SoylentNews

Mushkin Announces Helix SSDs: 2.5 GB/s, 3D MLC NAND, SM2260, 2 TB Capacity

Saliva is dribbling down my shirt.

I don't think this is the first 2 TB SSD in the M.2 form factor, so not really worth a submission, but damn is that one heck of a drive. Note the 3 year warranty.

More stuff:

Crypt keeper wasp is a parasite of a parasite

FBI Releases Gamergate File

Dwave adiabatic quantum system can factor numbers up to 200,000 and a lot larger likely in the 40 bit range

Physicists patent detonation technique to mass-produce graphene

CRISPR genome engineering research institute expands into agriculture, microbiology

Medical first, children had cancer cured with genetically engineered T-cells from another person

New antibody suppresses spread of HIV-1 in infected individuals

Printed human body parts could be available for human transplants within a few years

Organovo bioprinting human tissue for drug testing and within 6 years for implanting human livers

Automation Is Coming for Our Porn Stars

Q&A: Michael Eisen bids to be first fly biologist in the U.S. Senate

Bernie Madoff is cornering the prison market on Swiss Miss hot chocolate

“One of the most important things about this story is that it is a mistake to view him as an outlier,” Fishman told MarketWatch. “He profited from the way financial systems work, which is a point most people don’t really grasp. He wasn’t a freak. He was sustained by the system, embraced by it, because it profited from him.”

[...] Madoff’s multidecade scheme unraveled in 2008, when the market collapse in the financial crisis caused a number of his investors to pull their holdings, but Fishman said he “was never really caught.”

“The system never really rejected Bernie,” he explained, noting that Madoff’s 150-year prison sentence only came after he admitted the fraud to his sons, who, on the advice of a lawyer, alerted authorities. When questioned, Madoff confessed.

“It’s clear to me that if he hadn’t confessed there would have been years of expensive work to get him convicted,” Fishman said, referring to the cost of an investigation and a trial. “Who knows, maybe if he had pulled down the gates on his fund, gone out and raised money, he might have been able to continue.”

Never-before-heard Bernie Madoff tapes reveal details of ruinous Ponzi scheme

Fishman, who conducted three hours of interviews with Madoff personally, points out that while the fraudster ruined many lives, roughly half of Madoff’s investors still ended up in the black. “Yeah, he was a criminal talent, with God-given gifts in a sense, but Madoff was Patient Zero,” Fishman said. “What really makes him a pandemic is all the feeder funds [who introduced new clients to Madoff] and the banks,” Fishman told the Guardian. “They take him around the world. They recruit investors, in Latin America and through Europe, and they basically pour gasoline on this dumpster fire. Madoff could have been kind of a local swindler until he meets this massive distribution network.”

[...] When an investigator asked to see a report that a legitimate firm would have on hand in the course of its normal businesses, Madoff’s second-in-command, Frank DiPascali, stalled for time while downstairs others printed out a faked report, put it in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t be obviously warm from the printer, and “played football with it”, Schwartz says – tossing it back and forth across the room like a football to make it look weathered.

Set dressing was also important: on the credenza behind his desk, Madoff displayed a sculpture by the renowned artist Claes Oldenburg of a giant black screw, listing a little to one side. The 1976 sculpture, called Soft Screw, drew nearly $50,000 at Sotheby’s when Madoff’s assets were sold off after his disgrace.

When financial regulators visited his firm’s offices, Madoff put the Soft Screw away.

Ponzi Supernova

Secret Service agent may face disciplinary action over her anti-Trump Facebook posts

A senior official with the U.S. Secret Service may face disciplinary action after posting comments to Facebook suggesting that she would not "take a bullet" for President Trump. [...] O'Grady's comments were made in October, during the height of the presidential campaign and shortly after the release of a tape in which Trump made lewd comments about women. But they only came to light this week.

Great career move.

Watch the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgiScr364Y

Then read the text, alright?

"Prenatal care. These are the kinds of services folks depend on Planned Parenthood for.”

- Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards

Planned Parenthood is spending millions of dollars in advertising right now, saying they support “choices” for pregnant women, but nothing could be further from the truth…

Despite Planned Parenthood’s claims, Live Action’s investigative team found that prenatal care is virtually non-existent for mothers who actually want to keep their babies. We documented it in our NEW investigative video, which you can see HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgiScr364Y

Our investigators contacted all 41 Planned Parenthood affiliates in the United States, reaching out to 97 facilities, and discovered only FIVE offered any sort of prenatal care at all.

By turning away pregnant women for prenatal care, it’s obvious Planned Parenthood has one priority - and supports only one option - for most women: abortion.

But that doesn’t stop Planned Parenthood from lying to the public about its prenatal services. In fact, this is all part of Planned Parenthood’s strategy to protect its $550 million in taxpayer funding -- by downplaying the 887 preborn children they dismember, poison, and starve to death every day.

With the fight to defund Planned Parenthood in full force in Congress, we need to act quickly and share this information with more Americans so that, they too, know the truth: Planned Parenthood is not a “health care provider,” they are an abortion corporation.

Please share this video with your friends on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liveaction/videos/10154911641473728/.

And for your friends who aren’t on Facebook, email them this link.

In the following weeks, Live Action will be releasing more videos exposing Planned Parenthood's relentless focus on abortion and the lack of authentic health care. Live Action’s groundbreaking investigative report will shatter the narrative and the myths Planned Parenthood so desperately want the American people to believe.

Now is the time to deal a crippling blow to the abortion giant - the lives of preborn children are depending on us. Together, we can put an end to Planned Parenthood’s lies and the state-sponsored killing of children.

It looks like CBS could be running another fake news segment:

Red Cross Reports Major Blood Shortage, Urges Donations [video] (text version)

Every two seconds, someone in the United States needs a blood transfusion. Now a major blood shortage has the American Red Cross issuing an emergency call for donations. [...] The Red Cross is hoping more people get the message and roll up their sleeves. They say the nation is facing a shortage because of all the snowy, cold weather across much of the country.

Are you sure?

According to an investigative report by WPTV, blood donations stop being donations after the needle comes out of your arm. A blood brokerage firm CEO tells WPTV that your donated blood actually winds up getting sold, and sometimes for a very large profit.

Many in the blood industry characterize the money they receive for your donation as “reimbursement fees” for testing and administration. But the fact is that your blood donations are a very profitable commodity that, depending on demand and the location where you live, can bring in some serious cash to the blood organizations that have collected it.

Another thing most people don’t realize is that local blood drives don’t always keep their donations local. While many organizations try to use donations locally, if need or demand arises elsewhere, your blood can be shipped and sold out of state.

Finally, it may surprise many that lots of blood that is collected gets thrown away. a 2011 government sponsored survey found that around one in 20 units of donated blood was just thrown away. This could be because blood has a very short shelf life of just over 40 days, or the fact that blood “shortages” are not as common as they once were.

The Huffington Post reported in 2013 that because of advances in medicine, not as much blood is actually needed for operations as it once was. While there might not be a huge blood surplus, the supply is certainly stronger than it was just a few years ago. In response, blood drives are now being more targeted to specific blood types and needs.

THE BLOOD BROKERS by Gilbert M. Gaul

Last December [1988], the Community Blood Center in Appleton, Wis., made a public appeal for blood. Residents were asked to "dig farther, wider and deeper" than ever before to keep local blood supplies at desired levels. "We've never had it quite this tough," Alan W. Cable, executive director of the nonprofit blood bank, told the local newspaper. The citizens did dig deep; last year, 15,000 pints of blood were donated by Appleton residents to help save the lives of their friends and neighbors.

What they didn't know, though - don't know to this day - was that the same month the blood bank was appealing for blood, it sold 650 pints - half its monthly blood collection - at a profit to other blood banks around the country. Or that last year the blood center in Appleton contracted to sell 200 pints a month to a blood bank 528 miles away in Lexington, Ky. Or that Lexington sold half the blood it bought from Appleton to yet a third blood bank near Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Which in turn sold thousands of pints it bought from Lexington and other blood banks to four hospitals in New York City. What began as a generous "gift of life" from people in Appleton to their neighbors ended up as part of a chain of blood brokered to hospitals in Manhattan, where patients were charged $120 a pint. Along that 2,777-mile route, human blood became just another commodity.

The buying and selling of blood has become big business in America - a multibillion-dollar industry that is largely unregulated by the government. Each year, unknown to the people who give the blood, blood banks buy and sell more than a million pints from one another, shifting blood all over the country and generating an estimated $50 million in revenues.

It is not uncommon for some blood banks to broker between 20 percent and 40 percent of what they collect. In Appleton, nearly half the blood collected from donors in the last two years was sold outside the area. In Waterloo, Iowa, the American Red Cross sold six of every 10 pints collected last year to other blood banks. They do it, blood bank officials say, to share a limited resource. Although they have a monopoly, blood banks in dozens of cities - Philadelphia among them - are unable to collect as much blood as they need. To cover their shortfalls, they buy blood from centers, such as Appleton, that collect more than they need.

Nobody disputes the value of sharing blood. But in the last 15 years, this trading in blood has become a huge, virtually unregulated market - with no ceiling on prices, with nonprofit blood banks vying with one another for control of the blood supply, with decisions often driven by profits and corporate politics, not medical concerns.

Maybe there is a shortage. But how can we be sure?

See also:

What many donors don't know: Their blood is sold

As we're multiplying, the world's on the brink,
But that's just what the Devil wants you to think,
Don't ever stop shoppin', don't ever give in,
'Cause if we stop shoppin', the terrorists win.

-- The Claypool Lennon Delirium

Domestic Nuclear Shelters

How to Build a Fallout Shelter.

That nice Mr Putin has built many public nuclear shelters in Moscow in recent years.

Patriots who put their own countries first should always be prepared.

The strong are now putting their own countries first. Several countries are now putting themselves first. Obviously, all countries at present are confined to planet Earth. Who will win? What will happen to those who are second and third? Will the patriots be content?

"Racing for power, and all come in last." -- Megadeth.

We all breath the same atmosphere and drink the same water.

Patriots don't need affordable medical care. Only the weak get sick. President Pull-My-Finger is going to see to it that patriots get to keep as much of their own money as possible so that the weak, who drag the country down, are motivated to improve. On this side of the pond, the NHS is getting ready to be sold off cheap to American healthcare corporations when we get our massive trade deal with the USA. TTIP on steroids? The interests of American corporations will trump (see what I did there) our own interests under the law. Michael Gove is a great patriot.

We're also going to be withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights. Fine, upstanding patriots don't need "Human Rights." Only criminals and deviants need Human Rights. It was a mistake our writing them in the first place.

I'm glad I'm not foreign. Come to think of it, I'm ethnic. I'm Scottish and live in England. Obviously, I can't be a true patriot. This is worrying.

And finally, here's one I made up all by myself:

Hey diddle diddle, Vlad did a piddle,
All over the Whitehouse floor,
The little Trump laughed to see such sport,
And the Brexiters clamored for more.

Christmas is coming, turkeys.

PS. At least patriots have democratically proved that Global Warming is a liberal-fascist Marxist conspiracy to keep the poor down.

PPS. That other great British patriot, Nigel Farage is taking a job with Faux News.

PPPS. UKIP's Eddie Hitler is standing for election to parliament in Stoke Central. Will the great patriots get a second MP?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/20/text-president-trumps-obamacare-executive-order.html

Text of President Trump's ObamaCare executive order

MINIMIZING THE ECONOMIC BURDEN OF THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT PENDING REPEAL

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), as amended (the "Act"). In the meantime, pending such repeal, it is imperative for the executive branch to ensure that the law is being efficiently implemented, take all actions consistent with law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the Act, and prepare to afford the States more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market.

Sec. 2. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) and the heads of all other executive departments and agencies (agencies) with authorities and responsibilities under the Act shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the Act that would impose a fiscal burden on any State or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals, families, healthcare providers, health insurers, patients, recipients of healthcare services, purchasers of health insurance, or makers of medical devices, products, or medications.

Sec. 3. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Secretary and the heads of all other executive departments and agencies with authorities and responsibilities under the Act, shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to provide greater flexibility to States and cooperate with them in implementing healthcare programs.

Sec. 4. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the head of each department or agency with responsibilities relating to healthcare or health insurance shall encourage the development of a free and open market in interstate commerce for the offering of healthcare services and health insurance, with the goal of achieving and preserving maximum options for patients and consumers.

Sec. 5. To the extent that carrying out the directives in this order would require revision of regulations issued through notice-and-comment rulemaking, the heads of agencies shall comply with the Administrative Procedure Act and other applicable statutes in considering or promulgating such regulatory revisions.

Sec. 6. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 20, 2017.

Pakistan student: 'I was tortured by hardline Islamists'

A Pakistani student has said he was abducted and badly beaten by hardline Islamist students after posting tweets in support of five liberal bloggers who have gone missing. The student said he needed hospital treatment after he was blindfolded for several hours and tortured. No-one at Punjab University responded to his cries for help, he said.

http://en.spaceengine.org/index/faq/0-29

Q: Will there be a version for Mac and Linux?
A: Yes, this is planned for in the near future.

http://en.spaceengine.org/

The interface can be a little finicky, so be patient with it.

"Settings - View" allows you to turn on/off the procedurally generated galaxies, stars, clusters, nebulae, and planets. I prefer to have most of these off, except for planets. It will be fun to watch the datasets get updated over the next few years, allowing us to have actual depictions of real planets.

Click on objects to select them and get stats like diameter, mass, and distance away from your current position. Selecting an object displays crosshairs on it or an arrow pointing in its angular direction that allow you to find it more easily.

WASD for basic movement. Left click and drag to shift your viewing angle.

Use a scrollwheel to control your velocity. If you collide with a star, planet, asteroid, etc. your velocity gets reset to a low number. As you get closer to objects, you tend to zip past them unless you lower your velocity at the same time as you adjust your angle to approach it head on.

Right click and drag allows you to rotate around the object you're following. Right click on an object to get a menu that allows you to go to the object or follow it.

Magnifying glass icon is the Find Object/"Go to" menu. If you have procedural planets on, try going to "Kraz 7.4" (no quotes). Then right click Kraz 7.4 and select the Parent option.

Try going to:

• Saturn
• Pluto
• Ceres
• Dysnomia
• Psyche
• Pleiades
• HIP 13484 3.D3
• Alnitak
• WOH G64
• HIP 28285 5.S47