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German "Fight Clubs" Infiltrated by Russians
Fight club: Russian spies seek EU recruits
Russian intelligence services are using martial arts clubs to recruit potential troublemakers in Germany and other EU countries, security experts have warned.
The number of clubs is higher than previously reported and the “sleeper cells” could stage violent provocations ahead of the upcoming German elections, they said.
[...] The martial arts clubs, which teach an offensive style called “systema”, all have “direct or indirect” links to the GRU military intelligence or FSB domestic intelligence services in Russia, according to Dmitrij Chmelnizki, a scholar of Russian espionage who lives in Berlin.
Polyamorous Polysaturation on TV
It's Polyamorous Polysaturation — Unconventional Relationships Abound On TV
Listened to a bit of it on the radio, found the text version.
Would you buy a Huawei laptop?
Huawei Matebook 2017 Launch Live Blog: Starts 2pm CEST (8am ET)
Huawei Launching Two New Clamshell Laptops: The MateBook X and the MateBook D
Huawei Launches the MateBook E 2-in-1: The Next Generation (compare to Surface Pro 5)
Or at the extreme end, would you only buy Purism? Or this thing?
Church of England Fund Sees "Stellar" Returns
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39993739
The Church of England's investment success has pushed it into the top ranks of the world's best performing funds of its type last year.
The fund made a 17.1% on its 2016 investments, more than double the 8.2% it made in 2016, according to the Church Commissioners annual report.
[...] "While this is only around 15% of the Church's overall income - most funding comes from the extraordinary generosity of parishioners - we are delighted to be able to play our part."
The Church's ethical investment policy dictates that all investments should be compatible with Christian values and "recommends against investment" in companies which make more than 3% of their income from pornography, 10% from military products and services, or 25% from other industries such as gambling, alcohol and high interest rate lenders.
However, in 2013 it emerged that the Church had invested indirectly in payday loan firm Wonga. It was a particular embarrassment for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, who had pledged to try to put Wonga out of business by helping credit unions compete with it.
A Waste of Time and Energy
Every Sunday I do my ironing. I have to wear reasonably "smart" clothes to work four days a week and on Friday we're allowed to dress down. Every Sunday night, depending on how tired I am, I try to iron four shirts and a pair of trousers.
It has always occurred to me that ironing clothes is a waste of time and energy. It serves no purpose other than to adhere to a social convention. If I were putting Lean Six Sigma onto my life, I think it would probably come under the category of "necessary waste" since it is there to comply with the law (an unwritten social law enforced by the Central Scrutinizer) which adds no value to the value stream.
I just found a calculation I did about three years ago to work out the impact to atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions that ironing clothes causes.
I used official UK government statistics on the proportion of electricity generated by fossil fuels and the carbon dioxide gas produced.
I have no idea if these links are still valid.
Carbon Dioxide (Equivalent) Emissions from Electricity Generation (2013)
Historical elctricity data: 1920 to 2013
For my calculations. my electrical iron is rated at 2kW and I estimated the heater to be operational 50% of the time. It takes me about 5 minutes to iron a single item, and I do 5 at a time.
To cut a long story short, I calculated that in the UK, given 2013 electricity generation data, 1 million of me doing my ironing would produce about 244.5 Te of carbon dioxide gas.
Here's my data:
Constants
Seconds per Minute 60
kcal/joule 0.000239005736
1 billion 1000000000
Seconds per Hour 3600
1 million 1000000Iron Power (W) 2000
Time to Iron (mins) 5
Time Heating (%) 50
Energy per Item (J) 300000
Energy per Item (kcal) 71.7017208MtCO2e 178.5
Energy Supplied (Gwh) 304155CO2(kg) 178500000000
Energy Supplied (J) 1.094958E+018
Mass of CO2/unit energy (kg/J) 1.63019951450193E-07CO2e(kg) per item ironed 0.048905985435058
CO2e(kg) per million items ironed 48905.9854350578
CO2(Te) per million items ironed 48.9059854350578Items/person/week 5
1 Million People (Te) 244.529927175289
Second Life Bunnies "Starve to Death"
Thousands of 'Second Life' Bunnies Are Going to Starve to Death This Saturday
Any bunny who is Everlasting will continue to function, as he or she does now: without cost.
Any bunny who is not Everlasting will be unable to eat and will hibernate within 72 hours."Hibernate" is a very kind word for it, considering that these bunnies are unlikely to ever be revived. In essence, every mortal rabbit in Second Life is going to starve to death on Saturday morning.
Cloud Computing Wins Horse Race
Fox 5 DC and Seth Rich Allegations
I deleted these Seth Rich submissions and threw them here with some updates.
The Washington Post reports:
The family of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich refuted Fox News reports that he had leaked work e-mails to WikiLeaks before he was fatally shot last year in the District.
The reports, which gained traction on social media, said an FBI forensics examination showed Rich transferred 44,053 DNC e-mails and 17,761 attachments to a now-deceased WikiLeaks director.
[...] Several federal and local law enforcement authorities also said Tuesday they were not aware that Rich sent any DNC information to WikiLeaks. "There is nothing that we can find that any of this is accurate," said Dustin Sternbeck, the chief spokesman for D.C police, which is leading the investigation into Rich's death.
[...] The allegations were reported by Fox News, including WTTG-TV, the District's Fox News affiliate. The reports cited a private investigator, Rod Wheeler, who Fox said was hired by the family and had previously worked for D.C. police. He also has been an on-air contributor to the Fox-5 news station. Fox also cited an unnamed federal official who said Rich had transferred thousands of emails to a WikiLeaks director. Fox's source asserts those emails were transferred between January 2015 and May 2016.
Also at MarketWatch, Fox News, and Washingtonian. Original Fox 5 DC story which now includes details of Wheeler backtracking on his claims multiple times during the week:
On Wednesday, just before our newscast, Wheeler responded to our requests via a telephone conversation, where he now backtracks his position and Wheeler characterizes his on-the-record and on-camera statements as "miscommunication."
And here is a reddit thread about some new "evidence".
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A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report -- generated within 96 hours after DNC staffer Seth Rich's murder -- detailing the contents Rich's computer said he made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time.
"My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks."
- Rod Wheeler, former DC homicide investigator
"I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks," the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.
The revelation is consistent with the findings of Rod Wheeler, a former DC homicide detective and Fox News contributor and whose private investigation firm was hired by a third party on behalf of Rich's family to probe the case.
A report on Monday evening claimed to find links between slain DNC staffer Seth Rich and WikiLeaks. But Rich's family told BuzzFeed News, "[W]e see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails."
[...] Wheeler told CNN he had no evidence to suggest Rich had contacted Wikileaks before his death.
Wheeler instead said he only learned about the possible existence of such evidence through the reporter he spoke to for the FoxNews.com story.
[...] Wheeler himself admitted he had "never seen the emails directly." Furthermore, his claims of "evidence" were based on the fact that an unnamed federal investigator had told him he saw the emails between Seth and WikiLeaks but that when he went to the police with concerns, he had been "shut down" and the investigation was being impeded by "a high-ranking official at the DNC."
additional coverage:
- Media Matters for America
- Infowars
- Heavy
- Washington Times (earlier story from 1 May)
- Breitbart News
- Breitbart News
- Breitbart News
- Washington Times
- The Guardian
- Mic
- Newsweek
- The Independent
- Right Wing Watch
- 1011 News
- The Week
previous story:
WikiLeaks Announces $20k Bounty For Murderer(s) of DNC Staffer
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DoS
Too much going on in the world. Can't get anything done.
Men-only UNESCO World Heritage site in Japan?
Men-only island set for UNESCO World Heritage status
A Japanese island where women are not allowed to set foot has been recommended for listing as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Okinoshima in south-western Japan is deemed so sacred that only men are allowed to visit, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reports. Even then, visitors are not allowed to bring back any souvenirs to the mainland, not even a blade of grass, the paper says. It has been recommended for World Heritage status by an advisory panel, with a final decision to be made at a UNESCO meeting in July.
The home to the Munakata Taisha Okitsumiya shrine, which honours a goddess of the sea, Okinoshima was the site of rituals for the safety of ships, and successful exchanges with the people of the Korean Peninsula and China between the fourth and ninth centuries, the Japan Times says.
wut about the kawaii goddess? Do she count?
New World Order Government cultural organization enforces gender norms on a Japanese island with a for real goddess on it, leading to a disastrous series of events. I'm sure somebody could write a 25 episode anime with that premise.
