US scientists believe it could be possible to use artificial electric eel cells grafted into the human body to generate power for cybernetic implant devices. The pseudo-electrocytes would harvest the necessary energy from body fats and sugars.
Shudder
If the boos in response to Sarah Palin and her 7 year old daughter are any indication, the answer is “yes”.
Both from Rust belt: Meridian Bank of Eldred, IL, and Main Street Bank of Northville, MI.
It appears that Henry Perez and Suzanne Bartok, proprietors of AMP Dollar Savings, used a program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies, and sent 2.8 millionspam emails to CIS internet services, a small ISP with about 5000 subscribers, and the judge ordered them to pay $236 million in damages.
Note that the judge assessed the fine against them, and not just AMP Dollar Savings.
It looks like they will be discussing a production cut in response to plummeting oil prices.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is refusing to serve forclosure eviction notices, though it is unclear as to whether this applies to all foreclosures, or just renting tenants.
Lehman’s Credit Default Swaps (CDS) lost 91.375% off of face value, which is lower than even I expected, I was expecting about 15¢ on the dollar.
So now we have a market price on these assets.
Based on the size of the CDS market, this means that losses are well in excess of world GDP.
This is not a liquidity issue. This is an insolvency issue.
The investigation of Sarah Palin says the she abused her powers for personal considerations, which is not a surprise, and the Republican-dominated legislative council voted unanimously to release the report, which was a surprise.
My take on this: they know that McCain is going to lose, and the Republican primary for governor of Alaska just started.
Palin may not realize it, but her political career is over.
The devil, as always, is in the details, and while I think that Gates and the DoD want to get out as quickly as is possible, Bush and His Evil Minions™ really do want to settle their successor with Iraq as a firm commitment.
The sticking points:
But they have differed over some issues such as granting immunity to U.S. soldiers for acts committed in Iraq, whether Washington has the right to detain Iraqi prisoners and on the future command of military operations on the ground.
Same old, same old.
They have been talking about replacing the .50 cal M2 Browning machine gun for decades, and now they are talking about the LW50 as a replacement.
The M2 has some flaws, most notably weight, a lack of a quick change barrel, and the need to set head spacing, but I’ll withhold judgment for now, particularly since I’ve never served of handled an automatic weapon.
It appears that the sticking point may be rate of fire, which is about 2/3 that of the M2.
I always wanted to be John Browning when I grew up.
Truth be told, I think that it’s too much plane for an F-5 replacement, though if the Swiss get a good deal out of French desperation for an export sale, more power to them.
Same applies to the Eurofighter Typhoon, only more so, though, since the Swiss already operate F/A-18 Hornets, the jump to the Super Bug would not be so big.
My money though, is still on the Gripen, it’s a lot cheaper all along the life cycle, and the Swiss don’t really need the additional range of the larger aircraft.
You know, Voyage to the Botom of the Sea.
It appears that someone in DARPA did too, because they are looking at the flying sub, though it does not look as cool as the original:
DARPA’s strategic technology office wants an aircraft that can reach a destination, whether it is 1,850km (1,000nm) away by air or 185km by sea or 22km travelling underwater, in less than 8h.
I want whatever it is that they are smoking.
Well this is new, an improved weapons system whose primary improvement is a reduction in cost.
Specifically, the precision guided Excalibur round:
The 1A1 version cost between $130,000 and $150,000 per round. The 1A2 is down to less than $85,000. Of course, one limiting factor to lowering price on the 1A models was LRIP, which provides no economy of scale. The hope for 1B is to reach a number somewhere in the mid-$30,000 range.
When all is said and done. most of the technology here is old hat. The precision guided M712 Copperhead 155mm round has entered service before Desert Storm.
The flight profile is actually simpler than that of the Copperhead, actually, since it is GPS guided, and so does not have to deal with the visibility issues and two flight modes of the copperhead.
Who knows, they may actually be able to do this before the next presidential election.
Specifically, 420 new build BMP-3M’s.
This is an infantry fighting vehicle in the same general class as the M-2Bradley, though I believe it is lighter, and it is a significant inroad into NATO by Russian weapons manufacturers.
They are not talking about building carriers, yet, but the PLN has started training naval fighter pilots, which is probably a prelude to developing a rudimentary carrier capability.
It looks like the Russians have announced that building at least eight ballistic missile nuclear submarines.
This goes along with their stated desire to build 4-5 aircraft carriers to replace the Admiral Kuznetsov.
Yeah, sure.
It looks like the USAF is finally starting to give up on more F-22s, and is instead looking for an orderly way to transition to the F-35 JSF.
Of course, it would have been nice if they had realized this 4 years ago, and not crippled the F-35 in air-to-air weapons carriage.