From Mylar balloon causes Valentine’s Day outage in San Francisco – San Jose Mercury News: PG&E had warned residents earlier this week to be careful with metallic balloons purchased for Valentine’s Day, as hundreds of outages each year in Northern California are caused by balloons drifting into power lines. This would seem to be a [...]
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This is Jon Hamilton‘s excellent explanation of this disturbing risk possibility, reported yesterday in JAMA. From Common Chemicals Could Make Kids’ Vaccines Less Effective The more exposure children have to chemicals called perfluorinated compounds, the less likely they are to have a good immune response to vaccinations, a study just published in JAMA, the Journal [...]
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Robert Pear, who has always provided excellent coverage of public health issues for The Times, reports that the administration plans to require drug and medical equipment suppliers to report all payments – down to coffee and bagels – made to physicians and medical personnel – and make them accessible to the public via the web. [...]
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Jessica Dailey, writing at Inhabitat, notes the United States’ largest net-zero school, Lady Bird Johnson Middle School, in Texas: Texas is known for the Alamo, spicy Tex-Mex food, big Stetson hats, and now it also has the nation’s largest net-zero public school. Welcoming its first students this past fall, the Lady Bird Johnson Middle School [...]
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Posted in its entirety from Jason Kottke’s blog. We did not know about this system, but think it’s worth considering for a number of reasons: it gets people walking in inclement weather rather than taking their vehicles or not travelling at all; probably stops the weather from entirely shutting down Minneapolis, and, to the extent [...]
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Lawrence J. Furman, MBA, co-founder of Popular Logistics, has been appointed to the Manalapan Township Finance Committee (Township here, news article here). The Finance Committee reviews expenditures, projects tax receipts, and submits the budget to the Township Committee. Back in 2007 Furman suggested that the Township Committee look into deploying solar energy systems on municipal [...]
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We’re not sure if this is part of Chicago’s underground street system, now unused, which was used to expedite deliveries and at the same time to reduce traffic congestion on Chicago’s street-level. We believe that underground systems – including pneumatic tube systems – have in some places been prematurely abandoned. They reduce congestion (waiting time [...]
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Fascinating interview with intelligence historian Matthew Aid, author of new book Intel Wars, on NPR’s Fresh Air Well worth listening to. Why America’s Spies Struggle To Keep Up “In Intel Wars, historian Matthew Aid details how bureaucratic policies and a glut of raw data have weakened the intelligence community in its war against would-be terrorists.”
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Israel has said it will respond to cyber-attacks in the same way it responds to violent “terrorist” acts after the credit card details of thousands of its citizens were published online. A hacker named OxOmar claiming to be Saudi said on Thursday he had leaked the private information. Credit card companies say at least 6,000 [...]
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Ben Franklin is reputed to have said “we shall hang together, or we shall hang separately.” Long-time readers know that it is our firmly-held conviction that social networks matter more than any single type of preparation or cached equipment. Here is an excerpt from The Key To Disaster Survival? Pals, Neighbors broadcast on the July [...]
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Another example of the risk of petroleum supply interruption: the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz. While it’s hard to imagine that United States military forces wouldn’t prevail in a conflict with Iran, that confrontation might easily escalate. Excerpted from Oil Price Would Skyrocket if Iran Closed the Strait of Hormuz by Clifford Krauss at [...]
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While Iran is threatening to block the Straits of Hormuz, and various agents are calling for military actions, the crew of an American destroyer patrolling the North Arabian Sea rescued 13 Iranian fishermen captured by Somali pirates in November, 2011. U.S. Navy Rescues Iranians Held by Pirates, 1/6/12, Robert Mackey and J. David Goodman. The [...]
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Paul Krugman continues to be persuasive, although we worry that it’s necessary for him to make this point. Excerpted from “Keynes Was Right:” “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying [...]
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Professor David Levine has not a really impressive title – “John H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Economics at Washington University in St. Louis.” Plus – his web pages (and linked pages) on “What is Game Theory? are outstanding.
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The same messages can be communicated by signalling the letter "K" in Morse code via signal lamp. (While a proper signal lamp may be ideal, a flashlight, probably best employing red LEDs, will certainly fit the bill).
In Morse, the letter "K" is represent as Dash - Dot -- Dash.
The ICS also has a subset, the Medical Signal Code, which uses three-character phrases to communicate brief medical messages.