Aaron Swartz, a wizardly programmer who as a teenager helped to develop a computer code that provided a format for delivering regularly changing Web content and in later life became an unwavering crusader to make that information free of charge, died in New York on Friday, a family member said.
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Mr. Swartz was 26, and his death was due to suicide. His body was found by his girlfriend in his apartment in New York, his uncle, Michael Wolf, said on Saturday. He had apparently hanged himself, Mr. Wolf said.
As a 14-year-old, Mr. Swartz helped create RSS, the nearly ubiquitous software that allows people to subscribe to information from the Internet. But as he reached adulthood, Mr. Swartz became even more of an Internet folk hero to many because of his online activism to make many Internet files open to the public for free.
Phi Beta Iota: It has come to Phi Beta Iota's attention that too many people are searching for Mini-Me daily, rather than reading that day's postings.
Mini-Me is just one of over 25 contributing editors, each committed to the truth — public intelligence in the public interest.
Below are a couple of posts not by Mini-Mi that are Mini-Me-esque in nature. Bottom line: Mini-Me is one of many important contributors, do not neglect the others, please. We will no longer use Mini-Me to improve dissemination of Mongoose, Owl, or others, they are each a “brand” in their own right.
A shocking new Federal Security Services (FSB) report on the Obama regimes accelerated plan to disarm his countries citizens, claims that the US President is being supported in his efforts by the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, both of whose “main target” is the powerful and feared Jewish-American billionaire Steve Feinberg [photo 2nd left], who controls nearly 85% of all private weapons manufacturing in the United States.
This sinister organization is a drug-trafficking and organized crime syndicate based in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, with operations in the Mexican states of Baja California, Durango, Sonora and Chihuahua, and with thousands of guns provided to them by the Obama regime, in an operation called “Fast and Furious,” unleashed a war upon rival gangs that, to date, has killed over 60,000.
Even worse, this report continues, under both the Bush and Obama regimes, the Sinaloa Cartel was allowed to transport tonnes of drugs to Chicago for distribution throughout the United States, while at the same time being protected by both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The US Bipartisan Bio-Detection 2011 Report Card Status Evaluation (Source: The US Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center, October 2011 Bio Response Report Card)
Events of the recent decade confirm that the threats of bio-terrorism and infectious disease outbreaks are real. Attacks such as the 2001 Anthrax scare, the 2004 Ricin letters, the 2003 SARS and 2009 H1N1 outbreaks have driven governments to increase their bio-surveillance budgets. Public healthcare and HLS agencies' urgent need to establish an early and reliable bio-surveillance detection infrastructure will drive the market onto a much higher trajectory than ever before. We forecast that the cumulative 2012-2016 market (including: systems sale, consumables, upgrades and service) will reach $22.8 billion.
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The recent year that saw the seventh review round of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, demonstrated that demand for biosecurity remains high. As developed countries continue to refine their organizational and technological approach to potential bio-terror and disease outbreak threats, many key emerging markets are also ramping up programs to acquire solutions that provide early outbreak-attack detection. These will require the shortening of bio-attack alarm response time and the proliferation of 3rd generation cost-effective bio-detection technologies and reagent-less detection assays.
In contrast to the US colossal spending of $67 billion on biodefense programs during the 2001-2011 period, the US bipartisan WMD Terror Response Center report card (September 2011) graded the world's leading “US bio-detection and attribution programs” as the Achilles heel of the US BioWatch program. It received a score ranging from “meets minimal expectations” to a catastrophic “fails to meet expectations” (see table above). It stated that “Although naturally occurring disease remains a serious threat, a thinking enemy armed with these same pathogens, or with multi–drug resistant or synthetically engineered pathogens could produce catastrophic consequences“.
Over the next five years, we forecast that, led by the US, Germany, France, China, Japan and India, the global bio-detection market (including systems sale, service, upgrades and consumables) will reach $5.6 billion by 2016.
The US Department of Energy is giving $120m (£75m) to set up a new research centre charged with developing new methods of rare earth production.
Rare earths are 17 chemically similar elements crucial to making many hi-tech products, such as phones and PCs.
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The Critical Materials Institute will be located in Ames, Iowa.
The US wants to reduce its dependency on China, which produces more than 95% of the world's rare earth elements, and address local shortages.
According to the US Geological Survey, there may be deposits of rare earths in 14 US states.
Besides being used for hi-tech gadgets, the elements are also crucial for manufacturing low-carbon resources such as wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars, said David Danielson, the US assistant secretary for renewable energy.
“The Critical Materials Institute will bring together the best and brightest research minds from universities, national laboratories and the private sector to find innovative technology solutions that will help us avoid a supply shortage that would threaten our clean energy industry as well as our security interests,” he said in a statement.
Rare earth elements are also used for military applications, such as advanced optics technologies, radar and radiation detection equipment, and advanced communications systems, according to a 2011 research report by the US Government Accountability Office.
Phi Beta Iota: An Open Source Agency (OSA) at IOC $125M and FOC $3B, would be a vastly better investment. Once again pork finds a home and a new stove-pipe is being built.
The world throws away up to half of its food according to an alarming report that blames consumers’ fussy preference for cosmetically appealing produce, supermarket promotions that encourage overbuying, and deficient storage, transportation and agricultural practices.
“The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering,” says Tim Fox, IME’s head of energy and environment. “This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.
“The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one-free offers.”
SchwartzReport:I don't know. Maybe it is because today is my birthday, and I woke up this morning and realized I was now 71 years old. Maybe it is because this afternoon, Ronlyn and I, as part of a small group, met with our Representative Rick Larsen, who admitted to us that with 85 teabaggers in the House committed to blocking government it was very possible the 113th Congress would be as bad as the 112th. Or maybe it was those Cat! holic stories people sent me. Whatever the reason this story left me outraged. How is it possible that 25 per cent of American children stand teetering on the edge of hunger? What has happened to us as a people? And why does almost none of this get covered in the corporate media? Why did I find an account of an American report featured only in a British newspaper? And how can any politician defend trying to cut these food programs?
One in four children in the U.S. are on food stamps as participation in the program continues to rise, according to 2011 data from the United States Department of Agriculture and U.S. Census Bureau.
A total of 19.9 million children benefited from the food supplement out of a population of 73.9 million Americans under the age of 18, the Census Bureau estimates in a new report released this week.
