Commerce – Page 342 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/09/232010/09/23

Journal: Private Security Contractors (Blackwater Xe Specifically) In Court Over Epidemic Steroid & Drug Use, Psychotic Behavior, in Iraq

David Isenberg

Private Security Contractors (PSCs) on Drugs

Media reports regarding the lawsuits prompted a third party named Howard Boardman Lowry to contact Relators‟ Counsel. Mr. Lowry's sworn testimony is attached in its entirety as Exhibit B. Mr. Lowry testified he purchased steroids, human growth hormones, and testosterone for Blackwater employees and his observation of rampant drug use among Blackwater employees. Initially, Blackwater paid for the steroids from company funds. Later, Blackwater management steered Blackwater personnel to Mr. Lowry. He also testified that Blackwater employees would often shoot at Iraqi pedestrians for no reason and would regularly shoot into adjacent buildings housing Iraqi civilians among other acts of unwarranted violence. In short, Mr. Lowry provides critical and corroborating evidence. See Exhibit B.

Phi Beta Iota: The entire piece in the Huffington Post is worth a careful reading.

2010/09/212010/09/21

Journal: Electromagnetics, Bees, & Agriculture

Commerce, Government, IO Sense-Making, Law Enforcement, Military, Mobile

June 30, 2010 Study links bee decline to cell phones

Bee populations dropped 17 percent in the UK last year, according to the British Bee Association, and nearly 30 percent in the United States says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Parasitic mites called varroa, agricultural pesticides and the effects of climate change have all been implicated in what has been dubbed “colony collapse disorder” (CCD).

But researchers in India believe cell phones could also be to blame for some of the losses.

Continue reading “Journal: Electromagnetics, Bees, & Agriculture”

2010/09/212010/09/21

Video on “Technological Disobedience,” Inventing to Survive and Liberate

01 Poverty, Civil Society, Commerce, Technologies, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

The Technological Disobedience of Ernesto Oroza: In Isolated Cuba, Inventing to Survive

In 1991, Cuba’s economy began to implode. “The Special Period in the Time of Peace” was the government’s euphemism for what was a culmination of 30 years worth of isolation. It began in the 60s, with engineers leaving Cuba for the Unites States, and continues in part today, under the longest trade embargo in modern history.

When Ernesto Oroza, a Cuban-American designer and artist, began studying the technological innovations that have been made during this period, he uncovered a trove of homespun, Frankenstein-like machines that ordinary citizens made for their survival, out of day to day objects. In this episode of Motherboard, we visit Ernesto in Miami to talk about his work and the amazing creations of Cuba’s enterprising DIY inventors.

In the 1970s, a group of scientists and mechanics inspired by Che Guevara formed the National Association of Innovators and Rationalizers (ANIR) as a way of organizing and strengthening this homebrew culture, uniting the ethos of the hacker with the needs of an isolated economy and the call of a socialist revolution. Oroza showed us his meticulous collection of these machines, which he has contextualized as art pieces in a movement he calls “Technological Disobedience.”

2010/09/202010/09/20

Journal: US Research & Development in the Toilet

03 Economy, 05 Energy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government

U.S. innovation: On the skids

Technologists look to a new White House to reverse decade-long slide in R&D

By Gary Anthes, ComputerWorld, October 21, 2008

By most measures, the U.S. is in a decade-long decline in global technological competitiveness. The reasons are many and complex, but central among them is the country's retreat from long-term basic research in science and technology, coupled with a surge in R&D by countries such as China.

Tip of the Hat to Lynn Wheeler at LinkedIn.

Phi Beta Iota: This ties in perfectly with US secret intelligence fraud, waste, and abuse (hand-outs to corporations for vapor-ware, see our quick study 2010: OPINION–America’s Cyber Scam); and also with Chuck Spinney's long-standing concerns about the plans-reality mismatch and the criminal insanity of raising two generations of engineers who know nothing but “government specification cost plus” production.

2010/09/172011/01/03

Undersea Cable Ships, Cables, & the People that Help Facilitate the Global Internet

Commerce, Geospatial, Photography, Technologies, True Cost

Aboard an Alcatel-Lucent undersea cable ship
September 5, 2010

The Ile de Batz is one of three dedicated ships that Alcatel-Lucent uses to lay the submarine fiber-optic cables that carry broadband connectivity across the oceans.

The ship is usually based in Calais, France, but made a stop recently in Greenwich, England, to pick up components from Alcatel-Lucent's factory. The telecommunications infrastructure company invited ZDNet UK to see the factory and the ship, and have a look at a vital part of the global Internet that's normally hidden by miles of water.

The Ile de Batz usually spends between 30 and 40 days at sea on each voyage. It can lay up to 200 kilometers (120 miles) of cable per day, in normal conditions, to a depth of about 8km. That cable and its components are expected to have a lifespan of about 25 years.

Continue reading “Undersea Cable Ships, Cables, & the People that Help Facilitate the Global Internet”

2010/09/132010/09/13

Reference: Business Intelligence Blogs

Blog Wisdom, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process

#	Business Intelligence Sources	Registration?	Recommended by
3	BeyeNetwork	No	Rachel Delacour
2	Information-Management.com	No	Rachel Delacour
2	TDWI.org	No	Rachel Delacour
	BitPipe Business Intelligence	No	Naveen Gumgol
	Data Administration Newsletter	No	Bruce Bond-Myatt
	iWareLogic Oracle (BI & EBS)	No	Abhishek Sharma
	MAIA Intelligence Blog	Yes	Dhiren Gala
	Oracle BI Blog	No	Taher Hakami
	Prologica Forums—Dashboards Plus	No	Sree Jallipalli
	Ralph Kimball	Yes	Steve Fiske
	Spagobi the Open Source Business Intel Suite	Yes	Gabriele Ruffatti
	Visual Business Intelligence	No	Hrvoje Smolić

Tip of the Hat to the listed respondents at LinkedIn Business Intelligence Group.

2010/09/13

Inside the iPhone Maker, the Man Who Makes Your iPhone & the Human Costs

01 Poverty, 07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Commerce, Corporations, Media, Mobile, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Technologies, True Cost

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone

September 9, 2010
By Frederik Balfour and Tim Culpan

Foxconn founder Terry Gou might be regarded as Henry Ford reincarnated if only a dozen of his workers hadn't killed themselves this year. An exclusive look inside a postmodern industrial empire. On a crushingly hot mid-August day at Foxconn's Longhua factory campus in Shenzhen—where a dutiful army of 300,000 employees eats, sleeps, and churns out iPhones, Sony PlayStations, and Dell computers—workers indulged in a rare moment of celebration. First, there was a parade, an Alice in Wonderland spectacle of floats, blaring vuvuzelas, and workers dressed up as Victorian ladies, geishas, cheerleaders, and Spider-Men. This was followed by a two-hour rally inside a vast sports stadium featuring acrobats, musical performances, fireworks, and life-affirming testimonials punctuated by chants of “treasure your life” and “care for each other to build a wonderful future.”

Inside the iPhone Maker

By Frederik Balfour

Foxconn Gives Bloomberg Businessweek Unprecedented Access

Foxconn, the secretive Taiwanese company that produces Apple's iPhone and iPad, the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and Dell computers, was forced into the limelight in May 2010 after a dozen employees committed suicide, most by jumping from company dormitories. As part of a much needed public relations effort, Foxconn granted Bloomberg Businessweek unprecedented access to the company's factory floors, worker dorms, suicide helpline operators, and the company's charismatic chairman and founder, 59-year-old Terry Gou. Here are some images of its sprawling facility in Longhua, a suburb of Shenzhen, China, where more than 300,000 migrant laborers work.