Oleg Zabluda's blog: August 30, 2018

Oleg Zabluda's blog

Thursday, August 30, 2018

This Is Why All That Fighter Jet Testing Is So Important

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/this-is-why-all-that-fighter-jet-testing-is-so-importan-1828726533

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

China Wants Only the Cleanest Trash
China Wants Only the Cleanest Trash
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U.S. exports of recovered paper to China fell 39 percent in the first five months of this year. A ton of recovered cardboard fetches $74 in the U.S., where it sold for $170 a year ago, according to RISI. Some inferior grades of paper and plastic are bringing so little revenue that some U.S. recycling programs consider it to be more economical to stick it in landfills. [...] imbalance between cheap recyclables in the U.S. and soaring prices in China, where recovered cardboard is fetching 60 percent more than a year ago,
"""
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-22/china-wants-only-the-cleanest-trash
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-22/china-wants-only-the-cleanest-trash

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

"""
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2,000 people around the world have used a home-built pancreas, cobbled together mostly via social media and [...] GitHub. [...] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is years away from approving a comparably flexible and automated rig for sale. [...] So far the version is way ahead of the market. [...] Medtronic’s latest FDA-approved product can now do most of the things the system can—for $7,000. [...] The DIY pancreas movement would never have happened if not for a Medtronic blunder. In 2011 a pair of security researchers alerted the public that the wireless radio frequency links in some of the company’s best-selling insulin pumps had been left open to hackers. Medtronic closed the loophole after the researchers warned of risks to patients, but it never recalled the devices, leaving thousands in circulation.

By then, Ben West, a programmer and diabetes patient in San Francisco, had decided to hack the pump. [...] He says he’d been careful to use his existing pump as directed but still wound up in the hospital more than once when his blood sugar veered dangerously high or low.
[...]
Working evenings, weekends, and vacations for five years, West reverse-engineered the pump’s communications code, making it possible to send the device instructions. During that time, a group of DIYers calling themselves Nightscout figured out how to relay data from glucose monitors to a smartphone or watch, so parents could monitor kids’ blood sugar levels remotely.
[...]
In June 2014, West met Seattle couple Dana Lewis and Scott Leibrand, who had written an algorithm that could suggest insulin doses. The next step, they decided, was to automate the insulin pump using software.
[...]
At least one big device maker has given up on the artificial pancreas. Johnson & Johnson shut down its project last year, saying it could no longer charge enough for its hardware to make further research and development worth its while. [...] Medtronic is working to better automate the $7,000 version that about 100,000 people are using. [...] Medtronic, which sells about $2 billion worth of diabetes devices a year, is among the companies that have come to regard the DIY community as allies. Company reps meet with DIYers regularly to help them better understand how new technologies such as fast-acting insulin will affect their system, says Ali Dianaty, who handles R&D in Medtronic’s intensive insulin management unit. Marie Schiller, who runs Eli Lilly’s two-year-old artificial pancreas project—and has used the Loop app for her own diabetes treatment—has invited hackers including West, Lewis, and Leibrand to talk to her developers. West has gone on to work for Eli Lilly partner DexCom Inc.
"""
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-08/the-250-biohack-that-s-revolutionizing-life-with-diabetes
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-08/the-250-biohack-that-s-revolutionizing-life-with-diabetes

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

Declassified Documents Concerning Russian President Boris Yeltsin | Clinton Digital Library
Declassified Documents Concerning Russian President Boris Yeltsin | Clinton Digital Library
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This Mandatory Declassification Review contains memorandum of conversations (memcons) and memorandum of telephone conversations (telcons) between President Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia, April 21, 1996 through December 31, 1999.
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https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/57569
https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/57569

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

Hundreds of Millions of U.S. Guns are Unlicensed and Untraceable
Hundreds of Millions of U.S. Guns are Unlicensed and Untraceable
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“Unlicensed and untraceable” is scary only if you think most guns are “licensed (registered)” and that “traceability” has anything to do with preventing crime.

National registration of guns has been illegal for decades. Only a few authoritarian states require registration of firearms. Those states are California, Hawaii, Maryland, and New York. The registration schemes in Hawaii and California apply to all guns. The requirements for registration of long guns are fairly recent. Most guns that were unregistered before registration was required remain unregistered, and are grandfathered in. New York required registration of handguns only. Recently they required registration of some semi-automatic rifles. The law has been ignored by over 80% of the people affected. Maryland has required handgun and some semi-automatic firearm registration for a few years. It does not require registration of most long guns.
[...]
The vast majority of states do not register guns. There are over 400 million guns in the United States. Over 300 million guns in the United States are not registered. Most were never required to be registered.
[...]
People have been making guns at home for hundreds of years. They are not required to be registered. There are likely a few hundred thousand homemade guns in the United States. So? A few hundred thousand homemade guns are a drop in the bucket to the hundreds of millions that are factory made. A few hundred made by 3D printing is even less significant.
"""
https://www.ammoland.com/2018/08/hundreds-of-millions-of-u-s-guns-are-unlicensed-and-untraceable/
https://www.ammoland.com/2018/08/hundreds-of-millions-of-u-s-guns-are-unlicensed-and-untraceable/

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

"Please—if my wife still loved me, would she have let me buy this motorcycle?”
"Please—if my wife still loved me, would she have let me buy this motorcycle?”
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/issue-cartoons/cartoons-from-the-september-3-2018-issue
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/issue-cartoons/cartoons-from-the-september-3-2018-issue

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

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