As far as I can tell although filed by The Associated Press, this didn't rate a mention on any news network. Further evidence of why we need to leave the carbon era. Instead we have spent a week talking about a story for which no one has a single certain explanatory fact. The NASA report on the collapse of civilization… yawn. Lets speculate instead on whether Martians have d! ematerialized the Malaysian 777 airliner. This and the Crimea, for which there is almost as little certain data. It is the most astonishing display of the complete absence of substance in the American media one can imagine. Literally a week spent on two stories one of which is almost entirely information free and the other which lacks most of the data that would give us insight.
Trade agreements are a subject that can cause the eyes to glaze over, but we should all be paying attention. Right now, there are trade proposals in the works that threaten to put most Americans on the wrong side of globalization.
The conflicting views about the agreements are actually tearing at the fabric of the Democratic Party, though you wouldn’t know it from President Obama’s rhetoric. In his State of the Union address, for example, he blandly referred to “new trade partnerships” that would “create more jobs.” Most immediately at issue is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which would bring together 12 countries along the Pacific Rim in what would be the largest free trade area in the world.
Negotiations for the TPP began in 2010, for the purpose, according to the United States Trade Representative, of increasing trade and investment, through lowering tariffs and other trade barriers among participating countries. But the TPP negotiations have been taking place in secret, forcing us to rely on leaked drafts to guess at the proposed provisions. At the same time, Congress introduced a bill this year that would grant the White House filibuster-proof fast-track authority, under which Congress simply approves or rejects whatever trade agreement is put before it, without revisions or amendments.
Controversy has erupted, and justifiably so. Based on the leaks — and the history of arrangements in past trade pacts — it is easy to infer the shape of the whole TPP, and it doesn’t look good. There is a real risk that it will benefit the wealthiest sliver of the American and global elite at the expense of everyone else. The fact that such a plan is under consideration at all is testament to how deeply inequality reverberates through our economic policies.
Worse, agreements like the TPP are only one aspect of a larger problem: our gross mismanagement of globalization.
VANCOUVER, Canada — Edward Snowden on Tuesday said the biggest revelations have yet to come out of the estimated 1.7 million documents he acquired from the National Security Agency.
In a surprise appearance via satellite robot at the 2014 TED conference in Vancouver, Snowden said there is still a lot of reporting to be done, including diving deeper into the accusation that the NSA tricks companies into building backdoors into their systems that make data vulnerable to hackers across the world.
Click on Image to Enlarge
“Is it really terrorism that we're stopping? I say no,” Snowden said. “The bottom line is that terrorism […] has always been a cover for actions. Terrorism evokes an emotional response.”
Snowden, who is still in hiding somewhere in Russia, maintained that his act wasn't reckless and that he did it all for the American people. He also said he would love to return to the United States — if granted immunity.
“I don't want to harm my government” he said. “The fact that they're willing to ignore due process and declare guilt without a trial […] these are things we need to work against as a society.”
Snowden remains a controversial figure throughout the world, but he was speaking to the right crowd at TED. When Anderson asked the audience who disagreed with Snowden's actions, only a few hands shot into the air. When he asked if the room felt Snowden was right in handing over the NSA's secret, the audience erupted with applause. Tim Berners-Lee, a man widely credited with inventing the World Wide Web, then stepped on stage to talk with Snowden.
I have been asked recently why do I persist in working hard for the things that I believe in, knowing that I will die in the next several years, and am almost certain not to be around for the catastrophic future that seems to cast its dark shadow across the road ahead, and can only be removed by a major transnational movement of the peoples of the world.
. . . . . . .
My own reflections on why I persist in doing what I am doing are more simplistic, less sophisticated, and maybe no less trivializing, but also more satisfying to me as explanations that connect with my experience. In contrast to ScheffIer I would emphasize three distinct lines of explanation that are each experiential, and hopefully not sentimental: lifetime habit, being on the right side of history, and the inherent pleasures of intellectual life.
Flight 370: Zio-Al Queda-NeoCon Sequel to 9-11 Aborted, a Practice Run or on Horizon (Literally)?
This article states the piloting of flight 270 involved flying it at very low levels to evade radar:
“As the search for the missing flight MH370 enters its 10th day with few clues as to its whereabouts, the New Straits Times said today the Boeing 777-200ER dropped 5,000 feet (1,500m) to evade commercial radar detection. In an exclusive story, the government-backed paper said investigators analysing MH370’s flight data revealed that the 200-tonne, fully laden twinjet descended 1,500m or even lower to evade commercial (secondary) radar coverage after it turned back from its flight path en route to Beijing. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO) disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board. Malaysian authorities said on Saturday the plane was deliberately diverted and its on-board transmission devices switched off to avoid detection. Its last contact was at 8:11am north of the Strait of Malacca. Investigators poring over MH370’s flight data had said the plane had flown low and used “terrain masking” as it flew over the e Bay of Bengal and headed north towards land, the NST reported.”
“Terrain masking” is an interesting term, implying a military aspect:
Data centre bandwidth requirements may not cope with the Internet of Things, according to Gartner
Hamish Barwick
CIO, 18 March 2014
Devices that use the Internet of Things (IoT) will generate big data that needs to be processed and analysed in real time, putting more pressure on data centre providers, according to a new Gartner report.
The Impact of the Internet of Things on Data Centres forecasts that there will be 26 billion IoT units installed by 2020 and IoT service suppliers will generate US$300 billion in revenue.
However, Gartner US distinguished analyst Joe Skorupa said this increase in IoT units will give data centre technology providers more challenges due to the volume and structure of IoT data.
