US Special Ops commander: We’ve sent troops into North Korea

From Daily Caller.com (May 28):

U.S. Army Gen. Neil Tolley, commander of U.S. Special Operations Forces in South Korea, told an audience in Tampa that U.S. and South Korean forces have been sent into North Korea to spy on the communist country’s vast collection of underground tunnels and military installations.

The extraordinary admission, which went unreported by U.S. media, came on May 22 during the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference. Tolley said his command has identified 20 airfields and 180 munitions factories that are partially underground, along with thousands of subterranean artillery positions.

North Korea, he said, has dug tunnels underneath the Demilitarized Zone separating it from the South. “There were four tunnels under the DMZ,” Tolley observed, according to a Tampa Tribune blogger. “Those are the ones we know about.” [read more]

Tunnels under the DMZ, huh? Either the N. Koreans are trying to escape their country (which I don’t blame them) or the new leader of N. Korea is up to no good.  Those special ops guys really earn their pay.

The Advantages of Localism in Welfare

This extract is from Daniel Hannan’s 2010 book The New Road to Serfdom. A Letter of Warning to America:

First, large bureaucracies create unintended consequences. Where states and counties can tailor their policies to suit local needs, a uniform system that covers 300 million people is bound to contain loopholes, tempting into dependency some who were never envisaged as claimants.
Second, proximity facilitates discernment. Person A may be a deserving widow who has been unlucky, while person B is a layabout. Local caseworkers may see this clearly. But if the universal rules handed down from Washington place the two applicants in the same category, they must be treated identically.
Third, pluralism spreads best practice. The freedom to innovate means that local authorities will come up with ideas and pilot schemes that Washington  would never have dreamed of.
Fourth, non-state agents – churches, charities, businesses – are likelier to involve themselves in local projects than in national schemes, and such organizations are far better at taking people out of poverty than are government agencies.
Fifth, localism transforms attitudes. In Europe, many see benefit fraud as cheating "the system" rather than cheating their neighbors. People would take a very different attitude toward, say, the neighbor whom we knew to be claiming incapacity benefit while working as an electrician if they felt the impact in their local tax bill.
Finally, and perhaps most important, localism undergirds the notion of responsibility: our responsibility to support ourselves if we can, and our responsibility to those around us – not an abstract category of "the underprivileged", but visible neighbors – who, for whatever reason, cannot support themselves. No longer is obligation discharged when we have paid our taxes. Localism, in short, makes us better citizens.

Make good sense to me. But the arrogant elitist politicians who are addicted to power will balk at following or even considering this advice.

Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects

This technology is from Disney Research Hub. I guess Disney could use this technology in their theme parks somehow. Here is what the research department say about the technology:

Touché proposes a novel Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing technique that can not only detect a touch event, but also recognize complex configurations of the human hands and body. Such contextual information significantly enhances touch interaction in a broad range of applications, from conventional touchscreens to unique contexts and materials.

As one of the comments said, this technology could even be used for death people using sign language to communicate with the hearing community. Have the device hooked up to the death person’s hands and an audio output that corresponds to the sign language. For instance, if the death person signs “hello” then a computer-like device could say the word “hello.”

Interesting technology.

Toyota Concept Electric Car Resembles Recliner Chair

From News Max.com (May 1):

Toyota has come up with a personal concept vehicle that can hit 20 mph and resembles a souped-up Barcalounger.

The i-Real electric personal vehicle is controlled by two joysticks and was unveiled at the 2012 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition, London’s Daily Mail reported. [read more]

This vehicle is only meant for customers in China. Only 20 mph huh? I guess it is not meant for highway driving. This electric car is going to make all the environuts happy in China and over here.

Here’s something to ponder: If the demand for electric cars goes up in the future that could put stress on the electric grid just like when everyone put their air conditioners on when it gets very hot out. The only way around this is to make the cars run on solar power. Or the owner has a solar generator he can plug the car into.

And if the battery goes dead in an electric car (or even a hybrid for that matter) the car becomes a dead weight, ie it totally locks up. You can’t even it try to push it like you would with a regular gasoline car. Or in a hybrid if you run out of gas even if the battery is fully charged the car shuts down. Popular Mechanics tested this scenario. The car manufacturers do this to protect the battery because it is so expensive to make.