Category: technology

Expect a Major Fruit and Nut Shortage

Because we are killing the bees necessary for these crops in unprecedented numbers:

A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.

A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around 2005. But beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor.

The pesticide industry disputes that. But its representatives also say they are open to further studies to clarify what, if anything, is happening.

“They looked so healthy last spring,” said Bill Dahle, 50, who owns Big Sky Honey in Fairview, Mont. “We were so proud of them. Then, about the first of September, they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy. We’ve been doing this 30 years, and we’ve never experienced this kind of loss before.”

In a show of concern, the Environmental Protection Agency recently sent its acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and two top chemical experts here, to the San Joaquin Valley of California, for discussions.

In the valley, where 1.6 million hives of bees just finished pollinating an endless expanse of almond groves, commercial beekeepers who only recently were losing a third of their bees to the disorder say the past year has brought far greater losses.

They talked to a bee keeper who was planning to take 13,000 hives to California for the almond season, but only had 3000 because of hive losses.

The long-persistence neonicotinoids are being fingered as the likely cause, but given the mode of both the EPA and the Department of agriculture will demand definitive proof of harm, rather than requiring proof of safety, particularly when big Ag, like the seed suppliers who have taken to using said pesticides to pre-treat the seeds (Monsanto and their ilk), we are in for a bumpy ride.

You Phone Company is Refusing to Complete Rural Calls, and Deceiving Us About It

Telcom law maven Harold Feld shows how FCC Loopholes resulting from VOIP exceptions are destroying one of the central requirements of voice calls:

Increasing numbers of rural communities are reporting problems with incoming phone calls. Outgoing calls work fine, but when someone tries to call one of these rural communities from an urban area, the connection doesn’t go through.

Though the phone never rings in the rural community, the urban caller might hear a “false ringback” in his earpiece, inserted so he will think there’s simply no answer and won’t complain about the lack of service.

This “rural call completion” problem, which also includes connections with very bad sound quality, is getting scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission.
The problem “causes rural businesses to lose customers, cuts families off from their relatives in rural areas, and creates potential for dangerous delays in public safety communications in rural areas,” according to the FCC.

………

In the last several years, businesses called “least cost routing” companies have sprung up. These companies promise phone networks to find the least expensive way to route their phone calls. The phone companies themselves don’t know how the least cost routing companies are routing the phone calls. They just trust them to do it.

Since completing calls to rural areas is expensive, least cost routers generally try to find long, complicated routes that will minimize the termination fees and other charges by making the call look like it comes from someplace with lower fees. This introduces something called “latency.” The lengthy routes mess up the IP-based phone call, causing long breaks in the signal that the traditional phone network (operated by a rural phone company) interprets as dead air or a disconnect.

………

The FCC refuses to classify IP-based services as “telephone” services (although it has the authority to do so). As a result, it can only regulate IP-providers indirectly with something called “ancillary authority.” Whether “ancillary authority” allows the FCC to regulate IP-based providers, such as least cost routers, remains to be seen.

The problem here is one of philosophy: the Washington consensus that deregulation always leads to innovation is a dangerous delusion.

We need only to compare the performance of our lightly regulated telcos to those of more highly regulated places like, Japan, France, or Korea, to see that consumers pay more, and get less, both in terms of performance and reliability.

Deregulation makes it easier to collect monopoly rents, and it is easier, and more lucrative to seek those rents than it is to succeed for innovation or evolutionary product improvement.

Every one gets screwed but the incumbent phone and cable companies, and it strangles real innovation.

I Have a New Rule for Finance and Fraud

The first was coined by Eric Falkenstein:

People who meticulously avoid email should not be trusted, because it is simply too calculating, as if they know they are regularly committing crimes. A phone conversation can always be disavowed, you just say you were talking about last weekend’s bar mitzvah.

The 2nd rule, which I call Saroff’s Rule:

If a financial transaction is complex enough to require that a news organization use a cartoon to explain it, its purpose is to deceive.

Well, now I have another rule, if your business plan requires an extraterritorial location not subject to any national law, it is because the principals involved intend to be lawless:

A company named Blueseed is a year away from offering entrepreneurs an inexpensive place, near Silicon Valley, in which to develop their products.

“Blueseed will station a ship 12 nautical miles from the coast of San Francisco, in international waters. The location will allow startup entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world to start or grow their company near Silicon Valley, without the need for a U.S. work visa. The ship will be converted into a coworking and co-living space, and will have high-speed Internet access and daily transportation to the mainland via ferry boat. So far, over 1000 entrepreneurs from 60+ countries expressed interest in living on the ship.”

No Civil Rights Act, no Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, no Fair Labor Standards Act, no Securities Exchange Act, no RICO statute, no consumer protection laws, no laws against slavery or indentured servitude, and indeterminate tax jurisdiction.

If you get an offer from these people, run the other way.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

OK, Google is Going Full Evil


The Inevitable Downfall Video (NSFW)

Google is killing its Google Reader RSS Reader:

Google Reader, one of the world’s most popular RSS readers, is shutting down on July 1, 2013, Google announced Wednesday.

The search giant is pulling the plug on the 7-year old project citing “declining usage.” Google says it is shuttering Reader and deprecating or shutting down a number of other services as part of the company’s “spring cleaning” initiative — one that seeks to help the company focus on the features that need the most use.

Seeing as how this app has been pretty much on autopilot for a while, it’s not like it was sucking up much in the way of resources.

My guess is that Google saw it as an alternative to Google+, they dumped some sharing features from the program a year ago, and this was a large part of the reason to axe the program.

They are terrified of Facebook, and so they push G+.

As an aside, one of the problems with Google+ is that G+ still sucks.

For example, there is still no way to feed your blog RSS to G+, which you can do in Facebook, Twitter, and even lowly MySpace.  (If someone knows a work around, tell me)

And to go further down the “We Love Evil” path, Google has now banned ad blocking software from its Android Market, the Play Store:

Google has removed all ad blocking apps from Google Play, its online store for Android applications, on the basis that they interfere with other services. Searches for “adblock” and related terms on Wednesday evening no longer returned any references to ad blocking software.

Till Faida, co-founder of Adblock Plus, condemned the decision, calling it a threat to consumer choice. “By unilaterally removing these apps, Google is stepping all over the checks and balances that make the Internet democratic,” he said in a statement, suggesting that Google’s actions threaten Internet freedom in the same way that SOPA and PIPA did.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In its letter to Adblock Plus, Google said the software violates Section 4.4 of the company’s Developer Distribution Agreement.

Section 4.4 states, “You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the Market, including the development or distribution of Products, that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator.”

Evil. It’s what’s dinner.

On a related note, my guess is that Feedburner will be done away with in the near to medium term, so if you have an email subscription, you would need to change.

I’m looking at alternatives.

Boeing 787 Faces More Battery Problems


Bummer of a birth mark, Boeing

They have found swelling in another 787 battery:

Cells in a second lithium-ion battery on a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner forced to make an emergency landing in Japan last month showed slight swelling, a Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) official said on Tuesday.

The jet, flown by All Nippon Airways Co, was forced to make the landing after its main battery failed.

“I do not know the exact discussion taken by the research group on the ground, but I heard that it is a slight swelling (in the auxiliary power unit battery cells). I have so far not heard that there was internal damage,” Masahiro Kudo, a senior accident investigator at the JTSB said in a briefing in Tokyo.

Kudo said that two out of eight cells in the second battery unit showed some bumps and the JTSB would continue to investigate to determine whether this was irregular or not.

Ummmm….I spent a few months working for a battery manufacturer. This is not a good sign.

Boeing purchasing McDonnell Douglas, and deciding to let McDonnell Douglas’s failed management then take over the firm is bearing bitter fruit.

Just When You Thought that the JSF Could Not Get Any More f%$#ed………

We now find out that they bought into Lithium Ion batteries for the fighter, the technology that has grounded the 787:

The Pentagon said it plans to continue using lithium-ion batteries on the new F-35 fighter jet despite problems with similar batteries that have grounded Boeing Co’s new 787 airliner and are causing Airbus to rethink their use on its A350 jet.

Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon’s $396 billion F-35 program office, said on Tuesday that the lithium-ion batteries used on the new radar-evading fighter were made by different manufacturers than those used on the 787, and the jet’s battery systems had been rigorously tested.

“The bottom line is the lithium-ion batteries used on the F-35s have been through extensive tests and have redundant systems to protect the aircraft and battery compartments; they are considered safe,” DellaVedova said.

DellaVedova said there had been some irregularities with the lithium-ion batteries not starting properly in cold temperatures that were being addressed, but no issues affecting flight safety had come up during years of testing.

All 50 Boeing Dreamliners in commercial service were grounded worldwide on January 16 after a series of battery-related incidents, including a fire on board a parked 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport and an in-flight problem on another airplane in Japan.

The groundings have cost airlines tens of millions of dollars, with no solution yet in sight, and have sparked growing concerns among aerospace industry executives about whether the powerful but delicate backup energy systems are technically “mature”, or predictable.

Why am I not surprised?

When you cross reference “advance technology”, “unproven”, and “risky”, the Venn diagram of the intersection is the JSF.

Too Much Free Time Example of the Millennium

I give you Ryan Werber, who created the world’s most amusing traceroute:

6 Episode.IV (206.214.251.1) 68.642 ms 67.307 ms 67.005 ms
7 A.NEW.HOPE (206.214.251.6) 65.986 ms 68.502 ms 68.708 ms
8 It.is.a.period.of.civil.war (206.214.251.9) 67.067 ms 70.139 ms 66.52
9 Rebel.spaceships (206.214.251.14) 70.214 ms 70.192 ms 71.622 ms
10 striking.from.a.hidden.base (206.214.251.17) 71.427 ms 74.206 ms
11 have.won.their.first.victory (206.214.251.22) 71.665 ms 70.434 ms 7
12 against.the.evil.Galactic.Empire (206.214.251.25) 69.218 ms 70.621
13 During.the.battle (206.214.251.30) 69.059 ms 68.931 ms 69.981 ms
14 Rebel.spies.managed (206.214.251.33) 77.247 ms 72.757 ms 77.61
15 to.steal.secret.plans (206.214.251.38) 71.224 ms 71.164 ms 69.543
16 to.the.Empires.ultimate.weapon (206.214.251.41) 68.744 ms 68.824
17 the.DEATH.STAR (206.214.251.46) 72.316 ms 74.551 ms 66.354 ms
18 an.armored.space.station (206.214.251.49) 69.413 ms 70.334 ms 6
19 with.enough.power.to (206.214.251.54) 66.182 ms 66.627 ms 71.23
20 destroy.an.entire.planet (206.214.251.57) 71.926 ms 71.266 ms 70.
21 Pursued.by.the.Empires (206.214.251.62) 67.298 ms 65.956 ms 66.
22 sinister.agents (206.214.251.65) 65.020 ms 67.806 ms 70.508 ms
23 Princess.Leia.races.home (206.214.251.70) 68.894 ms 71.147 ms 71
24 aboard.her.starship (206.214.251.73) 72.130 ms 71.093 ms 74.026
25 custodian.of.the.stolen.plans (206.214.251.78) 68.568 ms 67.939 ms
26 that.can.save.her (206.214.251.81) 67.063 ms 69.874 ms 68.889 m
27 people.and.restore (206.214.251.86) 70.395 ms 70.144 ms
28 freedom.to.the.galaxy (206.214.251.89) 66.098 ms 65.432 ms
29 0——————-0 (206.214.251.94) 75.931 ms 74.159 ms 80.012
30 0——————0 (206.214.251.97) 73.026 ms 73.403 ms 73.256
31 0—————–0 (206.214.251.102) 83.602 ms 82.079 ms 70.743
32 0—————-0 (206.214.251.105) 70.459 ms 69.403 ms 68.782 m
33 0—————0 (206.214.251.110) 68.516 ms 72.472 ms 71.811 ms
34 0————–0 (206.214.251.113) 69.056 ms 65.981 ms 68.202 ms
35 0————-0 (206.214.251.118) 66.790 ms 71.556 ms 74.292 ms
36 0————0 (206.214.251.121) 68.286 ms 71.042 ms 71.587 ms
37 0———–0 (206.214.251.126) 72.702 ms 71.785 ms 72.442 ms
38 0———-0 (206.214.251.129) 78.143 ms 74.411 ms 72.828 ms
39 0———0 (206.214.251.134) 69.692 ms 66.187 ms 67.369 ms
40 0——–0 (206.214.251.137) 69.184 ms 70.678 ms 67.445 ms
41 0——-0 (206.214.251.142) 70.383 ms 68.220 ms 67.543 ms
42 0——0 (206.214.251.145) 67.593 ms 72.970 ms 73.220 ms
43 0—–0 (206.214.251.150) 70.964 ms 69.082 ms 70.831 ms
44 0—-0 (206.214.251.153) 73.856 ms 71.848 ms 70.311 ms
45 0—0 (206.214.251.158) 71.517 ms 69.204 ms 69.538 ms
46 0–0 (206.214.251.161) 68.076 ms 68.179 ms 67.620 ms
47 0-0 (206.214.251.166) 68.738 ms 70.518 ms 68.757 ms
48 00 (206.214.251.169) 68.281 ms 70.225 ms 74.811 ms
49 I (206.214.251.174) 70.203 ms 71.668 ms 71.672 ms
50 By.Ryan.Werber (206.214.251.177) 68.900 ms 71.461 ms 72.297 ms
51 When.CCIEs.Get.Bored (206.214.251.182) 75.816 ms 73.957 ms 71.333 ms
52 read.more.at.beaglenetworks.net (206.214.251.185) 70.254 ms 73.799 ms

Unfortunately, his little trick went viral, and then the script kiddies decided to DDOS the site, so the traceroute no longer works.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

5 Principals for Modern Communications Technology

Harold Feld, Senior Vice President of Public Knowledge, telco policy wonk extraordinaire, and friend with whom I do medieval recreation with, has a must read essay on what a modern IP based telephone system should be like.

Basically, and unsurprisingly, it comes down to the same 5 principals that current switch based phone system has:

  • Universal service for all Americans. (Lifeline service for the poor)
  • Guaranteed interconnection, so that a Verizon user can make a call to a Comcast user.
  • Meaningful consumer protections. (i.e. “truth in billing”, which is lacking in cell phone service right now)
  • Reliability (4 “9”s of reliability, something that is lacking in cell phone service right now, as well as various IP telephony services like AT&T’s UVerse)
  • Emergency calls that work. (911 standards)

As is clear to anyone who spent even a few years under Ma Bell, these are not new concepts.  Our phone system has run under this for the past 80 years, since the New Deal.

Unfortunately, with the urging of what I call the “free market mousketeers”, these principals have been slowly been rolled back, and this is not a good thing, as the people and first responders who were left without communications following super-storm Sandy can attest to.

As Mr. Feld notes, the real solutions to many of these problems is to separate the service (voice telephone) from the underlying technology (PSTN vs. IP, or whatever might succeed IP) from a regulatory perspective.

Watch the video.  It is both clear, and does a good job of making what is ordinarily a very dry subject accessible.

I Blame the MBA Mentality

The Boeing 787 Dreamliners fleet has been grounded worldwide:

Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines have joined the list of 787 operators that have stopped flying the aircraft following a U.S. FAA directive on Jan. 16. All 787 fleets worldwide have now been grounded.

………

The groundings were prompted by an incident on Jan. 16 in Japan, when an ANA 787 on a domestic flight declared an emergency and diverted to another airport. Pilots reported messages on cockpit indicators concerning the battery and other systems, and they also noticed an unusual odor in the cockpit and cabin. Inspections revealed that the main battery in the forward electronic equipment bay was discolored and its electrolysis solution had leaked.

The 787 has a lot of innovations, but one of its feature is a change in management strategy.

Boeing has outsourced much of the design and engineering to “risk sharing partners” (some of whom it was forced to buy to get things made right) .

To an MBA, it’s about cutting overhead.  In reality, it’s about losing control of the systems, some of which have never flown on a civil aircraft before, and losing the big picture on how that complex jigsaw puzzle all goes together.

This is What Happens When You F%$# With User Interfaces, Just Because

That is what the much loathed ribbon is all about, and now Windows 8, which has managed to underperform Vista’s market acceptance:

Final online usage numbers for 2012 released Tuesday confirmed that Windows 8 failed to match Windows Vista’s uptake pace during its first two months.

Preliminary numbers from Net Applications last week indicated that Windows 8 would end the month behind Vista’s uptake at the same point in its release cycle. Yesterday’s data confirmed the earlier projections by Computerworld.

………

Apple gets that while a smart phone and a tablet are similar things, that neither of them are a PC, so for tablets and iPhones, you have IOS, and for the MacIntosh, they still run OSX, which is a conventional keyboard and mouse Operating system.

Windows may be a good tablet/phone OS, but for a conventional PC, it sucks wet farts from dead pigeons.

Seriously, it’s worse than Google’s light gray on white color scheme that has become their standard.

DPRK Finally Gets a Launch Half Right

North Korea’s satellite is actually in orbit, though it appears to be tumbling out of control:

After 14 years of trying, North Korea has finally joined the countries capable of launching a satellite into orbit. But the success was short-lived. The nation’s space program is also experiencing the bitterness of the failure to keep its spacecraft stable.

North Korea succeeded Dec. 11 on its six attempt to orbit what officials there call an Earth-observation satellite. The U.S. led a group of nations , including Russia and China, that warned North Korea not to proceed with the mission. China has since expressed “regret” over it.

The launch technology can also be used to support the country ‘s ballistic missile program .

A U.S. defense official suggests the satellite is tumbling in its polar orbit. Strategic Command, which tracks orbiting objects, referred questions to the Pentagon. A spokeswoman there said she would not comment on classified intelligence matters.

One observer who tracked the spacecraft with night-vision goggles said it was “flickering” and produced an intermittent trace on a time-exposure photograph, which could suggest tumbling.

What is significant here is not the ballistic missile capability that this shows, because this rocket science isn’t exactly ……… rocket science.

Yes, I know, it technically is rocket science, and from an engineering and technical perspective it is significant, but a ballistic missile aimed at the west coast would need to impart less than ½ the kinetic energy to the payload.

It’s been clear that this has been well within the Kim’s capabilities for years.

What is significant is now that any attempt to prevent testing related to ballistic missiles will now have to clearly show that it is not almost entirely related to weapons.

While there is support in the international community to prevent the development of explicitly military long range rocket capability, the idea that the United States, it’s NATO allies, Russia, China, Israel, etc. should be allowed to hold a hegemony on such a technology will be anathema to most other nations in the world.

This is particularly true because the only nation put at threat by this, though South Korea and Japan are clearly at risk from shorter ranged rockets, is the United States.

Big Brother is Arlington Hewes*

Verizon has just patented a set top box with cameras that spy on you so that they can serve up targeted ads:

Verizon has filed a patent for a DVR that can watch and listen to the goings-on in your living room. In the application, the company proposes to use the technology to serve targeted ads appropriate to whatever you’re doing in the, uh, privacy of your own home—fighting, cuddling, or hanging out with your cats.

Verizon is far from the first company to think of this unassailably creepy use for a set-top box. Comcast patented similar monitoring technology in 2008 for recommending content based on people it recognizes in the room; Google proposed yet another patent for Google TV that would use audio and video recorders to figure out how many people in a room are watching the current broad

I am appalled by the very concept, and I am also appalled by the fact that the USPTO granted a patent for a television that spies on you, when George Orwell published this idea in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four published in 1949.

The estate of Eric Arthur Blair should sue.

*The President’s Analyst, James Coburn, Godfrey Cambridge, 1967. Arlington Hewes is the president of The Phone Company, which is involved in an evil conspiracy.

Gee, What a Surprise, Regulation Encouraged Cell Phone Companies’ Investments

Last year, the government blocked the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, and the free-market mousketeers said that it was going to kill private sector investment.

Well, not so much:

Last year, the regulatory agencies charged with overseeing the wireless communications market did something unusual: they actually regulated. After spending the Bush years eagerly facilitating the consolidation of the wireless market, in 2011 the FCC and the Justice Department blocked AT&T from merging with T-Mobile over fears that the deal would be anti-competitive and result in job losses. At the time, conservatives in the media decried this move as gross overregulation of a burgeoning market that would dampen investment and stifle technological development. But here we are almost one year out, and those dire prognostications haven’t played out. In fact, quite the opposite has happened.

………

So what’s happened since then? Well, when the AT&T/T-Mobile merger was first announced, T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, was looking to wash its hands of the U.S. market. But after the merger fell through and AT&T was obligated to fork over $3 billion to T-Mobile along with a sizeable chunk of wireless spectrum, T-Mobile took the money and invested it almost immediately in network modernization. Now Deutsche Telekom — once eager to be done with the U.S. — is moving to acquire low-cost carrier Metro PCS to build out T-Mobile’s high-speed 4G LTE network.

Meanwhile, the Japanese telecommunications firm Softbank is snapping up Sprint Nextel and infusing $8 billion into the wireless carrier, which will be used to build out its own network. Back when people still thought the AT&T/T-Mobile merger was a sure thing, it was assumed that Sprint would have had to merge with Verizon and we’d be left with a wireless duopoly. Now both Sprint and T-Mobile are investing in their own networks and working to emerge as serious competitors.

And what of AT&T? When the company first announced the proposed merger with T-Mobile in March 2011, it made much of the fact that it would “increase AT&T’s infrastructure investment in the U.S. by more than $8 billion over seven years.” Three weeks ago, AT&T bumped up that number significantly, announcing that “it would invest an extra $14 billion to expand its wireless and broadband services over the next three years.” The New York Times reported on November 9 that the decision to boost infrastructure investment “was motivated by AT&T’s failed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA.”

As a rule of thumb, if a free market absolutist says that something is white, bet on black.

An Open Letter to Anonymous

Anonymous, or someone purporting to be Anonymous is claiming that they thwarted attempts by Karl Rove and other Republican activists to hack electronic voting systems in swing states.

Let me make this clear: I would like to talk to you, or to a representative.

I do not know if this legitimately from anonymous or not, and I’d like to get clarification.

If true, I’d love to have the goods on whoever attempted to hack the vote.

You could contact email, Skype, some form of secure chat, stretched string and a paper cup, or a f%$#ing carrier pigeon.

Obviously, I have no way to know if the claims are true, but I’d love to hear from you.

And yes, I know that this is serious tinfoil hat stuff.

Full letter follows.

An Update of a Classic

Click for full size



Why Not Bullpup

It looks like the Russians are updating the AK series assault rifle: (Paid subscription required)

Russia’s legendary Kalashnikov assault rifle may get a new lease on life as its designers try to improve the weapon’s operational parameters and attract orders from the country’s defense ministry and paramilitary agencies.

The iconic, original 7.62-mm AK-47 rifle entered service in 1949 and since then has undergone several modernizations, mainly aimed at increasing accuracy. The 5.45-mm AK-74M version from the 1990s remains the primary individual weapon for the Russian armed forces. Besides the smaller caliber it differs from the basic model only in its polymer forearm and side-folding buttstock, as well as an improved muzzle-recoil compensator.

However, despite reliability and simplicity in use and maintenance, the Russian military has never been happy with the rifle, because it demonstrated poor accuracy in unstable positions. The problems are due to the AK’s design—its heavy internal mechanical parts move fast when the weapon is fired, producing heavy blowback that disrupts aim . The Avtomat Kalashnikova—or “AK,” as it is officially known—has also been criticized for poor ergonomics, including a nonadjustable buttstock. And use of optical or night sights, as well as other mounted equipment, was limited by the obsolete rail on the left side of the receive

The issue is that the source of the Rifle’s legendary reliability, heavy parts traveling relatively long distances with lots of “wiggle” room, also adversely effect accuracy, because they shake the weapon as it fires.

The new rifle, the AK-12, tweaks the action, while improving ergonomics and adding a Picatinny style rail to mount accessories.

What is interesting here is how they are just tweaks, as opposed to some more ambitious developments which used counter-masses to mitigate the felt recoil.

OK, This is F%$#ing Nuts………

The US Army’s next infantry combat vehicle, the successor to the Bradley is set to weigh more than an M-1 tank:

What may weigh more than an M1 Abrams tank and carry 12 soldiers? The Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle. New weight estimates for GCV, released this week by the Congressional Budget Office, will likely go over like a lead ballon with the program’s critics in Congress and in the Army itself.

Depending on the model and add-on armor package, an M1 weighs 60 to 75.5 tons. According to the CBO report, the General Dynamics design for the GCV weighs 64 to 70 tons. BAE s proposal is still heavier, at 70 to 84.

There’s a tactical reason for all this weight: It’s armor. The Ground Combat Vehicle is supposed to replace the Army’s current frontline infantry carrier, the M2 Bradley, carrying more foot troops in back — nine instead of six — and protecting them better against everything from rocket-propelled grenades to roadside bombs. Even the most heavily uparmored models of the M2, at almost 40 tons, proved too vulnerable for the worst streets in Baghdad during the “surge,” so commanders often sent 70-plus-ton M1s to clear the way. Even some of those M1s blew up, in part because the insurgents could build huge improvised explosive devices, in part because the M1’s armor is mostly on the front to protect against enemy tanks, not on the underside.

Let’s start with the first thing: The Bradley could carry 9 troops if they went with an unmanned remotely operated turret, (see also here) which eliminates the gunner, and his station, which rotates along with the turret.

Even the Israeli Namer, the highest weight IFV in the world, does not top 60 tons, and unlike the US army, they do not have to deploy half way around the world.

It should also be noted that the Nammer does not carry an autocannon in the turret, it carries either a .50 cal machine gun or 40mm grenade launcher, because the Israelis realized that they would have to reduce the armor levels to keep the weight to a manageable level.

The US army should separate what it wants from what it needs, as the Israelis did.

If they do that, and avail themselves of new developments in armor that are in the pipeline, they could keep the weight below 60 tons.

Cloud Computing, RIP

The Department of Justice is now arguing that you have no property rights whatsoever to your data if you use cloud storage:

Yesterday, EFF, on behalf of its client Kyle Goodwin, filed a brief proposing a process for the Court in the Megaupload case to hold the government accountable for the actions it took (and failed to take) when it shut down Megaupload’s service and denied third parties like Mr. Goodwin access to their property. The government also filed a brief of its own, calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require third parties—often individuals or small companies—to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings, just to get their own property back.

Even worse, the government admitted that it has accessed Mr. Goodwin’s Megaupload account and reviewed the content of his files. By doing so, the government has taken a significant and frightening step. It apparently searched through the data it seized for one purpose when its target was Megaupload in order to use it against Mr. Goodwin, someone who was hurt by its actions but who is plainly not the target of any criminal investigation, much less the one against Megaupload. This is, of course, a bald attempt to shift the focus to Mr. Goodwin, trying to distract both the press and the Court from the government’s failure to take any steps, much less the reasonable steps required by law, to protect the property rights of third parties either before a warrant was executed or afterward. And of course, if the government is so well positioned that it can search through Mr. Goodwin’s files and opine on their content—and it is not at all clear that this second search was authorized—presumably it can also find a way to return them. .

But in addition, the government’s approach should terrify any user of cloud computer servicesnot to mention the providers.  The government maintains that Mr. Goodwin lost his property rights in his data by storing it on a cloud computing service.  Specifically, the government argues that both the contract between Megaupload and Mr. Goodwin (a standard cloud computing contract) and the contract between Megaupload and the server host, Carpathia (also a standard agreement), “likely limit any property interest he may have” in his data.  (Page 4). If the government is right, no provider can both protect itself against sudden losses (like those due to a hurricane) and also promise its customers that their property rights will be maintained when they use the service. Nor can they promise that their property might not suddenly disappear, with no reasonable way to get it back if the government comes in with a warrant. Apparently your property rights “become severely limited” if you allow someone else to host your data under standard cloud computing arrangements. This argument isn’t limited in any way to Megaupload — it would apply if the third party host was Amazon’s S3 or Google Apps or or Apple iCloud.  

(emphasis original)

So basically, if a prosecutor decides to go after one person using a cloud service, then they could take down the entire service, and if you do not like it, tough, you have no property rights.

Having your property seized at the whim of a prosecutor is antithetical to the very idea of the rule of law.

Still bullish on cloud storage?

H/t Ecop at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Yeah, This is How “Balanced” Agreements With the RIAA and MPAA Work

The RIAA and the large ISPs have an agreement to implement a “six strikes” agreement in to limit “piracy”.

At the core of this agreement is an “independent and impartial” expert to evaluate evidence against people, but now it appears that this “expert” is an RIAA lobbyist:

A month before the controversial “six strikes” anti-piracy plan goes live in the U.S., the responsible Center of Copyright Information (CCI) is dealing with a small crisis. As it turns out the RIAA failed to mention to its partners that the “impartial and independent” technology expert they retained previously lobbied for the music industry group. In a response to the controversy, CCI is now considering whether it should hire another expert to evaluate the anti-piracy monitoring technology.

Starting next month the MPAA, RIAA and five major Internet providers in the United States will start punishing persistent BitTorrent pirates,

The scheme is being coordinated by the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) who agreed to hire an impartial and independent expert to review the evidence that will be used to accuse suspected subscribers.

However, earlier this week the news broke that the touted independent technology expert, Stroz Friedberg, is not so neutral. In fact, the company is a former RIAA lobbying firm.

The lobbying job earned the company more than half a million dollars ($637,000), which makes it hard to view the company as “independent and impartial” as the agreement between the copyright holders and ISPs requires.

This is why you don’t cut deals with the RIAA and the MPAA.

They are not, and have never been, good faith players in this debate.