7:25 PM
Hundreds of thousands of students across California are at risk because the schools that they go to are not earthquake safe. Dozens of structures are schools have been identified to be at risk of collapsing in an earthquake, but most are *still* in use and there are no plans to repair them. The biggest worry is for the old concrete school buildings built before 1976 that used "non-ductile" concrete, a type of material that did not hold up well in the recent earthquake in New Zealand. School districts don't have the money to make the schools earthquake safe, even with the state offering to pay part of the cost:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/california-schools-seismically-unsafe-lack-funding-retrofits
Parents in Tokyo and 5 surrounding cities have been told that infants (children less than 1 year old) should not be allowed to consume tap water after elevated levels of radioactive iodine from one of the damaged nuclear plants were detected at a water treatment plant. Consumers have also been told not to eat a dozen types of contaminated vegetables from the region surrounding the nuclear plant:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-tokyo-water-20110324,0,7951826.story
US jets have taken the attacks on the Libyan military to the next level by attacking their ground forces outside major cities in Libya. Even though we officially do not coordinate anything with the Libyan opposition, a US spokesman "misspoke" when he let it slip that we told the opposition how to avoid the bombing runs on ground forces:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/u-s-jets-step-up-attacks-on-gadhafis-troops/
The Air Force is going to have their second X-51A Waverider hypersonic flight test today--this article from last week says that it might have been as early as yesterday, but weather situations pushed the flight to today. If everything goes well, the scramjet will reach *Mach 6* today:
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123247043
NASA found a possible Y-class brown dwarf, which actually has the potential of actually being a planet. The Y-class of brown dwarfs include brown dwarfs that are cool enough to have water vapor in their atmosphere capable of condensing to form clouds and water:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/nasa-find-possible-y-class-brown-dwarf.html
Minnesota researchers are filing patents for a technique to make *renewable petroleum fuels* using bacteria, sunlight and dioxide:
http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2011/UR_CONTENT_314387.html
Planetary scientists say that it is conceivable that all life on Earth is descended from organisms that originated on Mars and were carried here aboard meteorites. MIT and Harvard researchers are developing an instrument that could provide evidence for the theory. I *really* do not buy this theory:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/martian-0323.html
LightSquared signed a deal with Best Buy to have Best Buy's Connect service use its LTE network:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/lightsquared-best-buy-ink-mvno-deal/2011-03-23
It looks like Verizon is featuring Ethernet backhaul instead of microwave wireless backhaul with their LTE rollout:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/verizon-wireless-cto-impressed-amount-backhaul-available/2011-03-22
AT&T points out that their combination of LTE and HSPA+ will give their customers a superior data experience than Verizon's customers--that is a good point, since HSPA+ has a much faster fallback data rate than Verizon's 3G network. One interesting point at the end of the article is that AT&T is proposing to build 80 new small-antenna tower sites on top of utility poles across downtown Palo Alto to satisfy that heavy data traffic location:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/att-cto-talks-hspa-advantage-when-it-rolls-out-lte/2011-03-23
Interesting figures that show the current coverage maps for AT&T and T-Mobile and what the combined network would look like in terms of coverage:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/pages/attt-mobile-spectrum-and-coverage-maps#jump
Funny tweet by actor Bob Stephenson: "So AT&T and T-Mobile are getting married. You're all invited. But there will be no reception afterwards":
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/chatter/2011/03/at-t-t-mobile-tweet-of-the-day.html
I cannot wait to see Star Wars Miniland at Legoland!
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/03/geekdad-gets-the-first-look-at-legolands-new-star-wars-miniland/
It is interesting how American Idol's lawyer denies that AI producers ever made the comments a former contestant is saying that they made...then, the lawyer says that at the verbal slurs were made on 3 separate and distinct occasions and none show harassment or discrimination. So, they didn't say it, but if they did it was on 3 different days?
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/media/e3ibdf8c82d24188dee42fe1a0ec5bda10b
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/california-schools-seismically-unsafe-lack-funding-retrofits
Parents in Tokyo and 5 surrounding cities have been told that infants (children less than 1 year old) should not be allowed to consume tap water after elevated levels of radioactive iodine from one of the damaged nuclear plants were detected at a water treatment plant. Consumers have also been told not to eat a dozen types of contaminated vegetables from the region surrounding the nuclear plant:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-tokyo-water-20110324,0,7951826.story
US jets have taken the attacks on the Libyan military to the next level by attacking their ground forces outside major cities in Libya. Even though we officially do not coordinate anything with the Libyan opposition, a US spokesman "misspoke" when he let it slip that we told the opposition how to avoid the bombing runs on ground forces:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/u-s-jets-step-up-attacks-on-gadhafis-troops/
The Air Force is going to have their second X-51A Waverider hypersonic flight test today--this article from last week says that it might have been as early as yesterday, but weather situations pushed the flight to today. If everything goes well, the scramjet will reach *Mach 6* today:
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123247043
NASA found a possible Y-class brown dwarf, which actually has the potential of actually being a planet. The Y-class of brown dwarfs include brown dwarfs that are cool enough to have water vapor in their atmosphere capable of condensing to form clouds and water:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/nasa-find-possible-y-class-brown-dwarf.html
Minnesota researchers are filing patents for a technique to make *renewable petroleum fuels* using bacteria, sunlight and dioxide:
http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2011/UR_CONTENT_314387.html
Planetary scientists say that it is conceivable that all life on Earth is descended from organisms that originated on Mars and were carried here aboard meteorites. MIT and Harvard researchers are developing an instrument that could provide evidence for the theory. I *really* do not buy this theory:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/martian-0323.html
LightSquared signed a deal with Best Buy to have Best Buy's Connect service use its LTE network:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/lightsquared-best-buy-ink-mvno-deal/2011-03-23
It looks like Verizon is featuring Ethernet backhaul instead of microwave wireless backhaul with their LTE rollout:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/verizon-wireless-cto-impressed-amount-backhaul-available/2011-03-22
AT&T points out that their combination of LTE and HSPA+ will give their customers a superior data experience than Verizon's customers--that is a good point, since HSPA+ has a much faster fallback data rate than Verizon's 3G network. One interesting point at the end of the article is that AT&T is proposing to build 80 new small-antenna tower sites on top of utility poles across downtown Palo Alto to satisfy that heavy data traffic location:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/att-cto-talks-hspa-advantage-when-it-rolls-out-lte/2011-03-23
Interesting figures that show the current coverage maps for AT&T and T-Mobile and what the combined network would look like in terms of coverage:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/pages/attt-mobile-spectrum-and-coverage-maps#jump
Funny tweet by actor Bob Stephenson: "So AT&T and T-Mobile are getting married. You're all invited. But there will be no reception afterwards":
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/chatter/2011/03/at-t-t-mobile-tweet-of-the-day.html
I cannot wait to see Star Wars Miniland at Legoland!
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/03/geekdad-gets-the-first-look-at-legolands-new-star-wars-miniland/
It is interesting how American Idol's lawyer denies that AI producers ever made the comments a former contestant is saying that they made...then, the lawyer says that at the verbal slurs were made on 3 separate and distinct occasions and none show harassment or discrimination. So, they didn't say it, but if they did it was on 3 different days?
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/media/e3ibdf8c82d24188dee42fe1a0ec5bda10b