Activist Wants To Publish Politicians' Browsing Histories

Last Tuesday our beloved U.S. House of Representatives proposed legislation to wipe out the landmark online privacy protections that were approved by the FCC during the final days of the Obama administration. The Senate voted the same way last week. Now the resolution goes to President Trump's desk for his signature. The White House has said that it "strongly supports" the repeal.

The rules, which had actually not yet gone into effect, would require Internet service providers to get your permission before they can collect and share your personal data. You did know that your service provider has data on everything you do on the Internet, including your browsing history, application use and even your satellite location, right? And they would also have been required to notify you about whatever types of information they were paid to share about you.

Well, there's this guy in Chattanooga who's really upset at all of this and knows enough about how the Internet works that he can actually do something about it. Adam McElhaney has decided that when this law goes into effect, he's going to turn the tables on everybody who voted for it and purchase the Internet histories of every single legislator, congressman, and executive who voted for the bill, along with their family's information, and make it easily searchable on the web.

Yup, everything from their medical, personal, financial, infidelity, porn searches, etc. Whatever he can find, he's going to publish it for all of us to see and enjoy. And he's asking for donations, "to restore our right to privacy."

So far, his campaign, which was seeking $10,000, has raised something over $160,000 and the figure is rising fast. Adam's website is https://www.gofundme.com/searchinternethistory.
Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

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Amazon has this week filed a patent for airborne fulfillment centers (AFCs) that can be positioned over locations where orders for specific Amazon products are predicted to be in heavy demand. That's right, a warehouse in the middle of the sky, filled with assorted goodies that people, such as say, football fans in a stadium, might want when they have the desire for snacks, drinks or souvenirs.

In the filing, Amazon says the AFC may be located at about 45,000 feet and deploy drones, described as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), carrying ordered items from the AFC for delivery to user-designated delivery locations.

The filing further states that when one of these drones descends from the center, it will have the capability to "navigate horizontally toward a user specified delivery location using little to no power, other than to stabilize (it) and/or guide the direction of descent."

Smaller airships (shuttles) may be used "to replenish the AFC with inventory, UAVs, supplies, fuel, etc." and the shuttles may also transport workers to and from the AFC.



The drones, which may be temperature-controlled models designed specifically for food delivery, may be stocked at the AFCs and sent down to make a precise, safe scheduled or on-demand delivery.

An example cited in the filing was around a sporting event. If there’s a big championship game down below, Amazon AFC’s above could be loaded with snacks and souvenirs sports fans crave.

The AFCs could be flown close to a stadium to deliver audio or outdoor display advertising near the main event, as well, the filing suggested.

The patent reflects a complex network of systems to facilitate delivery by air.

Besides the airborne fulfillment centers and affiliated drones, the company has envisioned larger shuttles that could carry people, supplies and drones to the AFCs or back to the ground.

Using a larger shuttle to bring drones up to the AFC would allow Amazon to reserve their drones’ power for making deliveries only.

Of course, all these elements would be connected to inventory management systems, and other software and remote computing resources managed by people in the air or on the ground.

The filing also reveals that the shuttles and drones, as they fly deliveries around, could function in a mesh network, relaying data to each other about weather, wind speed and routing, for example, or beaming e-book content down to readers on the ground.

We reached out to Amazon to learn more about their progress on this concept, and whether or not they have an actual date for when they might launch, or even just test, their first airborne fulfillment center.

The company did not immediately reply to inquiries.

Seaweed Found to Reduce Cow Methane

For those of us concerned about global warming, it's a fact that around 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally are due to methane released from cattle and other ruminant animals. 

Scientist in Canada have now discovered a particular seaweed that when fed to cattle reduces methane to nearly zero in their burps and their other, smelly and noxious, gaseous emissions. In the U.S. alone there are some 40 million cows, and all of them are contributing methane to our breathable air. 

Joe Dorgan, a farmer in Seacow Pond, Canada, began feeding his cattle seaweed he carried from the beaches nearby as a way to cut costs. He was so impressed with the lack of odors coming from his herd that he decided to turn the seaweed into a retail product.

Scientists from Dalhousie University tested Dorgan's seaweed mix and found it reduced the methane in the cows' emissions by about 20 per cent. They tried 30 to 40 other seaweeds and discovered that a red seaweed named Asparagopsis taxiformis reduces methane emissions in cows to almost nothing.

According to Rob Kinley, the lead scientist, "Agriculture stands to be one of the first to make major changes in the greenhouse gas inventory and so it's really a game changer if we can get this out into the market."

Kinley says it could take around three to five years to get commercial animal feed made from the seaweed to market. "Agriculture stands to be one of the first to make major changes in the greenhouse gas inventory and so it's really a game changer if we can get this out into the market. We're talking numbers equivalent to hundreds of millions of cars."

Although President-Elect Trump appears not to believe that global warming is a genuine threat and might even be a Chinese hoax, his argument that it might not be as bad as scientists fear. 

In a new study just published by Nature Communications, it appears that Earth's plant life loves more carbon dioxide being pumped into the air and is absorbing it at a faster rate than ever before.  

In 2014 when the latest measurements are available, about 35.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide was pumped into the air. The figure has continued to climb every year since the mid 20th century, when there was only about 6 billion tons emitted. As a consequence, according to the report, the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere has also been rising, from around 311 parts per million in 1950 to a little over 400 in 2015. 

However, the rate it is rising appears to have slowed down since the turn of the new century. According to researchers, between 1959 and 1989 the rate that CO2 levels grew rose from about 0.75 ppm per year to 1.86 ppm. However, since 2002, it has stayed almost the same. In other words, even though we are pumping out more CO2 than ever before, less of it appears to be lingering in the air we breathe. 

The study also reports that between 1982 and 2009, around 18 million square kilometers of new vegetation had sprouted on the Earth's surface, which is an area about twice the size of the U.S. Around the end of the 20th century, about 50% of the CO2 emitted by humans was removed from the atmosphere by plants. Now, however, that number appears closer to 60%. So, plants and other processes that convert CO2 seem to have become more effective.

The conclusion seems to be that faster-growing land plants have adapted to the higher amounts of CO2 and their photosynthesis has sped up and become more effective. So, maybe President-Elect Trump's argument may have some merit after all.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News:
Two researchers who took science to the amusement park say they've found that a thrilling roller coaster ride just might help people shake out pesky kidney stones. Dr. David Wartinger of Michigan State University said he'd heard patient after patient tell him about how they had passed kidney stones after riding one particular ride: the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster at Walt Disney World in Orlando. He and a colleague, Dr. Marc Mitchell, had also seen some media reports about people who passed kidney stones while bungee jumping and riding roller coasters. So they decided to leave East Lansing to head to Orlando in the name of medical research. To simulate the human body as best they could, they made an artificial human kidney model out of clear silicone gel and loaded it up with real human kidney stones. They rode the roller coaster holding their kidney contraption between them in a backpack positioned at kidney height. They took 20 rides and noted what happened to each kidney stone. Riding in the back of the roller coaster train seemed to really knock the kidney stones out, they reported in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. "Front seating on the roller coaster resulted in a passage rate of four of 24," they wrote. "Rear seating on the roller coaster resulted in a passage rate of 23 of 36." They mainly tested the one roller coaster ride, and it's a fairly simple one. "The Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster is not a terribly dynamic ride," Wartinger said. "It's not very fast. It is not very tall. It makes sharp left and right turns that have some vibration." Wartinger suspects many different thrill rides would have the same effect. "It's not like there anything unique about this one coaster," he said. The pair have now run their test 200 more times and say the findings are consistent. Now they want to try other amusement park rides.

Nude Trump Statue Appears in Major Cities

We don't normally get into politics here but, honestly, this really is hilarious. Five identical statues of a nude Donald Trump have shown up on various street corners in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Cleveland, and more appear to be on the way.

According to The Washington Post, the anarchist collective INDECLINE has been responsible for having the statues created. The official name of the project is "The Emperor Has No Balls," apparently a reference to the famous fairy-tale "The Emperor’s New Clothes," where a narcissistic emperor is tricked into strolling along with his subjects while in the nude. 

One source says that INDECLINE hired Los Angeles-based artist Ginger to make the statues. Meanwhile, The Parks Department of New York put out a statement saying, "NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted (sic) erection in city parks, no matter how small."

New Flying Butt Takes Flight!

Yes, you are probably reading it first here ... the new Airlander 10, billed as the world's largest aircraft, has officially taken flight on its maiden voyage in Jolly Old England. The huge craft completed its first test flight taking off from the Cardington Airfield in the English countryside of Bedfordshire and stayed in the air to the amazement and probably joking public for around 20 minutes Wednesday.

               (A less graphic image): 

Nicknamed by many as the "Flying Bum", the helium-filled craft developed by Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), of Shortstown, Bedford is 302 feet long by 142 feet wide and supposedly can reach an altitude of up to 16,000 feet. It will normally stay airborne from about five days to two weeks depending on the assignment ... (sorry!).

The craft was originally designed to be used by the US government for surveillance but there were budget cutbacks and those plans were scrapped. So, HAV decided to turn it into a commercial aircraft. The gigantic butt ... er aircraft ... can take off and land from many different surfaces including water, sand or ice. It's powered by four 325 horsepower diesel V8 engines that operate independently and has a top speed of about 91 miles per hour. The payload capacity is stated as being up to 11 tons.

HAV says the Airlander is designed to carry heavier loads than most other aircraft and use less fuel in the process. The ship, or perhaps even larger versions of it, (bigger butts?) may begin transporting passengers and cargo around 2020. One report questioned whether whether its butt-like appearance will be changed or become any less hilarious by then.