Fed2 Star - July 22, 2018 - page 1 (of 2)
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Fiona Craig
Jul 22, 2018, 6:32:27 AM7/22/18
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Fed2 Star
Earthdate July 22, 2018
[This is a subscription mailing list. Details about how to stop
receiving it are at the foot of the email.]
For a fancy formatted version go the Fed2 Star website:
http://www.ibgames.net/fednews/current/index.html
In this week’s Fed2 Star: as well as the Fed2 Star Hazed writes a weekly
cryptocurrency newsletter, look out for an eclipse of the moon next
week, we’ve found 12 more moons orbiting Jupiter, a spaceport will be
built in the very north of Scotland, holes in the road could be mended
by drones, iPhone found under the sea really is waterproof, idiot
criminal is sent back to jail after he re-targets his originally target,
students build a replica of a film robot, and a Neptune image using new
technology which means really sharp space pictures can be taken from
Earth. Plus Winding Down, the tech newsletter from Alan.
Official News part one
MY CRYPTOCURRENCY NEWSLETTER
by Hazed
If you read last week’s Winding Down you may have noticed that Alan
credited the ADVFN Cryptocurrency Newsletter for the source of one of
his stories. What you probably don’t know is that I am the author of
that newsletter.
As part of my real life job I write a weekly round-up of news about
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which goes out late on Monday
afternoon (UK time) to ADVFN users.
ADVFN is a website giving share prices, financial information and
investment tools to private investors. Yes, it’s the company whose logo
appears on the front page of our website. The CEO of ADVFN is Fed family
member Clem Chambers who used to be one of the directors of ibgames, and
was instrumental in getting Fed set up on Genie and then AOL back in the
day.
If you want to read my crypto news then you can get it by setting up a
free account on the site at https://www.advfn.com and setting your
mailing preferences to receive the cryptocurrency news.
LONG LUNAR ECLIPSE ON THE WAY
by Hazed
There’s a lunar eclipse coming soon, and it’s going to be especially
long. Sadly for some of our readers, it won’t be visible in the US, but
thoses in the UK will be able to see it – see the source link below for
a map showing just where it will be visible.
A lunar eclipse is when the moon goes into the Earth’s shadow. No
sunlight falls directly onto the moon, so it appears to turn red because
sunlight is still refracted and bent around the earth’s atmosphere. Blue
light gets scattered so only red light shines through.
This eclipse will happen on July 27 and it will last about 105 minutes,
which makes it the longest of this century.
The next eclipse that will be visible in the US will happen in January 2019.
Source:
https://gizmodo.com/north-america-will-not-be-able-to-see-the-longest-lunar-1827145075
REAL LIFE NEWS: JUPITER HAS 12 NEW MOONS
by Hazed
Jupiter has a lot of moons – and it’s just had 12 new ones added to the
list. This doesn’t mean the moons have suddenly been created, it’s just
that we’ve only spotted them recently.
They were found by astronomers who were searching for a possible ninth
planet that theory says could be lurking far beyond Neptune’s orbit. The
team first identified the new moons in March 2017, but needed to confirm
that the bodies were in fact locked in orbit around Jupiter rather than
just travelling past it.
Nine of the newly-discovered moons belong to an outer group that orbit
the planet in the opposite direction to the planet’s spin. These are
thought to be the remnants of larger parent bodies that collided with
asteroids, comets and other moons, and broke apart. They take about two
years to circle the planet.
Two more are in a group circling close to the planet, orbiting in the
same direction as Jupiter’s spin. They take nearly a year to complete
their orbit, and are thought to be pieces of a once larger moon that was
broken up in orbit.
The twelfth new moon is a strange one – the astronomers have described
it as an “oddball”. Its orbit means it crosses the path of other moons,
and eventually it will probably collide with one of them. How soon?
Well, as astronomer explains that, “Collisions don’t happen all that
frequently, every billion years or so. If one did happen, we would be
able to detect it from Earth, but it is unlikely to happen anytime soon.”
The addition of the 12 moons brings the total to 79. But I don’t have
any plans to add new Jovian moons to Fed DataSpace – there’s not enough
room on the space map.
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jul/17/astronomers-discover-12-new-moons-orbiting-jupiter
REAL LIFE NEWS: THE UK IS GETTING A SPACEPORT
by Hazed
The UK Space Agency – yes, there is one – has announced that the UK’s
first spaceport will be built on Scotland’s north coast, on the A’Mhoine
peninsula in Sutherland. It will be used for vertical rocket and
satellite launches and could pave the way for spaceflights.
The spaceport could be running by the early 2020s. A consortium which
includes US aerospace firm Lockheed Martin is behind the proposal to
site the spaceport in Sutherland.
Well, I guess the location fulfils one of the requirements for a space
launch pad – it’s in a remote enough place that if anything goes wrong
it’s not going to cause too much havoc!
As a space enthusiast I ought to be very excited by this, but knowing
how big infrastructure projects always end up very late and massively
over budget, I am sure that this is not going to be plain sailing.
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/spaceport-receives-go-ahead-on-scottish-peninsula
REAL LIFE NEWS: DRONES COULD FIX POTHOLES
by Hazed
Holes in roads are a massive problem. It costs a lot of money to fix
them, but if they remain unfilled then they cause damage to cars that
drive over them. One solution might be to get drones to repair them.
Scientists speaking at a recent science festival suggested that drones
equipped with 3D printers could be used to automatically fill in
potholes as soon as they show up.
The idea is to have two sets of drones. One flies over roads during the
day to identify and locate potholes which have suddenly appeared.
The data is then sent to a second fleet, which are sent out at night to
fill in the holes by spraying asphalt into the cracks in the road.
A way would need to be found to stop the traffic, so the repair drone
could go to work, but it would only take a minute for the job to be done
so could probably be synced up with traffic signals – at least in
cities. On motorways it might be more tricky.
It’s an innovative idea, and while there are a lot of technical issues
to solve I hope this does get pursued. Ultimately it could also lead to
drones and robots working on construction sites. We may soon see
BuilderBots and ConstructoDroids in our cities!
Source:
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/06/drones-with-asphalt-printers-could-automatically-repair-potholes-in-the-future/
REAL LIFE NEWS: DIVER FINDS LOST PHONE UNDER THE SEA – AND IT STILL WORKS
by Hazed
A scuba diver was drift diving off the coast of Dorset in the south of
England recently, when he spotted a strange light on the seabed. Was it
some form of bioluminescent marine creature, the remnant of a lost
undersea civilization or maybe an alien lifeform?
No, it was a mobile phone. It just happened to light up after it
received a text at the right time for Cerys Hearsey to see it.
She picked it up and once she was back onshore was able to track down
the owner, a Canadian tourist who had been kayaking and had dropped it.
The phone was an iPhone – the latest models are supposed to be
waterproof, and I guess this shows they really are!
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-44810813
DUMB CRIMINAL OF THE WEEK: EXTORTED A COMPANY, RELEASED ON PAROLE, GOES
ON THE ATTACK, BACK TO JAIL
by Hazed
When you’re released from jail on parole, it usually comes with a string
of restrictions of things you aren’t supposed to do. One of the most
important is: don’t get caught breaking the law again – and in
particular, don’t repeat your earlier offence.
Words that William Stanley should have heeded. He was originally jailed
for trying to extort a company by threatening to post negative reviews
of the firm. He demanded money from General Equity (GE), a Texas-based
financial services firm. He said if they didn’t pay up he’d post bad
reviews and then use SEO to promote the reviews to the top of search
results.
Well, this didn’t go down well, and he was consequently charged with one
count of extortion, to which he pleaded guilty. He served half of a
37-month sentence and was then released to a halfway house.
And what was the first thing he did on his release? He decided to get
his revenge on the company by writing a negative review on Yelp and
compiling a blog page, optimised for SEO, that displayed negative
articles about GE.
What’s more, he didn’t do it anonymously – he used his own name in the
review. Investigators then traced traffic that posted other bad reviews
about GE back to Stanley’s halfway house.
So he was charged with new offences: retaliation against a witness,
victim or informant. He now been jailed for three times as long as his
initial sentence.
I do hope that when he finally gets out he decides not to continue his
campaign against GE!
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/25/extortionist_prison_yelp/
Earthdate July 22, 2018
[This is a subscription mailing list. Details about how to stop
receiving it are at the foot of the email.]
For a fancy formatted version go the Fed2 Star website:
http://www.ibgames.net/fednews/current/index.html
In this week’s Fed2 Star: as well as the Fed2 Star Hazed writes a weekly
cryptocurrency newsletter, look out for an eclipse of the moon next
week, we’ve found 12 more moons orbiting Jupiter, a spaceport will be
built in the very north of Scotland, holes in the road could be mended
by drones, iPhone found under the sea really is waterproof, idiot
criminal is sent back to jail after he re-targets his originally target,
students build a replica of a film robot, and a Neptune image using new
technology which means really sharp space pictures can be taken from
Earth. Plus Winding Down, the tech newsletter from Alan.
Official News part one
MY CRYPTOCURRENCY NEWSLETTER
by Hazed
If you read last week’s Winding Down you may have noticed that Alan
credited the ADVFN Cryptocurrency Newsletter for the source of one of
his stories. What you probably don’t know is that I am the author of
that newsletter.
As part of my real life job I write a weekly round-up of news about
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which goes out late on Monday
afternoon (UK time) to ADVFN users.
ADVFN is a website giving share prices, financial information and
investment tools to private investors. Yes, it’s the company whose logo
appears on the front page of our website. The CEO of ADVFN is Fed family
member Clem Chambers who used to be one of the directors of ibgames, and
was instrumental in getting Fed set up on Genie and then AOL back in the
day.
If you want to read my crypto news then you can get it by setting up a
free account on the site at https://www.advfn.com and setting your
mailing preferences to receive the cryptocurrency news.
LONG LUNAR ECLIPSE ON THE WAY
by Hazed
There’s a lunar eclipse coming soon, and it’s going to be especially
long. Sadly for some of our readers, it won’t be visible in the US, but
thoses in the UK will be able to see it – see the source link below for
a map showing just where it will be visible.
A lunar eclipse is when the moon goes into the Earth’s shadow. No
sunlight falls directly onto the moon, so it appears to turn red because
sunlight is still refracted and bent around the earth’s atmosphere. Blue
light gets scattered so only red light shines through.
This eclipse will happen on July 27 and it will last about 105 minutes,
which makes it the longest of this century.
The next eclipse that will be visible in the US will happen in January 2019.
Source:
https://gizmodo.com/north-america-will-not-be-able-to-see-the-longest-lunar-1827145075
REAL LIFE NEWS: JUPITER HAS 12 NEW MOONS
by Hazed
Jupiter has a lot of moons – and it’s just had 12 new ones added to the
list. This doesn’t mean the moons have suddenly been created, it’s just
that we’ve only spotted them recently.
They were found by astronomers who were searching for a possible ninth
planet that theory says could be lurking far beyond Neptune’s orbit. The
team first identified the new moons in March 2017, but needed to confirm
that the bodies were in fact locked in orbit around Jupiter rather than
just travelling past it.
Nine of the newly-discovered moons belong to an outer group that orbit
the planet in the opposite direction to the planet’s spin. These are
thought to be the remnants of larger parent bodies that collided with
asteroids, comets and other moons, and broke apart. They take about two
years to circle the planet.
Two more are in a group circling close to the planet, orbiting in the
same direction as Jupiter’s spin. They take nearly a year to complete
their orbit, and are thought to be pieces of a once larger moon that was
broken up in orbit.
The twelfth new moon is a strange one – the astronomers have described
it as an “oddball”. Its orbit means it crosses the path of other moons,
and eventually it will probably collide with one of them. How soon?
Well, as astronomer explains that, “Collisions don’t happen all that
frequently, every billion years or so. If one did happen, we would be
able to detect it from Earth, but it is unlikely to happen anytime soon.”
The addition of the 12 moons brings the total to 79. But I don’t have
any plans to add new Jovian moons to Fed DataSpace – there’s not enough
room on the space map.
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jul/17/astronomers-discover-12-new-moons-orbiting-jupiter
REAL LIFE NEWS: THE UK IS GETTING A SPACEPORT
by Hazed
The UK Space Agency – yes, there is one – has announced that the UK’s
first spaceport will be built on Scotland’s north coast, on the A’Mhoine
peninsula in Sutherland. It will be used for vertical rocket and
satellite launches and could pave the way for spaceflights.
The spaceport could be running by the early 2020s. A consortium which
includes US aerospace firm Lockheed Martin is behind the proposal to
site the spaceport in Sutherland.
Well, I guess the location fulfils one of the requirements for a space
launch pad – it’s in a remote enough place that if anything goes wrong
it’s not going to cause too much havoc!
As a space enthusiast I ought to be very excited by this, but knowing
how big infrastructure projects always end up very late and massively
over budget, I am sure that this is not going to be plain sailing.
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/spaceport-receives-go-ahead-on-scottish-peninsula
REAL LIFE NEWS: DRONES COULD FIX POTHOLES
by Hazed
Holes in roads are a massive problem. It costs a lot of money to fix
them, but if they remain unfilled then they cause damage to cars that
drive over them. One solution might be to get drones to repair them.
Scientists speaking at a recent science festival suggested that drones
equipped with 3D printers could be used to automatically fill in
potholes as soon as they show up.
The idea is to have two sets of drones. One flies over roads during the
day to identify and locate potholes which have suddenly appeared.
The data is then sent to a second fleet, which are sent out at night to
fill in the holes by spraying asphalt into the cracks in the road.
A way would need to be found to stop the traffic, so the repair drone
could go to work, but it would only take a minute for the job to be done
so could probably be synced up with traffic signals – at least in
cities. On motorways it might be more tricky.
It’s an innovative idea, and while there are a lot of technical issues
to solve I hope this does get pursued. Ultimately it could also lead to
drones and robots working on construction sites. We may soon see
BuilderBots and ConstructoDroids in our cities!
Source:
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/06/drones-with-asphalt-printers-could-automatically-repair-potholes-in-the-future/
REAL LIFE NEWS: DIVER FINDS LOST PHONE UNDER THE SEA – AND IT STILL WORKS
by Hazed
A scuba diver was drift diving off the coast of Dorset in the south of
England recently, when he spotted a strange light on the seabed. Was it
some form of bioluminescent marine creature, the remnant of a lost
undersea civilization or maybe an alien lifeform?
No, it was a mobile phone. It just happened to light up after it
received a text at the right time for Cerys Hearsey to see it.
She picked it up and once she was back onshore was able to track down
the owner, a Canadian tourist who had been kayaking and had dropped it.
The phone was an iPhone – the latest models are supposed to be
waterproof, and I guess this shows they really are!
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-44810813
DUMB CRIMINAL OF THE WEEK: EXTORTED A COMPANY, RELEASED ON PAROLE, GOES
ON THE ATTACK, BACK TO JAIL
by Hazed
When you’re released from jail on parole, it usually comes with a string
of restrictions of things you aren’t supposed to do. One of the most
important is: don’t get caught breaking the law again – and in
particular, don’t repeat your earlier offence.
Words that William Stanley should have heeded. He was originally jailed
for trying to extort a company by threatening to post negative reviews
of the firm. He demanded money from General Equity (GE), a Texas-based
financial services firm. He said if they didn’t pay up he’d post bad
reviews and then use SEO to promote the reviews to the top of search
results.
Well, this didn’t go down well, and he was consequently charged with one
count of extortion, to which he pleaded guilty. He served half of a
37-month sentence and was then released to a halfway house.
And what was the first thing he did on his release? He decided to get
his revenge on the company by writing a negative review on Yelp and
compiling a blog page, optimised for SEO, that displayed negative
articles about GE.
What’s more, he didn’t do it anonymously – he used his own name in the
review. Investigators then traced traffic that posted other bad reviews
about GE back to Stanley’s halfway house.
So he was charged with new offences: retaliation against a witness,
victim or informant. He now been jailed for three times as long as his
initial sentence.
I do hope that when he finally gets out he decides not to continue his
campaign against GE!
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/25/extortionist_prison_yelp/
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