Get back at them!

November 9, 2012 - by Phil Tucker - from Sync.ca

The Dragonfly puts all other flying toys to shame.

A new robotic dragonfly from Georgia Tech can hover, dive, climb, and fly like a real insect.

Meet the TechJect Dragonfly a remote control robotic insect that, as its name suggests, looks akin to and can fly like a real insect. Researchers at Georgia Tech’s Robotics & Intelligent Machines (RIM) Department have been hard at work making this science fiction inspired device a reality.

“The TechJect Dragonfly is a wifi-enabled, super-small, smart and energy efficient robotic insect; it can do amazing aerial photography, aerobatic maneuvers for gaming, autonomous patrolling for security and surveillance, and much more. With up to 20 sensors onboard, the Dragonfly is the most advanced and compact flying platform out there.” -TechJect
TechJect suggests there’s no shortage of uses for the Dragonfly, from aerial photography and gaming to home security and spying. With a platform that boasts GPS capabilities, streaming video and 20 onboard sensors, I’m inclined to agree, the applications are almost limitless.
After receiving a $1,000,000 grant from the US Air Force, the team, including Dr. Jayant Ratti and Emanuel Jones, has built a number of prototypes and is now working to bring a consumer version to market under the spin-off company TechJect. Through their Indigogo page you can support the project and secure your very own remote control Dragonfly for all of your espionage needs.

Indigogo is a popular crowdfunding site where the public can lend monetary support to projects in exchange for various rewards. In the case of the Dragonfly, a contribution of $99 (sold out at the moment) will catch you an Alpha Dragonfly — the perfect package for a budding robo-etymologist. On the other hand if you’re looking to start your own swarm, contributing $949 will see some 17 Dragonflies come under your command. The campaign also offers a variety of Dragonfly-based rewards between these two contribution levels — act fast though, the TechJect Dragonfly has already raised almost $100,000 of its $110,000 goal.

The recent innovations in remote controlled flight have been impressive to say the least; the last decade has seen the realization of toy helicopters that fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, quadrotors that are able to perform stunning complex choreography and lethal military drones controlled from countless miles away. 



 

Isn't it comforting to see how the technology filters down to the masses?  Now do you believe my previous post?  At last, we may be able to keep ourselves safe from those who say they are keeping us safe. You can even fly these with your Smartphone! 
(See post of Friday, July 27, 2012 -  Bug Off MAV!)
Thanks to Phil Tucker for putting this together.

Conspiracy or not?

We all know that any conspiracy is hidden from view long before it emerges as fact or a stealthy pre-action. Only the few who happen to think of furtive plans, bring light to the darkness. Correct or not.
So is this a conspiracy?

In the Presidential election. Romney might be in trouble despite that the right wing media constantly tries to cast him as a competent leader. There seems to me to be three divisions within the Republican party; the Tea Party types, the ones making all those asinine comments like Donald Trump going after birth certificate and college records of Obama after four years in, only to make an ass of himself. Yet Mitt Romney just won't reveal those income tax records. 

Then they have the Religious Right, full of those who interpret everything their own way, including that they believe God works on their behalf. With insane statements like God wants women to bear rape resulting babies! 

But there is the most dangerous element of the Republicans, those who want to take over the world. And they are just being ominously quiet right now. George HW Bush laid the groundwork during his presidency. And previously as Vice-President and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His son, President George W Bush and his ever-hovering watchdog Dick Cheney continued remaking that infrastructure. 
So what IS the plan? 
To get a third Bush as President of the United States.

The knock on Romney has been people are saying his companies send jobs to Asia, and he hides his wealth in the Grand Cayman Islands. A well established banking and business and investment capital famous for hiding money from prying government and tax collecting eyes. This has been talked over so much so that even the mention of the Caymans, means Mitt Romney.
And although the current Republican campaign has no interest in former President GW Bush's support at all, (which should tell you something about the division within) the Democrats continue to exploit the popular Bill Clinton. What does all this mean?

Well we now have former President George W Bush, giving a speech in the Caymans, under lock and key to only a few business people. At an 'investment conference'. NO journalists were allowed to attend or even get into the Ritz-Carlton hotel. The keynote speech by the former president was totally closed to all journalists and conference organizers were forbidden from discussing any aspect of it even in general terms! The whole process smacks of Bilderberg meetings and points to a comparison to Romney's secrets.. 
Does the very fact that Bush chose the Caymans to talk have this meaning?
What could the plan possibly be?

If Romney loses. Good for Bush people. And by speaking from the very base of Romney's money, isn't that driving home the idea of why there is no tax return information? If Romney was to go ahead and win the election, it might twist the future of Republican presidential candidates in a totally new direction. 
But if they could be sure Romney would lose, and they can do without the presidency for four years, it will be much easier to engineer another Bush into position to contest the 2016 campaign.  (perhaps taking a page from Canada's Liberal Party; go ahead and put in an English leader who is certain to lose so we can get back to a French-Canadian leader next time)

It is suggested that the campaign for 2016 has already begun. Many pundits including Jon Stewart are already posting Road to Jeb Bush, 2016  banners. And by allowing people like Trump, Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachman to voice their ludicrous speeches now, they only contrast those loonies with Bush and seem to present a real serious alternative. Yelling and screaming only gets immediate responsive and perhaps impulsive action, the design of stealth assures delayed and controlled action. Using stealth implies a thoughtful agenda for the future. And the Bushes totally understand the concept of long distance planning.
A stealthy thoughtful insidious plan for a designed future private action IS conspiracy!

The only question is whether it will be Jeb Bush or a surprise Marvin Bush in 2016.  
And there are plenty more Bushes where these come from. 

Enjoy the election but stay tuned for the real one four years from now. 
Then watch the seeding.

Apple emerging as an arm of the FBI?

We all know now that the system installed in Apple iPhones called SIRI is suspect by a number of organizations, including IBM which has banned it from their networks. The reason? Siri ships everything you say to Her to a data center in Maiden, North Carolina. And the story of what really happens to all of your Siri launched searches, email messages and inappropriate jokes disappears into a virtual black box. With your reality name on it. 

Apple's iPhone Software Licence Agreement spells this out: "When you use Siri or Dictation, the things you say will be recorded and sent to Apple in order to convert what you say into text." Siri collects a bunch of other information too; names of people from your address book and other unspecified user data, all to help Siri do a better job. How long does Apple store this now plain-text information? And who gets a look at it? 

The company doesn't actually say. But again, from the user agreement: "By using Siri or Dictation, you agree and consent to Apple's and its subsidiaries' and agents' transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input and User Data, to provide and improve Siri, Dictation, and other Apple products and services."  Subsidiaries and Agents? Who ARE these agents? The DEA? NSA? CIA? FBI? Homeland Security? Fema? Private corporations? Your high-tech brother-in-law?

Well, if I am paranoid then so are a lot of other legitimate companies in the technology business besides IBM.  
Because some of the data that Siri collects can be very personal, the American Civil Liberties Union put out a warning about Siri just a couple of months ago. For corporate users, there are even more potential pitfalls, like having it known that you're at a certain customer's location might be in violation of a non-disclosure agreement, and of interest to spying competitors. Or your boss. Or anyone else who happens to perk and have interest in where you go and what you do there.
So if you are telling Siri where you want to go, your iPhone is not only storing that info, but the GPS info showing how you got there and how long you stayed!

Now a BC woman is suing Apple because she says the installed GPS system tracks you even when your iPhone is turned OFF! Then it updates periodically and sends that info to Apple including where you have been!  You can be back-tracked from D to C to B to A!
Your iPhone 4 contains location data, going back approximately one year, which is now easily accessible using free tools readily available on the internet. And it is revealed that a simple black box which fits into an attache case, can access all this info to track you exactly. By masquerading and behaving as a cell tower. It doesn't even have to ask you for it, your phone sends it automatically! The police are already using this technology but it is available to anyone! 

Well now the, I've got nothing to hide, wigglies come out. I've done nothing wrong, they argue, laughing at your paranoia. But perhaps they haven't been exposed to an zealous investigator who only needs to know YOU attended that same Bible Camp that John Wayne Gacy went to or coached childrens' football in Pennsylvania, or sent a humorous email message through Siri about marijuana to your friend who smokes it but you don't. And that friend happened to be in Mexico when you sent the joke! Perk!

This doesn't mean that Google, Samsung, Microsoft et al aren't building in the same technology to their systems and that your ISP isn't telling on you. But it means the technology is there to listen, record geographic co-ordinates and the time stamp to track everything you do, have done, when you done it and even anticipate what you MIGHT do. Yes, that techno is coming too.

It might mean that you shouldn't visit that favorite used book store anymore, because of the Mexican drug dealer hanging in the next doorway, and that the store is now run by an Iranian immigrant, and you'd better not be carrying your iPhone when you go there. Not to mention the fact that if you're reading a real life paper-paged book that doesn't let them know what you are reading is suspicious already!  A SWAT team could crash in as soon as you pick up that antique issue of Lady Chatterly's Lover.  

OMG, the scandal of it all. Drugs, foreign intrigue with terror implications, secretive actions and sex too!

And now you're in GITMO still dazed and shackled, dressed in orange while the interrogators try to figure out the jargon codes used in your iPhone transmission when your wife asked you to bring the 'bread' home.

There's no 'bored' in waterboard.



http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/04/iphone-tracking-do-you-trust-apple-with-your-location.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/10/30/bc-apple-location-lawsuit.html?cmp=rss

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/23/tech/mobile/ibm-siri-ban/index.html

The demise of CNN News.

CNN recently announced that it might be having a reality show on their network.
You know about reality shows. They are when you get actors who are great at improv, to provide conflict over every inane idea for an hour. Whether it is entertainment is debatable. Whether it is fit for CNN is another thing.  Keeping Up With the Kardashians being a perfect example but these no-brainer reality shows now include all those Picker and Auction sites, Hog Catchers in the backwoods, and even the Food Networks are now fighting over how to boil water! Julia Childs please don't cry. They also include The Bachelor, The Biggest Loser and Jersey Shore! And now we even have Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Don't laugh, it is all part of the dumbing down of the American public. (and that's a whole nuther conspiracy theory)
Is this sad or what?

Didn't we all rush to our TVs and tune in CNN when important events had breaking news? We watched live, the demise of the Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin Wall. Knocking down Saddam's statue. The miner rescues in Chile. And a hundred other happening events that were full of drama and excitement and truthful images. And a reality so full of excitement no script could ever match it!

Not anymore. I recently saw Wolf Blitzer making an argument for his point of view about Libya last week, while frustratingly interrupting the input of his guest, who finally irritatedly announced that Wolfe could argue the point all he wanted to, but his opinion didn't alter the facts of what was actually happening on the ground.
Alas, the days of Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw reporting objectively from the heart of the battle are gone. Who can forget that eerie green footage of combat? And of course we don't know what is happening 'on the ground' anywhere now because we no longer have reports from the action. Or any battlefield or city of turmoil. The whole event is now stage managed. Film clips, sound bites and photo ops.

A friend on the weekend suggested it was Piers Morgan who started the slide of CNN into news gathering oblivion. I think not. But his background as a tabloid editor did not enhance the CNN aura for hard news.
I believe it is the US Government who forced the demise of real reporting when the Pentagon came up with the idea of 'embedded' reporters.

Embedded reporters are those who travel with a war unit into armed conflicts. They are controlled totally on what they can show on camera, where they are allowed to go, and what they can say in that contrived report that flashes to their TV Station for the 6 oclock news. Of course the Army tells them they need to be 'protected' for their own safety. Sort of in the way YOU are being protected by those drones flying overhead and watching everything you do .... for your own safety. Sure.


The 1991 Gulf War was influential in the implementation of controlling reporters. And Reuters News and other legitimate news agencies had many free ranging reporters in Iraq. At my last count there have been about 130 independent reporters mysteriously killed by 'friendly fire.' Not hard to do when a firefight is happening and paid mercenaries are shooting at anything you tell them to. 
Sort of like Vietnam and 'fragging' your own lieutenant.
In those days the news was 'adjusted' through every step up from the combat private who thought he might have killed one Viet Cong to the General who sent a dispatch to President Johnson announcing the death of 500 enemy and one wounded Marine! All the same story.

During the Iraq war in 2003, there were almost 800 embedded journalists! These reporters actually sign contracts with the military on what they will divulge. I did see a woman reporter a while ago. Broadcasting from a battlefield. There was a stone wall she was behind, and she sort of winced at any loud noises, as if being under attack. They even had two Afghans behind her, peering into the distance from behind that wall. Trouble was they were chatting and laughing and playing with their Kalashnikovs while she did some pretty good acting. She was an embedded reporter.

No way they want free style reporters wandering around in the theater of war digging out news. Or the truth of what is actually happening. It is all theater now. That's why you no longer see Michael Ware on CNN, and not much of Nic Robertson. Some reporters even had their credentials and ability to travel freely curtailed because they showed a Humvee riddled with bullet-holes! No way they want the American public to know that the enemy can target and hit our guys too!

So with real news being totally manipulated and spoon fed to the masses. There is no need to see what really happened. It's good enough to know that the good guys are winning.

What is CNN to do? So why not have reality shows on CNN? After all it is about making money isn't it? It's TV, even fake is reality.
Is the demise of CNN the demise of news and truth?

Ted Turner moved on, I guess we have to too.

Details at eleven. We're creating them now.

What's up?

Canada has closed and shuttered it's embassy in Tehran. And then expelled all Iranian diplomats from Canada, under the premise that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. The Federal Government has issued a travel warning to Canadians, urging them to stay away from that country.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird made the moves Friday morning, declaring Iran "the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today."

Have you noticed unusual happenings related to Iran lately? I mean unusual within the constant turmoil of these countries? Nor have I, except the regular ongoing condemnation by the West of suspicious nuclear research. 
So it leads me to wonder, why right now?

Is this the result of CSIS having some evidence of ex-pat Iranians up to spying activities in Canada? Usually those kinds of mole discoveries result in expelling a certain few 'diplomats' from a country, never actually closing an embassy in the other country. And they are mostly accompanied by lots of publicity, showing off the prowess of our protective spy agencies.
So what's up?

Or could Canada have received some information from the US CIA that is a precursor of an action that could harm Canadians? Perhaps a military strike is imminent? A bombing raid that could put Canadians at risk? And if the USA wants Canada's support wouldn't they subtly advise us to get the hell out so we have nothing to bitch about? 
The US has had no embassy in Tehran since 1981. After their hostage situation and the Canadian embassy smuggling Americans out. Britain closed theirs last November.
They didn't have the credibility of Canada and many other cool thinking countries in the Iraq war. But that was a war of personal vengeance by George Bush. They should be able to twist a new Iran war into a more noble cause: nuclear proliferation and global peace. 

Or did the Israeli Mossad, after many disagreements with the US over the imminent danger, decide to go it alone and so warn the Canadians?

Or is it about oil? As are so many furtive movements and motives in the Middle East?

Israeli Air Force F16ls

The Israelis have been itching to be let go to send in a couple of planes to put Iran out of the nuclear bomb business. They did it before, in 1981 and 2007. They are ready willing and able but they do want USA support. And wouldn't the US and Israel like to have a little muscle flexing in the area because Egypt seems to be getting a bit fresh and impudent?
And to do an action against Iran in the immediate future, would mean they have all those troops already stationed in Iraq, on the verge of leaving for home. To redeploy a threat force later would be costly. So why not go now?

There is no telling exactly how close Iran is to testing a real nuclear bomb. Once that is done, the newest member of the Destruction Club only needs to screw one onto the tip of a missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Presto, new war.
And Iran is accused of helping Syria right now. When the West is trying to neutralize threats to vulnerable Iraq so they can leave with some sense of accomplishment. (One can't help thinking that if they had left Saddam Hussein in place none of this would be necessary.)

President Obama, in his nomination acceptance speech, said the USA was still committed to a free Israel. Is the US getting ready for a preemptive strike? Why is Canada taking this action now? 

Somebody knows something.
What's up?

California Prop 37 - be aware folks

Proposition 37, known as the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, will require that all foods made with or containing GMOs, including both raw and processed foods, be labeled as such when sold at the retail level.
Sounds totally proper and sane, right?

Well, not according to certain big businesses like Monsanto corporation, and Pepsico, and Dupont, and Dow Agrosciences, Nestle, CocaCola, Kelloggs, Hersey, Hormel etc. These and many other companies have to date, donated 25 million to DEFEAT the initiative for honest food labeling.

Thousand of mothers and grandmothers are trying to fight back against this onslaught of monetary influence to keep the US public unaware of what is in their food!


If Prop 37 is passed, products made with or containing GMOs will also be prohibited from being marketed and sold as “natural,” a highly-deceptive practice that has become quite common today. Of course any reasonable human being worried about their food consumption, sees that as ridiculous.
(In Canada we have this very stupid rule that even food products imported from third world countries without any health safety rules can be imported, repackaged and labeled as 'Produce of Canada' just because they are repackaged in Canada.)
Nearly 50 other countries, including China, Russia, and all the countries in the European Union (EU), currently label GMOs. The U.S. and Canada are among the only developed nations in the world that do not require honest food labeling.
The passage of Prop. 37 on November 6, however, could change this and much of the rest of the U.S. (and Canada?) will likely follow in its footsteps in the coming months and years, which has the potential to unhinge the corporate monopoly that currently controls the American food supply.

You need to pay attention folks. Transparency and honesty in food labeling is important to your family's future.
Do you really want to see your sons and daughters or grandchildren grow up with odd ball idiosyncrasies and distorted shapes? There is already a phenomenon in Florida known as 'big head syndrome' because children there grow up consuming artificial antibiotics and growth hormones in everything they eat!

Evolution of the human species is one thing, but meddling with the human genome is yet another.

Pull for the humans and pay attention.
And START READING LABELS!



Check out some of the food companies who don't want you to know what you're eating - - - http://www.carighttoknow.org/

Check out the effects of growth hormones in human food - - - http://www.livestrong.com/article

George Carlin - still relevant

George was always with it, and probably always will be. Truth in his comedy.