A breakthrough in X-ray detection technology, AS&E’s Z Backscatter Van (ZBV) is a low-cost, extremely maneuverable screening system built into a commercially available delivery van. The ZBV allows for immediate deployment in response to security threats, and its high throughput capability facilitates rapid inspections. The system’s unique “drive-by” capability allows one or two operators to conduct X-ray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past.

Full story….

Over the past decade libertarian assholes have used specious arguments to successfully prevent a federal law that would guarantee net neutrality and now, as expected, the big dogs are negotiating to set higher priorities for the exclusive use of large corporations and the wealthy. As I said last Friday:

Non-neutrality (if no law is passed) means that the elite — the BIG guys, the privileged — can slice up the Internet into tiers of service so that BIG users pay premium prices for the highest priority and you and I are left with leftover bandwidth. I.e., that means we would get slower speeds.

And slower speeds means we would wait for the privileged user’s traffic to clear away.

Here’s what the BIG guys are already doing:

WASHINGTON — Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.

The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.

Such an agreement could overthrow a once-sacred tenet of Internet policy known as net neutrality, in which no form of content is favored over another. In its place, consumers could soon see a new, tiered system, which, like cable television, imposes higher costs for premium levels of service.

Read the whole thing….

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and I unalterably favor a federal law that guarantees net neutrality for ALL Internet users.

Why is such a law necessary? Because the BIG Internet users and transmission providers (phone companies, etc.) are talking about converting to a tiered system that would discriminate against the rest of us.

I’ve raised this subject with some pretty savvy computer geeks in the past but even they fail to grasp the significance of the issue.

What is net neutrality? Well, to put it simply, it’s what you’ve been experiencing since the Internet was invented.

What’s the alternative under discussion?

That would be something you don’t want to experience.

Non-neutrality (if no law is passed) means that the elite — the BIG guys, the privileged — can slice up the Internet into tiers of service so that BIG users pay premium prices for the highest priority and you and I are left with leftover bandwidth. I.e., that means we would get slower speeds.

But…. but, isn’t that the American way? Isn’t that fair?

Well, if that makes sense, what the hell are all those speed limit signs doing on U.S. highways? Shouldn’t we be allowed to pick our own speed for driving?

Or a better analogy: why not let drivers buy premium license plates that would permit higher speeds? What’s wrong with that concept? It’s the same as allowing fat-cat Internet users to buy priority for their transmissions.

And why are all those tyrants telling us where and when to park our cars on city streets? I mean, gee, couldn’t we parking-space users work it out as we try to park?

Here’s an example of libertarianism run amok.

Today I received another email “reminder” that “cell phone numbers go public this month” and … “all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls.” Then in all caps: “YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS.”

I’ve received this same email at least a dozen times over the last five years.

I checked the FTC website and found this is still in effect:

* FCC regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers are barred from calling consumers on their cell phones without their consent.

* The federal government does not maintain a national cell phone registry. Personal cell phone users have always been able to add their numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry — the same Registry consumers use to register their land lines — either online at www.donotcall.gov or by calling toll-free 1-888-382-1222 from the telephone number they wish to register. Registrations become effective within 31 days of signing up and are active for five years. There is no cut-off date or deadline for registrations.

* Business-to-business calls are not covered under the Registry.

Read the whole thing….

The recent ruling reviving the long, bitter debate over the Yucca Mountain waste storage plan has added an element of surprise to a U.S. Senate race in Nevada already on the verge of going nuclear.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel said June 29 that the Obama administration cannot withdraw the nuclear-waste storage application without permission from Congress. The administration, which has already zeroed out the budget for the project to store all of the nation’s future nuclear waste material, appealed the ruling to the full commission last week.

Even if the commission reverses the decision, however, the timing all but guarantees that the issue will remain radioactive throughout one of the most closely watched Senate races this fall. The question: Does Yucca Mountain pack enough wallop to explode in one of the candidates’ faces, or will it detonate harmlessly miles from its target?

Nevada political strategists say that a nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has never resonated with Nevada voters as much as it has with Washington’s political and media elite, especially Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the embattled Nevada Democrat.

Mr. Reid fiercely fought the idea and denounced congressional efforts to implement Yucca Mountain as the “Screw Nevada bill.”

But polls consistently show that while most Nevadans oppose a Yucca nuclear storage site, they also don’t consider it a top 10 or even top 25 issue.

“Yucca Mountain has never had an impact on races here, but you would never know it from reading stories in the national media,” said Las Vegas-based political consultant Ryan Erwin. “It doesn’t move voters here at all. One reason Al Gore lost Nevada in 2000 [in the presidential race] was because he did a laser focus on Yucca Mountain and it didn’t move voters at all.”

What the issue can do is reinforce the themes playing out in the contest between Mr. Reid – whose personal popularity has plummeted in recent months – and former state legislator Sharron Angle, his Republican rival.

Read the whole thing….

Tip from over the transom:

This is a great video showing the first assembly lines at the original Ford auto plant.

Neat to see those guys making the old wooden wheels, by hand mostly…

The places that car could go is amazing!

The Fifteen Millionth Model T Ford

The Terrafugia Transition, a light aircraft that can convert into a road-legal automobile, is to go into production after being given a special weight exemption by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Light sport aircraft licences require just 20 hours’ flying time, making them much easier to obtain than full private licences.

The two-seater Transition can use its front-wheel drive on roads at ordinary highway speeds, with wings folded, at a respectable 30 miles per gallon. Once it has arrived at a suitable take-off spot — an airport, or adequately sized piece of flat private land — it can fold down the wings, engage its rear-facing propellor, and take off. The folding wings are electrically powered.

Click for video

More video here.

May 11, 2010: A blue-hot star, 90 times more massive than our Sun, is hurtling across space fast enough to make a round trip from Earth to the Moon in merely two hours. Though the speed is not a record-breaker, it is unique to find a homeless star that has traveled so far from its nest. The only way the star could have been ejected from the star cluster where it was born is through a tussle with a rogue star that entered the binary system where the star lived, which ejected the star through a dynamical game of stellar pinball. This is strong circumstantial evidence for stars as massive as 150 times our Sun’s mass living in the cluster. Only a very massive star would have the gravitational energy to eject something weighing 90 solar masses. The runaway star is on the outskirts of the 30 Doradus nebula, a raucous stellar breeding ground in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. The finding bolsters evidence that the most massive stars in the local universe reside in 30 Doradus, making it a unique laboratory for studying heavyweight stars. 30 Doradus, also called the Tarantula Nebula, is roughly 170,000 light-years from Earth.

SOURCE: NASA, ESA, C. Evans (Royal Observatory Edinburgh), N. Walborn (STScI), and ESO

Read the whole thing, plus pics….

More….

This is an artist’s concept of the exoplanet WASP-12b. It is the hottest known planet in the Milky Way galaxy, and potentially the shortest lived. The planet is only 2 million miles from its sunlike parent star [homeless star above] — a fraction of Earth’s distance from the Sun. Gravitational tidal forces from the star stretch the planet into an egg shape. The planet is so hot that it has puffed up to the point where its outer atmosphere spills onto the star. An accretion bridge streams toward the star and material is smeared into a swirling disk. The planet may be completely devoured by the star in 10 million years. The planet is too far away for the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph, but this interpretation is based in part on analysis of Hubble spectroscopic and photometric data.

Image Type: Artwork

Artwork Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Science Credit: NASA, ESA, and C. Haswell (The Open University, UK)

SOURCE

Are you using the copy machine at work to copy private documents? You are! Guess what…. Your boss now has a copy. Watch this:

The deadly blowout of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding, according to interviews with rig workers conducted during BP’s internal investigation.

While the cause of the explosion is still under investigation, the sequence of events described in the interviews provides the most detailed account of the April 20 blast that killed 11 workers and touched off the underwater gusher that has poured more than 3 million gallons of crude into the Gulf.

Read the whole thing….