http://www.cnet.com/news/cheating-scandal-forces-act-shakeup/
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Monday, August 8, 2016
Sunday, August 7, 2016
The Perseid Meteor Shower Could Be Spectacular This Year [feedly]
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The Perseid Meteor Shower Could Be Spectacular This Year
// Neatorama

The annual Perseid meteor shower is scheduled to peak on the nights of August 11th and 12th (Thursday and Friday). Normally, with the right conditions you can see up to 60 shooting stars every hour, but there's a possibility that this year will be special, with an rare outburst of meteors that will light up the sky in a way you've never seen.
The Perseids are debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 133 years. When it gets close to the Sun, the heat from our star turns the ices in the comet into gas, forming the long tail. Small bits of rocky debris also slough off and trail behind the comet. When the Earth plows into these, they burn up in our atmosphere to form the shower.
However, they're not alone in space. Jupiter's gravity tugs on the stream of particles, causing their orbits to shift. Sophisticated computer simulations indicate that this year, the Earth should be plowing through a denser than usual part of the stream, creating as many as 200 shooting stars per hour!
So mark your calendars, and check out Phil Plait's meteor shower viewing guide for the best Perseid experience at Bad Astronomy. Don't miss the part about the weird sounds caused by meteors.
(Image creditL: NASA)
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Saturday, August 6, 2016
Friday, August 5, 2016
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Mysterious light over Gateway Arch stumps St. Louis [feedly]
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Mysterious light over Gateway Arch stumps St. Louis
// Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
A light that appeared high over St. Louis' Gateway Arch is perplexing officials.
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Wednesday, August 3, 2016
UTA aerospace engineering graduate first to flight test UAV with mass-actuated controls [feedly]
Do you see a problem with this?
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UTA aerospace engineering graduate first to flight test UAV with mass-actuated controls
// Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
A recently graduated University of Texas at Arlington student is the first person to successfully flight test an unmanned aerial vehicle that uses moving weights in its wings instead of traditional control surfaces or ailerons to turn.
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First proof birds snooze in flight without dropping out of sky [feedly]
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First proof birds snooze in flight without dropping out of sky
// New Scientist - News
Brain recorders fitted to 14 great frigatebirds show these birds sleep on the wing, usually while circling in rising air currents
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Tuesday, August 2, 2016
ATF forgot to comply with policy, accidentally creating gun owner database [feedly]
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ATF forgot to comply with policy, accidentally creating gun owner database
// Personal Liberty Digest™
The government's top watchdog revealed in a new report that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) essentially maintained a database of law-abiding gun owners by ignoring its own policies.
According to Government Accountability Office (GAO) auditors, ATF failed to remove the names of gun purchasers from its Multiple Sales (MS) database and another system called Access 2000 which allowed it to stockpile information on lawful gun owners by scouring the records of out of business federal firearms license holders.
FFLs are required to report to the ATF the names of customers who purchase multiple firearms at once. ATF is supposed to keep the names on file for no longer than two years, after which policies require that the agency remove identifying information about the buyers if the firearms haven't been linked to a crime.
But for more than two decades, the agency has failed to comply with the privacy protection policies with regularity.
From the GAO report:
In September 1996, we reported that ATF had not fully implemented its 2-year deletion requirement. During the course of our 1996 review, ATF provided documentation that it had subsequently deleted the required records and that it would conduct weekly deletions in the future. Similarly, as a result of our current review, according to ATF documentation, in May 2016, the agency deleted the 10,041 records that should have been deleted earlier. However, given that this has been a 20-year issue, it is critical that ATF develop consistency between its deletion policy, the design of the MS system, and the timeliness with which deletions are carried out. By aligning the MS system design and the timeliness of deletion practices with its policy, ATF could ensure that it maintains only useful purchaser information while safeguarding the privacy of firearms purchasers.
ATF's Access 2000 system was set up as a voluntary way for FFL-holders to more easily comply with ATF requests for information. GAO noted in its report that the system works well for in-business FFLs from both a convenience and a privacy perspective.
From the report:
Industry members—not ATF—retain possession and control of their disposition records and, according to ATF officials, they may withdraw from A2K and remove their records from the servers at any time. A2K includes a secure user web interface to each of the servers and ATF may only obtain A2K disposition information by searching individual industry member servers by exact firearm serial number. Through this search, ATF obtains the same information from each industry member as it would otherwise obtain by phone, fax, or e-mail, and in similar disaggregated form
The situation is different, however, for FFLs that have gone out of business and no longer subject to ATF requirements. ATF officials essentially made the decision to gather up the records of defunct FFLs and store them in a government-controlled database.
The GAO report noted:
Beginning in 2000, ATF maintained A2K disposition data from out-of-business industry members on a single partitioned server within NTC, and removed the records from the server in March 2016. ATF's maintenance of the disposition records in this manner violated the appropriations act restriction on consolidation or centralization.
According to the GAO's auditors, ATF has since removed the policy-violating records associated with both systems.
But don't expect the ATF to give up on trying to find ways to quietly patch together a de facto national gun owner registry anytime soon. Just last weekend, ATF Deputy Director Thomas Brandon complained that the agency isn't able to build such a database in plain sight.
"There's a lot of things that don't make sense in this town, you know?" he told CBS. "And, so, yeah, would it be efficient and effective? Absolutely. Would the taxpayers benefit with public safety? Absolutely. Are we allowed to do it? No."
The post ATF forgot to comply with policy, accidentally creating gun owner database appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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Magical new color-mixing pen may break world record for most colors in a pen [feedly]
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Magical new color-mixing pen may break world record for most colors in a pen
// The Verge

Prototypes of real-life eyedropper tools already exist (like the Spector, which can identify fonts and colors), and the Cronzy pen is no different when it comes to detecting colors. But what makes Cronzy special is that it contains ink cartridges that let you actually draw these colors you've scanned. Cronzy claims that it can scan and draw 16 million colors, collecting "all the existing colors and shades of the world!" The only way we can put these bold claims to the test is if we count out each one (coming soon to a 23-day Facebook live video near you).
Check out this gif from the promotional video, which demonstrates how the pen would work:

You can also use the app on iOS, Android, and Windows phone to choose a color:
 OfficeMax
At first glance, the concept for the Cronzy pen seems wildly disputable. This video of a prototype, which uses an algorithm and solenoid valves for mixing CMYKW colors, has won me over though:

It's unclear whether the colors are mixed on the fly as the colors are chosen and you write. A lot of things are unclear at this stage! Cronzy has two months left to reach its goal of $200,000 on Indiegogo, and I'm crossing my fingers that it does, so I can take a better look at it. Until it becomes a reality though, we still have these sweet retro pens to tide us over:
 OfficeMax
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Monday, August 1, 2016
Intelligence expert: The government has Clinton’s ‘deleted’ emails [feedly]
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Intelligence expert: The government has Clinton's 'deleted' emails
// Personal Liberty Digest™
A former National Security Agency official says the government has everything it needs to settle the question of whether Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton put American lives at risk by using private email at the State Department.
Clinton, during an interview over the weekend, again asserted that none of the emails she sent or received via her private server were classified at the time.
The former top diplomat added that she's put the email scandal behind her because, "Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails."
Clinton, of course, is lying.
In fact, The Washington Post's fact-checkers gave Clinton four "Pinocchios" for the remarks.
"Clinton is cherry-picking statements by Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server," wrote the Post's Glenn Kessler. "This allows her to skate past the more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation."
The more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation being that she lied to members of Congress about her email setup and covered her tracks by totally disregarding government transparency laws meant to give Americans the tools to keep government officials in check.
As Clinton began getting called out for her weekend lies on Monday, her campaign went into spin mode with the line that the American public is simply misunderstanding the whole situation.
"Well and you don't understand this. That's simply not true. You just don't send classified information over the unclassified system," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough when pressed about the former top diplomat forcing members of government to send classified information to her unclassified server.
He also added the "important caveat" that Americans will never really know whether any of the information actually was classified because Clinton destroyed the evidence.
"We can't see these emails," Mook explained. "We don't know. We don't know if they were marked. We don't know if they were marked properly. We don't know. And so the fact of the matter is, we are having to rely on what [Comey] is saying, and included in what he said was he did not believe that when she received these emails she had any reason to believe they were classified."
But the Clinton campaign shouldn't be so sure the emails aren't going to resurface. According to William Binney, a former top NSA official, the intelligence agency he worked at for three decades has a copy of every email Clinton sent or received.
"The NSA database, which is shown of course in the (Edward) Snowden material released, shows a direct access into the NSA database by the FBI and the CIA. Which there is no oversight of, by the way. So that means that NSA and a number of agencies in the U.S. government also have those emails," Binney said.
"So if the FBI really wanted them they can go into that database and get them right now," he added.
And if the FBI refuses to do its job, Binney suggested that it may only be a matter of time before a disgruntled intelligence employee leaks the information to the public.
The former intelligence official noted that the recent DNC hack was likely the result of a similar situation rather than the work of foreign hackers.
"Hillary … has a problem with NSA because she compromised Gamma material. Now that is the most sensitive material at NSA. And so there were a number of NSA officials complaining …that she did that," he said. "She lifted the material that was in her emails directly out of Gamma reporting. That is a direct compromise of the most sensitive material at the NSA. So she's got a real problem there. So there are many people who have problems with what she has done in the past. So I don't necessarily look at the Russians as the only one(s) who got into those emails."
The post Intelligence expert: The government has Clinton's 'deleted' emails appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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Pelosi vows Clinton will reshape America [feedly]
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Pelosi vows Clinton will reshape America
// Personal Liberty Digest™
Immigration, the Supreme Court, gun laws and the nation's institutions are all in for major changes if Hillary Clinton makes it to the White House, according to Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi made the promise last week, just before the Democrats officially nominated Clinton as their candidate for president.
"We know what is on the line in what truly is the most important election of our lifetime: for the future of the Supreme Court, for the fate of a planet imperiled by climate change, for the sake of immigration reform, for the promise of an America that rewards hard work instead of those who exploit America's workers, for women's reproductive rights, equal rights, civil rights, and to do what is right for our service members, veterans and military families who have given so much for our country," said Pelosi.
Back in May, Hoover Institution senior fellow Alvin Rabushka did a pretty thorough job of warning the nation what a Clinton transformation of America could mean.
He wrote that in addition to giving liberals run over the Constitution, Clinton could use the bully pulpit to:
Weaken the First Amendment. Reduce free speech by restricting conservative talk radio and other conservative expression. Increase the scope of content designated "hate" speech, subject to federal prosecution. Limit religious freedom by requiring all religious organizations to abide by the rules of federal programs.
Weaken, preferably eliminate, the Second Amendment. Reduce gun ownership by banning specific guns. Instruct the attorney general to litigate existing gun laws and reverse previous court decisions to reduce and eliminate private ownership of guns.
Issue executive orders to bypass Congress and impose federal regulations by decree. The potential range of measures is described in the 31 issues listed on Clinton's campaign website. Her potential use of executive orders, perhaps even more than President Barack Obama, would further lift the United States off its constitutional moorings.
Appoint an Internal Revenue Service commissioner who will increase audits of conservative individuals (and others on her enemies list) and all other conservative-oriented organizations.
Appoint a Securities and Exchange Commission head to harass wealthy Republican donors.
Vitiate what remains of the Ninth and 10th amendments by shifting existing state powers to the federal government, further concentrating federal authority over the states.
Erode private property rights by imposing more restrictions on its development and usage.
"Her ability to remake America is limited only by her imagination and those of her supporters," he added.
Yikes.
The post Pelosi vows Clinton will reshape America appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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