Is The U.S. Navy's Biofuels Program A Boondoggle?

Last month, the U.S. Navy deployed the Paul F. Foster - a decommissioned destroyer now used for experimental purposes - on a 17-hour voyage powered by Solazyme Inc.'s algae-derived biofuel. Photo: U.S. Navy

McCain Sees Another Solyndra In Navy Biofuels Spending -- The Hill

The Navy’s push to develop biofuels to run its fleet of planes and warships could devolve into a “Solyndra situation” for the Pentagon, a top Republican senator said today.

During Tuesday’s hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) compared the now-bankrupt solar energy company, into which the White House sank $535 million in loan guarantees, to Navy-led efforts in alternative energy.

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My Comment: What caught my eye was the following ....

.... But Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) pointed out that even at a competitive price, the Navy’s plan to use a “50/50 blend” of diesel fuel and a biofuel supplement would still cost $15 per gallon. Traditional JP-5 jet fuel used in the Navy’s fighter aircraft runs $4 to $5 per gallon on average, Inhofe said.

$15 per gallon !!!!! .... you've got to be kidding me. And what is even worse is that these are just projections .... projections from a government agency that has a lousy record in projecting anything.

Bottom line .... it is too expensive and if implemented will help in busting the defense department's budget. My suggestion .... go back to the drawing board and find an alternative plan that is more practical and economically feasible.

What Top Secret NSA Data Center?

NSA Keeping Details About Data Center Quiet -- KSL.com

BLUFFDALE — The $1.5 billion spy complex being built for the National Security Agency is becoming more conspicuous as construction advances at Camp Williams within sight of traffic on I-15.

But the agency building 1 million square feet of enclosed space, including 100,000 square feet of space just for computers that will gather and digest intelligence information, continues to do what it does best — keep secrets — when asked about the project.

The NSA sent a short statement to the Deseret News on Friday, but only after Wired Magazine compiled a voluminous story published the same day. The broadly researched story builds the skeleton of its story using information NSA released at its January 2011 groundbreaking and puts meat and skin on that skeleton with anecdotal data from the computer and information technology industries.

One thing the Utah Data Center is not likely to run short of: really big numbers.

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My Comment: The sentence that got my attention was the following ....

.... 100,000 square feet of space just for computers.

That's going to be one hell of an electricity bill.

Spotify Will Overtake iTunes In Two Years

Spotify now has 10 million signed-up users and 2.5 million paying subscribers. CEO Daniel Ek points out that subcribers pay £120 a year, whereas customers of iTunes store only pay £60 on average

Spotify Will Overtake iTunes In Two Years, Claims 'Social Network' Billionaire Sean Parker -- Daily Mail

* Streaming service is already number two after iTunes
* More than 10 million users after tie-up with Facebook
* Tech billionaire claims music companies will earn more throughSpotify

Music streaming service Spotify will overtake Apple's iTunes store within two years if it keeps growing at its current rate, claims Sean Parker, Facebook's first president.

The technology billionaire, famous from the film 'The Social Network', where he was played by Justin Timberlake, claims that music companies will earn more from Spotify than from Apple within two years.

He also poked fun at the slow speeds of Apple's download store, saying, 'The iTunes store, to this day, is so slow. I’m amazed.'

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My Comment: He is probably right.

Want To Live Longer .... Make Friends

You Want To Live To 1,000? Start Making Friends -- The Guardian

Loneliness is the worst enemy for the health of old people.

This week, to a large and gripped audience, Professor Sarah Harper from the Oxford Institute of Ageing had just explained what societies of the future would look like. Then someone in the audience stood up and quoted gerontologist Aubrey de Grey: "The person who lives to be 1,000 has already been born."

To think of our children living into their 100s is, it seems, at the vanilla end of the ageing debate now. Conceivably, you could retire in your sixties, become transformed by stem cell regeneration or similar, go back to work at 100, work for another 800 years, and still have a really long retirement.

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My Comment: Too many friends can age you also. :)

Smokers Likely to Quit Because of Social Disapproval

Smokers Likely to Quit Because of Social Disapproval, Not Fear -- Scit Tech Daily

A new study based in the UK shows that fear provoked by graphic images had no effect on smokers’ intentions to stop smoking and that smokers were more willing to consider quitting because of negative attitudes towards their habit.

In 2008 the United Kingdom became one of the first countries in Europe to make it mandatory for cigarette packets sold within the UK to display fear-provoking, graphic anti-smoking images, founded on the assumption that the use of fear is an effective method to encourage smokers to quit.

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My Comment: I agree .... my brother and I were able to convince our dad to quit smoking.

An Insider's Look At The 'Climate Wars'

Michael Mann. CREDIT: Tom Cogill

The Hockey Stick Chronicles: An Insider's Look At The 'Climate Wars' -- Live Science

An Insider's Look At The 'Climate Wars'

Very few faces are as closely linked with the American debate over climate change as Michael Mann's. The Pennsylvania State University climate scientist is one of the authors of the famous "hockey stick" graph, a chart showing reconstructed temperature records stretching back 1,000 years. The graph swings upward sharply post-industrial revolution, looking a bit like the blade on a hockey stick.

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My Comment: Another 'Live Science' promotion of someone who is adamant about global warming and man's involvement in it.

Technological Advances Are Surpasing George Orwell's Vision Of 1984

A Sony internet TV: The rise of 'connected' devices in the home offers spies a window into people's lives - CIA director David Petraeus says the technologies will 'transform' surveillance

The CIA Wants To Spy On You Through Your TV: Agency Director Says It Will 'Transform' Surveillance -- Daily Mail

* Devices connected to internet leak information
* CIA director says these gadgets will 'transform clandestine tradecraft'
* Spies could watch thousands via supercomputers
* People 'bug' their own homes with web-connected devices

When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are.

Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home - the rise of 'connected' gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people 'bug' their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.

The CIA claims it will be able to 'read' these devices via the internet - and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home.

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My Comment: CIA Director Petraeus is right .... and we are the ones who are making it possible. So much for our privacy.

Is Cell Phone Radiation Linked To Behavior Problems?

Cell Phone Radiation Linked to Behavior Problems In Mice -- ABC News

A new study could re-ignite the debate over the potentially dangerous effects of cell phone radiation on children's behavior.

Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine found that exposing pregnant mice to radiation from a cell phone affected the behavior of their offspring later. They found that the mice exposed to radiation as fetuses were more hyperactive, had more anxiety and poorer memory -- symptoms associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- than mice who were not exposed to radiation.

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My Comment: Oh oh.

China Moves To Control Sina Weibo Social Network

The logo of Sina Corp's Chinese microblog website 'Weibo' Photo: REUTERS

China Moves To Control Sina Weibo Social Network With Real Names -- The Telegraph

Hundreds of millions of Chinese faced being silenced on the country's social networks, including Sina's Weibo, after the government brought in new rules to track people across the web.

Anyone wishing to post on one of China's networks, including the enormously popular Sina Weibo (way-bore), must now register with their real names, allowing the government to easily find them if they write anything contentious.

By Friday afternoon, only 19 million of the 250 million users of Sina Weibo had registered, according to a counter on the company's website. Later in the day, the counter was disabled and Sina did not respond to requests for updated figures.

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My Comment: I can never understand government fears over privacy .... that they have to know who you even if you are a nobody with no influence or power.

Hundreds Of Elephants Slaughtered At African Wildlife Park

Hundreds Of Elephants Slaughtered At African Wildlife Park As Horseback-Riding Poachers Kill HALF The Population -- Daily Mail

* At least 200 elephants in Bouba N'Djida reserve killed since January
* 20 fresh carcasses found last week
* Demand from China driving ivory black market

These heartbreaking photos show the extent of an elephant slaughter in the troubled nation of Cameroon.

At least half the elephant population in Bouba N'Djida reserve have been slaughtered because the west African nation sent too few security forces to tackle poachers, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Thursday.

In what was described as one of the worst poaching massacres in decades, and at least 200 elephants have been killed for their tusks since January by poachers on horseback from Chad and Sudan.

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My Comment: Disgusting.

Skydiver Leaps 13 Miles From The Edge Of Space At 354mph

To Infinity And Beyond! Skydiver Leaps 13 Miles From The Edge Of Space At 354mph (And It Takes Him Just 8 Minutes To Hit The Ground) -- Daily Mail/AP

Skydiving daredevil Felix Baumgartner is more than halfway toward his goal of setting a world record for the highest jump.

He's aiming for nearly 23 miles this summer. The record is 19.5 miles.

Mr Baumgartner lifted off Thursday for a test jump from Roswell, New Mexico, aboard a 100-foot helium balloon. He rode inside a pressurized capsule to 71,581 feet - 13.6 miles - and then jumped.

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More News On Skydiving Daredevil Felix Baumgartner Leap From The Edge Of Space

Skydiver passes halfway point in quest to make highest jump -- MSNBC
Test jump from 71,581 feet sets up daredevil's outer-space plunge -- FOX News
Skydiver Makes Test Jump From 13 Miles Up -- Playbook/Wired
Skydiver jumps from 13 miles above Earth in test run for record attempt -- The Guardian
Skydiver Felix Baumgartner on track for super jump -- BBC
Skydiver falls from stratosphere in preparation for 'space jump' -- Christian Science Monitor
Austrian daredevil Baumgartner skydives from 71,581ft -- The Register
Skydiver plans to jump from 23 miles to Earth, breaking sound barrier -- SI.com/AP
Supersonic edge of space base jumper Felix Baumgartner completes Roswell test jump -- The Telegraph
Base jumper and skydiver Felix Baumgartner and his Red Bull Stratos challenge -- The Telegraph (Photo Blog)

Five Southern African Nations Have Agreed To Create The World’s Largest Conservation Area

Africa Treaty Creates World’s Largest Conservation Area -- Scotsman

FIVE Southern African nations have agreed to form the world’s largest international conservation area in an effort to protect nearly half of the continent’s elephants and a vast range of animals, birds and plants, many endangered by poaching and human encroachment.

At a ceremony in Namibia yesterday, government ministers from Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe put their seals on a cross-border treaty set to combine 36 nature preserves and surrounding areas.

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My Comment: It's about time.

Google Is Now Just An Ad Company

A former Engineering Director says that Google has changed from being 'a technology company to an advertising company'

'Google Is Now Just An Ad Company': Departing Exec's Goldman Sachs-Style Rant About How Search Giant Is Now Obsessed With Harvesting People's Private Information -- Daily Mail

* Google now wants to 'learn as much about people's private lives as possible'
* Company has 'stopped' being a technology company focused on innovation
* 'When Gmail displays ads based on things in my email it creeps me out'
* CEO Larry Page on 'mission' to beat Facebook

A former Google executive has lambasted his ex-employer in a Goldman Sachs-style rant this week - claiming that the search company has been turned into an 'ad company' obsessed with harvesting people's private information.

James Whittaker, a current Partner Development Manager at Microsoft and ex-Engineering Director at Google, posted the 1328-word attack on Google on his Microsoft blog this week.

'Perhaps Google is right,' writes Whittaker, 'Perhaps the future lies in learning as much about people’s personal lives as possible.

'The Google I was passionate about was a technology company. The Google I left was an advertising company.'

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My Comment: It may just be an advertising company .... but damn .... it is a very rich advertising company.

Google Servers In The Dark

Google's new server farm in The Dalles, Oregon. Ted Blog

Super-Secret Google Builds Servers In The Dark -- Wired Science

Just how far will Google go to hide its custom-built data-center hardware from the rest of the world?

In one Silicon Valley data center, the company is apparently so paranoid about competitors catching a glimpse of its gear, it’s been known to keep its server cages in complete darkness, outfitting its technical staff like miners and sending them spelunking into the cages with lights on their heads.

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My Comment: Maybe they want to save money on the electricity? :)

CIA Chief Muses Of A World Where Everything Is Watched

CIA Chief: We’ll Spy On You Through Your Dishwasher -- Danger Room

More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.

Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

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My Comment: George Orwell's 1984 dos not even come close to this 'brave new world'.

The Ultimate Data Center Is Now Being Built For The NSA

The NSA Is Building The Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) -- Threat Level

The spring air in the small, sand-dusted town has a soft haze to it, and clumps of green-gray sagebrush rustle in the breeze. Bluffdale sits in a bowl-shaped valley in the shadow of Utah’s Wasatch Range to the east and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. It’s the heart of Mormon country, where religious pioneers first arrived more than 160 years ago. They came to escape the rest of the world, to understand the mysterious words sent down from their god as revealed on buried golden plates, and to practice what has become known as “the principle,” marriage to multiple wives.

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My Comment: Everything and anything that is communicated will probably be going through this data center .... and stored.

$2 billion to build it .... and God only knows how much to run it.

Ten Percent Never Delete Their eMail

One In Ten ‘Never Delete Email’ -- The Telegraph

A new study claims Britons are ‘digital hoarders’ who use their email inboxes to record their lives.

Larger inboxes and free email accounts mean that pressure to delete email has diminished rapidly in recent years. Although Google was the first to offer so-called ‘infinite’ storage for its Gmail accounts, all major providers now follow a similar approach.

Microsoft estimates that the average inbox will receive 14,600 emails in 2012. It says that consumers are opting in to received a growing number of newsletters, deals and updates, which it classifies as neither spam nor authentic email. The so-called ‘greymail’, makes up around 80 per cent of the average inbox. Newsletters alone have increased by 300 per cent in the last 12 months, the company claims.

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My Comment: I am one of those who is guilty in not deleting his mail (I do delete spam).

Red Meat Makes Me Happy

(Photo: Yuki Sugiura)

Red Meat Is An Englishman's Heritage -- The Telegraph

Oh dear. Once again scientists are blaming red meat for causing people to die prematurely. Actually, there seem to be two strands to Rebecca Smith's report, or, rather, two kinds of meat products are mentioned. On the one hand, you've got good old cured and processed meats – lovely smokey, salty, chewable favourites such as salami, saucisson, bacon and traditional British bangers. Those goodies have been picked on before, because of the preservative that they contain: sodium nitrite, which has two main actions: it stops the growth of the nasty bacterium clostridium botulinum, and it can bestow a nice "healthy" pink colour on preserved meats. It's not quite the same as saltpetre: that term usually refers to potassium nitrate.

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My Comment: Sighhhh .... non-meat is not for me.

All Red Meat Is Bad For You

Eating any amount and any type of red meat increases the risk of premature death, a new study says. (William Thomas Cain / Getty Images / March 12, 2012)

All Red Meat Is Bad For You, New Study Says -- L.A. Times

A long-term study finds that eating any amount and any type increases the risk of premature death.

Eating red meat — any amount and any type — appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to a long-range study that examined the eating habits and health of more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years.

For instance, adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat — picture a piece of steak no bigger than a deck of cards — to one's daily diet was associated with a 13% greater chance of dying during the course of the study.

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My Comment:Damn .... and I love my cold cuts and barbeque steaks.

Russia's Space Program Plans Announced (Updated)

Image: NASA

Russia Plans Moon Base, Mars Network by 2030 -- Wired Science

Russia plans to send probes to Jupiter and Venus, land a network of unmanned stations on Mars and ferry Russian cosmonauts to the surface of the Moon — all by 2030. That’s according to a leaked document from the country’s space agency.

The cosmically ambitious plans were submitted to the government by the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) this month, according to a report in the Kommersant, Russia’s business-focused daily newspaper.

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More News On Russia's Moon Plans

Space Race 2: Russia 'will send man to the moon by 2030' -- Daily Mail
Russia aims to put a man on the moon by 2030 -- MSNBC/Space.com
Russia plans moon mission by 2030 -- The Age
Russia sets sights on Moon, Mars and beyond -- Sydney Morning Herald
Russia plans man on Moon and Mars landing by 2030 -- Digital Journal
Russia to finally send man to the Moon -- The Telegraph
Man on Moon & Mars landing: Russia space plans unveiled -- RT