(Multiple report sources)
Wired.com: A Breakthrough Online Privacy Proposal Hits Congress
Subtitled:  While some states have made data privacy gains, the US has so far been unable to implement protections at a federal level. A new bipartisan proposal called APRA could break the impasse.
HITB.com: A Breakthrough Online Privacy Proposal Hits Congress
Washington Post: Lawmakers unveil sprawling plan to expand online privacy protections
The Verge: Lawmakers unveil new bipartisan digital privacy bill after years of impasse

The topic? What some are calling the "American Privacy Rights Act," but is on the books as the "American Data Privacy and Protection Act."  The first question being, are they the same thing?

The linked sources make repeated references to APRA... evoking its bipartisan nature... and especially mention the original act which has been languishing in their Senatorial and Congressional "HOLD" files for two entire years...  While neglecting to note that the ORIGINAL BILL TITLE (thus, the original Act) remains the on-record matter before them...  

Second question... Why the "rebranding?"

Can anyone say, "political tomfoolery?"

THIS Bill (HR8152 - "American Data Privacy and Protection Act") has been the object of their responsibility all along... but political gamesmanship and other "considerations" rendered it an "unpalatable political adventure of lesser value" that they refused to entertain ... and now they will claim they have "succeeded" at the game of 'politicking.' 

The citizens required the body of their government to protect them, and they dawdled until the time was 'politically' right.  The framework was already built, the legwork had already been done... these last two years was just some kind of "vacation" from governance.

Do I sound pissed off?  Apologies... I should expect no more from those who follow political clowns into battle.

Actual Bill text: H.R.8152 - American Data Privacy and Protection Act

Data privacy, just as privacy in general, has become the neo-obstacle to low-investment-high-profit.  Since nothing higher than 'profit' exists within their "culture" it should be expected that, to our representative cadre, the benefit of the citizen privacy is only a secondary... lesser priority... it's a shame that.

Had they a tiny shred of shame, they would have quietly passed the damn initiative.  So what is there 'go to' plan?  "Rebrand it and proclaim how great our bipartisanship is..."

Yeah... maybe I'm a little pissed off...

When I first read about this conflict I was amazed that this kind of "diplomacy" was not more common. The gist is there is a rock (island) in the middle of what Canada and Denmark had as a sea border was under despute.

Quote:The Whisky War, also known as the Liquor Wars,[sup][1][/sup] was a bloodless war and border dispute between the Kingdom of Denmark and Canada over Hans Island. Between 1973 and 2022, the island was under dispute between the two nations, although never amounting to direct conflict or violence.[sup][2] [/sup]

In 1984, Canadian soldiers visited the island and planted a Canadian flag, also leaving a bottle of Canadian whisky.[sup][9][/sup] The Danish Minister of Greenland Affairs came to the island himself later the same year with the Danish flag, a bottle of Schnapps, and a letter stating "Welcome to the Danish Island" 

So, there was this crazy dude with crazy ideas, and no its not any of us here., (we hope)

Quote:Time Cube was a pseudoscientific personal web page set up in 1997 by the self-proclaimed "wisest man on earth", Otis Eugene "Gene" Ray.[sup][3
...
"[/sup]Ray's personal model of reality, called "Time Cube", states that all of modern physics and education is wrong,[sup][4][/sup] and argues that, among many other things, Greenwich Time is a global conspiracy.

Quote:Ray spoke about Time Cube at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January 2002 as part of a student-organized extra-curricular event during the independent activities period.[sup][8][/sup] 

ATS misfit looking for a home. Went dark for awhile and when I ventured back to ATS...well, you know.
Glad to have found this spot

I aligned the thread title with the article title because it seemed proper...

From DarkReading.com: 'Unfaking' News: How to Counter Disinformation Campaigns in Global Elections
Subtitled: What cybersecurity professionals around the world can do to defend against the scourge of online disinformation in this year's election cycle.

Being as I am, I found several instances of statements with which I take exception.  Not calling it misinformation... but opting instead to declare it simply "incorrect" or "incomplete" ... although those are among the hallmarks of misinformation itself.  Certainly, it isn't disinformation because only a pretentious fool (or a government) would think that whatever they publish is to be taken as "doctrine."

Excerpted problem statements
 

This should be interesting and possibly very good device to help those who struggle to learn reading and writing.

Prompted by the clarion call to eliminate illiteracy, these two organizations are launching a new 'product'... 
(The fact that it is, or will be, a product to be 'marketed,' Inclines me to take the stated benefits with a grain of salt.  On its surface this might be an example of 'press-release' journalism.  But still I thought it sounded cool, and wondered if it will work and be accessible to common folk.)

From TheNextWeb.com: This ‘literacy pen’ instantly teaches you to read and write
 

This seems like a positive development for the early treatment of Alzheimer's, at the very least.  Apparently, the NHS is ready to embark on a large-scale trials to evaluate the effectiveness of blood tests in diagnosing dementia.
 

Here's my best one.  Did anyone else get photos?

Taken with my Samsung Galaxy S-22 Ultra phone (which takes darn nice photos, folks) in Dallas, Texas.  Thought we were going to have dense clouds all day but there were patches of clear sky.  One of them hit as we reached totality.

Like the format, like pretty much everything…except that I have to add capitals after a full stop 
well done to the creator and all aboard
Nice to see familiar faces or at least familiar names
Great site, nice to be a part of this place RM 

Though I do like the political discussion, nice not to see it everywhere all at once

This is a sticky wicket.

Truth is, at one point at least, Catholicism was the Christian religion... whether it is debatable or not, the numbers of believers reflected the fact plainly.  But since humankind is nothing if not litigious (prone to a fault of compulsively dissecting words and statements,) it stands to reason that any group of would-be like-minded individuals will soon descend into discussion and dispute over minutiae.  Pride and vainglory being what they are, compounded with "tradition" versus "progress," we soon find schisms and fractures among the different opinions... hence, it is now proposed that "Catholicism" is "distinct" and "separate" from "common" Christianity.

Here is an article which I found fairly useful in the arguments about the differences... although some points merit special focus, and others seem simple enough.

From HowStuffWorks.com: Catholic vs. Christian: Overlap and Differences in the Religions
 

A couple of years ago on ATS I started a thread called "The adventure of publishing a book", trying to journalise the different stages of getting my first books from manuscript into print. I've just had another book published (what do you mean, you've never heard of it?), and I'd like to do something similar for the still-new process of trying to get one better known with a bit of publisher support. The first time round, I was giving them regular plugs on my Twitter account with a few campaigns of Promoted Tweets, and I'm sure that was the reason why the titles were getting high placings on Google queries. But the sales figures told me later that Google is not enough.

PPP (as I've been calling it for some time now) came out on the day before Good Friday. In the morning, a big box landed on my doorstep with a couple of dozen copies and some promotional material. Then I was rather alarmed in the afternoon to receive an e-mail from the publishers saying they had prepared a book trailer for me. How many books would this trailer be carrying, when would it arrive at my front door, and where would I store it all? It was something of a relief to click on the link provided and discover they meant the attached video clip.

That was the digital marketing department. I would quite like to hear soon from non-digital marketing. E.g., I need to know what their plans are about review copies. I can send out a few review copies and gift copies of my own, once I've dealt with "friends and family", but I don't want to overlap. And advertising. All I could afford the first time round was classified ads ("The Christian Century" and "The Spectator"), and it doesn't look as though that got me anywhere. Though I've now signed up to be able to campaign on Reddit, where it should be easier to define the target audience. That's in addition to offering book recommendations when I comment on questions.

And what to do with the promotional material? I'm not sure where to send those bookmarks. There are 100 copies of an order form, with a retail price in pounds and euros. I can't send those to bookshops, because they say nothing about discounts. Theology colleges for their students, rural deans (I'm an Anglican) for their clergy, very large churches for their congregations? Anyway, I'm going to advise the publishers to update those forms. They are still couched in terms of ordering books by post and paying by cheque, at a time when cheques in this country are growing obsolete even faster than cash.

And there are ten posters designed to promote "Meet the author" days. I was rather hoping the publishers themselves would be arranging things like that. Or is my agent supposed to do it? I need a literary agent. Where can I get an agent? I was hoping to make contact with one at the London Book Fair last year, but ran into the Catch-22 situation that I should have set up an appointment first. Got to make contact before you can make contact.

Anyway, I've kept the lanyard. Waste not, want not. It won't be the last time I want to walk around a place identifying myself as an author.

.A trailer

Scientific American

Quote:The nation's first outdoor test to limit global warming by increasing cloud cover launched Tuesday from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the San Francisco Bay.  

The experiment, which organizers didn't widely announce to avoid public backlash, marks the acceleration of a contentious field of research known as solar radiation modification. The concept involves shooting substances such as aerosols into the sky to reflect sunlight away from the Earth.

I have photos and screenshots I wanted to post, but I can’t figure out how. I took them myself so there’s no URL to link. 

I wasn’t sure where to post this as it is truly a “Skunk Works” type of post…however I have no solid theory yet.

I live in Vermont near the Canadian border. For those who don’t know, my area is expected to get the best view of the eclipse and as a result there are estimated to be several hundred thousand extra people in the area within the next day or so. Local and state government have prepared for major traffic jams, cellular phone outages, and lean grocery store shelves. It is now about 0300 local time on Sunday. A majority of the larger parking lots in the area are full, motels are filling up with people who made reservations years in advance in many cases, and staples in grocery stores are already wiped out for the most part.

Three days ago we had a significant snowstorm for this time of year. Below, I intended to show you how almost all of the many power outages from that snowstorm have been resolved, but I can’t post the screenshots. We have two electrical utilities whom provide almost all the electricity in the state, those being Vermont Electric Cooperative and Green Mountain Power.

There is a large Doubletree Hotel and conference center located at the junction of interstate 89 and route two, at the Burlington-South Burlington city line. I drive past there or through the parking lot almost every day. Friday night and Saturday morning I observed nothing unusual except slightly more cars than normal.

I drove through just a short time ago and was shocked at what I saw. There was row after row of electrical utility trucks from a company called Holland. I gave up counting at 40 trucks; I would estimate there are 50 to 60 total. I had never heard of the company before so I looked them up online. They are a disaster power restoration company with offices close to me in Quebec and Maine. Among the bucket trucks and work trucks are two mobile command posts.

All of this is in a wide open parking lot for anyone to view.

Since these were not here Friday night, and most local power outages have been dealt with, I’m guessing these trucks are staged here for a different purpose. Does it have to do with the eclipse? Is there a lingering fear of devastating earthquakes in this area? I’m not sure. What are your thoughts?

Just a "head's up" for those who follow the edicts of the intelligentsia at the FCC....

Reported at PhoneScoop: FCC to Vote on Net Neutrality, Sale of Location Data
Source: FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for April Open Meeting
 

In Jeremiah ch25, the prophet is instructed to take a "cup of the wine of wrath" and present it to the various kings of all the nations round about, from Egypt to Babylon. "They shall drink and stagger and go crazed because of the sword which I am sending among them" (v16). On another site which I now frequent, somebody was talking about this episode and observing that the cup could not have been a physical cup because of the logistics problem of travelling to the different places. I replied;

I agree, and I would add that no physical cup would have been necessary because the wine itself was only metaphorical.

The "drinking wine" metaphor is an important image which keeps recurring all the way up to Revelation ch17. I think in Jeremiah's usage it is fundamentally about loss of power. Babylon is the last nation to drink in this chapter, and in ch51 v7, there is a slightly different scenario in which Babylon is making the other nations drink. That is, Babylon takes power away from the other nations and finally loses power itself.

The thought -connection between getting drunk and losing power is intriguing. The most obvious connection is loss of judgement. Being drunk is a state of temporary madness, as well as leaving people incapacitated in other ways (compare v16 and the porter's speech in Macbeth).

But I think I've discovered a less obvious connection, a double metaphor. The archetypical drunken state of the Bible is the case of Noah after he first invented wine (Genesis ch9), and an important element in the story is that it left him naked. I suggest that the Israelites continued to associate getting drunk with getting naked, one more reason to disapprove of wine-drinking. I would also suggest that they associated nakedness with vulnerability. In Genesis ch3 v7 and again in Revelation ch3 v18 and ch16 v15 it appears to be a symbol of "being vulnerable to the critical eye of God's judgment". In that case, the thought process behind Jeremiah's image could be "Becoming drunk means becoming naked, becoming naked means becoming vulnerable, and becoming vulnerable means becoming powerless".

But the implication of all this is that "drinking the cup of wrath" ultimately means "being about to face judgment". That's the apparent meaning of the cup which the Harlot is offering in Revelation ch17. It appears that Jesus is applying the same image to his own prospective death on the Cross (Mark ch10 v38). That could even be part of the meaning of the cup at the Last Supper. I've only just thought of that last point, but it's possible that I read it somewhere and it's just re-emerged from my subconscious memory.

Here' the thing... I know that the current 'place holder' for aspects of science that we can't directly sense of measure, scientists chose to use the word "dark" (as in "dark matter" or "dark energy.")  I know that it is a matter of conceptualizing 'something' that we can't do more than 'deduce' must exist.

Scientist journalism, every plagued with the same 'social' baggage as anything else these days, has made a camp of "proclaimers' who state with their own 'brand' of scientific authenticity that which represent their 'favorite' theory.  They cluster and they speak of their perceptions, and we - information consumers - bereft of scientific backgrounds simply "must" pick a theory to echo.

Recently, the explosion of information provided us by several initiatives and hardware caused some initial 'confusion' ... not in what science understood, had measured, and was used in the press as "science for the masses" became harder (if not impossible) to "sell" convincingly... it could no longer be marketed as a "consensus."

Remember the James Webb Space Telescope, and how the data being gathered made for numerous different YouTube headlines?  In them, you could see 'surprise' and 'shock' about our potential misunderstanding about the actual age of the universe, how and why it expands, how things aren't "adding up" as their theory would have suggested...  All manner of apologetic reaction occurred in the media... most of which were about 'public misunderstanding,' or 'incapacity' to understand. Few touched upon the reality that scientists don't know every goddamn thing; Scientists often state their "guesses" and proceed to speak of them elaborately in a narrative of certainties - creating widespread misinterpretation.

Well... here's another "Dark" component of the newly described reality that is not conforming with the way they thought to design their take on the nature of the universe.

From Ars Technica: Dark energy might not be constant after all
From Berkley Lab: First Results from DESI Make the Most Precise Measurement of Our Expanding Universe
From New Scientist: There are hints that dark energy may be getting weaker

In all of these new measurements of the universe's supposed "dark energy" have proved to be inconsistent, or at least that we have proved that we are 'measuring it wrong' or not correctly putting those measurements all together.

The detail is kind of unalluring to describe, but the upshot of science it the end product.  As it turns out, presumed "dark" matter or energy has proven that deduction is not the ultimate tool to answer the riddles of the unknown.

There is a way that some visualize the structure of the universe which explains largely these ideas.  

Imagine a floating ball of froth.  All matter coalesces in the seams which separate the bubbles of the froth.  All the matter we can perceive, that is - since "dark matter" is there as well, we just can't "see" it.  The matter we can see is expanding (presumably along with the froth,) that is to mean, moving generally away from a central point.  However logical this might seem, mathematically proving it eludes them, scientist must model what they measure - but they can't measure what they can't directly detect.

That's the way the universe is apparently.  And it's expanding... a 'scientific' certainty.



They have created a technique to graphically visualize the expansion over time.  The math must be impressive, but if the mechanics are correct "more" weirdness surfaces.  The determine what are called "Baryon Acoustic Oscillations" within the measurable event and are left wondering if "dark energy" is actually weakening... 

The cliff notes of this are almost impossible for me to digest (not a scientist) but just for some ideas....





Thanks for reading!

Is a load of B******S!

I like this slant on the draconian fearmongering woke nazi highland political big brother bullcrap:

I am sure this is how "Biddy" Biden and many others get their prompts when public speaking. A pinpoint version hidden in the room perhaps. The "State Of The Union" speech would be a classic example perhaps with Obama sat on his couch hundreds of miles away speaking into a microphone.

Kudos to the Teacher who went to the trouble of funding this experiment to show his class just how possible and realistic this technology actually is. It would be interesting to experience it for myself regardless of how wierded out it may seem at the time.

A Demonstration Of Voice To Skull Technology.

Well this is cool. Scary in it's implications too. I'm pretty sure it's not a hoax but have struggled to find more info.

Maybe this explains how the Pope disappeared when he was at the window of the Vatican after saying "hi" to his minions.

No embed but here's the Bitchute link to the clip: "Portal"

I've had this bookmarked for years because I never trusted the technology in the first place.

How much this has evolved and in who's hands is a guess. I also wonder if there is a way to reverse the science to see/record what happens in the light of one of these systems.

The fact that this hasn't been offered with some kind of commercial slant today leads me to believe it's something to be wary of in our everyday lives, not for everything but under certain circumstances and locations.

No embed available but here's the link. It's a "TED Talk" from 2011 with 2.7 million views....

Wireless Data From Every Lightbulb

I struggled to wonder which forum to post this in, and then it seemed obvious.

Space isn't something limited only to looking up or out.

I remember this little movie as a kid and it blew my little mind. It's been travelling like this ever since and will never stop.

"This film probes the infinite magnitude of space, and its reverse, the ultimate minuteness of matter. Animation art and animation camera achieve this journey to the farthest conceivable point of the universe and then into the tiniest particle of existence--an atom of a living human cell--with a freshness and clarity that would seem impossible with other means of exposition.
Directed by Eva Szasz - 1968"

Enjoy.

I recently came upon an article... written in the vaguest terms possible, about a man who downloaded a couple of billions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrency on a thumb drive, and then slipped town.  I was wondering, because of the lack of 'reporting' detail (dates, times, etc.) if perhaps it was just a story for entertainment... but then I found more searching around ...

I though the tale... amended by the narrative I had just read, made for an interesting exercise in making it unclear as to whose narrative I should believe... the one hashed out in story-telling fashion, or the journalistic article I found later...

Join me...

From: HITB SecNews: He Emptied an Entire Crypto Exchange Onto a Thumb Drive. Then He Disappeared