Spearfish City Limits Presents: The Big Picture

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 23:47:33 MDT
Antifa equals brown shirts. Also .. WEATHER SYSTEM DOWN? The National Weather Service experienced a major, systemwide Internet failure Tuesday morning, making its forecasts and warnings inaccessible to the public and limiting the data available to its meteorologists. The outage highlights systemic, long-standing issues with its information technology infrastructure, which the agency has struggled to address as demands for its services have only increased. In addition to Tuesday morning's outage, the Weather Service has encountered numerous, repeated problems with its Internet services in recent months, including: a bandwidth shortage that forced it to propose and implement limits to the amount of data its customers can download; the launch of a radar website that functioned inadequately and enraged users; a flood at its data center in Silver Spring, Md., that has stripped access to key ocean buoy observations; and multiple outages to NWS Chat, its program for conveying critical information to broadcasters and emergency managers, relied upon during severe weather events. The Weather Service is working to evaluate and implement solutions to these problems which are, in the meantime, impacting its ability to fulfill its mission of protecting life and property. [...] Problems with the Weather Service's Internet systems have persisted for years, in part because of increasing demand from users, which the agency has struggled to meet. In December, because of an escalating bandwidth shortage, the Weather Service proposed limiting users to 60 connections per minute on a large number of its websites. Constituents complained about the quota and, earlier this month, the Weather Service announced it would instead impose a data limit of 120 requests per minute and only on servers hosting model data, beginning April 20. Meanwhile, on March 9, the Weather Service's headquarters in Silver Spring "experienced a ruptured water pipe, which caused significant and widespread flooding," which affected a data center, the agency said in a statement. "Some NWS data stopped flowing, including data from ocean buoys," the statement said, noting some of the buoys are used "to detect and locate a seismic event that could cause a tsunami." Neil Jacobs, former acting head of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the Weather Service, said many of the agency's Internet infrastructure problems are tied to the fact they run on internal hardware rather than through cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google Cloud. "I've demanded in writing that NWS transition these applications to our Cloud partners. It's part of an internal strategy I've laid out," Jacobs, a Trump administration appointee, told the Capital Weather Gang in an email before he left office. In July, NOAA released its Cloud Strategy, which stated, "the volume and velocity of our data are expected to increase exponentially with the advent of new observing system and data-acquisition capabilities, placing a premium on our capacity and wherewithal to scale the IT infrastructure and services to support this growth. Modernizing our infrastructure requires leveraging cloud services as a solution to meet future demand." CHINA ON THE MARCH In 2016, Chinese buyers bought $1.6 billion in real estate across Washington state, $27 billion across the US. In British Columbia, Chinese buyers purchased $760 million in real estate in a single month. THIEL ON BITCOIN Thiel, the venture capitalist and conservative political donor, urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations on cryptocurrencies in an appearance on Tuesday. The statements seemed to represent a change of heart for Thiel, who is a major investor in virtual currency ventures as well as in cryptocurriences themselves. "I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.," Thiel said during an appearance at a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation. "It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar." He added: "[If] China's long Bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works." FACINATING PERSPECTIVE Daiy Mail, UK. Pentagon scientists reveal a microchip that senses COVID-19 in your body BEFORE you show symptoms and a filter that extracts the virus from blood Scientists at the Pentagon's secretive unit are researching viruses and developing pandemic cures They work at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other Pentagon laboratories DARPA's teams saw COVID-19 infected 1,271 onboard USS Theodore Roosevelt as the virus spread unchecked In response they have developed a microchip to detect asymptomatic COVID in a bid to prevent an outbreak The chip is inserted below skin and triggers a sensor if COVID infects the body DARPA have also created a filter which can remove COVID virus from the blood when attached to dialysis They are working on a vaccine that would work against all coronaviruses, even ones not yet identified The team also successfully manufactured antibodies against Spanish Flu FUCK-A-SHIMA Under the basic plan adopted Tuesday by the ministers, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, also known as TEPCO, will start releasing the water in about two years after building a facility and compiling release plans adhering to safety requirements. It said the disposal of the water cannot be postponed further and is necessary to improve the environment surrounding the plant so residents can live there safely. TEPCO says its water storage capacity of 1.37 million tons will be full around fall of 2022. Also, the area now filled with storage tanks will have to be freed up for building new facilities needed for removing melted fuel debris from inside the reactors and for other decommissioning work that's expected to start in coming years. In the decade since the tsunami disaster, water meant to cool the nuclear material has constantly escaped from the damaged primary containment vessels into the basements of the reactor buildings. To make up for the loss, more water has been pumped into the reactors to continue to cool the melted fuel. Water is also pumped out and treated, part of which is recycled as cooling water, and the remainder stored in 1,020 tanks now holding 1.25 million tons of radioactive water. Those tanks that occupy a large space at the plant interfere with the safe and steady progress of the decommissioning, Economy and Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama said. The tanks also could be damaged and leak in case of another powerful earthquake or tsunami, the report said. Releasing the water to the ocean was described as the most realistic method by a government panel that for nearly seven years had discussed how to dispose of the water. The report it prepared last year mentioned evaporation as a less desirable option. About 70% of the water in the tanks is contaminated beyond discharge limits but will be filtered again and diluted with seawater before it is released, the report says. According to a preliminary estimate, gradual releases of water will take more than 30 years but will be completed before the plant is fully decommissioned. Japan will abide by international rules for a release, obtain support from the International Atomic Energy Agency and others, and ensure disclosure of data and transparency to gain understanding of the international community, the report said. THE GUY THEY PUSHED OUT - THE LUCIFER THEY CREATED - BECAUSE HE HAD A CONSCIENCE IN COMPUTING Or, he was just a pot head that wanted privacy. Looking back over his life starting as a teenager, Stallman writes: "I realized that I didn't understand the subtle cues that other people were responding to. Later in life, I discovered that some people had negative reactions to my behavior, which I did not even know about. Tending to be direct and honest with my thoughts, I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women. This was not a choice: I didn't understand the problem enough to know which choices there were." "Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid it," Stallman adds. "Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them. Please direct your criticism at me, not at the Free Software Foundation. Occasionally I learned something about relationships and social skills, so over the years I've found ways to get better at these situations. When people help me understand an aspect of what went wrong, and that shows me a way of treating people better, I teach myself to recognize when I should act that way. I keep making this effort, and over time, I improve. Some have described me as being 'tone-deaf,' and that is fair. With my difficulty in understanding social cues, that tends to happen." NO THANKS! Huawei's autonomous-driving technology has already surpassed Tesla's in some spheres, for instance by allowing cars to cruise for more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) without human intervention, Rotating Chairman Eric Xu told analysts in Shenzhen Monday. The Chinese telecom giant will partner with three automakers initially to make self-driving cars that carry the Huawei name as a sub-brand, said Xu, one of three executives who take turns to fill the post. It will keep its circle of partners small and get its logo onto cars -- not unlike how Intel calls attention to its microprocessors on PCs -- that adopt its autonomous driving technology, he added. The mobile giant has so far agreed to team up with BAIC Group, Chongqing Changan Automobile and Guangzhou Automobile Group. SO WRONG While traditional BCIs are tethered to users via cables, the new system â?? called BrainGate â?? replaces the cords with a small transmitter affixed atop a users' head. The unit then connects to an electrode array implanted in the brain's motor cortex. In a clinical trial, two participants with paralysis used the system to point, click, and type on a standard tablet computer. They both achieved similar typing speeds and point-and-click accuracy as those attained with wired systems. The researchers say it's the first time a device has transmitted the full spectrum of signals recorded by a sensor in the brain's motor cortex. FBI DELETING EVIDENCE "The FBI is breaking into Americans' computers to delete malwareâ??and going beyond the law to do it." -- Edward Snowden on 4/15 via Twitter FUN FACT ABOUT SHARKS Sharks were on Earth before trees. 400 million years vs 350 million years. THIS IS OVER Google deplatformed the Maricopa county audit volunteer observer application. The audit application was then switched to using wufoo, who also deplatformed them. STD'S ARE UP Americaâ??s sexually transmitted disease rates have hit a record high for the sixth straight year, with CDC researchers finding a 30 per cent increase in STDs from 2015 to 2019. According to the latest data, 2.5 million Americans had either chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis infections in 2019, with chlamydia cases rising 61 per cent and gonorrhea cases spiking 42 per cent among young people aged 15 to 24. The research shows that gay and bisexual men account for nearly half of the primary and secondary syphilis infections while syphilis infections among newborn babies also quadrupled between 2015 and 2019. Black people had STD rates between five to eight times higher than white people while amongst Hispanics the figure was double that of white people. â??Less than 20 years ago, gonorrhea rates in the U.S. were at historic lows, syphilis was close to elimination, and advances in chlamydia diagnostics made it easier to detect infections,â?? said researcher Dr. Raul Romaguera, highlighting the grim rise in STD infections over the last two decades. In addition, a recent CDC study found that more than four out of 10 â??womenâ?? who identify as transgender and live in big cities have contracted HIV. Two thirds of black â??womenâ?? who identify as transgender and over a third of Hispanic transgenders also have HIV. The media and the cultureâ??s relentless promotion of degenerate promiscuity â?? both for straight and gay people â?? and the rise of the LGBT movement obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with any of this. CHINA CREATING EXISTENTIAL THREAT FOR THEMSELVES They appear strong when they are strong. This is not good war footing. Huawei's plans for 6G and beyond make U.S. concerns over 5G look paltry: Huawei is proposing a fundamental internet redesign, which it calls "New IP," designed to build "intrinsic security" into the web. Intrinsic security means that individuals must register to use the internet, and authorities can shut off an individual user's internet access at any time. In short, Huawei is looking to integrate China's "social credit," surveillance, and censorship regimes into the internet's architecture... To avoid scrutiny of New IP's shortcomings, Huawei has circumvented international standards bodies where experts might challenge the technical shortcomings of the proposal. Instead, Huawei has worked through the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU), where Beijing holds more political sway... Huawei dominance on New IP and 6G would not only create a less free, less interoperable internet, it would pave the way for authoritarian governments to gain expanded say over future changes to the internet for years to come STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES From NY Focus: A decade ago, the bankrupt owner of the Greenidge power plant in Dresden, New York, sold the uncompetitive coal-fired relic for scrap and surrendered its operating permits. For the next seven years, the plant sat idle on the western shore of Seneca Lake, a monument to the apparent dead end reached by the state's fossil fuel infrastructure. But today, Greenidge is back up and running as a Bitcoin mining operation. The facility hums with energy-hungry computers that confirm and record Bitcoin transactions, drawing power from the plant's 106-megawatt generator now fueled by natural gas. COKE IS ADDICTIVE TOO Despite recently providing instructional material to its employees that taught them to â??be less white,â?? the Coca-Cola company is seemingly running away from its own history and creator: slave owning Confederate Army colonel and morphine addicted John Pemberton. Over a century before the company would become derided for purchasing an anti-white curriculum for its employees, Coca-Cola was invented by Pemberton, who â?? having sustained a devastating sabre wound while fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War â?? was addicted to morphine, and hoped the carbonated beverage would cure his addiction. WATERS THE COMMON THREAD iDonaldoTrumpo on twitter: By the time the LA riots in 1992 ended, 63 people had died, 2,383 were injured, and most businesses had been looted and burned (MOSTLY KOREAN!!!). Who´s congressional district was it? MAXINE WATERS. She had the opportunity to stop it, and she decided TO BLAME IT ON THE VEREDICT. THOUGHT ON INDECISION Indecision is the necessary precursor for flexibility. DESTRUCTION OF A CIVILIZATION - Thomas Sowell Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity. PARTING THOUGHT: YOU WIN THE INTERNET MATT COUCH "Has anyone tried unplugging The United States, and then plugging it back in to see if that helps?" DON'T BREAK YOUR ARM YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki received a "Free Expression" award from the Freedom Forum Institute in a virtual ceremony sponsored by YouTube, an online video platform owned by Google. On Thursday, YouTube creator Molly Burke presented Wojcicki with the accolade in a video shared to the platform. "I'm so excited to be here tonight to present Susan Wojcicki with the Free Expression award. As the CEO of YouTube, Susan is facing some of the most critical issues around free expression today," Burke said.