jwz: 16-Feb-2017 (Thu)

'Incoming missile' test message inadvertently sent out to all airmen at Spangdahlem Air Base

"The individuals involved in the error have been counseled and their leadership is using the incident as a learning opportunity."

It wasn't enough time to cause widespread panic but it was just enough time for someone to take a screen shot of the image and post it to social media, causing the wing some embarrassment as people poked fun at the error on Facebook and it was first reported by Air Force Times. [...]
"One of the command post controllers was building a template for this specific thing that was posted," McGarry told Stars and Stripes on Thursday. "And he inadvertently sent it to everybody," when it was supposed to be sent to only one person as a test message.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

6 Comments

Tags: big brother, doomed, the future

Paris deploys 'anti-migrant boulders' to thwart makeshift refugee camps

6 years ago

City Hall has rolled in large boulders to dissuade migrants from setting up camps outside an official humanitarian centre.

The boulders appeared under a flyover at Porte de La Chapelle in the 18th arrondissement, of northern Paris, where migrants often sleep rough while waiting for one of the 400 spaces in the nearby official humanitarian welcome centre. [...]
The boulders are designed to make it hard for people to take shelter under the bridge, however those waiting for spots at the centre are managing to sleep in between the huge rocks.
"It's difficult to sleep here," one migrant told Le Parisien newspaper after the boulders were brought in.
This isn't the only piece of so-called "hostile architecture" Paris authorities have installed to stop migrants from making camps in the city.
After the camps at Stalingrad Metro was cleared, metal grills were erected blocking off areas where refugees had set up camps, such as along Avenue de Flandre and the Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

3 Comments

Tags: big brother, conspiracies, corporations, doomed, grim meathook future, sprawl, the future

CRT Shipbreaking

6 years ago

Over the blaring din of forklifts overturning dumpsters full of servers, circuit boards, and miscellaneous computer parts, I watched men hit antiquated, boxy televisions with hammers.

"There's still gas in a lot of these CRT tubes," Eric Mims, operations manager of the ECS Refining electronics-recycling center in a suburb of Dallas, told me, pointing at his workers, who are clad head-to-toe in blue jumpsuits, respirators, earplugs, plastic safety goggles, and thick work gloves. "If you don't hit the yoke in the right way, it can explode."
Years after most Americans switched to flat-screens, we're just now beginning to deal with the long-term ramifications of sustainably disposing of old cathode-ray televisions and computer monitors. This dangerous, labor-intensive, and costly undertaking will have to be done for each of the estimated 705 million CRT TVs sold in the United States since 1980. CRT processing, as it's called, happens at only a handful of the best e-waste recycling centers in the United States. In many cases, your old TV isn't recycled at all and is instead abandoned in a warehouse somewhere, left for society to deal with sometime in the future. [...]
The company's demise was not an anomaly. Though it is the largest CRT processor in the US to go under, the industry has been increasingly struggling with what to do about CRT glass, and so, in many cases, recyclers end up doing nothing. Creative Recycling left 15,000 tons of CRT glass in six facilities in South Carolina, and the EPA has found warehouses full of abandoned glass in Arizona, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New York, Utah, Massachusetts, and Kentucky in the past three years alone. [...]
That companies were still willingly paying Closed Loop to take their unwanted CRTs speaks to the desperation many recyclers have to wash their hands of the responsibility of recycling them. The situation is further complicated because many of Closed Loop's customers were companies that participated in state-run recycling programs, meaning Closed Loop took taxpayer money to not recycle your old TV.

Previously, previously.

2 Comments

Tags: corporations, doomed, grim meathook future, the future

DNA Lounge: Wherein they are taking another run at extending Last Call.

6 years ago

State Senator Scott Wiener is introducing legislation that would allow bars and restaurants to serve alcohol until 4AM:

Wiener's bill would give local jurisdictions control over whether their bars and restaurants can extend their last call.
"This bill is long overdue," Wiener said. "Right now in California, we have a one-size-fits-all statewide mandate, regardless if you are a small-town suburb of San Francisco or in downtown L.A." [...]
Those who support Wiener's bill say it will stimulate the state's economy and make cities like San Francisco more attractive tourist destinations. It will also help communities decide what is best for them, because what works in the Mission or Union Square -- areas with a high concentration of bars and restaurants -- may not work for more residential areas like the Sunset or Richmond districts, said Juliana Bunim, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. [...]
Jamie Zawinski, owner of DNA Lounge, a club that has experienced major financial hardship over the past few months, said being able to extend its hours would significantly help the business. [...]
Michael Scippa, director of public affairs for Alcohol Justice, a San Rafael nonprofit advocacy, research and policy organization, said it is a "foolish plan" that prioritizes alcohol revenue over public safety.
Scippa said that Alcohol Justice takes a lot of credit for killing Leno's bill in 2013 and that the organization will come out with "guns blazing" for Wiener's bill.

Wiener's 2012 economic impact study on nightlife in San Francisco showed that it is a $4.2 billion dollar industry. Anything we can do to make the nightlife industry more successful will inevitably put more tax dollars in the city's coffers.

This would be great for tourism, the convention industry, hotels, and all aspects of nightlife.

Sadly, though, I'm not hopeful that this will succeed. Extending last call has been tried before, and the prohibitionists have managed to defeat it every single time.

This prohibitionists in question tend to be The Marin Institute and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. These are extremely well-funded and well-connected organizations whose sold purpose is to criminalize use of alcohol by any means at their disposal. I wrote about them back in 2009 when they were pushing for an increased alcohol tax.

These "temperance organizations" have such enormous influence not only because they are so well funded by prohibitionists and fundamentalists, but because it's very hard for politicians to oppose them without looking like monsters who eat children. Politicians are all about saving face, and all these people have to do is trot out their propaganda photos of dead children and say, "but if we can save just one child, wouldn't it all have been worth it?"

Senator Leno introduced legislation in 2013, SB 635, attempting to allow some CA cities to have a 4AM last call. That was defeated by not getting the 6 votes it needed in the Senate.

In 2004, the SF Board of Supervisors (via Aaron Peskin) passed a resolution "urging" the CA Legislature to allow San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles (and those cities alone) to decide what their own hours of alcohol service should be, without changing the law anywhere else in the state.

Even that modest proposal was shot down by the State Assembly, who didn't even allow it to make it out of committee. At the time, John Wood of SFLNC said:

While San Francisco officials were heavily in support of the bill, statewide anti-alcohol groups lined up against AB 2433, claiming that it would lead inevitably to later last call in other parts of the State. [...]

In addition, testimony from a mother of a person killed by a drunk driver clearly made the legislators uncomfortable in voting for the legislation. [...] Many democratic legislators left the room after the Mother Against Drunk Drivers testimony and did not vote, so there were not enough votes to move the bill out of committee.

But, we keep trying!

Speaking of our fundamentalist, dystopian cyberpunk future, Cyberdelia photos are up now. HACK THE PLANET!