smith joined Google in 2003. As vice president of business development, she oversaw many of its most important acquisitions, like Keyhole, the service that underlies Google Earth. She has led the company’s philanthropic division, Google.org, and served as a co-host for Google’s Solve for X forum, where distinguished thinkers and scientists brainstorm radical technology ideas with Google executives."

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