46 replies to this topic

[caltrek]

We have past timelines, and future timelines, so why not a present timeline.  One which notes significant news developments of the day.  Of course, such a present timeline would quickly become a timeline of the recent past, but that could also be of interest.

 

Today is March 14, 2017

News stories for the day include:

 

1.       U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at a two-day summit next month at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, U.S. online media outlet Axios reported on Monday, citing officials familiar with the plans. (See China Watch Thread).

 

2.      WASHINGTON: The US Senate has confirmed Indian-American Seema Verma for a top healthcare position in the Trump administration. She is expected to play a key role in the government's bid to "repeal and replace" Obamacare.  (See President Trump News and Discussion Thread).

 

3.      (CNN)Twenty-four million more Americans would be uninsured by 2026 under the House Republican health care bill than under Obamacare, including 14 million by next year, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday. (See Future of House of Representatives Thread).

 

4.      (Extreme Tech) With Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro now shipping, there’s a great deal of speculation around Microsoft’s upcoming Project Scorpio. Microsoft has implied it wants to leapfrog both the Xbox One and the PS4 Pro by a significant margin, but details on how these improvements would impact the existing Xbox One ecosystem have been few and far between. (See Computers and the Internet Thread).

 

5.      (Extreme Tech) Scientists develop a robot capable of listening when told it’s wrong, in real time Baxter is a robot developed in 2012 by Rethink Robotics, the project of former CSAIL director Rodney Brooks. (See AI Robotis News and Discussion Thread).

 

6.      (New Atlas) Researchers at Imperial College London have shown that a low-voltage stream of electricity can be used to bring different brain regions in sync with each other, leading to improved memory ability and the hope of treating neurological disorders. (See Biology & Medicine News and Discussion Thread). 

 

 

Feel free to add your own headlines.  Try to keep them about a news article on a developing story as opposed to a more aged article.  Also, try to keep them in the correct day, creating a section for a new day if needed.

 

[Pisiu369]

Nice, will you be doing this every day?

[caltrek]

Nice, will you be doing this every day?

 

We will see how it goes.  A lot will depend on the feed back I get.

 

It occurs to me that, being retired and all, I may have more time on my hands than a lot of other people.  So why not help organize the information flow a little bit?

 

Of course, there may be some days I will be too busy handling other things to do the job, so we will see how that affect things.

[TheComrade]

So, this thread is a kind of your chronicle? Can other users post here? If yes, this is going to be interesting but very eclectic (just as old medieval chronicles). I, for example, could post a lot of important and fateful (as it seems to me) news from Russia / Ukraine, but others will perceive these same news as insignificant nonsense, compared to wildfire in Oregon or some new law in Iowa...

[caltrek]

So, this thread is a kind of your chronicle? Can other users post here? If yes, this is going to be interesting but very eclectic (just as old medieval chronicles). I, for example, could post a lot of imporatant and fateful (as it seems to me) news from Russia / Ukraine, but others will perceive these same news as insignificant nonsense, compared to wildfire in Oregon or some new law in Iowa...

 

The more eclectic the better.  What I do recommend is that you keep your news item down to one medium size paragraph.  That way people do not have to wade through pages and pages of news.  Just an executive style summary statement.  Of course, links or notes as to where further discussion is occurring are welcome. Also, try to keep it to something published in today's news (or at least no earlier than yesterday's news). That way the march of time itself will keep the thread organized.

 

But yes, if something of interest crops up in Russia/Ukraine, by all means please post it here with appropriate links.

[caltrek]

March 14, 2017 - afternoon edition:

 

March 14, 2017 afternoon edition:

Two related stories recently posted in the Military and War News Discussion Thread:

 

1) March 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is expected to arrive in South Korea Wednesday to take part in joint drills on the peninsula, the U.S. military said.

 

2) (Next Big Future) -   With U.S. President Donald Trump promising the U.S. will boost the buildup of Navy ships, Wang Weiming, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, told Xinhua that China is speeding up the development of a marine corps, adding destroyers and frigates and will step up air and sea patrols.

 

Astronomers discover 16 new high-redshift quasars  by Tomasz Nowakowski report (See Space News and Discovery Thread)

 

 

 Dorian Damon's  "maybe we   don't need to automate everything " tea bag dunker project is discussed in the AI and Robotics thread.                 

 

Mark down today, 14 March, 2017, as one of those major days in computer science history.
DeepMind's actually done it: they've achieved general intelligence. And I say that without exaggeration— this one problem in AI has been the single biggest drawback to any meaningful progression in the field.  (See AI and Robot Discussion Thread).

 

Hydrogen is often touted as a clean fuel source, as its use in cars only produces water vapor as a byproduct. The truth is though, that producing hydrogen in the first place can often be a process that relies on natural gas or other polluting chemicals that can damage the environment. Finding a way to produce hydrogen simply and cleanly would go a long way toward eventual use of the gas as a fuel source. And that's exactly what researchers at the University of Cambridge (UC) have done, adding to a host of other green possibilities that have been proposed for creating the gas. (See the Energy and Environment Discussion Thread).

[caltrek]

March 15, 2017

 

1.       (BBC NEWS) The prime minister has claimed that Scotland will be leaving the European Union regardless of whether or not it votes for independence. (See Scottish Independence thread in News and Discussion forum).

 

2.       (Next Big Future) Pharma Industry insider and advocate of reduced regulation Dr. Scott Gottlieb is picked to head FDA but is not more pro-antiaging than Jim O'Neill, who had been mentioned as a contender. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion Thread in News and Discussion forum)

 

3.     (Bloomberg) Brazil’s chief public prosecutor has requested investigations into at least five members of the cabinet, the heads of both houses of Congress and former Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, according to local media reports. (See Impeachment Looming in Brazil thread in News and Discussion forum).

 

 

4.   (Next Big Future) Israel is looking at procurement of Advanced F15 with more range, new electronics, sensors and double the weapons. (See Military War News and Discussion Thread in News and Discussion forum).

 

5.   (New Atlas) Singapore's Housing & Development Board (HDB) recently called for proposals to automate the painting of its high-rise buildings, in order to increase efficiency and enhance worker safety. In response, ELID Technology International and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) teamed up to create a robotic system that does the job. (See Energy and Environment Thread in News and Discussion forum

 

6.       The UK Independent reports that  thirty US cities have asked the auto industry about the possibility of buying 114,000 electric vehicles – including police cars, rubbish trucks and street sweepers – for about $10bn (about £8.2bn) to help cut carbon emissions from the transport sector. This is characterized as “in defiance” of Trump policy. (See Electric Vehicles News and Discussion Thread in News and Discussion forum).

 

7.       (Next Big Future) A Tesla Model 3 prototype was spotted and captured on video. (See Electric Vehicles News and Discussion Thread in News and Discussion forum).

 

8.        (Bing) The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates Wednesday for the second time in three months . (See Business and Politics Thread in News and Discussion Forum)

 

March 16, 2017

 

1.       (BBC News) A federal judge in Hawaii has blocked President Donald Trump's new travel ban, hours before it was due to begin after midnight on Thursday.  (See President Trump News and Discussion thread).

 

2.       (BBC News) Islam is the world's second-largest religion, after Christianity. But this could change if the current demographic trends continue, according to research published by the US-based Pew Research Center. (See Society and Demographics Thread in News and Discussion forum)

[caltrek]

March 16, 2017 (Continued)

 

(AJC.Com) According to a Danish study published in the March 2017 issue of the “European Heart Journal—Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy,” the consumption of any kind of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen could increase the risk of heart attack by 31 percent. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion thread).

 

(The Washington Post) The National Institutes of Health would absorb an enormous $5.8 billion cut under President Trump’s first budget proposal — equal to about 19 percent of its current $30.3 billion discretionary budget. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion).

 

(Science Alert) Ray Kurzweil, Google's Director of Engineering made yet another prediction: the technological singularity will happen sometime in the next 12 years. (See a Google Exec Just Claimed AGI Wil Happen by 2029 thread).

 

(The Hill) Coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler is reportedly President Trump's pick to be the deputy chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and is expected to be tapped for the position in coming weeks. (See Energy and Environmental News and Discussion thread).

 

(Washington Post) On Thursday, the Trump administration released a preliminary 2018 budget proposal, which details many of the changes the president wants to make to the federal government’s spending. The proposal covers only discretionary, not mandatory, spending. (See Business and Politics News and Discussion thread).

 

(Computer World) Advanced computing experts at the National Security Agency and the Department of Energy are warning that China is "extremely likely" to take leadership in supercomputing as early as 2020, unless the U.S. acts quickly to increase spending.(Computer and the Internet News and Discussion thread).

 

(MSN) SpaceX got lucky on its second attempt to launch a communications satellite into orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket early Thursday. The liftoff was postponed by heavy winds Tuesday. (See Space News and Discussion thread)

 

(Space.com) The Trump budget proposal axes NASA's Europa Lander Project. (See Europa Lander thread in News and Discussion forum).

 

(Reuters) German carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) is on track to deliver a self-driving car by 2021, the company's senior vice president for Autonomous Driving, Elmar Frickenstein, said on Thursday. (See Autonomous Vehicles News and Discussion thread in News and Discussion forum)

 

March 17, 2017

 

(Science Alert) New research suggests that people may be able to reverse type 2 diabetes for set periods by undertaking an intensive short-term course of medical treatment. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion).

 

Edit:  additions for March 17, 2017 below.

 

(Talking Points) Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), a top Republican who sits on the House Appropriations and Budget Committees, on Friday morning signaled he was not on board with all of President Donald Trump's proposed cuts in his budget blueprint. (See Future of House of Representatives thread in News and Discussion forum).

[BasilBerylium]

Sources?

[caltrek]

Sources?

 

See the referenced threads for sources.

[BasilBerylium]

 

Sources?

 

See the referenced threads for sources.

 

Well considering that all board less off-topic are public...I think that this could work

[caltrek]

March 17, 2017 (continued)

 

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Turks living in Europe to have at least five children, saying it would be the best response to Europe's "injustices." (See Erdogam Watch thread).

 

(MSN) ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A federal wildlife agency studying the Steller sea lion decline in Alaska's Aleutian Islands is looking for help from citizen scientists. Volunteers don't need raincoats or rubber boots to pitch in, just eyeballs and a computer screen. (See Energy and Environmental News and Discussion thread)

 

(Next Big Future) In testing earlier this month, the Lockheed Martin laser produced a single beam of 58 kW, representing a world record for a laser of this type.  (See Military War News and Discussion thread)

 

(Next Big Future) Russia will partner with the UAE to develop a new light fifth generation stealth fighter.  (See Military War News and Discussion thread)

 

(New Atlas) Computer scientists at Oxford University have teamed up with Google's DeepMind to develop artificial intelligence that might give the hearing impaired a helping hand, with their so-called Watch, Attend and Spell (WAS) software outperforming a lip-reading expert in early testing. (See AI Robotics News and Discussion thread)

 

(Next Big Future) Next Japanese solar sail will be 10-15 times bigger than Ikaros solar sail and have a far better ion engine. A researcher with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Matsumoto is deeply involved in the design of the space sail that will pick up where Japan’s IKAROS left off. (See Space News and Discussion thread)

 

March 18, 2017

 

(Cloudhosting Headquarters) - A new paper has shed light on the extreme lengths to which tardigrades can go in surviving great periods of time without water. (See Biology and Medicine News thread)

 

Edit:  Further discussion of the Trump budget by an Our Future writer is included in the Future of the U.S. House of Representatives thread.

[BasilBerylium]

Ask if MarcZ can join to this project

[caltrek]

March 19, 2017

(Futurism) Scientists have figured out a way to push the boundaries of telescopic technology even further: by turning the Sun (yes, that sun) into a telescope. (See Space News and Discussion thread).

 

(Washington Post) Senior citizens in one suburb could see Meals on Wheels deliveries cut in half if President Trump’s budget cuts become reality, a spokeswoman for the network told CNN, as it anticipated “deep cuts” to a nonprofit that serves 2.4 million Americans.

Private donations have surged in response to threats to cut federal subsidies to Meals on Wheals. (President Trump News and Discussion thread) 

 

(The Hill) President Trump said he would hold a "major meeting" Friday at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., that would be "all about" the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), but the Friday meeting apparently never took place. Instead, the White House said in a release the following evening that Trump spent a portion of his Saturday focusing on the issue. (President Trump News and Discussion thread) 

 

(Medical Press) People who received regular lifestyle counseling online were able to lower their blood pressure as much as a medication would, researchers said Saturday. (See Biology News Medicine and Discussion thread)
 

(The Huffington Post) “Make America Smart Again” has been Neil deGrasse Tyson’s rallying cry since Donald Trump won the presidential election last year. Now the astrophysicist, author, host of the “StarTalk” podcast and TV show and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History is warning America that it will need more than an intelligence boost if Trump’s proposed budget is passed. (See Scientists Brace for Lost Generation in American Research)

 

Edit addition:  (Truthout) Corporate and right-wing interests have used their disproportionate (and often gerrymandered) control over state legislatures to pass "state preemption" bills like HB 17 and SB 1158 to quell local government activism. (See USA Watch Thread). 

 

Edit addition:  (Back to the Future) The immigration crackdown has sparked protests in Silicon Valley. (See Will the U.S. Continue to be  Nation of Immigrants thread in the Culture, Economics, and Politics of the Future forum)

 

March 20, 2017

(Reuters) U.S. House Republicans are working on changes to their healthcare overhaul bill to provide more generous tax credits for older Americans and add a work requirement for the Medicaid program for the poor, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday. (See Future of House of Representatives thread).

 

(BBC) Parliament might have to scrutinise up to 15 new bills to deliver Brexit, leaving little time for other legislation, the Institute for Government has warned. (See Post-Brexit News and Discussion thread).

 

Edit addition:   (BBC) Prime Minister Theresa May is to officially notify the European Union next Wednesday that the UK is leaving.

The move, nine months after people voted 51.9% to 48.1% in a referendum, will kick start the two year process of negotiations about the UK's EU exit. (See Post-Brexit New and Discussion thread).

[caltrek]

Ask if MarcZ can join to this project

 

MarcZ is certainly welcome to participate, as is anybody else who likes the idea of posting in this forum.  If others helped out in keeping this thread up to date, it would lessen the burden for me.  You can also help by placing dates of your sources in a highly visible place near your headline so that I can more easily pick up and distinguish news articles from older articles cited for research and debate purposes. So, yes, consider this an invitation to MarcZ.

[Andrew9141]

Please keep up with these, these are great!

 

[caltrek]

March 21, 2017

 

(Next Big Future) The European Bio4Comp project has the ambitious goal of building a computer with greater processing speed and lower energy consumption than any of the most advanced computers existing today. (See Computers and the Internet Discussion thread).

 

(New Atlas) A peptide found in the Australian funnel-web spider's venom has been shown to reduce the brain damage that occurs in the hours following a stroke, with early preclinical studies involving rats having delivered extremely promising results. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion forum).

 

(Medical Press) A team of Rockefeller scientists is now using a fresh approach to look at biological processes that occur in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion forum)

(New Atlas) When it comes to eye exams, nobody likes getting the pupil-dilating eye drops. Thanks to a compact new camera being developed at the University of Illinois and Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts Eye & Ear, however, those drops may become a thing of the past. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discovery forum).

 

(BBC) In the atmosphere, the seas and around the poles, climate change is reaching disturbing new levels across the Earth. That's according to a detailed global analysis from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). (See Energy and Environment forum).

 

(Tech Xplore) A team of researchers working at Kaneka Corporation has broken the record for silicon-based solar cell efficiency by producing a cell that was tested to be 26.3-percent efficient—an increase of 0.7 percent over the previous record holder. (See Energy and Environment forum).

 

(Climate Central) A new study shows that the last vestige of the once-mighty ice sheet faces covering North America are near certain death, even if the world rapidly curtails its carbon pollution. The results indicate the Arctic has entered a state nearly unheard of since the Pliocene, an epoch when the Arctic was largely free of ice. (See Energy and Environment forum).

 

(Phys.Org) Sophisticated cybersecurity systems they look for general indicators of an attack; call them "apples." Or the system flags very specific patterns, such as "bad Granny Smith apples" or "bad Red Delicious apples." These limits make it easy for new species of "bad apples" to evade modern cybersecurity systems.  The Neuromorphic Cyber Microscope, designed by Lewis Rhodes Labs in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories, directly addresses this limitation. Due to its brain-inspired design, it can look for the complex patterns that indicate specific "bad apples," all while using less electricity than a standard 60-watt light bulb. (See AI Robotics News and Discussion thread).

 

(Phy.Org) In 2015, Europe's Rosetta spacecraft witnessed—and photographed—a big one on the surface of a comet in deep, dark space, they reported in the journal Nature Astronomy. An article in the Space News and Discussion forum discusses that article and that event.

(Next Big Future) China is using up to one million dollar funding packages to recruit top international science talent. (See Business News and Discussion thread).

 

 

Edit addition:  (IBT) The moons of Mars were once its rings according to a new theory on the subject.  (See Space News and Discussion thread).

 

Edit addition:  (New York Times) President Trump on Tuesday turned up the pressure on recalcitrant Republicans to support a sweeping bill to overhaul the health care system, threatening wavering lawmakers in his party with political payback if they failed to get behind a measure that has become an early test of his negotiating power. (See The Future of the U.S. House of Representatives thread).

 

Edit addition:  (Inverse) DARPA is working on a new machine learning technology that could let a future artificial intelligence grow up, learning from its experiences over the entirety of its unnatural life. (See AI Robotics News and Discussion thread).

 

March 22, 2017

 

(BBC) A new start-up says it intends to offer an electric-powered commercial flight from London to Paris in 10 years. (See Transport and Infrastructure News & Development thread).

 

Edit addition:  (MSN) LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - An assailant stabbed a policeman and was shot by police just outside Britain's parliament building in London on Wednesday in what police described as a "terrorist incident." (See Breeking: Attack at Westminster in London thread.  Also, I had trouble with the link provided there, so here is the news source I utilized:http://www.msn.com/e...ID=ansmsnnews11 ).

 

Edit addition: (New York Times):  HONG KONG — In 2014, Baidu announced a hiring coup in the world of artificial intelligence: It had brought in the Stanford and Google alumnus Andrew Ng to lead a new research lab in Silicon Valley. (See AI Robotics News and Discussion thread).

[caltrek]

March 22, 2017 (continued)

 

(Daily Mail) The race to build the world’s most spectacular skyscraper has reached new heights - and taken a turn in direction.

Designs for ‘The Big Bend’, a slender tower that would transform Manhattan’s skyline, have been unveiled.

 

Described as the ‘longest building in the world’, the project's concept drawings reveal a skyscraper reaching an apex then curving back down. And featuring an elevator system that can travel in curves, horizontally and in loops. (See Transportation and Infrastructure discussion thread).

 

 

March 23, 2017

 

(Phys.org) Physicists prove that it's impossible to cool an object to absolute zero. (See Physics News and Discussion thread).

 

(New Atlas) Samsung's Gear S3 smartwatch comes in both "Classic" and "Frontier" varieties. Until now, only the latter has been available in an LTE variant. Today, Samsung announced that US customers have the option of purchasing a Gear S3 Classic with 4G cellular connectivity as well. (See Computers and the Internet News and Discussion thread).

 

(New Atlas) Digital assistants seem to be the Next Big Thing at the moment, but they appear to be mainly stuck in the audio realm. Daptly would prefer things to be a bit more visual, so it's introducing the Daptly Display. It looks like a trendy mirror, but is really a gesture-controlled interactive assistant and display screen. (See the Home Leisure News and Discussion thread).

 

(Next Big Future) New research, led by nanoengineering professor Shaochen Chen, addresses one of the biggest challenges in tissue engineering: creating lifelike tissues and organs with functioning vasculature —networks of blood vessels that can transport blood, nutrients, waste and other biological materials — and do so safely when implanted inside the body.(See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion thread).

 

(Next Big Future)  Researchers have rejuvenated old mice to restore their stamina, coat of fur and even some organ function. The team at Erasmus University Medical Center, in the Netherlands, are planning human trials for what they hope is a treatment for old age.  (See Biology News and Discussion thread).

 

(BBC) An analysis for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has suggested that British workers under the age of 30 may not get a pension until the age of 70.  (See Business and Politics News and Discussion thread).

 

Edit addition:  (New York Times) — President Trump issued an ultimatum on Thursday to recalcitrant Republicans to fall in line behind a broad health insurance overhaul or see their opportunity to repeal the Affordable Care Act vanish, demanding a Friday vote on a bill that appeared to lack a majority to pass. (See the Future of the U.S. House of Representatives thread).

 

Edit addition: (Next Big Future) Hardric Labs in Massachusetts has reported to LPPFusion that its work on machining the new beryllium cathode is nearing completion and they expect to ship the finished piece in early March, only a few weeks behind their initial schedule. Since the beryllium anodes have already been received at the Middlesex NJ lab, we will soon have a complete set of beryllium electrodes ready for our next set of experiments.

 

From the link provided in the article: “This system, releasing a tiny current between the electrodes, is designed to smooth the path for the main current pulse, reducing erosion that leads to impurities and making for an even start to the pulse all around the anode.” (See the Energy and Environment News and Discussion thread).

 

Edit addition: (Electrek) Even though Tesla CEO Elon Musk already announced that the company aims for the Model 3 to score 5 stars in every safety category, Morgan Stanley’s Tesla analyst Adam Jonas says that the vehicle’s safety could be an underrated feature that will give the vehicle a competitive edge. (Electric Vehicles News and Discussion thread).

[caltrek]

March 24, 2017 

 

(The Next Big Future) The US Navy working on mostly automated 'Magic Carpet' aircraft carrier landings starting in 2019.  When Magic Carpet software and systems are switched on, the US Navy pilot no longer directly controls the flaps, throttle, and so on. Instead, he or she chooses a path and the computer makes the fine adjustments to get and stay on it. Affecting one aspect of flight — angle, speed, alignment, and so on — still affects the others, but the pilot can focus on one at a time while the computer keeps the others under control. The pilot remains a crucial part of the system. (See Military War News and Discussion).

 

(Extreme Tech) It took a lot of clever engineering behind the scenes and some very public failures, but SpaceX has finally worked out the kinks of landing its Falcon 9 rockets after launch. It’s been recovering rockets so frequently that we don’t even cover all the landings anymore, but until now all those rockets have been sitting in a hangar someplace. SpaceX is finally set to reuse one of its reusable rockets. (See Space News and Discussion thread).

 

(Phys.Org) An international team of astronomers has identified a record breaking brown dwarf (a star too small for nuclear fusion) with the 'purest' composition and the highest mass yet known. (See Space News and Discussion thread)

 

(Sky News) A drug that reverses ageing could be on the market in three years, scientists claim. In early experiments, the drug nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) had a dramatic rejuvenating effect on ageing mice. (See Biology and Medicine News and Discussion thread).

(Climate Central) President Trump signed an executive order on Friday greenlighting the Keystone XL pipeline after it cleared State Department review to bring tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The Trump administration’s approval represents an about face from President Obama’s stance on an issue that has pitted environmentalists and local communities against Transcanada, which plans to build the pipeline that will shuttle up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day. (See Energy and Environmental News and Discussion thread).

 

(BBC) Scientists have located an impact crater linked to powerful tsunamis that swept across part of ancient Mars. (See Ancient Mars thread in the History Forum)

 

 

Edit: MOSCOW (AP) — A woman has died in an enormous fire at a Ukrainian munitions dump in the country's Kharkiv region near the Russian border. The body of the 66-year old woman was found in a house that was hit by a shell near the depot in Balaklia, Ukraine's State Emergency Service minister Mykola Chechetkin told lawmakers Friday. (See Ukraine Watch Thread for related You Tube Video). Source:http://www.chron.com...ne-11024905.php

 

(Inverse) A mysterious self-driving car company has been quietly expanding in recent years in the world’s largest country. Now, Moscow-based Cognitive Technologies has hired a slew of new recruits and is ready to move to the U.S. in the coming months. (See Russian self-driving car company that focuses on bad weather and bad roads is coming to the U.S. thread).

 

March 25, 2017

 

(Next Big Future) Global Military lasers see robust growth and soon will be over 1 billion in research and sales. (See Military War News and Discussion).

 

(Next Big Future) BAE Systems have lifted the lid on some futuristic technologies that could be incorporated in military and civil aircraft of 2040 or even earlier. The Transformer is a flexible aircraft system that combines smaller jets for more efficient travel, before having them split apart to quickly adapt to any scenario. (See Military War News and Discussion).

 

(Next Big Future) Russia is designing submarine that will use composite materials for the hull and other parts and fire hypersonic Zircon missiles. Russia will start building multi-purpose nuclear-powered submarines of the fifth generation in 2020. Companies of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) are ready to start the work in 2020, when 885 Yasen project is completed. The Russian Husky submarine will be the follow up to the Yasen submarine. (See Military War News and Discussion).

 

(MIT Technology Review) Surging investment in machine learning is vaulting Google into the scientific stratosphere. (See AI Robotics News and Discussion).

 

(TechCrunch) The Tesla solar roof tiles the company unveiled last year, which look like regular roof tiles and yet have roughly equivalent efficiency of traditional solar power gathering cells, will be up for order starting in April, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. (See Home Leisure News and Discussion thread).

 

(MSN) Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] suspended its pilot program for driverless cars on Saturday after a vehicle equipped with the nascent technology crashed on an Arizona roadway, the ride-hailing company and local police said. (See Autonomous Vehicles News and Discussion thread).

 

(New York Times) Paul Ryan emerges from the health care defeat badly damaged. (See Future of the U.S. House of Representatives thread).

 

Edit:

 

March 26, 2017

 

(BBC) Labour will not support any Brexit deal negotiated by the government unless it meets the party's "six tests", the shadow Brexit secretary has said. Any deal must include a strong relationship with the EU and the exact same benefits the UK has from the single market, Sir Keir Starmer said.  (See Post-Brexit UK News and Discussion thread).

 

Edit: (MSN) WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has now laid out exactly what he wants in the "big, beautiful wall" that he's promised to build on the U.S.-Mexico border. But his effort to build a huge hurdle to those entering the U.S. illegally faces impediments of its own. (See Will the U.S. Continue to be a Nation of Immigrants thread).

 

Edit: (Truthout) In a striking new novel, John Feffer imagines a dystopian yet all too familiar future in which the world's superpowers have fractured, global temperatures have soared, the global economy has collapsed and violent nationalism prevails.  (See the Splinterlands thread in the Fictional Future forum)

 

Edit: (Independent)  White House officials and members of Donald Trump’s transition team are reportedly “purging” their electronic devices to avoid being compromised by subpoenas, it has been claimed. One legal expert told MSNBC - the channel that first reported the allegations based on testimony from an inside source - there could be “legal ramifications” for staff who destroyed crucial evidence relating to ongoing investigations. (President Trump News and Discussions thread).

[Frizz]

Nice, will you be doing this every day?

 
We will see how it goes.  A lot will depend on the feed back I get.
 
It occurs to me that, being retired and all, I may have more time on my hands than a lot of other people.  So why not help organize the information flow a little bit?
 
Of course, there may be some days I will be too busy handling other things to do the job, so we will see how that affect things.

Wait. How the hell old r u?!

In all these years i assumed you were mid-late 20s