Shai's Views

Story of JLWOP: Extremes of Cruelty, Hope and Beauty of free life!

2021-02-19T13:59:00.003-08:00

It was heart wrenching to read this article on Washington post. Normally, my attention span is for a minute or two max, just read first few lines or paragraphs and scroll to end to wrap it up and move to next. However, this article, forced me to read it twice.. thrice.. to understand and absorb the extremities of human cruelty, human hope, beauty of life.. free life.. essentially.. this article summarizes all the aspects of HUMANITY itself.

To summarize, this is the story of Mr. Ligon a.k.a. Mr. Joe. Now 83 year old, spent last 68 years of his life in prison/s (6 different institutions), cancer survivor, in good health and spirits now.. for the crime, if he would have committed today as a teenager, he would be out in max 10 years (58 years before, at the age of 25).

It could have all together different outcome of what he would have been today, if he was released at the age of 25. He could have gotten his life back and who knows, all together successful person and living happy free life. or maybe not..

However / whatever he would have been or done with his life, it would have been his life! His free life!

Some could argue that, his life would have gone back towards violence, just like many of his family members. Many of his male family members were killed while he was in prison. However, why look for all the negatives, why not look at his sister and niece.. they are doing well.. In any case, I am sure that he would have done much better than in last 58 years of incremental prison time he got. Whatever, we say, he spend these extra 58 years, mainly due to color of his skin. But, I guess, we all know that.. Unfortunately, we aren't still making enough progress on this front..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/02/19/joe-ligon-release/?arc404=true

The best part of the story is about Optimism, Hope, Happiness and Exuberance towards the free life for him. Obviously, at this age, his expectations from life are very small and simple. For most of us, it is next to impossible to empathize with him, forget about understanding what is going on with him.

Nevertheless, a happy beginning of another life chapter for Mr. Ligon.

Important thing is to continue to reform our justice system so we don't hand out these type of cruel punishments based on our prejudices towards race, color, religion.

Hope for the best!

Can BCG vaccination be savior for Coronavirus Pandemic?

2020-04-05T15:10:00.002-07:00

Though, its too early to predict but I DO hope, not too early.. Hopefully, we will be able to confirm it's effectiveness in few months.. possibly.. in weeks.. I see good enough momentum and off the late, this topic is trending in scientific/medical community.

It seems that BCG vaccination which is given to more than 100 million+ babies every year mostly in developing world as safeguard for Tuberculosis (TB). Some Developed world countries like Japan and Korea also still administer it. Most of the anecdotal evidence points that this is what helping many of these countries to be less impacted by Coronavirus.. Otherwise, I was so much worried by the impact it could make on densely populated country like India..
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tbvaccine-explaine-idUSKBN21K372

Just to be cautious, there is some contrary evidence about this as well. There are many Western countries, where Coronavirus is very prevalent and creating havoc despite BCG vaccination is/was administered to most of the population. I think, France is one such example.

Multiple trials in different part of the world are going on. One is Australia and another one in Netherlands. This NY Times article summarizes it best..
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/health/coronavirus-bcg-vaccine.html?

Good news is that it is almost century old tried and tested vaccine. We know about it's pros and cons very well. Obviously, it can't be used as treatment to patients who already got it. and there are some restrictions on who all can get it. Still, I believe, more than 95% of the population could be eligible for it. If it can definitively proof that it can help, it would be great for all of us.
Though, there are some talks about this creating shortage of immunization for kids in developing world. I hope, we can ramp up supplies and it would be short blip.
We need some kind of short/medium term solution/workaround for this pandemic before we come up with real vaccine. Otherwise, we can't be expected to stay in our houses for next year or two. That would be worse than getting infected by virus itself. Not only that, this solution could potentially get many of us (if it proves its effectiveness) immediately out in workforce normalizing economy, and potentially helping other patients..

Ethics and Transparency of Congress / Senators

2020-03-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Why nobody is talking about 4 Senators (as of now) selling their stocks right before pandemic? Obviously, we were/are so busy with the Pandemic that we forgot so called high crimes of our Senators. Regarding these senators' huge stock sale, right before pandemic hit and stock market plummeted to the levels not seen before, I don't believe in "Luck" or "Coincidence".
To be fair, there is one percent chance that it was coincidence or it pre-programmed or planned. Even if there is some chance, given that these high ranking officials and congressmen/women/Senators have so much advanced information, that all there trades (or even plans) should be made public at least 24 hours before they go into execution. Essentially, publish their stock transaction plans in advance on public register/web-site so, their citizens have access as well.
This simple solution will ensure all transparency and enable us save expensive justice department inquiries into such matters. Not that I am hoping that anything will come out of these inquiries.. I Don't think that these people would be so stupid to leave any trace of their instructions. If they really left some traces, then they definitely don't deserve to be in Senate..
In one case, Senator gets briefing and magically Million+ worth stocks are sold out. Her husband happens to be NYSE head as well. Same senator is telling public about nothing to worry about Corona!! Too good to be true.. and when it is too good to be true, it isn't!!

I honestly, don't like this law of restricting trading on insider information.. Instead of restricting, we should allow trading.. as long as trading plan/activity is public. Ideally, at least 24 hours before they trade. or in case of significant market volatility, if someone feels compel to trade instantaneously, it should be made public within seconds, so that public can also act on it. We have seen so much of violations (and probably, million times more violations, we haven't seen) of this law, that it is essentially useless. People will figure out ways to circumvent laws. Instead of prohibiting, we should encourage everyone to trade based on whatever their resources are. Just publish their plans and actions instantaneously, so others can act if they want to..

Very innovative use of idle resources to combat Coronavirus Pandemic

2020-03-28T13:12:00.005-07:00

I was pleasantly surprised and happy to read this news. in given scenario.. Indian Railways is massive transportation system in India, considering it transports more than 10 million+ passengers every day. There must be tens of thousands train coaches with sleeper beds and electricity with battery backup. Each can be converted into mobile hospital to isolate and if needed transport Corona patients from remote/rural places to hospitals with capacity to care for them. In worse, case, idle railway stations themselves can become medical facilities.
Bigger question is, where will be the medical equipment like ventilators etc will come from to equip these coaches. Nevertheless, these train coaches can be used to provide mobility and transfer of patients much more safely to better medical facilities.

On other note, it was so disheartening to read about millions of labor moving out of cities to their homes.Some better fortunate got hold of trucks etc to be go back.
https://in.reuters.com/video/2020/03/28/migrant-workers-leave-cities-on-trucks-i?videoId=704304893&videoChannel=101

Many were not so lucky and are still stranded on roads without enough water and food. So far, we have only heard about one death of such labourer, who died walking back to his village (270 Km / 170 Miles) from Delhi.
This aspect wasn't well thought out before issuing 21 days lock down order. It had started happening before lock down order itself, and administration / government should have thought about logistics on this. In a way, we are making this problem even worse by sending and spreading this disease to vast rural areas of India, where once this is spread, it will be difficult to contain and provide help. We really can't blame anyone, as there wasn't any precedent for any such thing before. However, still, we should try to set up some kind of camp or shelter for these daily wage workers in cities where they were and provide them food and other basic necessities.

Here is the news copied, in case, Reuters link changes/stops working:

India to use some train coaches as coronavirus isolation wards

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - India said on Saturday it was planning to turn some railway coaches into isolation wards for patients with coronavirus, as authorities scramble to prepare the country’s health infrastructure for an expected surge in cases.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the country’s 1.3 billion people this week to stay indoors for three weeks in the world’s biggest lockdown, seeking to curb the spread of the illness. India’s network of trains, the country’s lifeblood, has been idled.

One train coach has been turned into a prototype quarantine facility, state-owned Indian Railways said in a statement on Saturday.

Once they get clearance, the plan is for each of India’s railway zones to convert 10 coaches into such wards every week, the company added. Indian Railways has 16 zones, according to its website.

“Railways will offer clean, sanitised & hygienic surroundings for the patients to comfortably recover,” tweeted railways minister Piyush Goyal. He did not specify how many people could be cared for in each coach.

India has reported 918 confirmed cases, including 19 deaths.

The lockdown measures are taking a huge toll on India’s poor, including millions of migrant labourers whose jobs in cities have vanished. Many are now walking back to their villages or crowded bus stations in the hopes of finding rare transport, raising fears they will unintentionally spread the virus across India.

On Saturday, a migrant worker, who set out from New Delhi on a 270 kilometres (168 miles) walk to his hometown in Madhya Pradesh, collapsed and died, a police official said.

India’s home ministry said in a statement on Saturday it was advising states to provide food and shelter to migrants at relief camps alongside highways.

Can Democracies stop Corona (aka Covid-19 / Chinese) Virus?

2020-03-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Couldn't stop myself from commenting on this news item. True, despite early warnings, any western democratically elected governments failed to act and take preventive measures, which could have stopped this pandemic from spreading. At the same time, some governments like Singapore (I guess, democratically elected government) handled situation pretty well.
I think, best aspect (if any silver lining) of this crisis is that it exposes many so called democratically elected leaderships. In particular, it exposes our Dumb Trump's leadership among some other leaderships in Western Europe.
Though, we can't say for sure, but there is good chance that, this crisis wouldn't have become such a large scale epidemic or pandemic, if there was Democratically Elected government in China in first place. Initial suppression and more or less murder of Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, who tried raising alarm very beginning wouldn't have happened if there wasn't any fear of Autocratic regime. I heard today, that local Police and politicians were reprimanded and were forced to apologize to Doctor Li's family. But in reality, it wasn't there fault, if they wouldn't have suppressed those news and silenced Dr. Li, they would have been fired (or worse) long time back. In this case, they got away by just apologizing and may be reprimand on their service record. But, in truth that was failure of system. These folks were just scapegoat.
Nevertheless, coming back to the core topic. Time will tell, how we and rest of the other democratically elected governments perform in this time of crisis. However, best part of Democracy is that it will bring best out of the system. It will ultimately weed out bad actors and dumb Trumps.. but ultimately, it will prevail.. Already, after realizing his mistakes (though, can't admit), our President has started acting, and I am sure, that this pandemic unleashed by Chinese government (figuratively), will be over soon!

Everyone, stay safe and healthy!!

Chinese propaganda claims democracy can’t stop virus

By Trudy Rubin

Philadelphia Inquirer

China is promoting a propaganda narrative that its authoritarian system is uniquely capable of curbing the coronavirus, in contrast to the chaotic response of Europe and the United States.

Nevermind that the virus began in Wuhan and spread because Communist Party officials suppressed whistleblowers. Beijing’s new storyline stresses that its draconian lockdown of tens of millions of its people (and ability to build new 1,000-bed hospitals in 10 days) was able to control the virus, even as new cases are soaring in America.

This propaganda effort might seem unpromising, except that President Donald Trump has only just gotten serious about the pandemic, leaving the U.S. dangerously behind in containing and mitigating the virus. This gives global appeal to the Chinese argument that authoritarianism works better than democratic governance.

Hopefully, the strengths of our democracy will work — in evidence as governors, mayors, media and health experts pushed Trump to pay attention. But depending on what happens, the Chinese narrative could make global inroads and increase Beijing’s future geopolitical influence.

That narrative can be summed up by a People’s Daily article that asks “why China can pull together the imagination and courage needed to deliver a blow to the virus while the United States struggles to handle the outbreak.”

Beijing is even arguing that the disease didn’t originate in Wuhan. A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman tweeted that “it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.” (This is more official than the suggestion of Sen. Tom Cotton, RArk., that the virus might be Chinese biowarfare. But it’s probably in part an unfortunate response to Trump’s calling the disease the “Chinese virus,” which has more of a racist tinge than his use of “Wuhan virus.” So each side is now politicizing the virus, with the Chinese hitting harder.) Of course, this Chinese narrative “is also designed to take some of the heat off Xi Jinping at home,” says the University of Pennsylvania’s Jacques deLisle, director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China.

Beijing has also just kicked out journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

You might conclude that the propaganda won’t get global traction because it’s a pretty transparent effort to airbrush Xi Jinping’s mistakes. Yet, the U.S. response to the crisis gives China’s propagandists a huge boost.

From late January through early March, Trump downplayed the coronavirus, insisting it was “totally under control.” His Jan. 31 decision to ban travelers from China was important, but he squandered its major benefit — providing time to prepare for an inevitable outbreak here. Trump rejected the early warnings of health experts and continues to insult journalists who question his endless misstatements. His false spin, echoed by Fox commentators, lulled his supporters into complacency. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll taken March 12-13 revealed that only 40% of Republicans believed the coronavirus was a real threat, compared with 76% of Democrats and 50% of independents.

So it’s not surprising that until late last week, Trump failed to mobilize the nation and push through a national emergency plan for testing, which is just starting to ramp up. Without widespread tests, or draconian Chinese-style lockdowns, it’s impossible to measure and stop the spread.

Trump also failed, until this week, to rally the military and all government agencies to help states expand medical facilities and to consult fully with governors desperate for national leadership (insulting them instead with labels like “snake”).

This has costs: The time lost — crucial to testing and containing the virus in order to avoid a national shutdown — cannot be made up.

Now, belatedly, the White House is organizing the whole of government. And listening to the experts. And taking the virus seriously, although Trump continues to spin and spout untruths.

We don’t need the Chinese to point out that this is “embarrassing” for a great democracy.

But we do need to demonstrate, for our own sakes, that their propaganda about a hapless democracy unable to cope is false. Even if that coping comes belatedly and in spite of failed White House leadership.

The message of Chinese propaganda, contrary to Beijing’s intentions, is that democracy requires new White House leadership up to the task. Trudy Rubin is a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist. © 2020, Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

COVID-19: Online School Education Tools

2020-03-17T12:36:00.001-07:00

During these unprecedented times, Federal, State and local governments have declared emergencies to contain COVID-19 virus (a.k.a. Corona Virus) community spread further. Using emergency powers, governments have relaxed (or in legal sense "Suspended") many of the HIPAA regulations which enable our health care workers to leverage common sense technological tools to reach out to patients remotely without overwhelming our medical system. All this is worth applauded. Though, it came little late here in US, despite warning signs hovering from January itself. Our President Dumb Trump's ego prevented early action which would have prevented this pandemic to reach US. Never-mind, better late than never...
Main topic I want to address in this note is about kids education. Just like many of your kids, my kids are also at home and we as parents are trying our best to keep them engaged and keeping them busy. Keep them getting some useful education and knowledge flowing into their young minds.

Our area schools were closed since yesterday for two (possibly more now) weeks. School district's mission is to prepare teachers and staff to train them in these two weeks so they would be ready to delivery education remotely in case, this pandemic persists longer. So hope they would be ready by end of these two weeks to teach most of the kids remotely if needed.
Then, I saw this post:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2020/03/13/zoom-video-coronavirus-eric-yuan-schools/amp/
Our technology leaders are volunteering tools to help us with this crisis as much possible. Just like we have these rules in healthcare to protect patient privacy etc.. I am sure, many such rules must be there to protect Student Privacy etc in education sector. and Just like have suspended these rules for healthcare, why can't we suspend these rules/protocols in education and start leveraging these tools to maximize benefit to our kids and students.
I would urge, our local education district boards to consider relaxing these rules and take help of many of parent volunteers (in silicon valley many are technological savvy and won't mind volunteering) to set up these virtual class sessions for our kids during this time. I personally have offered my kid's teacher and waiting for response. However, if anyone else in bay area community wants some help, I am ready to volunteer my time to them. Please feel free to reach out to me thru this blog or email me directly at shaigarg1@yahoo.com

Here is another news clip from our local newspaper Mercury News which highlights gravity of the situation:

CONTAINING COVID-19

7 Bay Area counties lock down

Residents banned from leaving homes except for essential work, food, services

By John Woolfolk and Casey Tolan

Staff writers

In a dramatic and unprecedented move reflecting growing alarm over the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic, seven Bay Area counties Monday announced sweeping shelter-in-place restrictions effectively confining millions of residents to their homes for three weeks with exceptions for essential work, food or other needs.

The new orders by health officers in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties appear to be the most aggressive public response to the coronavirus anywhere in the U.S. so far. The directives are criminally enforceable and go well beyond Monday’s stepped-up calls for increased “social distancing” from the nation’s capital, evoking lockdowns in parts of hardhit Europe.

“In my life, there’s not even a remote precedent for this sort of thing,” said Robert Siegel, 66, a Stanford University professor of microbiology and immunology. “It’s quite unprecedented for Americans to be experiencing this.”

Tomas Aragon, health officer for the city and county of San Francisco, announces a shelter in place order by public health directors on Monday.

DAI SUGANO — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Across the seven counties, many businesses will be ordered to close, and residents will be allowed to leave their homes only for “essential” reasons from 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday through April 7.

Essential reasons include getting health care, shopping for groceries and supplies, caring for family members and exercising outdoors.

“I recognize that this is unprecedented,” Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said Monday. “If I had thought last Friday’s announcement (to close schools) was hard, this one is exponentially harder. But we must come together to do this. We know we need to do this, and we know we need a regional approach. We all must do our part.”

And in a sign of how serious the crisis is becoming, Santa Clara County announced two additional deaths due to the coronavirus on Monday — two men, in their 50s and 80s, died at hospitals Sunday — doubling the death count in California’s hardest hit county.

Some other large urban areas have considered similar restrictions on public movements in recent days, including New York, where the National Guard was deployed to help quell an outbreak in the suburb of New Rochelle.

The latest orders go much further than the increasingly restrictive federal, state and local guidances about the virus released in recent days. Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo counties last week ordered schools closed. On Friday, Santa Clara County barred public and private gatherings over 100 people with restrictions in place for assemblies of 35 to 100.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last week urged a statewide ban on gatherings of more than 250 people, over the weekend urged bars and nightclubs to close, restaurants to limit service and older residents not to leave home.

Monday’s announcement came in legal orders from the health officers in the seven counties as well as Berkeley, which has an independent health office. Officials said the directives could be extended longer than three weeks or amended to end sooner, as needed.

Businesses allowed to operate during the lockdown include supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations, convenience stores, health care offices, child care facilities, banks, hardware stores and laundromats. Restaurants will be allowed to operate, but only for delivery and take-out service. Nonessential gatherings of any number are banned, but public transit will continue operating for essential travel as long as travelers keep 6 feet apart. Nonresidents will be able to travel to return to their homes outside the Bay Area.

In addition, governments will continue to provide health, law and order, sanitation and other essential services.

Marin County Health Officer Matt Willis said that “essential things we need will be available to us.”

“Grocery stores will remain open,” Willis said. “You can get your medicine from your pharmacy, you can still visit your doctor. We can all expect to experience some cabin fever. You can still walk your dog.”

Health officers acknowledged Monday how difficult the extraordinary measures will be for families already struggling to cope with the rapid upending of their lives, between children told to stay home from school, businesses urging employees to work from home and events canceled. But they said the dire threat of the outbreak makes a regional response necessary.

“We are in a rough place, and we are going to have difficult times ahead of us,” San Mateo County Health Officer Scott Morrow said. “The measures we’re putting in place are temporary, but they will last longer than any of us want. This is the time to unite as a community, come to each other’s aid and dig really deep to find your best inner self and pull out all the compassion, gratitude and kindness you can.”

The guidance, they said, comes after substantial input from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and best practices from health officials around the world.

Grant Colfax, the director of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, said health officers from the counties conferred over the weekend and concluded that they needed to put in place the new restrictions as soon as possible.

“Every hour counts,” Colfax said. “The evidence tells us that now is the time to implement this step.”

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said that violation of the order is “enforceable as a misdemeanor” but added “that is an absolute last resort.”

“We’re looking for voluntary compliance,” he said. “If we do get called to those situations, we’re going to try to educate the public.”

Homeless people will not be subject to the order, although officials encouraged them to seek shelter and said they would work with state officials to maximize resources available for the homeless population.

The new orders exclude three Bay Area counties — Sonoma, Napa and Solano. Representatives of those counties did not respond to questions about whether they would follow suit. They have reported some of the fewest cases, with Napa still listing no infections Monday.

Santa Cruz County, which is not part of the ninecounty Bay Area, made the decision to join the shelterin- place order Monday after nine confirmed cases.

The restrictions follow new data showing increasing local transmission of coronavirus, the health officers said. The cases confirmed in the Bay Area account for more than half of California’s total — and experts believe there are likely many others in the region that haven’t been discovered yet due to a lack of testing.

The pandemic has sickened more than 167,000 people in more than 151 countries, half of them in China, and killed more than 6,600. The Bay Area has been at the center of the viral outbreak in the state and is one of the nation’s hotspots for infections, with the first case reported Jan. 31 and a cruise ship stricken with infections departing Oakland on Monday. There are at least 335 confirmed cases statewide and nine deaths.

Of the region’s counties ordering shelter in place, by Monday Santa Clara County had 138 confirmed cases, San Mateo 42, San Francisco 40, Contra Costa 34, Alameda 18, and Marin and Santa Cruz nine each.

Also Monday, Newsom issued a new executive order to help prevent evictions during the pandemic.

The order gives local governments the authority to halt evictions for renters and homeowners, aims to slow foreclosures, and helps keep utilities running for residents affected by COVID-19.

In addition, the state Legislature passed a $1.1 billion coronavirus spending package, fulfilling an emergency request from Newsom. The money will go to efforts like opening new hospitals, cleaning schools and child care facilities, purchasing health care equipment, and housing homeless people in hotels.

Monday also marked the start of widespread school closures affecting about half of districts around the state, including Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, with many attempting to teach students online. New York City and Los Angeles — the nation’s two largest districts — also are closing.

Experts say keeping people apart is the best way to stop the virus’ deadly advance.

“If everybody was successfully quarantined for two weeks, that would put a substantial dent in the transmission of the virus,” Siegel said. “It’s valid reasoning, but we don’t know the extent to which that will work.”

Barring a turnaround in the numbers of new cases and deaths, the Bay Area and other hard-hit areas could face even stricter measures going forward, Siegel predicted.

“You can look at the trajectory of policy in other countries,” he said, “and it’s my expectation that it’s going to become more restrictive.”

Staff writer Robert Salonga contributed reporting.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith talk before a news conference Monday in San Jose announcing a shelter-in-place order.

DAI SUGANO — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

President of Numbers or US Citizens?

2020-03-10T15:49:00.001-07:00

It was absolutely shocking to see Trump's interview about Cruise ship coming from Hawaii. 23 passengers/Crew members have confirmed Corona and most others are in danger of getting it... and our POTUS is worried about optics of his numbers if he allows those passengers and crew members on shore? Really? This totally reminds of President Obama's statement about Trump that he doesn't have temperament to be President of the United States of America.
I would rather prefer that passengers stay on ship, so my numbers won't look bad!!!

But what else you would expect from Dollar Trump or I should call Number Trump? This is the real face of $ Trump!! I would say millions of thanks to our founders that they created checks and balances. I think, some of them had vision that some day reality TV personality will become President and may not be capable of running as President.

His Interview snippet should be best and free advertisement for Democratic candidate. They should simply keep on rolling it and let all the electorate decide if they want Dollar/Number Trump or someone other responsible person.

We got a Sick President!!

2017-03-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

After his first address to joint session of congress, it was looking like Trump is coming back to his senses and we were looking forward to some sensible decision making going forward. and then...

This tweet of Trump being victimized of spying by previous administration without any inkling of the evidence to support.

Worst part was to call a very well respected and elected President sick man/guy.

This so called sick man was elected twice with much better electoral and popular votes than the sickest and most deplorable President in the history of United States yet!!

This so called sick man completed his presidency and left legacy which will be there forever in the history of United States. Though time will tell but if my analysis or predictions are true, Trump may not even finish his first year, before getting impeached by his own fellow Republicans. Only hope for him to be saved will be Democrats, as this will take away sweeping victory in 2018 elections.

Not sure what is going thru Trump's mind (if there is any)... But if he thinks, that to cover up his AG's scandal, he can create another controversy so that democrats will forget the liar AG and will focus on this.. then he may be right.. I am sure after democrats will stop asking for Sessions' resignation, he will turn over and say that he meant something else.. or maybe, he found some evidence that Obama discussed to start wire tapping etc.. basically twist and eat his own words.

Now, what all this tells about him and more importantly, about United States of America? as he did got elected by our system and people... even if Russia meddled into our elections by hacking and taking out all the negative reports about Hillary.. and helping Trump win the Presidency.. Onus is on America and it's electorate to understand and take right decision making. Though, separate topic, but I do believe that it was Democratic Party and it's so called elites/heads who made him The President.. Nevertheless, we elected him.. It does tells about us that we are getting too complacent and crybaby about the conditions, for which most of them, we ourselves are responsible.

In a way, it was good thing.. I think, after this people will remember for a long time, what a decent or good President means and this is not the job where anyone and everyone can assume to take over. This presidency will remain a very good case for someone like Trump (though I doubt if there will be anyone like him) to think about getting elected to this office.

As we say in India.. Whatever happens, happens for good!!

Implosion of Democratic Party - Unimaginable consequences!!

2017-02-01T00:38:00.001-08:00

Democrats are making lot of noise against all kind of decisions (executive or non executive) from Trump administration.. In reality, they themselves are responsible to ensure his win to White House. They have to admit that they messed up by unnecessarily promoting Hilary at the cost of Bernie. Bernie could have easily excited critical mass of youngsters and liberals to vote for him to defeat Trump in electoral votes as well. In reality, Hilary wasn't able to excite most of the voters enough to move them to ballot boxes.. Whereas Trump Supporters though less in numbers were super excited and pushed for him.

Despite all this, if they still elect Nancy Pelosi back as their leader, then only God (if any) help them.

On top of that, I don't understand rationale of these demonstrations and Women Marches against Trump. What the hell these folks were doing on November 8th. On November 8th, they were all sleeping comfortably hoping that Hilary won't mind missing one vote. Well.. those few votes are responsible for where we are today. Now, reality is that Trump is democratically elected leader of this country and respect not only his opinions but also folks who took pain to go to Ballot Box on Nov 8th..

Not that I am big fan of Hilary.. still voted for her as I strongly felt that Trump was bigger evil. and he IS.. unfortunately, he is playing with people's mind. giving them false hope of decent blue collar job on their high school diplomas.. maybe for few years, they may have jobs.. but ultimately, this protectionism and visibly direct hatred towards rest of the world is going to bring down the very fabric of the country. In my view, what Trump is trying to do is ultra ultra socialism or even communism.. trying to save/create jobs by carrot or stick.. and we all know that socialism and communism doesn't work.. It collapses nations..

Only thing which had worked in this country is the top and bottom quality immigration. This country has attracted both best of best talent from all over the world which helped USA become superpower.. as well bottom most (for the lack of better words) type of immigration, which had provided desperately needed hands for all kind of jobs to support middle and upper middle class of this country. Agreed, no system is perfect.. but it was working perfectly fine for this country..

What was not working was white lower middle class of this country which was looking for decent blue collar jobs after their high school diplomas hoping to make decent by their early thirties..

If Trump or for that matter anyone wants to do anything for them (blue collar workers), then they have to make them understand that blue collar era is gone!! There is not going to be any blue collar workers in few decades at the most. What will be there is: "what we call knowledge Worker"!! even basic bachelors degree is no longer enough for coming days. They need to dream more than simple blue collar jobs. If Trump really want to do something for them, them maybe, offer them free enrollment in universities (excluding Trump University!!) to come upto speed on 21st century skills. That is the only hope for them.

Otherwise, they are simply cutting the tree where they are sitting.. Bernie was trying to do same by offering all kinds of free social programs.. which now looks so good as compared to Trump's exec orders.. These orders are simply destroying the very foundation of this country and hence making very long term damage not only internally but globally by giving mantle of world leadership and vision to rest of the world.. for anyone sensible country to grab it and run with it.

this shows mental bankruptcy of Trumphhh

2016-06-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

Trumphh has filed for financial bankruptcy many time.. with his statement on US District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel.. he filed for his mental bankruptcy.. but wait.. was there even any asset there to begin with..

that statement was the straw which broke my back and forced me to write about this Mentally bankrupt Trumphh
I mean.. I am so angry on him that words and sentences are overflowing.. Come on.. You don't even have basic knowledge of US constitution or what?? You are just a presumptive nominee of the republican party.. nothing more.. understand and respect three pillars of this democracy. These three pillars are designed just for this reason.. in case one of them is accidentally run over by moron like you..
Now, let us talk about bias.. by the definition of Trumphhh.. every human will be biased.. same logic may be applied to any white judge.. he/she may be biased in positive way for him.. come on.. he is building wall to stop rapists and killers.. right.. so by that definition every white Judge should love him.. won't that be counted as bias.. same logic could be applied or twisted and then applied on any human / race.. some way or other.. some race is either benefiting from the Wall or harmed by the wall..

I think, inherent problem is that you are such a divisive person that in theory people either love you or hate you.. which essentially constitutes as bias in my view.. I think, problem is not the Judge Curiel's race / ethnicity.. it is your bankrupt brain and idiotic statements it comes with.

Essentially, the way I understand, you are preparing yourself to save yourself from potential negative judgement.. essentially preemptive effort to save yourself from disgrace of the fraud and cheating you committed in the name of so called savvy business of Trupmhhh University.. So Mr. Savvy Businessman, if you can stretch definition of ethics and truth to extent of fraud.. maybe it will work in case of some fraud business and universities.. maybe impress some other fellow bankrupts like you.. but in long term, you are not going to survive..
Own your actions... get ready.. you don't have to demean others.. your moral standards are so low that your followers don't expect anything nice or ethical from you.. Negative or positive judgement.. it doesn't matter.. but such foolish and idiotic statements will create general bias against you from rest of the two pillars of our government which will definitely sink you.. unfortunately, it will sink our dear and beloved USA as well..

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-keeps-up-attacks-on-judge-gonzalo-curiel-1464911442

Next Revolution in Self Driving Car Concept?

2016-01-31T12:15:00.001-08:00

This news in particular caught my eyes.. this concept gives you kind of plug-n-play type of concept. Here are some of the key pros/cons I am thinking about:

Con: Only I could think is that it will take away one passenger capacity (take away your driver seat) when operating the vehicle.. after this, I think, there are just pros..
Flexibility: Not only you can continue using your existing beloved car with this Motobot but also fold and pack it to trunk if you want to enjoy your car yourself on some scenic route or just without any major traffic or if you just want to clear your head!!
Personalization: You can personalize this motobot not only physically (well cultured chauffeur or sexy babe..blond / brunette.. or whatever your imagination may be...) but more importantly, you can customize it to your driving habits. You may use it as your personal assistant for everything you need. You may use as your talking buddy and bounce your ideas while in car or just ask it to focus on driving while you blast your music or show..
Portability: Move from one car to another without thinking.. even leverage it for your rental cars? also, use it send it back to home to drop off your kids or to take your spouse to office.. as long as it is certified to drive alone.. depends on it's driving privileges..
Regulatory: Licensing - Since you will own this particular motobot, you can take it to DMV get it approved and get Driving License or attach it to your Driving License.You take full responsibility for this thingy.. As long as firmware major release remains same.. this is certified and licensed by DMV. Just like human's aging and retest by DMV, you get it to DMV every two/five years for certifications.. How about car pool lane eligibility? I guess, we have to live without that for now..
Security: Physical - Leave it in car in extreme weather to monitor your car and surroundings. Cyber - much more easier to bring it to test or regulatory labs to test for any bugs/virus etc.. You can limit its communication to outside world.. if you are really paranoid about security and this poor thing will just do what it does best.. drive your around..

If this can be build to almost human specs on understanding human instructions and can be packed with all the bells and whistles of self driving car in humanoid fashion, I don't see why it can't be as successful as any other cool car model..

Yamaha, SRI test-run robot project

By Kevin Kelly

kkelly@bayareanewsgroup.com

MENLO PARK — Move over, Siri, and make way for Motobot. The Menlo Park-based research institute responsible for creating Apple’s digital personal assistant is now partnering with Yamaha Motor Co. to develop Motobot, a humanoid robot intended to beat one of the world’s fastest motorcycle racers.

In conjunction with a team from a local Yamaha research lab, SRI International’s robotics department is building Motobot, which they intend to exceed ninetime world champion MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi’s best lap time by the end of 2017. That news came during a recent announcement of the Yamaha-SRI partnership at the CES Robotics Conference in Las Vegas.

It may sound like — and may partly be — a publicity stunt, but since late 2014, SRI has been working with Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, both of which have offices close to one another in Menlo Park, on developing a robot that could help increase rider safety. Consider it a high-tech diagnostic tool for motorcycles that just happens to look like a cyborg.

Also, consider it a bit of kismet.

When Yamaha called on SRI for help in late 2014, the Stanford research offshoot just happened to be proposing a similar system to the Pentagon, one that would become DARPA’s Alias program, an in-cockpit automation system intended to augment rather than replace the human pilot. It took just eight months from the time SRI signed on to help build Motobot for the team to deliver a working prototype to the Tokyo Motor Show last fall.

“The idea of having a humanoid robot operating a system designed to be used by flesh-and-bone humans without modifying that system at all was at the forefront of our thinking,” said Thomas P. Low, associate director of robotics at SRI. “There were some technologies we had worked on before that were really enabling (but we) started with a clean sheet of paper.”

Motobot allows motorcycle developers to test vehicles at their extremes without having to worry about the safety of a rider. Unlike a crash-test dummy that tests the impact of a collision on a vehicle’s occupants, Motobot is designed to test the limits of an unmodified vehicle. In more than 300 tests thus far, Motobot has never caused a motorcycle to crash.

According to Motobot founder Hiroshi Saijou, besides safety improvements, the robot could stretch the limits of design and performance, possibly making motorcycles ride more smoothly even as they achieve faster speeds.

“If we can use robots, we can do more aggressive things,” said Saijou, CEO and managing director of Yamaha Motor Ventures.

The team is looking far beyond just faster and safer motorbikes. When finalized, according to the researchers, the Motobot could be used to test agricultural and factory vehicles.

“Imagine a large agricultural harvester or tractor is doing a zigzag pattern over many acres and has to avoid obstacles,” Saijou said, “but it’s largely repetitive work and may be suited more for a robot than a human being.”

He also envisioned “a customized autonomous vehicle” that on large factory floors could move 10 mph and, like a drone, be programmed to avoid stationary obstacles.

“This pushes the limits of what’s possible, so this is a very moonshot type of program,” said Philip von Guggenberg, SRI’s director of business development.

Yamaha has been in the business of making motorcycles since it was founded 60 years ago, but over the past 20 has moved into developing industrial robots and an unmanned helicopter system. SRI has been at the forefront of robotics research and development for the past 40 years, having been responsible for the first telerobotic surgery system and “Shakey,” the first mobile robot with the ability to perceive and reason about its surroundings. More recently, the research institute has been working on “extremely agile, physically aware humanoids” and lightweight wearable robotics, according to Lowe. SRI was also responsible for the first computer mouse, the first ARPANET (pre-Internet) transmission and the first assigned Web domain names.

The Yamaha and SRI researchers said they plan to continue the partnership beyond Motobot. So look for more locally grown breakthroughs in the future.

As Amish Parashar, Yamaha Motor Ventures’ director of strategic business development, put it at CES: “I think there are bold projects and I think working on these bold projects is supremely important. ... For the entire industry, if we push projects just a little bit forward, the state of the art gets advanced just a little bit and all of us benefit.”

The Motobot is shown during an undated test run in Alameda. The project to develop Motobot, a humanoid robot that sits atop an unmodified MotoGP cycle, is a partnership between SRI International and Yamaha Motor Co.

Non functional Government

2013-10-06T22:40:00.001-07:00

It is amazing to see how dysfunctional our government in DC has become. Seems that these morons only want to protect their seats and just their seats.. nothing more nothing less..

However, in doing so, they are literally making mockery of US as a whole. They need to understand why US is still super-power despite borrowing trillions of dollars from whole of the world.

Need less to say, it is technological advantage.. that to in defense which makes them still most strong army of the world despite billions or trillions of dollars of cut in defense budget.
After this, it is a simple world called "Trust".. This trust in USD which makes USD as world currency.. Which makes US treasury bond papers even better than gold.. and all the governments invests and keeps their forex reserves in these two things..

These morons need to understand that their monkey business is hurting image and in turn hurting this trust factor. Which is much more bigger damage to US and its entire population. These small small things about funding to social program is nothing to be worried about. One way or other, folks will be managed.. There might be some issues here and there.. but this is peanut..

Impact of loss of trust by world market will be much more devastating to US.. fortunately, all the other countries are in much more bad shape so we may be lucky that world may ignore this monkey business from these morons..

I simply don't understand their position.. 2012 elections were very clear verdict.. if US population didn't wanted Obama Care they would have got Romney into white house and also given republicans full control of Senate.. it was clear verdict that US population likes this concept of Obama care.. essentially, in my view something is better than nothing..This issue is over.. If they still want to fight about it.. they should do so in 2014/2016 elections and take full control of White house and Congress. There is no need to do this drama where they are going to loose any how and be registered in US history as Super Morons who tarnished US image in world market. STOP IT.. Get Over!!! What will you do with your seat/re-election if US itself will sink.. Come on wake up.. and think more than just your seat and re-election.. it is much more bigger than that..

DEADLOCK IN WASHINGTON

What if closure goes on longer?

Shutdown’s impact could widen, intensify for people needing help on food, housing, education, jobs

By Josh Richman and Steve Johnson

Staff writers

As the federal government shutdown creeps toward its first full week with no resolution in sight, experts say October could be a cold, dark month for many — but November could make that look like the good old days.

Millions of Americans are nervously watching their calendars, knowing that support for the basics of daily life — food, housing, education, jobs — have begun eroding and could vanish around the end of the month at the earliest, throwing lives into chaos and perhaps tripping up the nation’s fragile economic recovery.

“The longer this goes on, the greater uncertainty there will be for funding some of these programs,” said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the California Department of Finance.

This not-so-rosy forecast assumes Congress will raise the nation’s debt ceiling by Oct. 17. If it does not, all federal borrowing stops and the government could halt billions of dollars in payouts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military pay, veterans benefits and other areas that had survived the shutdown.

However, on Thursday House Speaker John Boehner reportedly told GOP colleagues he won’t let the nation default.

But that doesn’t mean the shutdown won’t continue. If it does, Thanksgiving could find many Americans with little to be thankful for.

The cascading consequences would confront Americans at every level: The poor and elderly would lose access to food and housing, and the better- off would lose government contracts and agency supports for investment in companies and jobs.

California’s food stamp program supporting nutrition for 1.9 million poor residents would run out in November, as would school programs serving about 4.5 million meals a day mostly to low-income students.

Cutting off food aid has costly consequences. For example, about 350 elderly people in Fremont, Newark and Union City get one free hot meal a day from a Meals on Wheels program, said LIFE ElderCare Executive Director Patricia Osage. The closed federal Administration on Aging reimbursed the $1,575 daily cost; Osage said she can cut back other services and tap reserves to keep delivering meals for “six or seven weeks.”

After that, she said, “you would see within six months that skilled nursing facilities would be packed,” as lack of nutrition undercut seniors’ health. Skilled nursing costs about $1,500 a day per person, she said — nearly as much as feeding 350 people.

Elsewhere, confusion reigns: Closed federal offices have no one to answer questions or resolve conflicts.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s shutdown plan suggests the nation’s 3,300 housing authorities will see public housing subsidy vouchers and operating costs cut off in mid-December — or maybe after October, said Oakland Housing Authority Executive Director Eric Johnson. Such a cutoff could affect rent payments for tens of thousands of Bay Area households.

Nothing is certain after Nov. 1, agreed Katherine Harasz, deputy executive director of Santa Clara County’s housing authority. The two program administrators would love to discuss this with HUD, but “there’s nobody to call” now, Johnson said.

The shutdown could clip the Bay Area housing market’s recovery. Mortgage lenders can’t verify applicants’ Social Security numbers or Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts. The Federal Housing Administration has only a skeleton crew, so closing some FHA-insured loans — about 15 percent of the market — might be delayed. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture won’t close new loans for rural borrowers until the shutdown ends.

The shutdown also threatens the struggling job market. Federal money and oversight support private sector hiring, but when the money spigot for contracts and facilities twists shut, the economic effects ripple widely in surrounding communities. Locking up Yosemite National Park and the NASA Ames lab in Mountain View, for instance, empties small-business cash registers for miles around.

Federal money also primes the job pump with oversight and support for innovation: Shutting down the Food and Drug Administration’s processing of new drug applications for longer than a month “could be frightening,” said Travis Blaschek-Miller, spokesman at Bay-Bio, Northern California’s biotech and life-science industry group.

San Francisco-based Symic Biomedical, which is studying treatments for osteoarthritis and cardiovascular ailments, last month won two federal research grants worth a total of $409,000. It was a godsend for the struggling company, said co-founder John Paderi, but now he can’t get the money.

“If (the shutdown) carries on for a while, this could be a very big problem,” he said. A prolonged closure of the Securities and Exchange Commission could affect initial public offerings, said Jeffrey Vetter, a partner and securities lawyer at Fenwick & West.

Twitter, for example, plans to raise up to $1 billion in its IPO, and The Wall Street Journal reported concern that a lengthy shutdown could interfere with its schedule.

Even the mechanics of hiring are broken: The Department of Homeland Security closed its E-Verify program, which companies use to check the immigration status of job candidates. And we won’t know much about the job market because the Labor Department can’t issue reports.

The U.S. Department of Education says a shutdown of more than one week “would severely curtail (its) cash flow to school districts, colleges and universities.”

It is uncertain when that money will run out in California. However, “child care services for poor families and grants benefiting children of military families could be affected within days,” said state Education Department spokeswoman Tina Jung. Even the military isn’t immune, although active duty men and women are still being paid. Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield closed its commissary, library, education center and heritage center, and its medical center is curtailing elective surgeries after furloughing more than 700 civilian employees — almost half of those regularly on the base. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ website says VA claims for compensation, pensions, education and vocational rehabilitation “will be suspended when funds are exhausted.” The shutdown might add a month to the current 12- to 18-month backlog at the Oakland VA office, said Nathan Johnson, director of the Contra Costa County Veteran Service Office. “They’re used to waiting at this point,” he said.

Staff writer Dan Nakaso contributed to this report. Josh Richman covers politics. Contact him at 510-208-6428. Follow him at Twitter.com/josh_ richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz. com/politics.

that is one huge leap of faith for Delta!!

2013-10-01T17:49:00.000-07:00

I will be concerned about flying in Delta.. I would expect them to have at least one emergency bag with all the essential manuals and map etc. Don't they know that Surface runs Microsoft OS? Which can crash anytime anywhere for any reason?? What if Pilot is looking for some critical information and Surface shows them blue screen r asks them to wait while they upgrade?

Having said that, I do agree that Microsoft Surface Pro is damn good replacement of PC. However, entire PC category is getting substituted by tablet category created by iPad.. But agreed that it is good win for Microsoft and clear message for them to spend more on tablet hardware and more importantly OS/ecosystem development.

Due to a very good friend, I happen to be using Surface tablet and I like it for basic PC type of activity. Microsoft's biggest asset is Office suite which makes Surface a very attractive combination from price/performance ratio. However, this logical attractiveness is still not strong enough to overcome love for iPad!!

All the best to Microsoft and Delta for their new adventure!!!

Surface 2 tablets fine fit for Delta

Airline set to buy 11,000 of the Microsoft devices

By Joshua Freed

Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS — Delta Air Lines plans to buy 11,000 Microsoft Surface 2 tablets for its pilots to replace the heavy bundles of books and maps they haul around now.

Other airlines, including American and United, have been buying Apple’s iPad for that purpose.

Delta says the Surface tablets will save it $13 million per year in fuel and other costs. Right now, each pilot carries a 38-pound flight bag with manuals and maps.

Delta plans to test the tablets on its Boeing 757s and 767s, which are flown by the same group of pilots. The airline is hoping for Federal Aviation Administration approval next year to use the tablets throughout a flight, and it hopes to be using the devices on all of its other planes by the end of next year.

One reason Delta picked a Microsoft device was that it’s easier to give pilots separate sections for company and personal use, said Steve Dickson, Delta’s senior vice president for flight operations.

Pilots will be able to install personal software and keep their own items such as photos on the personal section of the devices, while another portion will be dedicated to Delta’s software, Dickson said.

“We trust them to manage that side of the device,” Dickson said.

Another reason for picking the Surface tablet is that Delta’s training software also runs on the same Windows operating system as the tablets, reducing the need to redo that software for another device, Dickson said.

Delta has already done a test program where pilots could bring their own devices, including iPads.

In August, Delta said its flight attendants will get Windows phones to process in-flight sales of food, better seats, and other items.

Microsoft announced last week that it is updating its tablet line, which includes the Surface 2s that Delta is buying. The Surface 2 is the cheaper of the two versions sold by Microsoft, retailing for $449 each. Dickson declined to say how much Delta is paying.

MARK LENNIHAN/AP

Delta plans to buy 11,000 Microsoft Surface 2 tablets for its pilots to replace heavy bundles of books.

and we are still debating about Net Metering..

2013-09-28T10:50:00.002-07:00

In my view, this is simply hoax being created by Utility Companies in advance to protect slide in their business in long term. Solar panel based electricity production is dampening their growth in short term and in long term going to kill them.. They are starting all this noise so these net metering could be killed and solar panels become un-attractive for future home owners. They know for sure that solar panel prices are continue to fall and within 5-10-20 years, they will become norm at each house.

Here is my take on why net metering is valid and in fact not only eligible for retail rate but in my view even higher prices then retail. Here are some of thoughts on this:

Solar Panels usually produce maximum when we have peak demand and help reduce peak demand of the grid. Utilities maintain specific peakers (small power plant or additional capacity in power plants) which they can get rid of or at least reduce capacity
Regarding this talk about retail Vs wholesale price paid for electricity pumped back to grid by homeowners - this electricity is produced right next to the consumption point.. theoretically, your next door neighbor might be consuming the additional electricity generated by solar panels. It is not that this power is bloody going back to power station traversing all the transformers and grid.. NO.. It just uses few meters of the power cables and it gets consumed right next door.. It actually takes out the stress of grid and in a way help elongate life of the equipment. Reducing their failures and thus reducing their maintenance costs.. In a way it reduces overall transmission and distribution losses incurred while transporting electricity from central power plants to your home. In my view, they should be paid more than retail price!! and this is no joke.. even utility companies knows the value of this distributed generation..

There can be hundreds of more logical reasons be listed in favor of these solar panels.. there is no end to this discussion.. Ultimately , they are good for consumers and they are good for environment.. It is definitely not good for utilities in long run.. However, utilities need to decide, whether they want to die gracefully or they want to die in anguish and pain.. moreover, they are not going to die completely any how.. at least in 30-50 years for sure.. there role could become infrastructure service provider instead of providing electricity itself..

‘NET METERING’

Analysis says solar will carry high cost

Industry battles news that nonusers may pay $1.1B per year by 2020

By Dana Hull

dhull@mercurynews.com

A long-awaited analysis of “net metering,” the policy that allows homeowners, school districts and businesses to offset the cost of their electric use with the rooftop solar power they generate and export to the grid, finds the policy will cost California’s nonsolar customers $1.1 billion a year by 2020.

The lengthy “California Net Energy Metering Evaluation,” released Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission, will strongly influence discussions among state regulators about how to restructure electric rates.
The solar industry is already crying foul, saying the study design was stacked against solar. Others say it’s time for net metering to be overhauled.

“There’s no question that there’s a subsidy to solar customers,” said Marcel Hawiger of TURN, the Utility Reform Network. “Net metering was a policy designed to jump-start the solar industry in California, but it’s not a sustainable policy.”

Large utilities like PG&E have a four-tiered rate system: The more electricity you use, the more you pay. Tier 1 customers pay 13.2 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity, while at Tier 4 it’s 35.1 cents. The tiered rate structure has been a big driver of rooftop solar in California, since many homeowners who go solar do so to cut down on high monthly bills. Solar customers are reimbursed for the electricity they generate and export to the grid at the retail rate.

Utilities have argued that under the current rate structure, customers using net metering do not pay their fair share of the costs of the transmission and distribution grid. And since solar customers tend to be more affluent, utilities argue that lower-income, nonsolar ratepayers are subsidizing solar customers.

The solar industry is already fighting back against the report, noting solar is increasingly being adopted by middle-income consumers, creates jobs for installers and that everyone benefits from “avoided costs,” or the need for utilities to build additional power plants.

“The study design was stacked against solar,” said Susannah Churchill, solar policy director at Vote Solar, a solar advocacy group in San Francisco. “To do a cost-benefit analysis and not include benefits like public health and jobs just inflates utility claims. Rooftop solar is a threat to the utility business model, and they are doing everything possible to stop its momentum.”

The report, by the San Francisco- based consulting group E3, found that most homeowners who have solar systems are high energy users with an average household income of $91,000, well above the state average of $54,000, and that the savings that solar customers achieve on their own bills is shifted to other ratepayers who must make up the difference.

PG&E has more than 93,000 customers on net metering and adds roughly 2,000 more each month at a pace that, from a utility perspective, is not financially sustainable.

“PG&E has long supported solar for its environmental benefits,” said spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo. “We are the largest buyer of solar energy in the nation, and lead the nation in the number of customers who have installed solar on their rooftops. We look forward to working with lawmakers, regulators, industry and our customers to chart a path to a bright and sustainable solar future.”

E3 will present the results of the NEM study in the PUC auditorium at 505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, on Friday, and is accepting public comments until Oct. 10.

Contact Dana Hull at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/danahull.

let the game begun!!

2013-09-24T20:58:00.003-07:00

It is amazing how quickly our friends on other side has caught up with Apple's coolest newest user-friendliest feature in their latest and greatest iPhone yet...

I think all these things are well known, and assuming that even password protection must be breakable by intelligent friends. No one can deny that any system can be hacked. However, there has to be balance between usability and security requirements. I think, iPhone 5S users will decide on their own. Off-course, all these news do make significant impact on user's choices, still, knowing Apple, I know for sure that most of the users will use this cool feature which will make life so much easier.. Especially any one using enterprise emails on iPhone, where they put stringent requirement on password and locking time.

Hackers beat iPhone fingerprint

German group finds way around biometric sensor

By Frank Jordans

Associated Press

BERLIN — The fingerprint- based security system used to unlock Apple’s latest iPhone can be bypassed using a household printer and some wood glue, a German hacking group has claimed. A spokesman for the Chaos Computer Club said the group managed to fool the biometric sensor in the iPhone 5s over the weekend by creating an artificial copy of a genuine fingerprint.

“It was surprisingly easy,” Dirk Engling told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday, a day after the group announced the exploit on its website. A member of the Chaos Computer Club going by the pseudonym Starbug took a high-resolution photograph of a fingerprint left on a glass surface, printed it onto a transparent sheet and smeared the pattern with liquid latex or wood glue. Once the glue set, it could be peeled off and placed on another finger to mimic the genuine print, Engling said. “We used this method 10 years ago and didn’t have to change much for the iPhone,” he said. “The hardest bit was getting hold of one of those new iPhones because they are chronically sold out.”

Engling said the Chaos Computer Club, which has a long history of finding security flaws in soft- and hardware, documented the procedure with several videos so independent experts could verify it.

David Emm, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Labs, said the German group’s claims exposed the flip side of biometric security systems designed to replace passwords or PIN numbers commonly used nowadays.

“If my passcode becomes compromised, I can simply replace it with a new one — hopefully one that’s more secure. But I can’t change my fingerprint — it’s part of what I am and so I’m stuck with it,” Emm said.

Engling suggested that Apple could have made its fingerprint system more secure, but that this might have caused problems for users if they didn’t swipe their finger across the miniature scanner properly and thus got locked out of the device after repeated failed attempts.

“Apple had to strike a balance between security and user-friendliness,” he said.

Apple didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

ANDY WONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The iPhone 5s lets a user configure the device for fingerprint recognition as a security check. A German group says it used wood glue to beat the technology.

and.. the iPhone 5S/C saga continues..

2013-09-21T09:54:00.001-07:00

Whatever critics might say about new iPhone, public seems to love it.. Kudos to Apple to continue delivering such a great product which keeps on meeting expectation or I should say keeps on beating expectations of critics and every common sense..

It is amazing to see how quickly these phones evaporates or seems to evaporate.. I am sure this is also Apple's marketing strategy to make them evaporate.. but that is minor or small part of all the story..

Bigger piece of story is Apple's pricing strategy.. Everyone was hoping for cheaper iPhone as part in iPhone product line up.. but in my view, Apple has done exactly opposite.. they have increased price (or at least margins) on so called older generation phone.. To understand this, you have to compare last year's launch.. Till last year, Apple used to reduce price of previous generation iPhone by $100. This year, they officially removed previous generation (iPhone5) and instead of launched iPhone5c. Which in-fact is iPhone5 from inside. Only thing different is that it has now even cheaper plastic back (though in beautiful bright colors) thus reducing cost of manufacturing of this so called iPhone5.

Essentially, Apple has launched same phone but increased price realization. So, Apple's strategy is very simple:

They are NOT going to launch cheaper iPhone. They will maintain their premium pricing position in market.
They are NOT going after mass market or volume. They are trying to increase profitability. At the same time, they are solving supply chain issues.. 5c will use different back covers and hopefully, it will cost less to manufacture..
They are going after new segment - kids of affluent parents and young crowd with iPhone5c. Instead of iPod touch, these kids will get iPhone5c. Normally, in US these kids often used to get hands down iPhone from parents. Now, these kids will demand iPhone5c as it is more likely not to break with robust use..
They have in-fact created teaser price for Adults as well. All agree that there is no quantum difference between 5s and 5. To avoid iPhone5 cannibalizing their 5s market, they shut down new iPhone5s and created relatively speaking inferior 5c for same price they would have offered iPhone5.
Regarding low cost alternative, Apple is simply going to rely on their exchange program. They will get lot of exchanged phones, probably change their battery and push it to emerging cost conscious market. I am guessing that duties on these returned/re-furbished phones will also be substantially lower helping them keep costs and prices low in those markets.

In my view, it is brilliant pricing strategy and it will continue Apple as true leader in smartphone space.. They may not be leader by volume but I am sure they will continue their lead by other metrics such as actual usage and apps/music/videos etc..

Nevertheless, people are enjoying their new iPhones.. I am guessing this next quarter is going to be stellar quarter for Apple with significant jump in their profitability leading to significant jump in their share prices!!

PALO ALTO’S APPLE STORE

Shortage of iPhones mutes buying frenzy

CEOCook greets legions of Bay Area Apple fans; devices quickly run out

By Heather Somerville

hsomerville@bayareanewsgroup.com

PALO ALTO — For the first time ever, Apple released two iPhones simultaneously, but fans did not get double the choice, as a widespread shortage kept supplies low in stores.

The dual iPhone release finished out a tumultuous couple of weeks for the tech giant, which took a hit on the stock market, rebuffed backlash over the pricing of its low-cost iPhone option and discovered a security glitch in its new operating system. The pressure was on for Apple to post big sales of the new iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S, and assure consumers and investors that the Cupertino company still had something revolutionary up its sleeve.

Apple fans turned out in droves to stores across the Bay Area, many camping in line for days in hopes of getting one of the coveted iPhone 5S, the company’s new flagship device loaded with Apple’s latest and greatest. On Palo Alto’s University Avenue, fans got another surprise when the store opened Friday morning — an upbeat Apple CEO Tim Cook, who shook hands, posed for pictures and joined the crowd for a few celebratory cheers.

Cook then paid a visit to the store at Stanford Shopping Center and later sent his first tweet: “Seeing so many happy customers reminds us of why we do what we do.”

JANE TYSKA/STAFF PHOTOS

CEO Tim Cook celebrates the release of the new iPhones as he leaves the Apple Store on University Avenue in Palo Alto.

Dorothy Arndt, left, and veteran Bob Younger, of San Jose, showed up in Palo Alto along with a group from Gift A Vet, an organization supporting veterans in need. Arndt left the store with an iPhone 5S to give to a 53-year-old disabled Santa Clara County veteran.
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Spectrum of colors

First in line to meet Cook and get the new iPhone was a group from San Jose-based Gift A Vet, an organization dedicated to supporting veterans in need. Dorothy Arndt said she had been camped out since Monday, trading 12hour shifts with vets and colleagues. She left the store with a 16GB iPhone 5S in “space gray” to give to a 53-year-old disabled Santa Clara County veteran struggling to make ends meet on public assistance.

The iPhone 5S rolled out in metallic colors and with super-speedy processing power and upgraded camera features, and the lower-cost, heavier iPhone 5C is offered in a spectrum of candy-coated colors. Along with the U.S., Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the U.K. launched the iPhone 5S and 5C on Friday. But Apple released only a limited number of the coveted iPhone 5S for the worldwide launch and only a handful of those in gold — the color that most fans were lusting after. “Everyone wanted gold,” said Benjamin Smith of Sunnyvale, who settled for gray at the University Avenue store. The iPhone 5C was more plentiful, but few fans were willing to pull out their credit cards for what some have called a repackaged version of the older iPhone 5, dressed in colorful plastic. It starts at $99.

Megan Davidson, 21, arrived at the Sprint store in Palo Alto at 3:45 a.m., where she avoided the crowd at the Apple store and was first in line for the 5S. “I think the 5C is more geared toward kids and cheaper,” she said. “I want the legit Apple phone.”

Gold is first to go

Shortages of the iPhone 5S were apparent in stores across the Peninsula, with websites showing shipments delayed until October. The location at Stanford Shopping Center ran out of unlocked units — phones sold without the software code that limits them to work only on one wireless carrier — before 9:30 a.m. An employee said the gold phones were first to go and the store had “a very limited number.” The Best Buy on Almaden Expressway in San Jose had 28 units of the 5S and sold out before 11:30 a.m., said store manager Mark Fragoza. The store had more than twice as many phones when the iPhone 5 launched last year. The picture wasn’t much better on the other side of the pond. Carriers in the U.K. told the BBC there was a severe shortage of the iPhone 5S, and customers in Asia and Australia were told they’ll have to wait until October.

“Demand for the new iPhones has been incredible and we are currently sold out or have limited supply of certain iPhone 5S models in some stores,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans said Friday.

Opening sales crucial

Opening-weekend sales are crucial for Apple after about a year without releasing a new device while rivals have begun to chip away at Apple’s dominance in the smartphone market. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a note to investors he expected Apple would sell 5 million to 6 million iPhones, including pre-sale orders that started Sept. 13. BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk wrote that he was encouraged because “lines were the strongest we have seen at both Apple and carrier stores” but wouldn’t know until Monday if unit sales would meet his expectations of 6 million during launch weekend. Apple has reportedly asked its suppliers to increase production of the gold-colored iPhone 5S by an additional one-third after seeing strong demand, people familiar with the situation told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. What remains unclear is whether there are still manufacturing constraints that may keep supplies low. Apple did not respond to questions Friday about production.

Contact Heather Somerville at 510-208-6413. Follow her at Twitter.com/heathersomervil.
===================================================

JANE TYSKA/STAFF

Hoa Tran, of San Jose, leaves with a new iPhone at the Apple Store on University Avenue in Palo Alto on Friday. Customers were lined up around the block.

It is still not too late to move to bay area!!

2013-09-21T09:15:00.001-07:00

Job market is still booming and expected to continue to boom.. not sure about rest of the california, however, SF/SJ and surrounding bay area counties are booming and if you have good skills in technology, it is still good time to move in.. Agreed, that housing has gone to the roof again, but that is expected to stabilize or get some minor correction when mortgage rates come off from their historical lows.

Come on friends.. it is great time to be back in valley!! and build or help build new FBs..

AUGUST HIRING

Growth in jobs gaining steam

South Bay labor market has best month in 13 years, while Bay Area overall gains 12,700

By George Avalos

gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com

The Bay Area job market boomed in August, adding 12,700 jobs for its best one-month performance since October 2012, state labor officials reported Friday.

Santa Clara County did even better, adding 8,500 jobs, the best one-month performance for the county in more than 13 years. Those gains accounted for two-thirds of the jobs added in the Bay Area and more than one-fourth of the jobs gained in California last month, this newspaper’s analysis of data from the Employment Development Departmentshows. “The South Bay knocked one out of the park in August,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist with San Francisco-based Bank of the West.

The strong gains in August were a sharp contrast to July, when the Bay Area lost 4,400 jobs, sparking fears among some analysts that the region’s economy had begun to sputter, and the rebound might falter.

The most recent results show that the tech sector, primarily in Silicon Valley, continues to serve as the foundation of a rebound that is gaining strength in a range of other industries across the Bay Area.

“The tech sector is definitely doing well,” added Jordan Levine, director of economic research with Beacon Economics. “Companies are still investing in software, equipment, and intellectual property.”

The East Bay, consisting of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, added 2,300 jobs in August, the EDD figures showed. The San Francisco- San Mateo-Marin region added 1,900.

California added 29,100 jobs during August, labor officials reported Friday, in a second straight month of robust employment gains statewide. The statewide and Bay Area numbers were all adjusted for seasonal factors.

The statewide jobless rate worsened to 8.9 percent, the EDD reported, from 8.7 percent in July. That can occur because the jobs data and the jobless rate are compiled in separate surveys.

Improving rates

In contrast, unemployment rates improved throughout the Bay Area in August, according to a Beacon Economics analysis of the EDD figures. The Alameda County-Contra Costa County jobless rate was 7.1 percent, versus 7.4 percent the month before. The Santa Clara County-San Benito County jobless rate was 6.6 percent, compared with 6.9 percent. The San Francisco-San Mateo- Marin August jobless rate was 5.3 percent, better than the month-before rate of 5.5 percent, the Beacon analysis showed. During the one-year period that ended in August, job totals expanded by 1.9 percent in the Bay Area. The U.S. job market expanded by 1.6 percent and California by 1.5 percent over the same period.

“The Bay Area is growing more robustly than California and the nation as a whole,” said Jon Haveman, chief economist with Marin Economic Consulting. And, he added, “it is creating more jobs with better wages” than the nation and the state.

Strong sectors

The strongest industry in Santa Clara County during August was the tech-focused professional scientific and technical service sector, which gained 1,500 jobs. Another tech sector, information services and products, gained 900. But manufacturing added 1,200, administrative support was up 1,100, retail gained 800 and construction added 700 jobs, according to Beacon.

“Tech is still the economic engine for Santa Clara County, but the majority of the new jobs that were added were outside of tech,” said Michael Bernick, a research fellow with the Milken Institute and a former director of the state EDD. “You are seeing real diversity in the Santa Clara County job market.”

The strong gains during August aren’t an anomaly, said Steve Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy “The trend in the Bay Area is real,” Levy said. “Very strong job growth is building. You see expansion everywhere from San Jose to San Francisco, and now the East Bay has turned modestly positive. Because of tech, the Bay Area will continue to do well. You have Google, Apple, LinkedIn, Microsoft and other companies expanding their office space because they are hiring employees.”Contact George Avalos at 408-859-5167 or 408-3733556. Follow him at Twitter.com/georgeavalos.

Anybody interested in this interesting job?

2013-09-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

Seems really interesting job.. It will be really challenging and fun job!!! Once electric cars become commodity, Autonomous cars are going to be next battlefield for Car manufacturers.. Essentially, this could become great potential job creator in Silicon Valley. Google is already in lead in this area and with TESLA jumping this bandwagon, it will force all these traditional Car manufacturers to further augment there silicon valley labs with this autonomous driving system development..

What is Apple doing? It will be interesting to see them coming to this area.. They are king of User Experience.. moreover, if Google takes lead into these Autonomous Driving Systems they will embed Android into it.. Come on Apple.. you also need to do something in this next big thing.. They can atleast start with integrating their iPhone/iOS into rudimentary Vehicle control and display systems..

TESLA HIRING ENGINEER FOR AUTONOMOUS PUSH

Tesla Motors has an interesting job description on its website: “Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Controls Engineer.” The full-time job, based in Palo Alto, seeks an engineer responsible for “developing vehicle-level decision-making and lateral and longitudinal control strategies for Tesla’s effort to pioneer fully automated driving.” In May, CEO Elon Musk told Bloomberg that he was talking to Google about “autopilot” systems. Tesla also has the ability to constantly update Model S features. Tesla’s chief technical officer, J.B. Straubel, is working on a “sensor suite” of safety features for the driver, which could include pedestrian detection, collision avoidance technology and additional cameras to monitor blind spots or obstructions while driving.

Not up your alley? There are 836 jobs listed on the Tesla website. — Dana Hull

Is independent Internet possible?

2013-09-19T15:19:00.004-07:00

By name itself, Internet in network of networks.. how can you make it independent? I guess, you can only do it by creating island and controlling gateways for inbound and outbound traffic from your country to another if there is any such well defined things..

I totally understand President Dilma's anger on US. Is she also angry at China (her biggest buyer of raw materials) and Russia and many other countries/nations who do it all the time? Instead of getting angry at US, she should focus on more emphasis on technological build up in Brazil... then she can launch her counter offensive against any country she would like to as most of the other countries do it to her country..

Build infrastructure in your country so Google/facebook like companies are created in your own country rather than relying on silicon valley for all such critical to time passing applications and infrastructures.. Attack at fundamentals.. don't try to dress up the fact that your country let go the golden time of minting money on your natural resources without fixing core issues like infrastructure and education.. Now that you are facing the anemic growth music again, you are creating issues out of almost non-sense issues..

Work on fundamentals.. rest nature will take care of you..

Angered over espionage, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is postponing a visit to Washington.

Brazil seeks online independence

President angered over revelations of U.S. spying

By Bradley Brooks and Frank Bajak

Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil plans to divorce itself from the U.S.-centric Internet over Washington’s widespread online spying, a move that many experts fear will be a potentially dangerous first step toward fracturing a global network built with minimal interference by governments.

President Dilma Rousseff ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company’s network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to U.S. tech companies such as Facebook and Google.

The leader is so angered by the espionage that on Tuesday she postponed next month’s scheduled trip to Washington.

Internet security and policy experts say the Brazilian government’s reaction to information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is understandable, but warn it could set the Internet on a course of Balkanization.“The global backlash is only beginning and will get far more severe in coming months,” said Sascha Meinrath of the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank. “This notion of national privacy sovereignty is going to be an increasingly salient issue around the globe.”

While Brazil isn’t proposing to bar its citizens from U.S.-based Web services, it wants their data to be stored locally as the nation assumes greater control over Brazilians’ Internet use to protect them from NSA snooping.

The danger of mandating that kind of geographic isolation, Meinrath said, is that it could render inoperable popular software applications and services and endanger the Internet’s open, interconnected structure.

The effort by Latin America’s biggest economy to digitally isolate itself from U.S. spying not only could be costly and difficult, it could encourage repressive governments to seek greater technical control over the Internet to crush free expression at home, experts say.

In December, countries advocating greater “cyber-sovereignty” pushed for such control at an International Telecommunications Union meeting in Dubai, with Western democracies led by the United States and the European Union in opposition.

U.S. digital security expert Bruce Schneier says that while Brazil’s response is a rational reaction to NSA spying, it is likely to embolden “some of the worst countries out there to seek more control over their citizens’ Internet. That’s Russia, China, Iran and Syria.”

Brazil is now pushing more aggressively than any other nation to end U.S. commercial hegemony on the Internet. More than 80 percent of online search, for example, is controlled by U.S.-based companies.

Most of Brazil’s global Internet traffic passes through the United States, so Rousseff’s government plans to lay underwater fiber optic cable directly to Europe and also link to all South American nations to create what it hopes will be a network free of U.S. eavesdropping.

Can Google counter NSA?

2013-09-07T12:09:00.001-07:00

I don't think so.. They can try to counter novice hacker at the most... There is no doubt that folks at Google are smart.. very smart.. but nothing can beat the brute force and power of these national government run agencies..

Whatever their justification may be.. whatever noble cause or dreadful scenario they may be outlining as their justification to snoop into your inbox.. nobody is perfect and ultimately humans are humans.. These agencies like NSA, they are run by mere mortal humans and whenever these mortal humans get extreme power, they get corrupted.. there is misuse of these powers beyond original cause or motive and powerless mortals are crushed.. biggest example of this corruption is our Dear Mr. President Obama.. What not was promised by him before he got his role.. He painted Bush as evil person who has taken all the rights of Citizens in the name of war on terrorism.. part of the war (Iraq) which in-fact turned out to be one of the greatest and costliest mistake for US.

Nevertheless, we had thought that things will be restored back to normal when our Dear Mr. Obama comes to white house.. but we forgot the addiction of power part.. with white house comes unprecedented powers which whitewashed our Dear Mr. Obama's memory of promises to restore balance back to citizens rights.. What a fool we were??? thinking that everything will be back to normal..

At first that wiki-leak case.. which finally culminated in 35 years of prison for Mr. Manning and kind of permanent asylum status for Julian Assange. Then this case of our Snowden bhayyia.. I don't know, neither do I care about technicalities of these cases.. I only know that these individuals got truth about sleaziness of government run and supported dirty laundry.. Off-course, government officials whose laundry came out in open ought to go after these individuals.. But not our Dear Mr. President Obama.. Et tu Obama????

I would have appreciated if Mr. Obama would have come out in open and accepted that these operations are running and they are for whatever blah blah reasons.. and let go these daring individuals who just got truth out in public..

I seriously thought that Dear Mr. President Obama will initially give some supporting statements for his officials but after few weeks he simply forget about these individuals and pardon them or drop cases against them on some stupid technical reason which is not hard to create.. but relentless persuasion against these individuals who dared to bring out truth and only truth about sleazy operations of our own government funded by our money??? Whether you pardon them or not.. Dear Mr. President Obama.. we will never.. Whatever your justification for this stupid relentless persuasion of so called criminal justice.. We will never pardon you.. I hope in the history of presidents also.. your name will come as Bush part two..

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

Google hurries to slow spying

Tech giant accelerates encryption in backlash against surveillance

By Craig Timberg

Washington Post

Google is racing to encrypt the torrents of information that flow among its data centers around the world in a bid to thwart snooping by the NSA and the intelligence agencies of foreign governments, company officials said Friday.

The move by Google is among the most concrete signs yet that recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance efforts have provoked significant backlash within an American technology industry that U.S. government officials long courted as a potential partner in spying programs.

Google’s encryption initiative, initially approved last year, was accelerated in June as the tech giant struggled to guard its reputation as a reliable steward of user information amid controversy about the NSA’s Prism program, first reported in the Washington Post and the Guardian that month. Prism obtains data from U.S. technology companies, including Google, under various legal authorities.

Encrypting information flowing among data centers will not make it impossible for intelligence agencies to snoop on individual users of Google services, nor will it have any effect on legal requirements that the company comply with court orders or valid national security requests for data. But company officials and independent security experts said that increasingly widespread use of encryption technology makes mass surveillance more difficult — whether conducted by governments or other sophisticated hackers.
“It’s an arms race,” said Eric Grosse, vice president for security engineering at Google. “We see these government agencies as among the most skilled players in this game.”

Experts say that, aside from the U.S. government, sophisticated government hacking efforts emanate from China, Russia, Britain and Israel.

The NSA seeks to defeat encryption through a variety of means, including by obtaining encryption “keys” to decode communications, by using supercomputers to break codes, and by influencing encryption standards to make them more vulnerable to outside attack, according to reports Thursday by The New York Times, the Guardian and ProPublica, based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

But those reports made clear that encryption — essentially converting data into what appears to be gibberish when intercepted by outsiders — complicates government surveillance efforts, requiring that resources be devoted to decoding or otherwise defeating the systems.

Among the most common tactics, experts said, is to hack into individual computers or other devices used by people targeted for surveillance, making what amounts to an end run around coded communications.

Security experts said the time and energy required to defeat encryption forces surveillance efforts to be targeted more narrowly on the highestpriority targets — such as terrorism suspects — and limits the ability of governments to simply cast a net into the huge rivers of data flowing across the Internet.

“If the NSA wants to get into your system, they are going to get in. … Most of the people in my community are realistic about that,” said Christopher Soghoian, a computer security expert at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This is all about making dragnet surveillance impossible.”

The NSA declined to comment for this article. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement Thursday saying: “Throughout history, nations have used encryption to protect their secrets, and today terrorists, cybercriminals, human traffickers and others also use code to hide their activities. Our intelligence community would not be doing its job if we did not try to counter that.”

The U.S. intelligence community has been reeling since news reports based on Snowden’s documents began revealing remarkable new detail about how the government collects, analyzes and disseminates information — including, in some circumstances, the emails, video chats and phone communications of U.S. citizens.

Many of the documents portray U.S. companies as pliant “Corporate Partners” or “Providers” of information. While telecommunications companies have generally declined to comment on their relationships with government surveillance, some have reacted with outrage at the depictions in the NSA documents released by Snowden. They have joined civil liberties groups in demanding more transparency and insisting that information is turned over to the government only when required by law, often in the form of a court order.

In June, Google and Microsoft asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow them greater latitude in reporting how much information they turn over to the government.

On Friday, Yahoo issued its first “government transparency report,” saying it had received 12,444 requests for data from the U.S. government this year, covering the accounts of 40,322 users.

Google has long been more aggressive than its peers within the U.S. technology industry in deploying encryption technology. It turned on encryption in its popular Gmail service in 2010, and since then has added similar protections for Google searches for most users.

Yet even as it encrypted much of the data flowing between Google and its users, the information traveling between its data centers offered rare points of vulnerability to potential intruders, especially government surveillance agencies, security officials said.

User information — including copies of emails, search queries, videos and Web browsing history — typically is stored in several data centers that transmit information to each other on high-speed fiber-optic lines.

Several other companies, including Microsoft, Apple and Facebook, increasingly have begun using encryption for some of their services, though the quality varies by company. Communications between services — when an email, for example, is sent from a user of Gmail to a user of Microsoft’s Outlook mail — are not generally encrypted, appearing to surveillance systems as what experts call “clear text.”

“If the NSA wants to get into your system, they are going to get in … . Most of the people in my community are realistic about that. This is all about making dragnet surveillance impossible.”

— Christopher Soghoian, computer security expert, American Civil Liberties Union

BART should get rid of this monster hiding in the name of Union and all of its Minions..

2013-07-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Even I feel like applying for job in BART.. I think, with my electrical engineering degree and my experience with world's biggest electrical engineering giants, I should meet their requirement.. The kind of salaries these guys are making is so great.. I slog so much and still they surpass me... and more over with super great retirement benefits..

Here is what BART management should do.. Instead of offering any pay hike, they should offer them two options:
1) Pay Cut of 20% in phased manner in next three years or
2) Get lost.. they should file for bankruptcy.. shut down BART for few months.. void all contracts and start fresh..

Given vested interests and fake pride of Unions, I think only second option will be the only viable option for Management. At the same time, management should also fire the executives who in first place made such contract three years back. Even they need fresh start. This is the tricky part.. Problem is that this bloody management also has vested interests.. They must also be getting similarly higher salaries.. No one talks about their salaries as compared to other transit agency salaries.. In general, in any organization, salaries are consistently higher or lower across the board..

Now, who is left to take care of interests of taxpayers? Politicians? Who unfortunately are pre-dominantly democrats and mostly funded and supported by these Unions.. What a mess.. Only for this reason, I am willing to vote for republicans.. any tom-dick-harry from republican.. but I will support them.. Even though, I primarily consider myself a democrat.. but in my view, democrats are becoming oblivious to interests of common tax payer.. and I think, it is mainly due to their consistent monopoly on California state legislature for such a long time.. I don't remember when California legislature was controlled by non-democrats.

So, bottom line.. in my view.. either democrat fix themselves or they will be wiped out from California's political map for some time for sure.. I know it may not be possible in next couple of years but I am sure we should see some kind of trend towards this..

Coming back to BART again.. This got to be fixed.. even if it calls for complete shut down for few days, weeks or even months.. and overhaul it and align it's cost structure with ground realities.. otherwise, they will be soon wiped from the very same ground..

I may seem harsh and angry.. but honestly, I am trying to control my language which I haven't done in past..

LABOR NEGOTIATIONS

BART leading the way on pay

Compensation for transit agency’s workers is far higher than their peers’ in Bay Area and the state

By Mike Rosenberg and Daniel J. Willis

Staff writers

While BART and its unions fight over employee pay raises with another strike looming in a week, a new analysis by this newspaper reveals the rail line’s workers already have bigger paychecks than any of their peers.

BART workers easily earned the most money on average last year among the 25 largest government agencies in the Bay Area, the newspaper’s review of public employee payroll data shows. What’s more, BART employees also topped the list of the highest-paid transit operators in California.

And the results are not close. Even when eliminating high-paid police officers and executives, the average gross pay for the blue-collar BART union workers who are threatening another shutdown was $76,551 last year — more than the average employee made at any large school district from San Jose to Walnut Creek, any county from Santa Cruz to Contra Costa or any transit line from San Diego to Sacramento.

BART’s top-paid train operator grossed $155,308, compared with the $109,450 that the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority paid its top light-rail driver. BART’s best-paid janitor made $82,752 while the upscale Hillsborough City School District paid its top custodian $59,360. And BART’s electrician with the highest paycheck made $149,957 — nearly twice the $79,878 that AC Transit’s best-paid electrician made.

The wages are under heightened scrutiny as BART and its labor unions on Tuesday enter their final week of negotiations, hoping to avert a second shutdown, Aug. 5, after a cooling-off period halted a 4½-day strike earlier this month. Both sides remain far apart on the key issues of worker pay and contributions to pensions and health care.

Overall, BART’s average employee — executives included — made nearly $30,000 more than employees at Los Angeles’ transit line, and nearly $10,000 more than those at San Francisco Muni, the state’s second-highest paid transit workers.

BART workers argue their wages have remained flat for four years. They say they are worthy of their salaries, pointing to the agency’s strong on-time performance, high rider satisfaction and their work maintaining one of the nation’s most antiquated rail lines.

“You buy a Mercedes, you get quality. You almost get what you pay for,” said Dennis Acma, 47, of Dublin, a power support controller at BART for the past seven years. “They’re paying for that expertise. You got people who are dedicated that work here.”

Despite the lack of recent wage increases, BART has not had trouble attracting — or retaining — people to fill their union jobs, such as station agent, train operator and maintenance worker, that typically require a high school diploma and a few years of general work experience.

Since 2007, BART has received nearly 65,000 job applications for about 1,800 line-level union openings. Only 6.8 percent of BART’s blue-collar workforce left the job in the past year — half the average national turnover rate for public and private employers — and the typical union employee stays with BART for 13 years.

The data show BART pay is above average partly because of favorable rules that allow workers to pile up lots of overtime and cash out unused sick and vacation time, which has helped some employees double their base salary. But BART and experts say it’s also the result of previous managers caving to the public demand to avoid strikes by including regular pay bumps for decades, until 2009.

“(BART unions) have a degree of leverage from a strike perspective that many other industries don’t, and this is a classic example of them capitalizing on it,” said Christopher Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics, a Los Angeles-based economics consulting firm. “If you ask me, it’s a tiny bit short of blackmail: ‘Give me the money or the commute’s going to get it.’ ” Union employees say the cost of living in the Bay Area has soared and BART’s revenue has surged to record levels. Plus, because of management’s push to increase health care and pension premiums, employees stand to see their take-home pay go down without raises.

And not all workers are highly paid. Last year, 830 part-time and full-time BART workers — or nearly one-quarter of the rail line’s workforce — made less than the $62,680 median income in the San Francisco-Oakland- Fremont metropolitan area.

Acma, the BART worker, said he’s tired of people thinking they are drones who only push buttons and said the employees work hard, often on off-hours, holidays and weekends, for their money.

“It’s unfortunate that our jobs do hold the Bay Area hostage,” he said. “We’re scrimping by, and sometimes the public treats us like we’re above everybody else. We’re not the 1-percenters.”

But BART says it needs to limit worker costs, which, as in most transit agencies, are the biggest expense in its budget. If overall compensation goes up, BART officials say, they will have to delay payments toward new rail cars and other equipment needed to increase service. Before state mediators earlier this month ordered both sides to keep their latest proposals secret, BART had offered a wage increase of 5 to 8 percent, depending on whether certain economic measures were met, over four years. That would push the average union gross pay to as much as $82,861 by 2017.

Unions had countered with a pay increase of 20.1 percent over three years, which would increase their average total pay to $92,991 by 2016.

The pay comes on top of the benefits BART workers earn, which are among the best in the Bay Area and have eaten up half the extra revenue the agency has collected in the past few years. Employees contribute nothing toward their pension and $92 a month toward health care.

“I don’t know if it’s an urban myth or just a saying, that the BART contract is held up in union halls around the county as the gold standard,” BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said. “We have to bring our compensation packages more in line with what others have. Years of protecting the employees have caught up with us.”

Power of Bureaucracy is Sinking poor Sub!!

2013-06-06T22:05:00.002-07:00

This is hilarious news item.. very clearly depicts two fundamental problem:

Government/Public Sector can never work.. Capitalism is still is our best hope!!
There are still fundamental problems with S of PIGS, which is sinking this Sub!!

It is amazing that this so called decimal problem is making sure that this sub always remains underwater.. Can't imagine that almost bankrupt Spain is still investing in billions of dollars in developing Submarine of their own.. that too by their public sector.. Come on Spaniards.. wake up.. move on.. don't try to build these things.. as long as you can drive them safely that will be good enough for this world!!

Sub’s weight worries experts

Vessel is at least 70 tons too heavy after miscalculation

By Michael Melia

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — A new, Spanish-designed submarine has a weighty problem: The vessel is more than 70 tons too heavy, and officials fear if it goes out to sea, it will not be able to surface. And a former Spanish official says the problem can be traced to a miscalculation — someone apparently put a decimal point in the wrong place. “It was a fatal mistake,” said Rafael Bardaji, who until recently was director of the Office of Strategic Assessment at Spain’s Defense Ministry.

The Isaac Peral, the first in a new class of diesel-electric submarines, was nearly completed when engineers discovered the problem. A Navy contractor in Connecticut, Electric Boat, has signed a deal to help the Spanish Defense Ministry find ways to slim down the 2,200-ton submarine.

The agreement with Groton, Conn.-based Electric Boat calls for Spain to pay $14 million over three years for an assessment of the problem with the S-80 submarine program and the scope of the work that would be required to correct it, the Spanish Defense Ministry said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Bardaji, now a senior fellow with the Strategic Studies Group think tank in Madrid, said officials will review options provided by Electric Boat. But he said the preference has been to extend the length of the submarine’s hull, perhaps by 5 to 6 meters, to increase buoyancy.

Otherwise, the weight of the submarine would have to be reduced, and he said the Spanish Navy would not want to compromise features such as the combat system or an air-independent propulsion system.

The Isaac Peral, named for a 19th century Spanish submarine designer, is one of four vessels in the class that are in various stages of construction.

The country has invested about $2.7 billion in the program.

The first was scheduled to be delivered in 2015 but the Spanish state-owned shipbuilder, Navantia, has said the weight problems could cause delays of up to two years.

The 233-foot-long submarine will carry a crew of 32, along with eight special forces troops, and weapons systems for surface and anti-submarine warfare.

The Defense Ministry said technical problems are normal for projects of this scale.

“The technology challenges that these programs face during development are much more than simple calculations,” the ministry said.

“All the major military programs, especially submarines, have experienced delays and often have required the support of a technology partner.”

Bardaji said the problem was discovered in the second half of last year, and Navantia told defense officials that somebody had apparently put a decimal point in the wrong place.

“Apparently somebody in the calculations made a mistake in the very beginning and nobody paid attention to review the calculations,” he said.

Electric Boat, the primary contractor for the Navy’s fleet of nuclear submarines, accepted the contract through a foreign military sales agreement between the American Navy and the Spanish Defense Ministry, the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command announced this week.

This is the reason I like iPhone..

2013-05-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

Pure and simple baniya reason.. almost all Android phones looses their value in couple of months whereas iPhone still keeps its value not only as new phone but most importantly it's resale value.. Even now, unlocked used iPhone 4 which would be minimum two years old will sell in secondary market easily for $250.. enough to cover subsidized cost of new iPhone 5 from AT&T. If you have iPhone 4S you may easily get $360-$370.. All the models I am talking are base 16GB base models.. New iPhone 5 with contract costs $199+tax. Without contract off course will cost you $599+tax.

More importantly, they like hot cake.. at least in our company mailer alias they do.. Where as, Android phones.. I tried only once and had hardly any response..

Whatever people may say.. I am still big fan of iPhone franchise.. best part of these phones is that they deliver what they promise without any flaw.. and user experience is ultimate.. there is no doubt about that.. I am still very much upbeat on Apple for just this reason.. I still feel that most of the surge in recent Android phone sales in US is mainly because of people's desire to change.. Most of the folks I have seen getting new Android phone come back to iPhone after their use. Android phones may have tons of additional features as compared to iPhone.. but.. but...............

AT&T

Price of ‘Facebook phone’ cut to 99 cents

AT&T has cut the price of the HTC First phone, which is preloaded with Facebook applications, to 99 cents from $99.99 less than a month after the phone’s launch. AT&T, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service provider, said the price cut took effect Wednesday. The company is the exclusive U.S. wireless carrier for the phone, made by Taiwan’s HTC and launched April 12.

An AT&T spokeswoman said price-cutting promotions are not unusual. But operators typically wait longer than a few weeks after a launch before discounting phones.

Richard Windsor, an independent analyst, said in his Radio Free Mobile blog that the price cut was a worrying sign for social network Facebook and its future in mobile.

“The final verdict on Facebook Home was brutally handed down yesterday with AT&T slashing the price of the HTC First from $99 to $0.99,” Windsor said.

This is only going to kill innovation in France..

2013-05-01T16:52:00.004-07:00

Come on France.. What's wrong with you... what are you thinking? this is nuts.. you don't want your "ONLY" successful start-up to an American Company? How stupid you can be? One success story like (including sales to Yahoo) this will create hundred other start ups in your country.. there is no better motivation for innovation than money.. pure and simple money.. lots of money..

Moreover, this Daily-motion is distance second cousin to YouTube . I really don't see any major innovation (feel free to educate me if there are any major innovation ideas in Daily-motion)... it is surviving because some people are afraid of Google.. that is it.. There can be ten other companies like this who can really scale and do better than it.. it is, at the best ME-TOO version of YouTube which is popular in your country somehow.. and generated some good traction which resulted in $300M valuation.. I am sure it was peek.. or not.. nevertheless, let capitalism take its own course and if you want innovation and growth in your country try not to interfere with business.. just leave them alone..

Overall, I feel that Yahoo shareholders are lucky that they were spared few hundred million dollars from this acquisition.. which I see as buying users at the best.. I don't think that they will miss anything..

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/yahoo-discussions-over-dailymotion-stall-french-official-says.html

Are you ready for Virgin Galactic Space Trip!!

2013-04-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Seems that dream of commercial space flight is nearing!!! If everything goes well, we should be able to buy ticket to space trip and have fun and come back to our beloved earth.. Just pay 200K and you will be added to the waitlist of 530 already registered for this flight. I don't know how soon they will be able to clear this waitlist. Passenger capacity is 6.. So theoretically if they take one flight per day they could fly 1800 passengers per year (assuming 300 flight days per year) with just one single Galactic spaceship.

Will they take my airline miles? If not, then either I need to start buying lottery or make some couple of millions fairly quickly.. or my company' stock goes to $100 or may be $500 or so.. $100 still won't cut in ;-)

200K!! Wao.. it is lot of money for few hours of fun trip but then I am sure it will be well worth it..

Branson’s tourist spaceship a step closer

Test pilot breaks sound barrier in rocket motor craft

By W.J. Hennigan and Adolfo Flores

Los Angeles Times

British billionaire Richard Branson’s commercial space venture Virgin Galactic got one step closer to carrying tourists into space Monday when a test pilot cracked the sound barrier over the Mojave desert.

For the first time, the company’s SpaceShipTwo engaged its rocket motor, sped to Mach 1.2 and reached 56,000 feet in altitude.

The flight is the latest — and largest — milestone in Virgin Galactic’s testing of technology it hopes to use to carry scores of paying customers into space multiple times a day.

“The first powered flight of Virgin Spaceship Enterprise was without any doubt our single most important flight test to date,” Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, said in a statement. “Today’s supersonic success opens the way for a rapid expansion of the spaceship’s powered flight envelope, with a very realistic goal of full space flight by the year’s end.”

The test flight took place shortly after sunrise Monday beginning on the desert runway at Mojave Air and Space Port, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. During the test, SpaceShipTwo was taken to about 46,000 feet by a carrier aircraft and dropped like a bomb.

After a short free fall, test pilots Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury engaged the hybrid rocket motor, powered by nitrous oxide and a rubber compound, for 16 seconds, at which point SpaceShipTwo reached Mach 1.2 speeds.

The idea of Virgin Galactic routinely taking passengers to space this way was developed by retired maverick aerospace engineer Burt Rutan and his Mojave company, Scaled Composites.

Until now, astronauts have reached space packed tight in a capsule or shuttle attached to a high-powered rocket.

Instead, Virgin Galactic will use a WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft that will fly with the reusable Space-ShipTwo rocket plane under its wing to 50,000 feet, where the spaceship will separate and blast off.

When the rocket motor engages, it will power the spaceship to nearly 2,500 mph and take the pilot — and up to six passengers — to the edge of space, or more than 60 miles above the Earth’s surface.

Once they reach that suborbital altitude, passengers will experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. Then they will re-enter the atmosphere and glide back to the runway. The price for the experience: $200,000.

Virgin Galactic, founded by Branson, hopes to make its first passenger flight sometime next year from Spaceport America in New Mexico, where the company plans to conduct routine operations. The company said it has taken about 530 reservations for the ride.

The WhiteKnight-Two carrier aircraft, which resembles a flying catamaran because it has two fuselages, and SpaceShipTwo are still in the midst of a test-flight program that will continue in Mojave until Virgin Galactic believes it can begin commercial operations.

Virgin Galactic’s commercial space launch system is based on Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, the world’s first private manned spaceship, which successfully flew a test pilot to space and back three times during 2004 to win a $10 million X-Prizepurse.