PUBLISHED: 18:41 EDT, 1 August 2017 | UPDATED: 08:14 EDT, 2 August 2017
As the limits of human and robotic space exploration stretch further than ever before, a small group of officials tasked with ‘planetary protection’ are hard at work ensuring contaminants from Earth don’t hitch a ride to other planets, or vice versa.
Between NASA and ESA, there are just two full-time Planetary Protection Officers in the world – and now, NASA is hiring for the position.
The space agency is offering up to $187,000 salary for whoever is selected to fill the sole vacancy, and will be accepting applications until August 14.
As the limits of human and robotic space exploration stretch further than ever before, a small group of officials tasked with ‘planetary protection’ are hard at work ensuring contaminants from Earth don’t hitch a ride to other planets, or vice versa
THE QUALIFICATIONS
To be eligible for the position of Planetary Protection Officer, candidates must:
Have at least 1 year of ‘broad engineering expertise’ in a top level civilian government position
Be a ‘recognized subject matter expert,’ with advanced knowledge of planetary protection, and demonstrate experience ‘planning, executing, or overseeing elements of space programs of national significance’
Possess ‘demonstrated skills in diplomacy that resulted in win-win solutions during extremely difficult and complex multilateral discussions’
Have a degree in physical science, engineering, or mathematics, or a combination of education and experience equivalent to such a degree
Currently, the title belongs to Catharine Conley, who has been NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer since 2014, Business Insider reports.
According to the job opening, which is offering $124,406 to $187,000 salary, the position is initially appointed for 3 years and has potential to extend another 2.
Whoever is chosen will be tasked with overseeing planetary protection and maintain the policies as they apply to NASA missions.
These efforts aim to ensure the prevention of any unintentional contamination.
‘Planetary protection is concerned with the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration,’ the inquiry explains.
‘NASA maintains policies for planetary protection applicable to all space flight missions that may intentionally or unintentionally carry Earth organisms and organic constituents to the planets or other solar system bodies, and any mission employing spacecraft, which are intended to return to Earth and its biosphere with samples from extraterrestrial targets of exploration.’
According to Business Insider, the PPO stems from the US ratification of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.
This states that space missions must have less than 1-in-10,000 chance of contaminating the planetary bodies being explored.
The job requires frequent travel, as the PPO may have to examine instruments and gear ahead of launches.
Whoever is chosen as Planetary Protection Officer will be tasked with overseeing planetary protection and maintain the policies as they apply to NASA missions. These efforts aim to ensure the prevention of any unintentional contamination
HACKERS REMOTELY KILL A JEEP ON THE HIGHWAY—WITH ME IN IT
I WAS DRIVING 70 mph on the edge of downtown St. Louis when the exploit began to take hold.
Though I hadn’t touched the dashboard, the vents in the Jeep Cherokee started blasting cold air at the maximum setting, chilling the sweat on my back through the in-seat climate control system. Next the radio switched to the local hip hop station and began blaring Skee-lo at full volume. I spun the control knob left and hit the power button, to no avail. Then the windshield wipers turned on, and wiper fluid blurred the glass.
As I tried to cope with all this, a picture of the two hackers performing these stunts appeared on the car’s digital display: Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, wearing their trademark track suits. A nice touch, I thought.
The Jeep’s strange behavior wasn’t entirely unexpected. I’d come to St. Louis to be Miller and Valasek’s digital crash-test dummy, a willing subject on whom they could test the car-hacking research they’d been doing over the past year. The result of their work was a hacking technique—what the security industry calls a zero-day exploit—that can target Jeep Cherokees and give the attacker wireless control, via the Internet, to any of thousands of vehicles. Their code is an automaker’s nightmare: software that lets hackers send commands through the Jeep’s entertainment system to its dashboard functions, steering, brakes, and transmission, all from a laptop that may be across the country.
To better simulate the experience of driving a vehicle while it’s being hijacked by an invisible, virtual force, Miller and Valasek refused to tell me ahead of time what kinds of attacks they planned to launch from Miller’s laptop in his house 10 miles west. Instead, they merely assured me that they wouldn’t do anything life-threatening. Then they told me to drive the Jeep onto the highway. “Remember, Andy,” Miller had said through my iPhone’s speaker just before I pulled onto the Interstate 64 on-ramp, “no matter what happens, don’t panic.”1
As the two hackers remotely toyed with the air-conditioning, radio, and windshield wipers, I mentally congratulated myself on my courage under pressure. That’s when they cut the transmission.
Immediately my accelerator stopped working. As I frantically pressed the pedal and watched the RPMs climb, the Jeep lost half its speed, then slowed to a crawl. This occurred just as I reached a long overpass, with no shoulder to offer an escape. The experiment had ceased to be fun.
At that point, the interstate began to slope upward, so the Jeep lost more momentum and barely crept forward. Cars lined up behind my bumper before passing me, honking. I could see an 18-wheeler approaching in my rearview mirror. I hoped its driver saw me, too, and could tell I was paralyzed on the highway.
“You’re doomed!” Valasek shouted, but I couldn’t make out his heckling over the blast of the radio, now pumping Kanye West. The semi loomed in the mirror, bearing down on my immobilized Jeep
I followed Miller’s advice: I didn’t panic. I did, however, drop any semblance of bravery, grab my iPhone with a clammy fist, and beg the hackers to make it stop.
Wireless Carjackers
This wasn’t the first time Miller and Valasek had put me behind the wheel of a compromised car. In the summer of 2013, I drove a Ford Escape and a Toyota Prius around a South Bend, Indiana, parking lot while they sat in the backseat with their laptops, cackling as they disabled my brakes, honked the horn, jerked the seat belt, and commandeered the steering wheel. “When you lose faith that a car will do what you tell it to do,” Miller observed at the time, “it really changes your whole view of how the thing works.” Back then, however, their hacks had a comforting limitation: The attacker’s PC had been wired into the vehicles’ onboard diagnostic port, a feature that normally gives repair technicians access to information about the car’s electronically controlled systems.
A mere two years later, that carjacking has gone wireless. Miller and Valasek plan to publish a portion of their exploit on the Internet, timed to a talk they’re giving at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas next month. It’s the latest in a series of revelations from the two hackers that have spooked the automotive industry and even helped to inspire legislation; WIRED has learned that senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal plan to introduce an automotive security bill today to set new digital security standards for cars and trucks, first sparked when Markey took note of Miller and Valasek’s work in 2013.
As an auto-hacking antidote, the bill couldn’t be timelier. The attack tools Miller and Valasek developed can remotely trigger more than the dashboard and transmission tricks they used against me on the highway. They demonstrated as much on the same day as my traumatic experience on I-64; After narrowly averting death by semi-trailer, I managed to roll the lame Jeep down an exit ramp, re-engaged the transmission by turning the ignition off and on, and found an empty lot where I could safely continue the experiment.
Miller and Valasek’s full arsenal includes functions that at lower speeds fully kill the engine, abruptly engage the brakes, or disable them altogether. The most disturbing maneuver came when they cut the Jeep’s brakes, leaving me frantically pumping the pedal as the 2-ton SUV slid uncontrollably into a ditch. The researchers say they’re working on perfecting their steering control—for now they can only hijack the wheel when the Jeep is in reverse. Their hack enables surveillance too: They can track a targeted Jeep’s GPS coordinates, measure its speed, and even drop pins on a map to trace its route.
ANDY GREENBERG/WIRED
All of this is possible only because Chrysler, like practically all carmakers, is doing its best to turn the modern automobile into a smartphone. Uconnect, an Internet-connected computer feature in hundreds of thousands of Fiat Chrysler cars, SUVs, and trucks, controls the vehicle’s entertainment and navigation, enables phone calls, and even offers a Wi-Fi hot spot. And thanks to one vulnerable element, which Miller and Valasek won’t identify until their Black Hat talk, Uconnect’s cellular connection also lets anyone who knows the car’s IP address gain access from anywhere in the country. “From an attacker’s perspective, it’s a super nice vulnerability,” Miller says.
From that entry point, Miller and Valasek’s attack pivots to an adjacent chip in the car’s head unit—the hardware for its entertainment system—silently rewriting the chip’s firmware to plant their code. That rewritten firmware is capable of sending commands through the car’s internal computer network, known as a CAN bus, to its physical components like the engine and wheels. Miller and Valasek say the attack on the entertainment system seems to work on any Chrysler vehicle with Uconnect from late 2013, all of 2014, and early 2015. They’ve only tested their full set of physical hacks, including ones targeting transmission and braking systems, on a Jeep Cherokee, though they believe that most of their attacks could be tweaked to work on any Chrysler vehicle with the vulnerable Uconnect head unit. They have yet to try remotely hacking into other makes and models of cars.
After the researchers reveal the details of their work in Vegas, only two things will prevent their tool from enabling a wave of attacks on Jeeps around the world. First, they plan to leave out the part of the attack that rewrites the chip’s firmware; hackers following in their footsteps will have to reverse-engineer that element, a process that took Miller and Valasek months. But the code they publish will enable many of the dashboard hijinks they demonstrated on me as well as GPS tracking.
Second, Miller and Valasek have been sharing their research with Chrysler for nearly nine months, enabling the company to quietly release a patch ahead of the Black Hat conference. On July 16, owners of vehicles with the Uconnect feature were notified of the patch in a post on Chrysler’s websitethat didn’t offer any details or acknowledge Miller and Valasek’s research. “[Fiat Chrysler Automobiles] has a program in place to continuously test vehicles systems to identify vulnerabilities and develop solutions,” reads a statement a Chrysler spokesperson sent to WIRED. “FCA is committed to providing customers with the latest software updates to secure vehicles against any potential vulnerability.”
If consumers don’t realize this is an issue, they should, and they should start complaining to carmakers. This might be the kind of software bug most likely to kill someone.
CHARLIE MILLER
Unfortunately, Chrysler’s patch must be manually implemented via a USB stick or by a dealership mechanic. (Download the update here.) That means many—if not most—of the vulnerable Jeeps will likely stay vulnerable.
Chrysler stated in a response to questions from WIRED that it “appreciates” Miller and Valasek’s work. But the company also seemed leery of their decision to publish part of their exploit. “Under no circumstances does FCA condone or believe it’s appropriate to disclose ‘how-to information’ that would potentially encourage, or help enable hackers to gain unauthorized and unlawful access to vehicle systems,” the company’s statement reads. “We appreciate the contributions of cybersecurity advocates to augment the industry’s understanding of potential vulnerabilities. However, we caution advocates that in the pursuit of improved public safety they not, in fact, compromise public safety.”
The two researchers say that even if their code makes it easier for malicious hackers to attack unpatched Jeeps, the release is nonetheless warranted because it allows their work to be proven through peer review. It also sends a message: Automakers need to be held accountable for their vehicles’ digital security. “If consumers don’t realize this is an issue, they should, and they should start complaining to carmakers,” Miller says. “This might be the kind of software bug most likely to kill someone.”
In fact, Miller and Valasek aren’t the first to hack a car over the Internet. In 2011 a team of researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California at San Diego showed that they could wirelessly disable the locks and brakes on a sedan. But those academics took a more discreet approach, keeping the identity of the hacked car secret and sharing the details of the exploit only with carmakers.
Miller and Valasek represent the second act in a good-cop/bad-cop routine. Carmakers who failed to heed polite warnings in 2011 now face the possibility of a public dump of their vehicles’ security flaws. The result could be product recalls or even civil suits, says UCSD computer science professor Stefan Savage, who worked on the 2011 study. “Imagine going up against a class-action lawyer after Anonymous decides it would be fun to brick all the Jeep Cherokees in California,” Savage says.2
For the auto industry and its watchdogs, in other words, Miller and Valasek’s release may be the last warning before they see a full-blown zero-day attack. “The regulators and the industry can no longer count on the idea that exploit code won’t be in the wild,” Savage says. “They’ve been thinking it wasn’t an imminent danger you needed to deal with. That implicit assumption is now dead.”
471,000 Hackable Automobiles
for the rest of the article, go to the link below:
Viral content such as memes, songs, tweets, and videos really are the modern day plague.
A team of researchers who set out to learn how social internet phenomenons spread like wildfire discovered the dispersion mimics the infectious diseases of the middle ages.
The team from Eotvos University in Budapest discovered that, like the the plague, memes begin at a specific place and time, and because they transfer person-to-person, follow a ‘wavelike spreading pattern.’
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Geo-locations of Twitter messages containing ‘Gangnam Style’ showed how social internet phenomenons spread like wildfire discovered the dispersion mimics the infectious diseases of the middle ages
This wavelike form of spreading seemingly vanished in the 20th century when air travel suddenly allowed diseases to jump continents – but the researchers say internet content is the modern day example of epidemics like the Black Death, which traveled across Europe at about two kilometers a day killing between 35 and 200 million.
‘Our assumption is that only those online viral phenomena can show similarities to global pandemics that were originally constrained to a well localized, limited region and then, after an outbreak period reached a worldwide level of penetration, the researchers wrote in their paper, titled ‘Video Pandemics: Worldwide Viral Spreading of Psy’s Gangnam Style Video.’
HOW PSY WENT VIRAL
Psy released the video in South Korea on July 15, 2012.
Prior, he was relatively unknown outside of the country.
‘Gangnam Style’ was the first video in internet history to reach 1 million views.
It was also the first to reach 2 million views and, at one point, was the most liked video on YouTube.
It was the first k-pop song to top the UK charts.
It now ranks second in YouTube views after Wiz Khalifa’s ‘See you Again.’
The example lead researcher Zsofia Kallus and his colleagues looked to was Psy’s famed ‘Gangam Style,’ the 2012 k-pop video that organically spread across the globe and eventually became the first YouTube video to reach one billion views. (Today it has nearly three million).
This wavelike form of spreading seemingly vanished in the 20th century – but the researchers say internet content is the modern day example of epidemics like the Black Death, which traveled across Europe at about two kilometers a day killing between 35 and 200 million
The spread of information is distorted by social media networks, which raises the question of whether it is really wavelike or fundamentally different – so to solve the mystery, they tracked the spread of the video by searching the historical Twitter stream for geolocated tweets that mention ‘Gangnam Style.’
‘Location information allows us to record the approximate arrival time of a certain news to a specific geo-political region,’ the paper reads.
‘In the real space this process looks indeed random, but the ‘local to global’ transition is also apparent as the messages cover a progressively larger territory.’
The data shows that after immediately becoming popular in Psy’s home country of South Korea, the video spread nearby to the Philippines.
The spread thereafter looks random, but that’s because ‘effectiveness distance’ – or the strength of links from one area to another – is they key factor rather than ‘geographic distance’.
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‘Location information allows us to record the approximate arrival time of a certain news to a specific geo-political region,’ the paper reads, saying the seemingly random ‘local to global’ transition becomes apparent as the messages cover a progressively larger territory
When ‘Gangnam Style’ hit the Phillippnes, for example, it was able to begin spreading more quickly because it has stronger links to the rest of the world and deeper English language links
When ‘Gangnam Style’ hit the Phillippnes, for example, it was able to begin spreading more quickly because it has stronger links to the rest of the world and deeper English language links.
When the team crosschecked their results by searching Google Trends to see when people first searched for the term ‘Gangnam Style’ in different parts of the world., the results matched the Twitter finds exactly.
Over the past few years, there has been an explosion in awareness like never seen before. Worldviews have shifted dramatically and key issues have come into the spotlight which would have never met such a great audience just a decade ago, such as sustainable agriculture, contaminants in vaccines and in the water supply, and mass surveillance. Many people have abandoned the idea of partisan politics and the media which supports it. Thanks to the internet a people’s media emerged and started to clear the air of the lies and deceptions that the old media had been plagued with.
However, as this last election came to a close, the perspective shifted and took us a few paces backwards in many respects. Incidentally, the focus was placed on Trump rather than the issues which were being fought so hard throughout the Obama and Bush administrations. Once again, the debate has become about the integrity of those in power instead of actual real world issues that affect everyone.
Whatever you believe Trump’s motives are, it’s important that we don’t get so caught up in arguing over something we have no control over that progress made on real issues is lost. What the country needs right now is a massive healing, and I think the best way of doing that is to learn how to set minor differences aside and work together to solve our problems, instead of looking to government to solve them for us.
Whether you’re left, right, something in between or nothing at all, you can always become more informed and act to make a difference in the world we live in. That’s why I’ve put together a list of 5 problems which desperately need fixing and can be solved without government if enough people work together to achieve a solution.
1. Peak Oil Threatens Energy Security and Self Sufficiency
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the world’s supply of liquid oils such as petroleum can only meet our needs until around the year 2040. If this is to be believed, it should be concerning to anyone who plans on living for more than 20 years or so into the future. In addition to the fuel we need to power our cars, everything from credit cards, house paints, cameras, and more are created using petroleum.
However, this could all be a blessing in disguise if it urges us to move toward alternative forms of energy such as solar, hydro, or even more exotic technologies which are still in their infancy. If people worked together to bring these renewable energy sources into their communities, not only would we increase our independence from big oil, but individuals would be much more self-sufficient and prosperous.
“If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world.”– Nikola Tesla
2. Big Agriculture Seeks To Undermine Our Health And Food Sovereignty
It’s no secret that corporations like Monsanto are poisoning our bodies, but the switch to mass-produced, agrochemical dependent agriculture and genetically modified foods has been a slow disaster for the environment and our health, it also threatens our food sovereignty.
Many people are unaware that Monsanto, the company which produces several chemical pesticides and herbicides, such as Round-Up, and engineers most corn and soy produced in the U.S., also has an extensive century-long history of corruption. From mass-producing the worlds first toxic chemical sweetener known as saccharin, to hiding the evidence of PCB toxicity, there legacy is disturbing.
Unfortunately, instead of being held accountable, they’ve been granted the power to genetically engineer crops and place patents on the transformed genomes, effectively restricting anyone from growing genetically modified crops themselves without first obtaining a license.
Consequently, through a combination of cross-pollination, crops which don’t produce seeds, pollinators dying off and more, Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations are creating a monopoly over food production making it increasingly tough to grow even a simple garden without obtaining a license first, all the while forcing us to eat food which has been heavily doused with toxic chemicals.
But none of this has to be. If people come together to reject GMO’s while defending local and organic agriculture, we can retain food sovereignty, strengthen relationships through community gardening, and eliminate many toxins which are causing so much death and disease.
“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” – Henry Kissinger
3. The Federal Reserve Has Unlimited and Unchecked Power to Print Money
Something most people don’t want to think about is the fact that the Federal Reserve bank of the United States, a private bank which came into being through a collaboration of powerful business interests, including the Rockefeller and Morgan empires, has unlimited power to print money, unaudited.
Using this power, in conjunction with the ability to lower or raise interest rates at will, the bankers at the Federal Reserve are in a powerful position over the government of the United States. By using a system of debt-based currency, the central bankers are able to create an economy which ultimately directs real wealth back to them while leaving the people with less than a fraction of what they’ve earned.
This system of fiat currency inevitably ends in a collapse of the money supply because of a need for ever-increasing levels of the currency to pay off the debt attached to each dollar printed. Our founding fathers understood this, but in 1913, the same year the Federal Reserve was created, the constitution was amended to allow for the printing of debt-based fiat currency.
Learning about this issue and spreading awareness can help oust the bankers by garnering support for movements against the central banks like the Audit The Fed bill introduced several times by Senator Rand Paul and former Congressman Ron Paul. The following films offer a more in depth look at this issue: The Collapse Of The American Dream (an animation on the creation of the federal reserve) and The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind.
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson
4. Corrupt Politicians Are Making It Illegal To Feel The Homeless – Demanding Dependency on Government And Outlawing Compassion
If you haven’t heard about this yet then you may or may not be surprised at the lack of compassion that plagues the government. In many major cities around the country it has become a crime to feed the homeless. As reported by EconomicCollapseBlog.com, cities such as Houston, Orlando, Philadelphia, Dallas, Las Vegas, and New York have all outlawed basic human decency
Not only that, but at the time these laws were passed the amount of Americans on food stamps was at an all-time high. It seems the government would rather demand dependence, having you turn to them for food instead of taking it from well-meaning people in your community. Michael Snyder lays it out when he says, “Do we really want to have a nation where you have to get the permission of the government before you do good to your fellow-man?”
“When elites see a homeless person in the gutter, they assume he’s saving a parking place.” – P. J. O’Rourke
5. Just 6 Companies Control 90% of What We See and Hear in the Media
By now most are aware that almost all major media outlets are owned by a handful of corporate conglomerates. The current number is 6, but several of these parent companies have been attempting to merge which could reduce the number to three or four in time. Currently Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp along with the Wall Street Journal; MSNBC is owned by Comcast along with NBC and so on. Outlets like PBS and NPR are funded partially by the government itself and partially by people like Bill Gates.
This is why you will never see an unbiased view on issues like taxation or vaccines from places like these. Just spend five minutes watching the commercials on mainstream news shows and you’re bound to see ads for pharmaceutical/vaccine companies, GMO food brands, weapons manufacturers, and more.
At some point you have to come to terms with the fact that the majority of what you see and hear ultimately comes from just a few sources – maybe even one. Now, no reasonable person would think that they have anything resembling an impartial view by only listening to one or two sources of information and perspective all the time. That only leaves you with what one group wants you to know. The only way to reasonably understand something is to seek out information that you don’t already agree with and be open-minded about it. You won’t agree with everything you hear, but at least you’ll be listening to as many sides of the story as possible before making up your mind.
The best way to combat this issue is to support the independent media. The most likely place that you’re going to find truthful information on a consistent basis is not from big name news companies like Fox News or the New York Times, but from smaller media outlets with a strong code of ethics which are willing to diverge from the status quo.
Conclusion
Clearly being engulfed in partisan politics is not getting us anywhere. We’re going to have to start listening to each other again and break the political molds in order the start caring about real issues again.
“While we continue to argue over smoke and mirrors, reality works its magic.” – Unknown
Quantum physics has spawned its share of strange ideas and hard-to-grasp concepts – from Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance” to the adventures of Shroedinger’s cat. Now a new study lends support to another mind-bender – the idea of retrocausality, which basically proposes that the future can influence the past and the effect, in essence, happens before the cause.
At this point, retrocausality does not mean that you get to send signals from the future to the past – rather that an experimenter’s measurement of a particle can influence2 the properties of that particle in the past, even before making their choice.
The new paper argues that retrocausality could be a part of quantum theory. The scientists expound on the more traditionally accepted concept of time symmetry and show that if that is true, then so should be retrocausality. Time symmetry says that physical processes can run forward and backwards in time while being subject to the same physical laws.
The scientists describe an experiment where time symmetry would require processes to have the same probabilities, whether they go backwards or forward in time. But that would cause a contradiction if there was no retrocausality, as it requires these processes to have different probabilities. What the paper shows is that you can’t have both concepts be true at the same time.
Eliminating time symmetry would also get rid of some other sticky problems of quantum physics, like Einstein’s discomfort with entanglement which he described as “spooky action at a distance.” He saw challenges to quantum theory in the idea that entangled or connected particles could instantly affect each other even at large distances. In fact, accepting retrocausality could allow for a reinterpretation of Bell tests that were used to show evidence of “spooky action”. Instead, the tests could be supporting retrocausailty.
The paper, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, was authored by Matthew S. Leifer at Chapman University in California and Matthew F. Pusey at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario. The scientists hope their work can lead towards a fuller understanding of quantum theory.
“The reason I think that retrocausality is worth investigating is that we now have a slew of no-go results about realist interpretations of quantum theory, including Bell’s theorem, Kochen-Specker, and recent proofs of the reality of the quantum state,” said Leifer to Phys.org. “These say that any interpretation that fits into the standard framework for realist interpretations must have features that I would regard as undesirable. Therefore, the only options seem to be to abandon realism or to break out of the standard realist framework.”
Are we going to have time travel as a result of this? In one idea proposed by Richard Feynman, existence of retrocausality could mean that positrons, antimatter counterparts of electrons, would move backwards in time so that they could have a positive charge. If this was proven to be true, time travel could involve simply changing the direction of moving particles in the single dimension of time.
Leifer doesn’t go as far as time travel in his explanation, but speculates that if retrocausality does exist in the universe, then there could be evidence of it in the cosmological data, saying that “there are certain eras, perhaps near the big bang, in which there is not a definite arrow of causality.”
Is this idea ready for the big time? It is supported by Huw Price, a philosophy professor at the University of Cambridge who focuses on the physics of time and is a leading advocate of retrocausality. Leifer and Pusey are taking things in stride, however, realizing that much more work needs to be done.
“There is not, to my knowledge, a generally agreed upon interpretation of quantum theory that recovers the whole theory and exploits this idea. It is more of an idea for an interpretation at the moment, so I think that other physicists are rightly skeptical, and the onus is on us to flesh out the idea,” said Leifer.
There are no experiments underway by the physicists to test their theory, but they hope this work will question the assumptions of quantum mechanics and lead to new discoveries down the line.
Congress has submitted a law making it illegal to hold cash, Bitcoins, or other assets outside of the bank without informing them with writing.
By now, it seems to be common knowledge that the government tries very hard to monitor and regulate every single transaction individuals choose to conduct.
Yet, with the rise of cryptocurrencies, and the new fears coming out that decentralized virtual money could actually start or magnify a financial crisis, on May 25th, Congress submitted a bill making it illegal, and placing individuals subject to asset confiscation and imprisonment, for anyone to have a medium size amount of cash, Bitcoin, etc. outside of a bank without telling the government how much they have, where they have it, and why they have it through filling out new Federal forms.
The new bill is entitled, “Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017.”
Within the bill they even include prepaid phones, retail gift vouchers, or even electronic coupons. Also within the bill is the government’s aim to greatly extend its authority to seize assets through “Civil Asset Forfeiture”.
Civil Asset Forfeiture rules allow the government to take whatever they want from you, without a trial or any due process.
The bill has also vastly expanded on the definition of ‘financial crimes’, which now includes the failure to fill out a form if you happen to be transporting more then $10,000 worth of ‘monetary instruments’.
According to the bill, if you do not tell the government about the cash you have, they are authorized to seize not just the money you didn’t report, but also all your assets and bank accounts. They even name “safety deposit boxes” among the various assets that they can seize if you don’t fill out the form.
On top of civil penalties, there are even criminal penalties. Right now, according to current law, they can imprison you for up to five years for not filling out the forms.
This bill aims to double the criminal penalty to ten years in prison. The bill also gives the government authority to engage in surveillance and wiretapping if they have even a hint of suspicion that you may be transporting excess ‘monetary instruments’.
Normally wiretapping authority is reserved for major crimes like kidnapping, human trafficking, felony fraud, etc.
Banks in the U.S. are already required by law to fill out suspicious activity reports on their customers. Then Congress added stock brokers, casinos, currency exchanges, precious metal dealers, pawnbrokers, and even the Post Office to the list.
Under the new bill, the government also wants to forcibly recruit even more unpaid spies, including any business which issues or redeems anything that is prepaid. So, Amazon would be required to file reports to the government about prepaid gift cards
The bill also wants to pull any business which “issues” cryptocurrency under the anti-money laundering regulatory umbrella.
Yet, no one “issues” Bitcoin. There is no Bitcoin central bank. There is no Chairman of Bitcoin who decides on a whim to increase the supply.
Bitcoin is created amounts that are pre-determined by its code. It’s software.
So the Senate is essentially trying to force the Bitcoin core software to comply with money laundering regulations.
The bill also attempts to include Bitcoin in the list of monetary instruments that must be reported when entering or leaving the U.S.
this means if you leave the U.S. with more than $10,000 in Bitcoin or Ether, you will have to confess it to authorities or face the aforementioned penalties, i.e. prison time, civil asset forfeiture, etc.
It seems that the bill criminalizes or delegitimizes the most mundane and harmless financial activities, all under the guise of keeping us safe.
The tablet for DOGS that will allow service animals to call 911 for their owners
Dogs can be trained to use the touchscreen to make calls or send texts
It can also be used if the dog’s owner falls or if they hear them ask for help
After the dog uses its nose to push the buttons, a computer connected to the touchscreen can be programmed to call anyone, such as 911 or a family member
The FIDO project team say they hope the technology can be commercially available soon for service dogs, but it’s still at the prototype stage
PUBLISHED: 19:01 EDT, 23 June 2017 | UPDATED: 19:01 EDT, 23 June 2017
Researchers are developing a touchscreen that dogs can use to make calls or send texts.
The researchers, who have already developed a vest that lets dogs deliver messages, and send their GPS co-ordinates, developed the touchscreen to train dogs to activate a device if their owner falls or if they hear them ask for help.
The technology could help save lives, particularly those the elderly who are at higher risk of falling.
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Researchers based at the Georgia Institute of Technology trained dogs to approach a large TV-sized touchscreen and use their nose to dial 911 when they hear the word ‘help’. Pictured is the touchscreen used, with icons colored in blue and yellow which the dogs can see
The technology was developed by a team of researchers for FIDO project at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dr Melody Jackson, director of the animal-computer interaction lab at Georgia Tech, told CNN: ‘The dog could go over to a touchscreen and touch a series of icons on the touchscreen and call 911 with your location.’
‘We think that, literally, this could change lives, make lives so much better, and be a life-saver.’
She said that service dogs as well as regular companion pets could be use the touchscreen technology.
Dr Jackson and her team said that they realized that both service dogs and working dogs have information that they need to impart to their handlers.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Dr Melody Jackson, director of the animal-computer interaction lab at Georgia Tech, and her colleagues have trained her border collie Sky, as well as other dogs, to approach a large TV-sized touchscreen and use their nose to dial 911 when they hear the word ‘help’.
After the dog uses its nose to push the buttons, a computer connected to the touchscreen can be programmed to call anyone, for example a family member, doctor or 911.
According to Clint Zeagler, a researcher at Georgia Tech, the buttons are colored in blue and yellow because dogs are red-green colorblind.
He says that here are only three buttons on the screen to reduce the chance of accidental calls being made if the dog hits the screen accidentally.
For example, medical alert dogs may need to alert 911 if their owner falls, or a military dog may need to alert their handler as to what kind of explosive they’ve found.
Dr Jackson, who is also a dog trainer, and her colleagues have trained her border collie Sky, as well as other dogs, to approach a large TV-sized touchscreen and use their nose to dial 911 when they hear the word ‘help’.
After the dog uses its nose to push the buttons, a computer connected to the touchscreen can be programmed to call anyone, for example a family member, doctor or 911.
According to Clint Zeagler, a researcher at Georgia Tech, the buttons are colored in blue and yellow because dogs are red-green colorblind.
He says that there are only three buttons on the screen to reduce the chance of accidental calls being made if the dog hits the screen accidentally.
The researchers are testing what size the buttons should be, what colors they should be and what hardware should be used for the dogs to optimize the technology.
The researchers also developed a wearable vest for dogs that lets dogs deliver messages and even send their GPS co-ordinates.
The researchers also developed a wearable vest for dogs that lets them deliver messages and make calls. Pulling or biting certain features on the vest activate sensors which send signals to a computer in the vest which can make a phone call, send a text or play an audio message
The sensors on the vest either have a chew toy for the dog to bite on for a command, or a rope to tug for another command.
These actions activate sensors which send signals to a computer in the vest which can make a phone call, send a text or play an audio message.
An audio message could for example let someone know that the dog has already called for help or that it needs more assistance for its owner.
For example, some seizure alert dogs can sense the onset of seizures, and they’re trained to push their owners against a wall to lessen their fall, and lick their face during the seizure.
The FIDO project team say that they hope these technologies can be commercially available for service animals soon, but the technologies are still at the prototype stage.
But with the vest, a seizure alert dog could also tug a sensor on their vest to call 911.
‘We want to be able to let these dogs communicate with humans very specifically and very clearly so that even a person who isn’t a dog trainer will understand what’s going on,’ said Dr Jackson.
‘If the dog runs up to you and a speaker says, “Excuse me, my handler needs your attention; can you please follow me,” OK, that’s clear.’
The FIDO project team say that they hope these technologies can be commercially available for service animals soon, but the technologies are still at the prototype stage.
“Every time somebody comes up with a universal plan to improve the world, you have to ask yourself this burning question: who will impose the plan? And then you have ask: what are the imposers’ true motives? And you have to remember what a Trojan Horse is.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
Over a period of 50 years, Buckminster Fuller explained his plan for making a better world. He talked about the coming wave of automation that would throw gigantic numbers of people out of work. He talked about the need for a universal system of support, whereby everyone on the planet would be guaranteed, from birth, the essentials of survival: food, clothing, shelter, and limitless free education.
Read this statement by Fuller:
“We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
Obviously, Fuller’s plan carries great appeal for many young people, for whom the idea of earning a living is a full-bore horror movie.
Fuller also believed that freeing up the young to “think about new solutions” for humanity and come up with new technology would justify his plan.
Compare Fuller’s agenda with Mark Zuckerberg’s. The Facebook founder recently gave a commencement address at Harvard. Read his words carefully:
“…today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs…Our generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks. But we have the potential to do so much more together.”
“Every generation expands its definition of equality. Previous generations fought for the vote and civil rights. They had the New Deal and Great Society. Now it’s our time to define a new social contract for our generation.”
“We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things… And as technology keeps changing, we need to focus more on continuous education throughout our lives.”
By direct statement and implication, Zuckerberg is echoing Bucky Fuller. The threat of automation. Massive unemployment. Guarantee the means of survival for every person. Free education for life. Come up with new ideas that contribute to the progress of the human species.
But as with Fuller, the thorny question about who is going to put this new universal plan into action is sidestepped. It appears the answer is: “the government.”
The most incompetent, bloated, corrupt, conniving force on the planet is in charge.
Doesn’t that fill you with confidence?
There is more. Who, behind the scenes, influences and controls government decisions and policies? A few groups come to mind: Bilderberg; Council on Foreign Relations; Trilateral Commission; United Nations. Fill in others yourself.
These are people we can trust?
And then there is this: what is the overall effect of gifting everyone on the planet with the basics of survival? On balance, does it produce visionaries and determined entrepreneurs? Or does it produce massive numbers of Welfare dependents, who drift in a sluggish space and want, at most, periodic stimulations of adrenaline to relieve their interminable boredom? Do they seek out endless free education, or do they ingest various drugs and sit glued to screens—and occasionally take to the streets to demand MORE?
Are fervent Globalist, Leftist, technocratic academics prepared to offer an honest assessment of the effects of a few billion people living on universal Welfare?
It’s quite convenient that “utopian” thinkers like Bucky Fuller and Mark Zuckerberg avoid these questions.
It’s not a stretch to infer that Zuckerberg views his brainchild, Facebook, as a means to expand the Surveillance State to new dimensions, because a few billion people living on Welfare are a potentially volatile demographic and “need to be watched.”
Is this liberation? It’s about population-pacification, passivity, endless “entertainment,” lowest common denominator, mind control, creating “voting blocs”; and yes, elimination of all borders, and a global superstructure of management for planet Earth. It’s about smaller living spaces, assigned from above, overcrowding in cities, and governments taking over more and more public lands…
This is the reality behind the utopia.
As usual, the devil is in the details. It’s easy to envision whole generations of empowered visionaries finding new solutions for the planet. But on even a cursory examination, the whole plan sinks into a morass of grotesque consequences.
If you’re up for it, try researching this question: How many government programs, and how much funding, is devoted, in all countries of the world, to authentically stimulating the freedom and power and creativity and independence of The Individual?
A related question: How many college courses around the world teach The Freedom and Power and Creativity and Independence of The Individual?
Answering these questions will give you some idea of governments’ “genuine caring” for individual innovation.
Good hunting.
Zuckerberg is Bucky Fuller 2.0. Unlike Fuller, he has billions in the bank. He has allies in the Deep State. He has the means to push the Fuller agenda.
From the top down.
And as usual, that’s where all the trouble starts. “Here, all you people, this is what you want. This plan will make life easier for you. Don’t you want things to be easier? We will make it happen. It’s our gift.”
The gift sounds appealing. It looks appealing.
Roughly 3200 years ago, after Greek forces failed to penetrate the gated city of Troy during a decade of war, they abandoned the field in apparent defeat. They left behind a giant wooden horse. The Trojans took the beautiful and appealing statue as a trophy and brought it into the city. At night, under cover, a door opened in the horse, Greek soldiers slipped out, opened the gates of Troy, and the rest of the Greek force, which hadn’t really retreated, flooded in.
The gift that wasn’t a gift.
“Oh look, that’s a wonderful idea to make a better future. I’ll take it in. I’ll believe in it…”
They were hauling a big creature’: New footage reveals what Deputy Sheriff said he saw at Roswell, in UFO mystery that has baffled experts and conspiracy theorists for 70 years
Deputy Sheriff Charles Fogus said he saw a flying saucer at New Mexico crash site
Case has confounded experts since 1947, when US military said a surveillance balloon crashed
In the never-before released interview, Fogus said he saw aliens who ‘looked like the ones we see on television’
A deputy sheriff said he saw he saw a crashed flying saucer and aliens who ‘looked like the ones we see on television’ at Roswell, a newly-released interview reveals.
Deputy Sheriff Charles Fogus rushed to the scene of a crashed aircraft in New Mexico in an incident that still baffles experts and conspiracy theorists after 70 years.
A new book claims Fogus said the UFO was around 100ft wide, and he said he saw soldiers removing dead ‘creatures’ from the scene.
The case has baffled conspiracy theorists for seven decades, in spite of the US military saying it was a balloon which crashed
Major Jesse Marcel from the Roswell Army Air Field with debris found 75 miles north west of Roswell, NM, in June 1947. The debris has been identified as that of a radar target. The Air Force released a report debunking reports of a UFO crash near Roswell
The deputy told Deanna Short, a private investigator from LA, there were between 300 and 400 soldiers on the scene when he arrived with Sheriff Jess Slaughter in July 1947.
In transcripts from a 1999 interview seen by The Mirror, and used in new book UFOs TODAY – 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Up, he said: ‘They were hauling a big, a creature.
‘The bodies must have been 5 feet tall. I saw the legs and feet on some of them. They looked like our feet.
‘The skin was a brownish color…. Like they were in the sun too long.’
Reports of a ‘flying saucer’ crash circulated at the time, prompting conspiracy theorists to believe aliens had landed
The incident continues to be popular with UFO enthusiasts seven decades after it happened
The interview features in the book UFOs Today: 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Up
Asked if he had seen their heads, he said: ‘Yeh….they were covered. They eyes looked like the ones we see on television and the pictures of them.’
And reflecting on what he had seen, Fogus said: ‘The Great Father didn’t just make this planet…. He made all of them.
‘He put beings on these planets just like he put us on this one. They’re smarter then we are.’
UNSEEN interview with a cop who witnessed 1947 Roswell UFO crash
The book has been published by Philip Mantle, who is a former director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association.
He told The Mirror: ‘It is rare that anyone new adds anything to the Roswell event from an eye witness point of view.
‘If you treat the Roswell UFO crash as a ‘cold case’ investigation then new testimony like this can be invaluable.’
The US Military has consistently denied that Roswell was the site of an alien landing, releasing reports confirming that the object which crashed was a surveillance balloon.
COULD BLURRY LETTER HELP TO SOLVE ROSWELL MYSTERY?
Conspiracy theorists claim a blurry letter seen in a picture could be the key to solving the Roswell UFO mystery.
The photo shows Air Force General Roger Ramey crouching over debris which was claimed to be from the Roswell Crash.
He appears to be holding a memo, which UFO researchers believe could be key in finally unlocking what happened in the New Mexico desert 70 years ago.
At Fort Worth Army Air Field, Major Jesse A. Marcel is seen holding foil debris from Roswell
David Rudiak, a UFO researcher, has used modern technology to zoom on the letter
David Rudiak, a UFO researcher, has used modern technology to zoom on the letter.
Alejandro Rojas, a presenter for Open Minds Radio, told Express Online: ‘He [David] says it is clear that there is a reference to a disc and believes he can also make out a portion of a sentence that reads “and the victims of the wreck”.
‘Rudiak says this proves that a disc-shaped craft was recovered.
‘However, perhaps more startling, he says it also corroborates the claims that extraterrestrial bodies were recovered from that wreck.’
The 1947 Roswell incident is one of the most controversial UFO episodes in history.
Today Roswell is a magnet for tourists and UFO theorists, all looking for their own clues
A weather balloon,used to monitor nuclear tests, allegedly crashed in the New Mexico desert.
However in a stunning development the military announced the next day that a crashed flying saucer had instead been found.
The statement was later retracted, but not before it helped fuel one of the biggest UFO conspiracy theories ever.
Researchers claim that the military covered up the UFO crash with the later story about the weather balloon.
Today Roswell is a magnet for tourists and UFO theorists, all looking for their own clues.
SUMMARY: Global warming is a theory with four components:
1. The Earth’s surface temperature is rising because of human activity, particularly industrial production and personal consumption;
2. Weather extremes we now experience are more destructive than in the past because of this warming effect;
3. If this trend is not stopped, the planet will soon be unable to sustain human life as we have known it; and
4. The solution is government management of all human activity, including the elimination of private property and personal freedom.
We reject the theory of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming for three reasons:
1. It is based on junk science and fraud. In other words, it does not exist. The driving force behind this theory comes from politicians, bureaucrats, and those employed by institutions that depend on government funding. All of these benfit from the alleged solution to the alledged problem.
2. The proposed solution requires crushing taxation, confiscation of private property, and denial of freedom-of-choice. This is contrary to The Creed of Freedom, paragraphs 3 and 4.
3. The threat of global warming is the bedrock foundation of almost all programs on behalf of totalitarioan government based on collectivism.
Exposing the Myths
Analysis by G. Edward Griffin
Myth 1.
Leaders of the crusade against global-warming have no financial conflict-of-interest because they only care about the environment, but those who challenge their theories do so because they are paid by the fossil-fuel and nuclear-power industries.
ANALYSIS: There is no doubt that the rank-and-file, true believers in global-warming are motivated by a desire to protect the environment, but those at the top are not so naïve. They know that the specter of environmental disaster is a made-up horror story to frighten us into accepting crushing taxes and a global totalitarian system in the name of saving the planet. How do we know that? Because they say so.
Ottmar Edenhoffer, an official at the UN’s IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was a former co-chair if the IPCC Working Group III and lead author of the IPPC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007. His report concluded:
One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. … One has to free one’s self from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy…. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.” (Story) (Cached) (Original in German)
For an eye-opening summary of the meaning of “green” in the environmental movement (it means money), see “Climate Policy as Political Entrepreneurship”, uploaded to the University of Utah website here. (Cached)
MYTH2. Temperatures have risen since 1998, and reports to the contrary are false.
ANALYSIS: One of the most troublesome facts challenging the theory of global warming is that, even according to UN sources and in spite of data manipulation, global temperatures have not risen since 1998. The dire predictions of increasing temperatures simply have not been validated by nature.
By 2014, this was damaging the credibility of the myth makers and causing skepticism in the public mind. Something had to be done to restore confidence in the global-warming narrative − and, with the Paris Climate Summit scheduled to begin in November of 2015, it had to be done fast in order to have an impact on the proceedings there.
In June of that year, an article appeared in Science magazine, written by a nine-man team at the Environmental Information office of the tax-funded National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This article was exactly what was needed. It said that the reported ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming was an error − and it had data and charts to prove it.
Because this article came with the imprimatur of NOAA, it well served the purposes of the Paris Conference. Afterward, however, it was learned that the article was politically inspired, and the authors had violated numerous principles of scientific inquiry. That was the conclusion of a former top scientist at NOAA itself, Dr John Bates who, in 2014, was awarded a gold medal by the Obama administration for his work in setting standards for producing and preserving climate data.
Bates said that all the scientific standards he had helped to establish at NOAA had been violated to produce a politically useful document at the Paris Climate Summit. The lead author of the article, Thomas Karl, had insisted on “decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation … in an effort to discredit the notion of a global-warming pause, and rushed so that he could time publication to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy.”
Dr. Bates said that the NOAA team used fraudulent data, applied methods of analysis that overstated the speed of warming, relied on software that was known to be inaccurate, never submitted data for verification by others, and failed to archive the data, making it now impossible to examine. In other words, they lied and then destroyed the evidence.
MYTH3. Global warming is caused by pollution and weather-modification programs. Therefore, it IS man-made.
2016 Nov 18 from Nikeros
To Ed Griffin:
You don’t believe that Fukushima, nuclear testing, extensive military operations involving gawd knows what, fracking, aerosol spraying of aluminum, barium, strontium and gawd knows what else worldwide and on and on has no effect on the earths climate? Ok fine. I will say no more.
ANALYSIS: The anthropomorphic mantra of most global-warming proponents is that the “man-made” cause is CO2. Period. They claim that CO2 is the byproduct of industry and consumption and that it produces a “carbon footprint”. Therefore, they seek expanded government power and funding to reduce CO2. That’s the basis for all the carbon-tax and regulatory nonsense. None of these people are talking about taxing or regulating “Fukushima, nuclear testing, extensive military operations, fracking, aerosol spraying of aluminum, barium, strontium and gawd knows what else”. They talk only about CO2, the non-toxic greenhouse gas that does NOT cause global warming. The global-warming hoaxers are very good at lumping together pollution (which is real) and man-made global warming (which is not). They are countng on us to fall for the trick and fail to see that these are two entirely different issues.
