Tired of using your mouse cursor to scroll and click through the web? No, probably not—but a new web browser may give you the option to unplug the sucker anyhow. It’s called Vivaldi, and it springs from the mind of the co-founder and former CEO of Opera. In other words, a man who knows his browsers.
If you’ve been hoping for YouTube to drop the notoriously buggy Flash video format as its default player, well, good news. Nearly five years after the streaming giant started supporting the HTML5 standard for its videos, it’s finally now its player o…
There’s no doubt that Sony’s smartphone division is struggling, and it sounds like that’s about to exact a big toll on the company’s workforce. Nikkei reports that Sony expects to cut 1,000 jobs in its mobile group, adding to the 1,000 layoffs it ann…
Better Call Saul, the spin-off show from the hit series Breaking Bad, will be arriving on AMC on February 8 as part of a two-day premiere. Of course, the series will also be making its way to Netflix in due time, and all signs point to that wait between airing and streaming to be a short one — at least … Continue reading
A few years ago I co-wrote a book about a controversy centered on Nantucket Sound. The quasi-social comedy, called Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Energy, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future, told of how, since 2001, a company led by entrepreneur James Gordon has struggled to put up a wind farm in the sound in the face of opposition from the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound — a long name for fossil-fuel billionaire Bill Koch, a member of the famous right-wing Republican family started by his very rich father.
Bill’s houses include a summer mansion in Osterville, Mass., from which he doesn’t want to see wind turbines on his southern horizon on clear days.
There’s an entertaining movie about all this called Cape Spin, based a bjt on the book.
Mr. Koch may now have won the battle, as very rich people usually do. Two big utilities, National Grid and Northeast Utilities, are trying to bail out of a plan, which they never liked, forcing them to buy Cape Wind electricity. They cite the fact that the company missed the Dec. 31, 2014 deadline in contracts signed in 2012 to obtain financing and start construction. Cape Wind said it doesn’t “regard these terminations as valid” since, it asserts, the contracts let the utilities’ contracts be extended because of the Alliance’s “unprecedented and relentless litigation”.
Bill Koch has virtually unlimited funds to pay lawyers, and imaginative rhetoric supplied by his pit-bull spokeswoman, Audra Parker, to litigate Cape Wind to death, even though the project has won all regulatory approvals and is supported by a substantial majority of local and statewide residents.
New Englanders are losing what could have helped diversify the region’s energy mix – and smooth out price and supply swings — with home-grown, renewable electricity. Cape Wind is far from a panacea for the region’s dependence on natural gas, oil and nuclear, but it would add a tad more security.
Some of Cape Wind’s foes will say that the natural gas from fracking will take care of everything. But New England lacks adequate natural-gas pipeline capacity, to no small extent because affluent people along the routes hold up their construction. And NIMBY’s have also blocked efforts to bring in more Canadian hydro-electric power. So our electricity rates are soaring, even as many of those who complain about the rates also fight any attempt to put new energy infrastructure near them. As for nuclear, it seems too politically incorrect for it to be expanded again in New England.
Meanwhile, the drawbacks to fracking, including water pollution and earthquakes in fracked countryside, are becoming more obvious. And the gas reserves may well be exaggerated. I support fracking anyway, since it means less use of oil and coal and because much of the gas is nearby, in Pennsylvania. (New York, however, recently banned fracking.) It will take decades to get off fossil fuel, so we must make accommodations!
New England better get ready for brownouts and higher electricity bills. As for oil prices, they are low now, but I have seen many, many energy price cycles over the last 45 years of watching the sector for a living. And they often come with little warning.
Robert Whitcomb is a Fellow of the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, a partner in Cambridge Management Group, a healthcare-sector consultancy (cmg625.com), a former editorial-page editor and vice president of The Providence Journal and a former finance editor of the International Herald Tribune. He oversees the news and commentary site newenglanddiary.com.
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 27 (Reuters) – A program used by U.S. and British spies to record computer keystrokes was part of sophisticated hacking operations in more than a dozen countries, security experts said on Tuesday, after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden reportedly leaked the source code for the program.
On Tuesday, researchers at security software firm Kaspersky Lab said that much of that code, published this month by German magazine Spiegel, matched what they previously found in machines infected by Regin, a major suite of spying tools exposed in November.
Lead Kaspersky researcher Costin Raiu said that the keylogging program, called Qwerty, would work only with Regin, and that it appeared several Western countries’ spies had been using Regin over the course of a decade.
“Multiple attacker groups are using the Regin platform, which is a new conclusion for us,” Raiu told Reuters.
Spiegel and other publications reported earlier that Regin had been used in the hacking of Belgian telecommunications provider Belgacom, which slides provided by Snowden said was targeted to enable spying on mobile phones in Europe.
Overall, the malicious software has been discovered at more than two dozen sites in 14 countries, including Russia, India, Germany and Brazil. Targets included government agencies, financial institutions and multilateral bodies.
The NSA did not respond to a request for comment. After past Snowden disclosures, it has avoided discussing specific operations but said it complies with U.S. law, which allows broad surveillance overseas.
The new findings suggest that Regin was a platform for spying operations that was shared among the so-called Five Eyes—the United States, United Kingdom, Canada Australia, and New Zealand.
In its own November report on Regin, top U.S. antivirus company Symantec Corp said it was extraordinarily well disguised, and that even when traces were found it was difficult to know the purpose. Like some other top-tier spying programs, Regin has different modules that can be installed to achieve different ends.
Symantec said it found victims in the telecom industry as well as energy, airline and research concerns.
(Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Christian Plumb)
Introverts are often misunderstood. Are they shy or just require a little more ‘me’ time?
To find out more about the introverted type, I recently spoke with a group of introverts and asked them to tell me the things they did every single day. They all had surprisingly similar answers.
Here are the five things that introverts do everyday:
Introverts are known to sleep everyday. Although the amount of daily sleep can vary from introvert to introvert, all introverts reported catching Z’s everyday.
Introverts may tend to be shy at social gatherings, but they also tend to eat every single day. In fact, my introverted friend recently told me, “It is essential to living.”
Introverts may need more quiet time than extroverts, but did you know they also need to hydrate in order to keep being that fabulous, introverted self? Everyday of their lives!
Introverts don’t just need to refuel by being alone! They are also known to be thinkers. In fact, all introverts think every single day!
Not only do they tend to be more creative in their endeavors, all introverts reported breathing every single day!
So what were the results? Are you an Introvert? More of an extrovert? Let me know in the comments below!
All GIFs from Giphy.
On Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned of a “potentially historic” snowstorm that could dump up to 3 feet of snow across the five boroughs. The city had 1,800 plows at the ready and 250,000 tons of salt to spread over the 6,000 miles of city roads.
But when New Yorkers woke up Tuesday morning, they saw a more paltry 7 to 9 inches of the white stuff outside — a veritable Snor’easter.
And while city-dwellers were spared the worst of the storm — which pummeled parts of Long Island and New England with over 30 inches of snow and up to 70 mile per hour winds — that doesn’t mean it didn’t leave its mark on the Big Apple.
The number of rabbits seized from a Brooklyn backyard as the storm approached the city. The bunnies’ owner told DNAinfo that about 20 police officers temporarily confiscated the cuddly pets to protect them from the elements.
The number of non-emergency vehicles that should have been on the city’s streets after 11 p.m. Monday. Mayor de Blasio announced a travel ban, which ended at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
The NYPD said Tuesday that no one was arrested or issued summonses for violating the ban. The streets were eerily empty in Manhattan:
Somebody was making a #snow angel in an empty #TimesSquare #NYC. That made me smile, thanks @EarthCam pic.twitter.com/gcSR4XCPJS
— Gigi A (@gigi_nyc) January 27, 2015
Number of people who thought it was a good idea go paddleboarding off Rockaway Beach at the beginning of the storm.
The percent uptick in liquor sales in Boston and New York City on the delivery service Drizzly, according to the company:
Deliveries of alcohol in BOS & NYC were up 235% over typical winter Monday. @DrizlyBos (+345%) @DrizlyNY (+117%) #WinterStormJuno
— Drizly (@Drizly) January 27, 2015
Acres of New York City parks that were closed to the public during the storm. The parks are back open now, but de Blasio warned people to be on the look out for falling branches as trees are weighed down with snow.
Central Park blanketed in snow @DNAinfo pic.twitter.com/sCrPsocd9d
— Sybile P. (@SybilePenhirin) January 27, 2015
The approximate number of bros playing beer pong in the middle of First Avenue in the East Village Monday night before they decided to destroy the beer pong table.
The number of dicks drawn on this NYPD car:
@evgrieve pic.twitter.com/FtoIfVR8ZZ
— ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (@ThePeterHa) January 27, 2015
The number of points on the star-shaped snowflakes falling in and around New York City during the storm. According to Gothamist, they are “rimed crystals—snowflakes with cloud droplets frozen on them.”
Star shaped snow. #brownstonesteps #snowstorm #blizzard #homewithteaandspotify http://t.co/FMnyDs5kRH pic.twitter.com/cLJOwqaeKD
— Foladé (@alifeinboxes) January 26, 2015
The number of people Louis C.K. had to tell that he was canceling his sold-out show at Madison Square Garden because of the storm.
From an email CK sent to the ticketholders:
“…there seems to be a massive storm approaching New York City. They are calling this storm “historic” which…. Well I didn’t know you could call a thing historic if it hasn’t happened yet. But I’m not one to defy future historic events. And I have to be respectful of the responsibility I have to the 15,000 people who are holding tickets to the show and could be stranded somewhere historically trying to get to or from my show. I think it’s clearly better that I alter history in the name of safety and cancel. Besides, if you’ve ever tried to get your deposit back when you rent a banquet hall for a wedding that gets snowed out, you don’t want to even know what the deposit is on Madison Square Jesus Christing Garden is.”
The number of stray kale leaves left at this New York City grocery store during Monday evening’s shopping rush.
Oh New Yorkers… you and your kale (and yes, I bought some today too)… http://t.co/tb2dK3lN01 #blizzardof2015
— Eleanor C. Whitney (@killerfemme) January 26, 2015
The number of men in Brooklyn looking for that special woman on Craigslist who wants to have sex in the snow. (We actually wouldn’t be surprised if there were others. After all, plenty of people flocked to the site in search of company during the storm.)
“Looking for a pretty lady that has a fetish for cold,” the post reads. “After making naked snow angels we will then proceed to have ‘hot’ snow sex. I understand this is a very unique fetish so no experience is needed!”
Approximate miles of subway tracks that were devoid of passengers from 11 p.m. Monday until 9 a.m. Tuesday. It was the first time the subway service has ever been suspended because of a snowstorm.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is the 1,664 mile project that has become the political football of the 114th Congress. What most folks don’t know about this football is that it is already operating from Steele City, Nebraska to Port Arthur, Texas. President Obama is in an interesting position because the already completed Northern leg extension (which would transport oil between Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City) has been awaiting a Presidential permit for a little over three years now.
President Obama has stalemated on this issue. We can all agree that it is difficult to decipher fact, fiction, and feeling in this matter, but now is the time to make a move. The amount of crude oil being shipped and sold by the barrel has skyrocketed since the XL Pipeline project began in June of 2010 – TransCanada is making their profit, you can believe that. They have the ability to run out the clock on Obama’s last term, and the President is just sitting in the Red zone, chips stacked, ball in his court with the ability to clinch a major win for the American people.
According to the State department, Keystone XL would create 1,950 jobs over a two-year period after which 50 permanent jobs would remain. The State Department also estimates that the Keystone would contribute $3.4 billion to the U.S. economy (.02 percent of GDP). Though this is a positive, if all we wanted from Obama was to blindly boost the economy, legalizing marijuana could have gotten that job done years ago.
These facts have been known for quite some time and the people have spoken. Whether it is because they think it will create jobs, boost the economy, prevent a price spike at the pump, or just flat out don’t believe the environmental hype – roughly 65-70 percent of Americans support the approval of the pipeline extension. Coincidentally, about 71% would support a raise in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 or above. The President is in a major position of leverage. I say, President Obama: double your pleasure, double your fun — propose a bill to Congress raising the minimum wage with a promise that you will approve the Keystone XL Pipeline.
America! The battle on the Keystone is over and both sides have lost! Environmentalists have convinced Americans that building the Keystone is a bad thing and with the freefalling price of crude oil, potential Keystone XL oil profiteers are on target to lose their profit margins. If the President is willing to play a quick game of “lets make a deal,” working families can be the real winners. Why not trade in the Keystone to benefit those Americans currently making minimum wage or about the cost of a 2015 Kia Rio per year ($17,160 based on 8 hours/day, 260-day work year here in the District). The current minimum wage has too many Americans families living in poverty. If the inevitable approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline is the cost, it is a small price to pay – baggage and all.
Richard Fowler is the youngest syndicated progressive and/or African-American radio host in the United States.
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Some guys essentially weaponized a drone by strapping Roman Candles onto the flying machine and making it fly around and shoot fireworks at people (themselves). The video made by PIEROGRAM is totally crude but is also a preview of how the world will end. Death by laser shooting drones and human stupidity.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.