Eight things ‘Downton Abbey’ can teach us about the modern economy

Eight things ‘Downton Abbey’ can teach us about the modern economy "Downton’s soap opera characters are wrestling not only with their emotions, but also with basic Downtonomics: the threat and promise of technological change, burden of inheritance taxes, foreign investment, danger of speculation, need for retirement planning, virtue of investing for growth, and inadequacies of the social safety net. Is the cook, Mrs. Patmore, any less adept with that mixer than your grandmother is with a tablet?"

The 8-Track of Space Craft

How sad. ICE/ISEE-3 to return to an Earth no longer capable of speaking to it "The transmitters of the Deep Space Network, the hardware to send signals out to the fleet of NASA spacecraft in deep space, no longer includes the equipment needed to talk to ISEE-3. These old-fashioned transmitters were removed in 1999. Could new transmitters be built? Yes, but it would be at a price no one is willing to spend. And we need to use the DSN because no other network of antennas in the US has the sensitivity to detect and transmit signals to the spacecraft at such a distance."

Many of the comments talk about getting an open community project going.

100 Americans die of drug overdoses each day. How do we stop that?

Really informative Wonkblog post, 100 Americans die of drug overdoses each day. How do we stop that? "Overdosing  is now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, accounting for more deaths than traffic fatalities or gun homicides and suicides. Fatal overdoses from opiate medications such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone have quadrupled since 1999, accounting for an estimated 16,651 deaths in 2010."

Why an AK-47 may be a bigger threat to the electricity grid than a cyberattack

WonkBlog followed up with the electrical grid attack story, Why an AK-47 may be a bigger threat to the electricity grid than a cyberattack.

New surveillance technology can track everyone in an area for several hours at a time

The Washington Post wrote about a New surveillance technology can track everyone in an area for several hours at a time

"As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. Although these cameras can’t read license plates or see faces, they provide such a wealth of data that police, businesses and even private individuals can use them to help identify people and track their movements.

Already, the cameras have been flown above major public events such as the Ohio political rally where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) named Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, McNutt said. They’ve been flown above Baltimore; Philadelphia; Compton, Calif.; and Dayton in demonstrations for police. They’ve also been used for traffic impact studies, for security at NASCAR races and at the request of a Mexican politician, who commissioned the flights over Ciudad Juárez."

“We watch 25 square miles, so you see lots of crimes,” he said. “And by the way, after people commit crimes, they drive like idiots.”

Fat Man

Here's footage of Fat Man being readied and dropped on Nagasaki. be sure to watch with annotations on, they offer a lot of interesting information. Utterly chilling.

‘Uncertainty’ Isn’t Really a Problem Anymore

Remember when conservatives kept saying that "uncertainty" was what was keeping the job creators from creating jobs? Well uncertainty is down, where are the jobs? Brad DeLong calls out those that haven't updated their claims Uncertainty’ Isn’t Really a Problem Anymore: Monday Generalized Smackdown. Maybe it was never about uncertainty...

Lie After Lie: What Colin Powell Knew [11] Years Ago Today and What He Said

This was posted a year ago, so yesterday was the 11th anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the UN. I knew he was wrong, I didn't know how wrong. Lie After Lie: What Colin Powell Knew Ten Years Ago Today and What He Said

"Colin Powell made his Iraq presentation at the UN ten years ago today, on February 5th, 2003.

As much criticism as Powell has received for this—he calls it 'painful' and something that will 'always be a part of my record'—it hasn't been close to what's justified. Powell was much more than just horribly mistaken: he fabricated 'evidence' and ignored repeated warnings that what he was saying was false.

Unfortunately, Congress never investigated Powell's use of the intelligence he was given, so we don't know many of the specifics. Even so, what got into the public record in other ways is extremely damning. So while the corporate media has never taken a close look at this record, we can go through Powell's presentation line by line to demonstrate the chasm between what he knew, and what he told the world. As you'll see, there's quite a lot to say about it."

Answering creationists' questions.

Phil Plait wrote Religion and science: Answering creationists' questions.. "After writing yesterday about the now-famous/infamous debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, I don’t want to make this blog all creationism all the time, but indulge me this one more time, if you will." He then goes on to answer 22 questions posted. One led me to this article from 2008 that I didn't know of and found fascinating, A New Step In Evolution.

Koch Blocked

I'm not usually a big fan of Jason Jones' bits on The Daily Show but this one from last night was quite good. Koch Blocked. Seems like Koch money in small elections isn't always welcome.

The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World

The New York Times wrote, The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World "As politicians and pundits in Washington continue to spar over whether economic inequality is in fact deepening, in corporate America there really is no debate at all. The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the middle class is shrinking as the top tier pulls even further away."

Somebody attacked an electrical substation in California last year

Somebody attacked an electrical substation in California last year.

"According to a Wall Street Journal report by Rebecca Smith, last April a group of snipers cut the phone lines and internet access near a major electrical substation in San Jose, California, and then fired on the substation for 19 minutes, knocking out 17 transformers.

This is a big, big deal. The former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff, has been trying to draw attention to the little-discussed incident. Although the FBI doesn't think it was the work of a terrorist group, a retired VP of transmission for the utility company says that the attack was clearly well-organized and targeted at specific components of the substation. Although the utility, PG&E, called the attack the work of 'vandals' in a press release, military experts told Wellinghoff that it looked more like a professional job. Now, Wellinghoff, and others, are worried that it could have been a dress rehearsal for a larger attack."

I suspect if you call it terrorism it's easier to get money to secure it.

I left New York for LA because creativity requires the freedom to fail

Moby makes an interesting observation that didn't occur to me. I left New York for LA because creativity requires the freedom to fail "And, to again state the obvious, New York is exclusively about success – it's success that has been fed steroids and vitamin B. There's a sense that New Yorkers never fail, but if they do, they're exorcised from memory, kind of like Trotsky in early pictures of the Soviet Communist Politburo. In New York, you can be easily overwhelmed by how much success everyone else seems to be having, whereas in LA, everybody publicly fails at some point – even the most successful people. A writer's screenplay may be turned into a major movie, but there's a good chance her next five screenplays won't even get picked up. An actor may star in acclaimed films for two years, then go a decade without work. A musician who has sold well might put out a complete failure of a record – then bounce back with the next one. Experimentation and a grudging familiarity with occasional failure are part of LA's ethos."

AOL is leading the way to make 401(k)s worse for everyone

AOL is leading the way to make 401(k)s worse for everyone

"So when IBM changed its 401(k) system in 2012 to hand out employee matches in one lump sum at the end of the year, there was an uproar. Those who left the company before Dec. 15 would not see any matched dollars unless they were retiring. And employees would also miss out on all the compounding throughout the year from the contributions."

AOL's change: "In order to receive the company match, the employee must be "active" on Dec. 31, 2014. In addition, the contribution will be allocated as a "one time lump sum after the end of the Plan Year." In other words, employees will have to stay through the end of the year to get the match, and then the contribution won't even come during 2014. In a year like last year, where the stock market was roaring, the difference for an employee who left in December could amount to thousands of dollars in pay and added savings."

They point out, this will hurt employee mobility.

I have to say, when I was working I never made decisions like this. I never thought about will this shave fractions of a percent off something, rather I asked, "is this the right thing to do". In an environment where you're constantly being asked to do more with less maybe this approach is right, but it still feels wrong. Companies should be figuring out ways to get more money from customers, and figure out ways to get more money to employees, not less.

NASA Mars Orbiter Examines Dramatic New Crater

JPL posted NASA Mars Orbiter Examines Dramatic New Crater "The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a crater about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter at the center of a radial burst painting the surface with a pattern of bright and dark tones. The scar appeared at some time between imaging of this location by the orbiter's Context Camera in July 2010 and again in May 2012."

Verizon using recent Net Neutrality victory to wage war against Netflix

Sigh, I hope this isn't true... Verizon using recent Net Neutrality victory to wage war against Netflix. Guy claims Verizon is throttling access to Amazon's cloud services (which also hosts Netflix) after about 4pm.

Update: Verizon denies using net neutrality victory to sabotage Netflix, Amazon. I'm sure this isn't the end of it.

and another update: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

and another: Netflix Says Verizon Isn’t Slowing Down Its Streams

The 2014 Sony World Photography Awards

In Focus shows The 2014 Sony World Photography Awards "The Sony World Photography Awards, an annual competition hosted by the World Photography Organisation, has recently announced its shortlist of winners. This year's contest attracted more than 140,000 entries from 166 countries. The organizers have been kind enough to share some of their shortlisted images with In Focus, gathered below. Winners are scheduled to be announced in March and April. All captions below come from the photographers. [33 photos]"

These photos are just astounding.

Creationism in public schools, mapped. Where tax money supports alternatives to evolution.

Slate put together a Map: Publicly Funded Schools That Are Allowed to Teach Creationism. Sigh.

Social Security History

I saw the old myth popup again that when social security was created people weren't expected to retire because the average life expectancy was only 58 for men and 62 for women. The Social Security website has a page up explaining this, Social Security History. The short answer was that the average is skewed because of a high infant mortality. If you made it working age, you could well reach retirement, and if you made it to 65, the average remaining life was 12+ years. Then again, you could just realize that the whole point of it was to raise poor seniors out of poverty by helping them save and that it was remarkably successful at this.

What Watching Only Fox News For A Month Does To You

John Haggerty wrote My personal Fox News nightmare: Inside a month of self-induced torture "I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Here's what happened when I watched 3 hours of Fox every day for a month"

"Thus, on Oct. 1, 2013, I sat down on my couch and, armed with nothing but a remote, vowed to consume three hours of Fox News programming a day for an entire month, while strictly abstaining from any other sources of information about current events. I couldn’t sample all of Fox’s wares, of course, but after looking at its lineup, I chose three shows to concentrate on—”Fox & Friends,” because it seemed like it might be representative of the network’s populist, aw-shucks conservatism; Shep Smith’s News Hour, because Smith has a reputation as being the straightest shooter of the Fox anchors; and, of course, the network’s browbeater-in-chief, Bill O’Reilly."

"But now I was aware of Fox’s role as a purveyor, not only of right-wing information but of right-wing ignorance, and I began to examine my mind for things that I hadn’t gotten any information about in the past month. The most notable items that were missing, I realized, were people from other countries and poverty. Aside from the times when picturesque destruction video was available, there was essentially no coverage of foreign affairs. On the poverty side, programs like food stamps and welfare were generally referred to as handouts, and the only time poor people were mentioned was when they were a source of malfeasance. One prominent “Fox & Friends” story, for example, cited a woman who, because of a computer glitch, managed to buy $700 worth of food on a food stamp debit card with a balance of $.47.

The effect of this is interesting. Even in my short time watching Fox I found poverty fading from my mind as a problem. I was surprised one day when, during a discussion of deficit reduction (something that they talk about almost constantly), I found myself nodding in agreement that there was room to cut social programs that had already been radically slashed. Fox couldn’t convince me to care about the issues they are obsessed with (Obama’s treachery and the deficit, mostly), but by simply failing to mention a topic like income inequality, it managed to make me stop caring about the things it would prefer that I ignore."

Seismologists offer explanation for mysterious aerial light orbs preceding quakes

I'd never heard of these before but Ars Technica says Seismologists offer explanation for mysterious aerial light orbs preceding quakes

"'Earthquake Lights!?' exclaims one YouTube video published around about the time of the 2011 eruption of Japan's Sakurajima volcano. Or, it asks, 'UFO FLEET!?!' In the earlier part of the last century, the latter might have been a common response, but now we know that the mysterious orbs of light in white or color that appear in the sky prior to and sometimes during an earthquake, sometimes with the appearance of a rainbow spotlight or flames and sometimes lasting for hours, are actually a result of seismic activity.

Recorded sightings date back to 89BC, according to a paper on the events penned in the 90s by an Italian priest, who also jotted down associated vapors, smoke, and odors of sulphur or bitumen in the hope of providing some explanation. Today, the evidence is all over YouTube, from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to the 2011 Christchurch quake. They're no longer disputed, but they do remain unexplained. They're rare, so it's hard to investigate them. But now a team of seismologists behind a study published in Seismological Research Letters believes it has the answer: subvertical faults in continental rifts are releasing stress-induced electrical currents up to the surface as the ground is pulled apart."

Paper by Facebook

So I installed the new Paper app on my iPhone today. Is it just me or is it just a pretty RSS newsreader, prepopulated with some popular feeds and with a Facebook section that shows me only some of my newsfeed (I don't see a way to set it to "Recent Stories" instead of their choice of "Top Stories"). It really is just Flipboard. Am I missing something?

Announcing the 2014 Campbellian Anthology

Stupefying Stories: Announcing the 2014 Campbellian Anthology "M. David Blake’s magnum opus, the 2014 Campbellian Anthology, is now available for download! This book attempts to collect in one volume representative works by most of the writers eligible for this year’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. We don’t have them all—there were a few we couldn’t get—but all the same, this book contains more than 860,000 words of fiction by 111 authors, and best of all, it’s not merely free, it's DRM-FREE. But it’s only available for a limited time, so download your copy soon, by clicking on one of these links and selecting ‘Save file.’"

Fonts in 2001: A Space Odyssey

Typeset in the Future is a new blog looking at fonts in sci-fi, it's first post is about 2001: A Space Odyssey. Gotta say, it's a bit too detailed for me.

Submarine Cable Map

Submarine Cable Map "TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map has been updated for 2014. The latest edition depicts 285 cable systems that are currently active or due to enter service by 2015."