Government To Local Police: Shhh About The Surveillance

It's no longer a secret that the US government routinely, deliberately and invasively spies on their citizens with no regard as to privacy or pertinence of information. Now, it is emerging that they are actively trying to cover their tracks on a local level, as even average officers are using surveillance gear with extreme impunity.

The federal government has been oddly intervening at local public records and criminal trials that deal with information gained in a possibly over-invasive manner, which as Top Tech News reports, "resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose anything about the purchase and use of such powerful surveillance equipment."

One popular piece of such technology, the Stingray, reroutes the target's call and metadata to the police's receiver instead of a cell phone tower, bringing up serious questions of infractions on the Constitutional rights of those who are being listened to. Various affadavits and documents point to the federal government overtly refusing to answer questions about such technology's locations, design and operations prove that they are trying to cover up a plot that is legally-questionable and lucrative (both informationally for the feds and financially for Harris Corp....the Stingray accounted for nearly one-third of it's parent company's $5 billion in revenue.)

Unsurprisingly, the government and local departments' excuse for their secrecy is "security."

Dissonantly, President Obama claims he is welcoming debates on surveillance and transparency. Dial any number at all to talk to him regarding your feelings...if there's a Stingray nearby, the government will be happy hear you out. 

Seas Of Change: Ocean Power As Sustainable Energy

With companies and societies worldwide scrambling to find the next big (affordable) energy source, there is one option that is gaining attention for its ubiquity and constancy: ocean power.

While many designs for ocean-power extraction could be considered eccentric, it is important to remember that, as the Anchorage Daily News states, "Machine design for ocean kinetic power is at the stage that flight was in the 1920s, and the devices are spectacular in a Rube Goldberg kind of way, at least to the eye of a non-engineer."

This includes designs shaped like flapping hinges, bobbing buoys attached to turbines, giant eggbeaters (helical turbines), or even the now-common windmill-type turbine design...except instead of on windswept plains, they'll be placed deep underwater, generating power from spinning in the path of strong currents.

The technology will first be tested in remote locations, who frequently have high electricity bills. Power stations involving ocean-driven energy technology are already in use in Ireland and Scotland, and are currently being installed in Maine and Alaska.

Various types of ocean power-harnessing technology.  Image courtesy www.permaculturenews.org.

Space Station Sunday: Soccer Style!

  Each Sunday, I'll be posting fun facts about the orbiting outpost of awesomeness that is the International Space Station.  Today's is topical to a worldly event.

Graphic courtesy www.nasa.com.

The International Space Station, at 357 feet end-to-end, could fit nicely on a World Cup pitch.  The ~20 extra feet of width left over on the field could probably fit some nice VIP spaceship parking.

Congressman Rogers: Google Being Unpatriotic For Halting Pro-NSA Bill

"Unpatriotic" is the new "communism" when it comes to slinging mud, and Congressman Mike Rogers has gotten down and dirty on Silicon Valley.

Heavily insinuating that companies like Google and Microsoft were acting unpatriotically for their disapproval of the FISA bill (which did not go far enough enacting measures that would prevent the NSA from broadly expanding its powers of espionage over the internet), Rogers tried to rationalize things in terms of money, like a good politician.

According to www.techdirt.com, Rogers was quoted at a CIA conference on national security, saying, "One sixth of our economy now, is through the internet! One sixth! So this notion that we're all going to say "well the government should do nothing and just completely keep away" -- and I'm not for regulation, by the way, that's not what I mean, but I mean in some way to... to help defend these private networks or allow them to defend themselves -- if we don't get it right, one-sixth of our economy is going to go away. Like that (*snaps*). If every time you turn it on, you lose money, how many times are you going to turn it on and use the internet for commerce? You're not!"

Hypocritically, in the same speech, Rogers had previously attacked the Silicon Valley companies' ethics due to their discreetly-worded rebuttal of the FISA bill.  The companies had rejected the bill citing worries over losses of European profits. As in, Europe would be smart enough to immediately distrust this bill, despite incompetents like former Congressman Rogers (who is retiring to become a talk-radio bloviator) trying to pull the wool over peoples' eyes.

SpaceshipTwo Cool: Virgin Galactic's Offplanet Tourism On Track For 2015

A mere quarter million dollars and you too can join the ranks of the few brave adventurers who have slipped the surly bonds of Earth.  If the missions prove successful, rocket planes may become the hot new transport technology.

That's what Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space initiative claims.  As CNN reports, the company and their flagship transport vehicle, SpaceshipTwo, are poised to reach for the stars starting at the end of this year.  SpaceshipTwo, which is currently being assembled at a secure desert facility in California, comfortably seats six passengers (all with a personal window on the bulkhead and ceiling.)

The ship hitches a ride up to the edge of the atmosphere on a powerful plane called WhiteKnight Two.  Then, the craft separates from the plane, the rockets are fired up, and SpaceshipTwo reaches an altitude of 60 miles high, travelling at over three times the speed of sound (2,500 m.p.h.)

Passengers will then experience an estimated six minutes of micro-gravity heaven.  As Virgin Galactic states, "Life will never quite be the same again."

Drone Sweet Drone: FAA Approves First Commercial Drone In US

It looks like oil security, once again, will be used as the main excuse to make a strong and questionable societal statement...except this one is over civilian privacy, and on (well, above) American soil.

As reported by Gizmodo, drone manufacturing company AeroVironment was given the go-ahead this week for a commercial drone to patrol skies over Alaska as a means to guard BP oil pipelines. The drone will also supposedly participate in "some 3D-mapping, wildlife monitoring, and the occasional search-and-rescue mission."

While it is noteworthy that the first commercial drone has been licensed as a way to do a job that is both difficult and dangerous for humans, there is no telling where the FAA will stop regarding the industries allowed to fly these aircraft, or what they are allowed to do while airborne. Armed with cameras, sensors, and sturdy craftmanship (the military-type AeroVironment Puma AE used in Alaska is nearly five feet long with a nine-foot wingspan), it will be intriguing to see how drones at home will aid or aggravate American lives.

Aerodynamics: From Spaceships To Soccer, NASA Examines Airflow

With even the astronauts on the International Space Station spending some time playing micro-gravity soccer in honor of the World Cup, NASA has joined the fun. Though they did not aid in the design of the current World Cup soccer ball, scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California turned some of its technology to sports in an aerodynamically-analyzing effort to see what makes a soccer ball superior.

As reported by NASA, Rabi Mehta, their chief of the Experimental Aero-Physics Branch at Ames, claims, “Sports provide a great opportunity to introduce the next generation of researchers to our field of aerodynamics by showing them something they can relate to." Using a wind tunnel, a 17-inch water channel, fluorescent dye and blacklights, the air-flow patterns were assessed at different speeds regarding their interactions with the soccer ball.

The Brazuca, aka the latest soccer ball to feature at the World Cup, has been specially crafted to allow smoother air-flow than the previous spherical target, the Jabulani. Complaints from goaltenders about the Jabulani "knuckling" and creating an unpredictable flight path led to a re-assessment of the ball's design. The improved six-panel Brazuca design should allow for more precise flight patterns.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Steve Swanson take on German astronaut Alexander Gerst in the Above-The-World Cup