#books #sciencefiction #adventure #energy
Books -
Swords of Exodus by Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) and Mike Kupari - Pretty solid action adventure yarn following the adventures of mercenary Michael Valentine and master thief Lorenzo as they take on the secret government within the United States government, an all powerful criminal organization, your run of the mill warlords and a guy I am pretty sure will end up to be some sort of vampire. Veers a little to far into conspiracy theory territory occasionally but not enough to really damage the book overall.
Chaos Quarter by David Welch - Decent enough science fiction story about a naval officer sent on an intelligence gathering mission in a largely uncivilized sector of space. Not a bad story but at places it reads a little like a game of Traveller, but Traveller is one of my favorite games so no harm no foul. Only $.99 so you can't really go wrong, but if you are into traditional science fiction you won't be disappointed.
The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters by Gregory Zuckerman - It's exactly what the title says and the inside story is actually pretty entertaining, as well as enlightening. Should be required reading for anyone involved in setting energy policy.
Articles -
Sorry to say nothing caught my eye - maybe later.
Providing Simplistic Answers To Complicated Questions Since 2004
Saturday, March 08, 2014
Friday, March 07, 2014
What I am reading today 3/7/2014
#privacy #bitcoin #media #politics #climatechange
This Infographic Shows You How to Delete Yourself from the Internet - Ready to erase your tracks and disappear online, once and for all? This infographic from Who Is Hosting This reveals the nine steps you need to take to remove your personal information collected all over the web.
Did Newsweek just validate Bitcoin conspiracy theory - there is one piece of the Newsweek story that does fit into one of the more popular conspiracy theories: That Bitcoin was actually created by the NSA, or some other U.S. intelligence agency.
FCC Proposes to Tighten Media Ownership Rules - Regulators are expected to approve new rules later this month that would sharply curtail the use of “joint sales agreements,” which have become a popular broadcaster method of skirting national ownership limits, that restrict companies from owning more than one major station in a market.
El Niño May Soak Drought-Ravaged California This Year - A bulletin posted today by NOAA says that there is a 50 percent chance that the climate event known as El Niño will be back this summer or fall. If it appears, it could mean heavy rainfall next winter for drought-stricken California and fewer tropical cyclones over the Atlantic this summer.
This Infographic Shows You How to Delete Yourself from the Internet - Ready to erase your tracks and disappear online, once and for all? This infographic from Who Is Hosting This reveals the nine steps you need to take to remove your personal information collected all over the web.
Did Newsweek just validate Bitcoin conspiracy theory - there is one piece of the Newsweek story that does fit into one of the more popular conspiracy theories: That Bitcoin was actually created by the NSA, or some other U.S. intelligence agency.
FCC Proposes to Tighten Media Ownership Rules - Regulators are expected to approve new rules later this month that would sharply curtail the use of “joint sales agreements,” which have become a popular broadcaster method of skirting national ownership limits, that restrict companies from owning more than one major station in a market.
El Niño May Soak Drought-Ravaged California This Year - A bulletin posted today by NOAA says that there is a 50 percent chance that the climate event known as El Niño will be back this summer or fall. If it appears, it could mean heavy rainfall next winter for drought-stricken California and fewer tropical cyclones over the Atlantic this summer.
Thursday, March 06, 2014
What I am reading 3/6/2014
The Lewis and Crok exposition - Climate less sensitive to Carbon Dioxide than most models suggest - “The observational evidence strongly suggest that climate models display
too much sensitivity to carbon dioxide concentrations and in almost all
cases exaggerate the likely path of global warming,” says Nic Lewis. #globalwarming
China's got a supergun - The ZH-05 OICW is pattered on the original XM-29 design. The Chinese gun combines a 5.8-millimeter rifle and a 20-millimeter smart grenade launcher in an over-under configuration. The new weapon weighs just 10 pounds fully loaded—its low weight likely due to the launcher’s antiquated, but still effective, manual bolt action. #china #military
The Anti-Empirical Left - President Obama entered office promising to restore the sanctity of science. Instead, a fresh war against science, statistics, and reason is being waged on behalf of politically correct politics.
The Face behind Bitcoin - (This page is very slow-loading so here is a link to The Verge with a summary) - A trail of investigation reportedly led to "a 64-year-old Japanese-American man whose name really is Satoshi Nakamoto," and who has "a career shrouded in secrecy, having done classified work for major corporations and the US military." (Don't forget my theory - Bitcoin is an NSA Plot designed to offload cryptobreaking tasks onto unsuspecting users GPUs. Just Sayin' is all) #bitcoin
China's got a supergun - The ZH-05 OICW is pattered on the original XM-29 design. The Chinese gun combines a 5.8-millimeter rifle and a 20-millimeter smart grenade launcher in an over-under configuration. The new weapon weighs just 10 pounds fully loaded—its low weight likely due to the launcher’s antiquated, but still effective, manual bolt action. #china #military
The Anti-Empirical Left - President Obama entered office promising to restore the sanctity of science. Instead, a fresh war against science, statistics, and reason is being waged on behalf of politically correct politics.
The Face behind Bitcoin - (This page is very slow-loading so here is a link to The Verge with a summary) - A trail of investigation reportedly led to "a 64-year-old Japanese-American man whose name really is Satoshi Nakamoto," and who has "a career shrouded in secrecy, having done classified work for major corporations and the US military." (Don't forget my theory - Bitcoin is an NSA Plot designed to offload cryptobreaking tasks onto unsuspecting users GPUs. Just Sayin' is all) #bitcoin
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
What I am reading today 3/5/2014
There is no gender gap in tech salaries - "whatever problems women may have with the tech
industry, wage discrimination isn’t necessarily one of them. New
research shows that there is no statistically significant difference in
earnings between male and female engineers who have the same credentials
and make the same choices regarding their career." #surprise
Yahoo will block Google and Facebook accounts from accessing it's services - "According to Reuters, Yahoo will begin removing the option to sign into any of Yahoo's services with a Facebook or Google account, both options which have been available for years. Starting with 'Yahoo Sports Tourney Pick 'Em,"
#MarissaMayer #abouttime
Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping - "The bug in the GnuTLS library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protections available on websites that depend on the open source package. Initial estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate that more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it wouldn't be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end users and servers." #linux #schadenfreude
John Cornyn crushes Steve Stockman; Ralph Hall forced into runoff - Two pillars of the Republican establishment crushed their tea party-inspired primary challengers in Texas on Tuesday, while another Bush catapulted toward statewide office. But the kick-off to the 2014 primary season was not a complete victory for the establishment GOP as two incumbents, 90-year-old Rep. Ralph Hall and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, were forced into runoffs. #teaparty
Yahoo will block Google and Facebook accounts from accessing it's services - "According to Reuters, Yahoo will begin removing the option to sign into any of Yahoo's services with a Facebook or Google account, both options which have been available for years. Starting with 'Yahoo Sports Tourney Pick 'Em,"
#MarissaMayer #abouttime
Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping - "The bug in the GnuTLS library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protections available on websites that depend on the open source package. Initial estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate that more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it wouldn't be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end users and servers." #linux #schadenfreude
John Cornyn crushes Steve Stockman; Ralph Hall forced into runoff - Two pillars of the Republican establishment crushed their tea party-inspired primary challengers in Texas on Tuesday, while another Bush catapulted toward statewide office. But the kick-off to the 2014 primary season was not a complete victory for the establishment GOP as two incumbents, 90-year-old Rep. Ralph Hall and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, were forced into runoffs. #teaparty
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
What I Am Reading 3/4/2014
What's Gone Wrong With Democracy - The key to a healthier democracy, in short, is a narrower state—an idea that dates back to the American revolution. “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men”, Madison argued, “the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Hackers hijack 300,000-plus wireless routers, make malicious changes - Researchers said they have uncovered yet another mass compromise of home and small-office wireless routers, this one being used to make malicious configuration changes to more than 300,000 devices made by D-Link, Micronet, Tenda, TP-Link, and others.
Hackers hijack 300,000-plus wireless routers, make malicious changes - Researchers said they have uncovered yet another mass compromise of home and small-office wireless routers, this one being used to make malicious configuration changes to more than 300,000 devices made by D-Link, Micronet, Tenda, TP-Link, and others.
Microsoft tries to get users off Windows XP with migration tools and warnings - Microsoft really wants Windows XP holdouts to upgrade before official support ends in a month's time, and it's providing some last-minute incentives
to get those people moving forward. The company will soon let XP users
download a free copy of Laplink's PCmover Express to migrate their data
to newer Windows releases.
How the world came to hate Silicon Valley - With their displays of excess and arrogance, the tech industry's masters of the universe are now battling pickets, protests and bricks through the window.
How the world came to hate Silicon Valley - With their displays of excess and arrogance, the tech industry's masters of the universe are now battling pickets, protests and bricks through the window.
Monday, March 03, 2014
What I am Reading Today 3/3/2014
How the Data From Three US Rating Agencies Control the World's Economy - TED talk. Typical utopian solution that has no chance of succeeding.
5-Year-Olds Can Learn Calculus - The current sequence is merely an entrenched historical accident that strips much of the fun out of what she describes as the “playful universe” of mathematics, with its more than 60 top-level disciplines, and its manifestations in everything from weaving to building, nature, music and art. Worse, the standard curriculum starts with arithmetic, which Droujkova says is much harder for young children than playful activities based on supposedly more advanced fields of mathematics.
5-Year-Olds Can Learn Calculus - The current sequence is merely an entrenched historical accident that strips much of the fun out of what she describes as the “playful universe” of mathematics, with its more than 60 top-level disciplines, and its manifestations in everything from weaving to building, nature, music and art. Worse, the standard curriculum starts with arithmetic, which Droujkova says is much harder for young children than playful activities based on supposedly more advanced fields of mathematics.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
What I am Reading Today 2/26/2014
No Vaccines Don't Cause Autism - In 1998, there was a groundbreaking study telling parents that their children were at risk of getting autism from vaccines. ... The only problem was that same study published in the Lancet
was later retracted. Its author, Andrew Wakefield, was shown to have
falsified data. His "science" proved to be fraudulent, and riddled with
conflicts of interest. His research was so void of ethics that the
British General Medical Council removed him from the medical registry
and he's no longer allowed to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.
US Navy Ready To Deploy Laser For First Time - The Navy plans to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to test an electromagnetic rail gun prototype aboard a vessel within two years.
The Internet is Fucked - Massive companies like AT&T and Comcast have spent the first two months of 2014 boldly announcing plans to close and control the internet through additional fees, pay-to-play schemes, and sheer brutal size — all while the legal rules designed to protect against these kinds of abuses were struck down in court for basically making too much sense. “
Do Conservatives Keep falling In Love With Bad Boys in Politics - No quote here I am just going to answer: Yes. Or maybe more accurately we jump on a band wagon because Limbaugh or Beck tell us too without considering whether the person we are supporting a) is actually worth supporting (Scott Brown and Marco Rubio come to mind), and b) can actually win. This is simplistic I know, there are a lot of things that go into a candidacy but I have a couple tests, 1) Do I agree with the basic tenets of their position, 2) Would I drink a beer with them, 3) Would I feel comfortable leaving my sister, mother or nieces and nephew alone in a room with them, and 4) How often do I find myself having to say "No, No, No, what he meant was" If any one of those is a no (or in the case of the last one just a constant battle) I won't vote for them. I may not vote for their opponent but I won't vote for them. Unfortunately in the last 8 years there have been way too many conservative candidates that fail my test.
US Navy Ready To Deploy Laser For First Time - The Navy plans to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to test an electromagnetic rail gun prototype aboard a vessel within two years.
The Internet is Fucked - Massive companies like AT&T and Comcast have spent the first two months of 2014 boldly announcing plans to close and control the internet through additional fees, pay-to-play schemes, and sheer brutal size — all while the legal rules designed to protect against these kinds of abuses were struck down in court for basically making too much sense. “
Do Conservatives Keep falling In Love With Bad Boys in Politics - No quote here I am just going to answer: Yes. Or maybe more accurately we jump on a band wagon because Limbaugh or Beck tell us too without considering whether the person we are supporting a) is actually worth supporting (Scott Brown and Marco Rubio come to mind), and b) can actually win. This is simplistic I know, there are a lot of things that go into a candidacy but I have a couple tests, 1) Do I agree with the basic tenets of their position, 2) Would I drink a beer with them, 3) Would I feel comfortable leaving my sister, mother or nieces and nephew alone in a room with them, and 4) How often do I find myself having to say "No, No, No, what he meant was" If any one of those is a no (or in the case of the last one just a constant battle) I won't vote for them. I may not vote for their opponent but I won't vote for them. Unfortunately in the last 8 years there have been way too many conservative candidates that fail my test.
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