More 3D Printing

Today it's Texas

On Thursday I reported on the large numbers of earthquakes in Ohio that seemed to be related to fracking activity.  Well, Irving, Texas, had ten earthquakes yesterday and a total of  twenty-six since October. The most severe quake measured at 3.6 on the Richter Scale.  

The U.S. Geological Survey issued the following, “Activities that have induced felt earthquakes in some geologic environments have included impoundment of water behind dams, injection of fluid into the earth's crust, extraction of fluid or gas, and removal of rock in mining or quarrying operations.”

Your next house

Censoring the Internet

Philip Bennett and Moses Naim have a disturbing article on government censorship of the internet. These are some of the techniques used:

Here is their conclusion:

But states retain extraordinary capacities to alter the flow of information to suit their interests. And a growing number of governments are undermining the checks and balances that constrain chief executives. From Russia to Turkey, Hungary to Bolivia, leaders are packing Supreme Courts and the judiciary with loyalists and staging elections that reward their allies. They are weakening the institutions that exist to prevent the concentration of power. In such a political environment, independent media cannot survive for long. The internet can redistribute power. But it is naïve to assume that there is a simple technological fix for governments and their leaders who are determined to concentrate power and do whatever it takes to keep it. Censorship will rise and fall as technological innovation and the hunger for freedom clash with governments bent on controlling their citizens, starting with what they read, watch, and hear. 

Killing innocent people?

Der Spiegel would answer that question "Yes" if you apply it to those killed by drones and other surreptitious activities conducted by NATO in Afghanistan. The basis of their answer is what they say is a group of secret documents the magazine was able to peruse. Their analysis shows that NATO didn't just target the Taliban leadership, but also eliminated mid- and lower-level members of the group on a large scale. Some Afghans were only on the list because, as drug dealers, they were allegedly supporting the insurgents. More discouraging is their assertion that "Only women, children and the elderly were treated as civilians." Thus, any man was subject to being murdered. Many of them were killed not on the basis of proof but of suspicion only.

Comments by Der Speigel

Can a democracy be allowed to kill its enemies in a targeted manner when the objective is not to prevent an imminent attack? And does the goal of eliminating as many Taliban as possible justify killing innocent bystanders?
A democracy that kills its enemies on the basis of nothing but suspicion squanders its claim to moral superiority, making itself complicit instead.

Another question re JPMorgan

Two church-based funds have sued JPMorgan for breach of its duties. The churches claim that JP breached its duty as trustee by investing the church’s million-dollar trusts largely in products that generated revenue for the bank, with fees in some cases exceeding 8 percent a year. As a result, the churches had to cut their charitable programs. 

Surprise!

Death by car or by gun?

The Centers for Disease Control says that we are now statistically more likely to be killed by a gun than in a car accident. Fatal car accidents are on a downward slope due to improved technology, tougher laws and less driving by young people. Reports indicate that there are as many guns as people in the U.S. - 320,000,000. Most gun deaths are caused by suicides, accidents or domestic violence.

Don't apply for a drivers license in Russia

Supposedly, there are a lot of traffic accidents in Russia. In an attempt to address the problem, Russia will no longer grant driving licenses to transsexual and transgender people. Also, those with mental disorders such as fetishism, exhibitionism and voyeurism will also be barred from driving.

The Globe docks in Britain

Does fracking increase the number of earthquakes?

The latest study seems to indicate that is the case. The study looked at wells and fracking in Ohio last year and tentatively concluded that fracking built up subterranean pressures that repeatedly caused slippage in an existing fault as close as a half-mile beneath the wells. In the area they concentrated on, there were 77 well-related earthquakes from March 4 to March 12, two of which were fairly serious. However, Michael R. Brudzinski, a professor and seismologist at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, said. “It appears you have to be quite close to the fault for fracking operations to trigger earthquakes. Having that sort of information helps us to see that this stuff is pretty rare.”

Cap the salary of CEO of non-profits?

That's what Dean Baker is proposing. He is not talking about all non-profits, only those whose salaries are subsidized with our tax dollars. Donations that are eligible for tax deductions are, in fact, a form of subsidy. Baker uses the $7,000,000 salary of Jim Harbaugh as an example. If his salary is covered only by donations, then the tax benefit to the donors is $2,800,000; i.e. the government is giving the university a subsidy.

Baker is proposing a maximum salary of $400,000 to the CEOs of the subsidized entities. It's an intriguing point when one considers the money paid to some CEOs of non-profits now, such as the United Way.

Climate change by 90 companies

Scientific American has a brief article on climate-change deniers. I guess it's linked to the 20th anniversary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report which linked human activity to climate change for the first time. The article refers to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists which claims that about 63 percent of all industrial emissions since 1854 have come from just 90 entities - 83 producers of coal, oil, and natural gas, and seven cement manufacturers. Here's a chart of the top 20.

Sunset at West Chop Lighthouse, Martha's Vineyard

Home

These are the homes of some survivors of Fukushima. These may be their final homes as the disaster took place almost four years ago.

Why don't Muslim leaders condemn atrocities by the extremists?

That's been a question I've had for quite a while. But, Rabbi Marc Schneier, President of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, says that moderate Muslim leaders have been speaking out. It's just that the press does not publish their protests.

Schneier cites a number of protests by moderate Muslims. For example, back in September more than 120 Muslim scholars from around the world joined an open letter to the “fighters and followers” of the Islamic State, denouncing them as un-Islamic by using the most Islamic of terms. They spoke up re the recent incidents in Australia and Pakistan.

Schneier seems to have a point.

How can they call it Masterpiece?

I haven't watched Masterpiece Mystery for a long time. Four-and-a-half years ago I thought it was terrible. I summarized my opinions about Wallander, Lewis and Foyle's War. Tonight I watched Endeavour, which is supposedly a tale of Inspector Morse as a young detective. The fellow, Shaun Evans, who plays Morse, could not carry John Thaw's shoes. The plot was stupid and made little sense, the dialogue was hard to understand in many places (although this may be a function of my age) and the acting was not very good. Basically, a waste of time, which is not a good way to start the new year.

The ACLU hires Internet Infrastructure Technologist

Clearly, more and more of us do more and more online. Should we not have the same protection as we have in much of our off-line life? Should we not have free expression, free association, privacy, and a functioning free press? To achieve these goals you need a highly competent technologist. So the ACLU has contracted with Dan Gillmor, who seems to have a strong background in the field. 

He writes about his task and his concerns on the ACLU web site:  

The civil liberties that the ACLU has long fought to protect require strong encryption and other privacy enabling technologies to exist in a In the same way, as our society moves further and further online, the design choices made in the underlying communications technology infrastructure can critically shape what kinds of society are possible. These choices are governed by similar planning and implementation work. For example:
Will it be possible to communicate confidentially with your doctor, your business partner, your mate, or your friend?
Will you know for sure who you are talking to?
Can you be confident that no one else is listening?
Can you try on new identities as you grow and change, or will you have one single "face" that you must present for all your communications and that will follow you for your entire life?
What assurances do you have that when you send someone a message, they will actually get it, and it will not be tampered with along the way?
Who else gets to know who you communicated with?
What authorities are you willing to trust with your data or your identity?
Do you get a choice of authorities, or is it decided for you?
What recourse do you have if these authorities misbehave?

Sound questions. Will he be able to help the ACLU in its work to keep us free?

Lobbying away the environment

It's worth a shot

In December North Korea proposed that we enter into a joint investigation to identify the Sony hackers. Nothing was heard from our side as to this proposal. Now we learn that North Korea has proposed talks with South Korea. In February talks between both Koreas resulted in reuniting some families who had been separated since war's end in 1953. Attempts to hold further talks in October failed. 

South Korea thinks talks are a good idea provided they include "practical and frank discussions on all issues of mutual concern". Would they not be a good idea for us at least trying to set them up?