October 18 Safe Tech International News and Notes
October 18 Safe Tech International News and Notes
Meters, Musk, Merchant, Marx, oh my
On My Soapbox: Those who were working on the smart meter issue over a decade ago knew that I wrote frequently about Peter Valberg, who was featured in the 2016 series Science for Sale by the Center for Public Integrity. The series revealed the role the mercenary ‘expert” played on behalf of the manufacturers of deadly chemicals. including denying the significance of the largest ever reported cluster of occupational brain tumors associated with vinyl chloride, and about Valberg’s attempt to blame asbestos’ mesothelioma on tobacco, even though he was working for tobacco giant Phillip Morris.
But journalists were not willing to touch the role he has played in polluting the science regarding the safety of wireless exposures, including smart utility meters installed under the guise of “sustainability” that resulted in immediate reports of harm. (The response was and is the derogatory use of the term tin-foil hat.)
The entire telecom-utility cartel including state utility regulators employed product defense experts to attest the safety of the meters. They mercenary scientists were not lying to Legislators, they were lying for Legislators and other decision makers. (See testimony below to the NCSL National Council of State Legislators and check the names of the experts quoted)
The scenario marked a complete failure of the ‘sustainability’ movement, including 350.org and others, to intelligently and responsibly re-assess the drive towards a ‘smart’ grid. Proponents of books about how the fossil fuel industry compromised science (Doubt is Their Product, Merchants of Doubt) were not willing to look at the fact that the “science” supporting their solutions to fossil fuels was compromised, and still is.
This structural issue of the use of mercenary science and tobacco tactics, even in courts but especially in the court of public opinion (for example, focusing on brain tumors and cellphones and ignoring reported neurological harm) has yet to be resolved.
The grid has not been hardened to be able to withstand and EMP, it has been hardened to act as surveillance apparatus, and to force customers to change their behaviors based on punitive time of use billing, demand charges, etc. The highest income users with swimming pool pumps and central air will be rewarded with lower rates for letting the utility remotely shift their load, wirelessly, while the senior with a home health aide who runs the dishwasher, vacuums, and washes clothes, has been demonized, for the load draw. In addition, implying that wireless meters were needed to integrate solar into the grid was a bait and switch. Now, the nation is shifting again to nuclear to increase production, to power the data centers that include data from smart meters. The model has been utility-scale infrastructure and earnings.
"Development is a process whereby culture and nature are being made to conform to the needs of technology and the economy. And the technologies are coming out of an ever more specialised science, which means that the perspective is growing more and more narrow, more and more short-term." – Helena Norberg-Hodge Local Futures
We know why the US decided not to look at emerging science of RF harm in 1976,
The problem is that the priorities are still industry and the military, no matter who gets thrown under the bus.
The media is dominated by conflicting reports about Elon Musk and little coverage of Peter Valberg. They are the poster boys. Exposing corruption should have worked via a resilient system of checks and balances. It didn’t.
Momentum for a course correction is mounting in many arenas, for example, the awakening about children and cellphone and social media, but regarding wireless, overall, we are still bowing at the altar of the church of speed..…and violence.
Thank you for your and presence here. It matters. You are a kindling point.
AI: Yet Another Tech Giant Throws Its Weight Behind Nuclear As AI's Monstrous Power Demands Spike Google just inked a major nuclear energy deal focused on powering AI efforts without destroying the planet in the process. On Monday, Google announced a landmark agreement with nuclear startup Kairos Power to purchase energy produced by seven yet-to-be-built small modular nuclear reactors. The companies claim the deal aims to add upwards of 500 megawatts "of new 24/7 carbon-free power to US electricity grids" — that is, over a decade from now when Kairos promises the reactors will be built. MSN
AI PARIS MARX: Silicon Valley is sacrificing the climate for AI Eric Schmidt is the latest tech executive to claim AI must be built regardless of the climate cost. DISCONNECT PARIS MARX (PAYWALL)
AI: AI manifestos flood the tech zone Driving the news: Last weekend Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, published an essay titled "Machines of Loving Grace." AXIOS
AI SECURITY GARY MARCUS Two new examples that are quite disconcerting When it comes to security, LLMs are like Swiss cheese — and that’s going to cause huge problems
AUTOMOBILES: U.S. PTO director says Tesla AI turns everybody into a tall white man A leading U.S. official on AI policy called out Elon Musk for a curious flaw in Tesla cars: The vehicle’s onboard screen insists that every nearby pedestrian is a man. Kathi Vidal, the undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, flagged the issue in an onstage discussion at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit on Wednesday. []Vidal, who worked as an engineer at Lockheed Martin and General Electric before going into law, was nominated by President Biden for her current role in 2021. She focuses on developing AI policy that creates jobs, solves global problems, promotes U.S. competitiveness, and protects national security. And, she noted on Wednesday, she really wants anyone with thoughts about how to regulate AI innovation to send her an email. [] With fewer than 20 days until the presidential election, Vidal underscored the Biden and Harris administration’s commitment to creating jobs and encouraging innovation. She specifically cited initiatives to promote quantum computing tech hubs in Colorado and Chicago. Under the Department of Commerce, the tech hubs aim to boost regional capacities to manufacture, commercialize, and deploy emerging technologies. “We are creating Silicon Valleys everywhere,” she said. FORTURE ON MSN
BLOOD IN THE MACHINE: Elon Musk's tech projects are inseparable from his authoritarian project The media has an Elon Musk problem. His vision of the future is Cybercabs *and* mass deportations, and we must make that clear. The media has an Elon Musk problem. His vision of the future is Cybercabs *and* mass deportations, and we must make that clear. [] In a video for the New York Times, the campaign finance reporter Theodore Schliefer explains that, “Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has involved himself in the U.S. election in a manner unparalleled in modern history.” Musk has invested his time, brand, and fortune in the project, Schliefer notes. Yet the subsequent analysis does not engage with the political program Musk is working to achieve, but the style in which he is doing so: “What you’ve got to know about Elon Musk is that when he’s in these crisis moments, when he feels like the world is against him, or the fate of humanity rests on his shoulders, he has a playbook—and that playbook includes a bet on himself.” This is pretty indicative of much of the coverage thus far: Musk is doing politics as if he’s an innovator, pushing boundaries at crunch time, putting the company/operation on his own back—not someone supporting a program of mass deportation and a restriction of trans rights. But it just took me a couple minutes of scrolling through Musk’s feed to get hard evidence of what, exactly, Musk is fighting for.
CELLPHONES: Scientists warn against using your phone in bed after making stomach-churning discovery Experts have given a stark warning about using our mobile phones in bed for one very disgusting reason. We all know that screen time and the blue light they emit can have an effect on the quality and quantity of our sleep, but scientists have explained that there are more reasons why we shouldn’t be using our phones in bed. A survey conducted by YouGov revealed that 50 million Britons sleep with their phones, as 74 per cent of participants revealed they are so attached to their devices they can’t keep it outside the bedroom. But, experts have warned that by doing so, you are bringing millions of unwanted bacteria into your bedroom and all over your bedding. Phones tend to go everywhere that their owner does and it’s thought we touch our phones upwards of 2,600 times every single day, making them more unhygienic than a toilet seat. On top of that, a survey by MattressNextDay found that 51 per cent of people never clean their smartphones. A bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most common to be found on smartphones and watches and it can infect humans, particularly those who are immunocompromised. To make matters worse, the same bacteria is also found in cockroach poo, meaning that our phones are transmitting the equivalent of cockroach faeces on our hands when we scroll and even on our faces when we make calls. MSN
CHILDREN: French court orders blanket blocks of porn sites The sites have 15 days to implement effective age controls. POLITICO
CHILDREN SCHOOLS JOHN HAIDT: The False Promise of Device-Based Education A reevaluation of screens in schools
CONSUMER PRODUCTS: The New Circadian App On The Block A great resource for circadian beginners CIRCADIAN CLASSROOM (I am not a fan of promoting these apps and not addressing wireless harms, but FYI)
DATA CENTERS Data centers are suddenly everywhere — but some say "no thanks" More communities and politicians are pushing back against data centers — vital yet sometimes controversial facilities underpinning our digital lives and the AI explosion. Why it matters: More than 5,000 of these key tech facilities now dot the American landscape, often requiring massive amounts of energy and land and receiving big government incentives. Whenever you join a Zoom meeting, save photos to the cloud or stream videos online, you depend on a data center. Data centers resemble windowless warehouses, and Microsoft, a major operator of them, says eachcan employ as many as 50 people. Data center inventory across North America's largest markets — Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, Dallas and Chicago — grew nearly 25% in Q1 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, per a June report from real estate group CBRE. Driving the news: Citizens Action Coalition, a ratepayer advocacy group, this week called on the Indiana General Assembly to enact a moratorium on new "hyperscale" data centers, which are large projects that support cloud computing and are used to power artificial intelligence. "Hoosiers must be fully protected from the rapacious resource needs, massive tax subsidies and extraordinary utility cost burden associated with these facilities that could lead to skyrocketing utility bills across Indiana," said Kerwin Olson, the group's executive director.The coalition asks lawmakers to study which policies could be adopted to protect Hoosiers before lifting the moratorium. Zoom in: The Indiana Michigan Power Company is forecasting the data centers it will serve in northern Indiana will use more electricity by 2030 than all Hoosiers statewide will use in their homes. The energy needs of these and future data centers are raising questions about where that power will come from. Some advocates are concerned that Indiana will reverse its progress in moving away from coal-fired power. In Northern Virginia, which houses the world's biggest collection of data centers, some residents are advocating for regulations on what they consider noisy eyesores gobbling up land and power. Atlanta's city council banned data centers near transit stations in September, with one member arguing that they conflict with housing, parks, and other land use demands. Earlier this year, the White House ordered the Chinese owners of a Wyoming cryptomining data center near a U.S. nuclear missile base to shut down and sell the facility, citing national security. Threat level: Data centers are also driving a surge in electricity demand — especially amid the rapid growth of new AI tools. AXIOS ON MSN
DATA CENTERS: Datacenter CEO faked top-tier IT reliability cert to snag $10.7M SEC deal, DoJ claims he Uptime Institute rates availability. The 'Uptime Council' … apparently doesn't exist Updated It's one thing to stretch the truth in your marketing material, but allegedly lying about your datacenter's qualities to lure the US Securities and Exchange Commission as a customer is a whole other matter.…Deepak Jain, identified as the CEO of a Maryland IT services firm that goes unnamed in a grand jury indictment [PDF] made public on Wednesday, has been charged with six counts of major fraud and one count of making false statements after allegedly telling the financial watchdog that his firm's datacenter in Beltsville, Maryland, had secured the "Tier 4" certification required for a to qualify for an SEC colocation contract. Jain's unnamed firm allegedly provided fraudulent certification documents to the SEC in 2011 during contract negotiations, leading to it landing the tech deal. But the certifier – an entity called Uptime Council – didn't exist at all. The DoJ alleges it was created by Jain to falsely certify his business as a tier-4 datacenter operator, and that the fib helped him and several unnamed co-conspirators to cash in. "Jain allegedly sought to enrich himself and his company at the expense of the reliability, availability, and security of the SEC's electronic data," head of the DoJ's criminal division Nicole M Argentieri said of the case. "Yesterday's charges make clear that the Criminal Division will not tolerate fraud schemes that threaten the security of the government's electronic data." MSN
FCC: FCC Requires All Mobile Phones To Be Hearing Aid Compatible BENTON
5G; Mexican tycoon Slim's America Movil to keep pushing 5G expansion in 2025 MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican telecommunications giant America Movil will prioritize its plan to expand 5G wireless cellular technology next year across the markets where in operates, especially in Latin America, the company's top executive said on Wednesday. Controlled by the family of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the company announced in April that 5G expansion was one of the main goals for its $7 billion capital expenditure budget forecast for this year. YAHOO Note: Mexican billionaire becomes largest NY Times shareholder - explains a bit about NYT coverage of wireless?
5G; This network is much faster than 5G, but you might need a new phone to take advantage of course you will
HAVANA SYNDROME INDIA (ARTICLE IS BETTER THAN THE TITLE?) : Deep State controls mind of targeted politicians by using neuroweapon Back in November 2023, Republican Party’s leader Nikki Haley in a CNBC interview said, China is “the largest developer of neuro-strike weapons, weapons engineered to change the brain activity of military commanders and segments of the population”. Commenting on this revelation, a scientist said, weapons that can change people’s brains or thoughts might seem like science fiction. Scientists believe such weapons are not only technologically plausible, but also something that China — and possibly the United States — is pursuing. Some say the technology could become reality within a decade. Professor Dr. James Giordano of the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry, chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program and co-director of the O’Neill-Pellegrino Program in Brain Science and Global Health Law and Policy at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC said, the weapons are designed or adapted to affect the central and peripheral nervous system. He said, they “represent a clear and present reality in the current and future armamentarium of a number of nations”, adding that China “has dedicated programs in the brain sciences that are directly applicable, and intended for national security, intelligence and defense applications”. Dr. Giordano further said: Researchers, new developments in brain science can be harnessed to improve neurological and psychiatric care within military medicine, and a number of ongoing Defense Department programs are doing so. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and the Naval Bureau of Medicine and Surgery are generating new techniques and technologies for treating brain injury, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, and certain psychiatric conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. However, there is also considerable potential for dual-use applications of neuroscientific methods and tools that extend beyond the bedside. Many of these may reach battlefields. These include the use of various drugs and forms of neurotechnologies such as neurofeedback, transcranial electrical and magnetic stimulation, and perhaps even implantable devices for training and performance optimization of intelligence and combat personnel. Brain-computer interfaces could be used to control aircraft, boats or unmanned vehicles. Military and warfare uses also entail the development and engagement of agents — such as drugs, microbes, toxins — and “devices as weapons,” also called neuroweapons, to affect the nervous system and modify opponents’ thoughts, feelings, senses, actions, health or — in some cases — to incur lethal consequences. The use of neuroscience and technology to optimize the performance of military personnel could potentially lead to the creation of “super soldiers”. This remains a provocative and contentious issue. The University of New Mexico’s Professor EdlSchamiloglu, who studies high-power microwave sources, a subject area that overlaps with potential neuro-weapons wrote in The Conversation in 2020, some of the cases of the mystery ailment that has afflicted US embassy staff and CIA officers off and on since 2016 in Cuba, China, Russia and other countries most likely were caused by pulsed electromagnetic energy, which later was convened by national intelligence agencies. The report’s findings are similar to those of another report released by the National Academics in 2020. In that report, a committee of 19 experts in medicine and other fields concluded that directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy is the “most plausible mechanism” to explain the illness, dubbed “Havana Syndrome”. WEEKLY BLITZ (note, I don’t know the experts quoted but interested in conversations on other countries, fyi)
Not just China: See also: Human Experimentation: An Overview on Cold War Era Programs T-NSIAD-94-266Published: Sep 28, 1994. Publicly Released: Sep 28, 1994. Human Experimentation: An Overview on Cold War Era Programs | U.S. GAO (16 pages) AND Air Force Global Horizons Dr. Mark T. Maybury Chief Scientist 24 April 2013 34 pages Maybury.pdf (dtic.mil)
HEALTH LIGHTING THE POWER COUPLE: Our ancestral evening routine How we create sanctuary amidst the chaos Roman S Shapoval and Bohdanna Diduch 30 MINUTES PODCAST
HEALTH VITAMIN D. CIRCADIAN CLASSROOM Everything You Thought About Vitamin D is Wrong The true complexity of Vitamin D
INSPIRATION LOCAL FUTURES: The future of progress In a world chock-full of greenwashing, piecemeal solutions and questionable technofixes, Local Futures has always maintained that, if we want a livable future, we must do more than tinker at the edges of the system – we must redirect 'progress' itself. If that sounds like a big ask, it's good to remember that we can start right in our communities. Localization projects bring to life alternative, ancestral visions of the future, even as the global system continues to grind. The future of progress (mailchi.mp)
INTERNET: We're about to enter the Digital Dark Ages Online archives are vanishing — and they're taking our history with them. BUSINESS INSIDER
JOURNALISM: Matt Taibbi Impossible Dream Realized: Media Falls Below Congress in Trust Survey Gallup's annual confidence survey shows 68% of Americans will not relieve themselves on a journalist in flames
SPACE: SpaceX Has a Plan for Starlink to Hit Gigabit Speeds Elon Musk's satellite internet company told the FCC that a few tweaks to its “orbital configuration and operational parameters” could result in nearly 10 times faster downloads. WIRED
SPACE: Scientists Say They've Figured Out a Way to Intercept Alien Radio Signals "We might soon be able to detect signals from an alien civilization communicating with its spacecraft." FUTURISM
TRANSPORTATION: Serve Robotics debuts faster, larger delivery robots to be deployed in 2 cities The sidewalk robots, which are outfitted with new safety measures, will hit the streets in coming months as part of Serve’s deal with Uber Eats. SMART CITIES DIVE
EVENTS:
NHF Brainstorm Fri 10-18-24 at noon on Chronic Disease Commission (including wireless) National Health Federation is featuring a webinar on the possible Chronic Disease Commission that has become an election issue. Friday, October 18, 2024 at noon. NHF will lead a brainstorm on the implications of such a commission - including wireless aggravation of chronic disease. All are invited to attend! https://thenhf.com/?na=v&nk=8634-363f5176a1&id=98
The National Call EMS Committee Meeting, Friday Oct 18 2024, 3:30-4:30pm ET Link to register for the EMS Committee Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMpf--qrzIvG9ybrLKPubmiPMYSS4p-dQZG After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.Our discussion will focus on the EMS Guidelines.
Note: I believe that my efforts better serve the community by my curating the news, and like everyone, I need to limit my time on screens. I am sorry that I can’t engage in extensive email conversations about posts. Thanks for your understanding!
I understand! :-)