Gary Raymond had had enough of the lights in Warehouse No. 5. The old metal-halide fixtures cast a sour yellow hue on the stacks of cardboard boxes inside the storage facility. They hummed incessantly and burned out well before their due.
So Mr. Raymond, the landlord, replaced them with a brighter, smarter Web-enabled lighting system. He hoped it would help attract and retain tenants in the increasingly competitive warehouse market on Chicago's Southwest Side. But when the next utility bill arrived, something looked very wrong.
Energy efficiency: How the Internet can lower your electric bill
4 US soldiers killed in south Afghanistan
The US-led international military coalition says four of its service members have been killed in southern Afghanistan and a military official confirms all were Americans killed by an improvised explosive device.
Nato said in a statement that the four were killed on Sunday during a partnered operation in the south, but did not provide any further details or their nationalities.
New shape-shifting metals discovered
A new shape-changing metal crystal is reported in the journal Nature, by scientists at University of Minnesota. It is the prototype of a new family of smart materials that could be used in applications ranging from space vehicles to electronics to jet engines.
Called a "martensite", the crystal has two different arrangements of atoms, switching seamlessly between them. It can change shape tens of thousands of times when heated and cooled without degrading, unlike existing technology.
US scientists boycott Nasa conference over China ban
Nasa is facing an extraordinary backlash from US researchers after it emerged that the space agency has banned Chinese scientists, including those working at US institutions, from a conference on grounds of national security.
Nasa officials rejected applications from Chinese nationals who hoped to attend the meeting at the agency's Ames research centre in California next month citing a law, passed in March, which prohibits anyone from China setting foot in a Nasa building.
NSA and GCHQ target Tor network that protects anonymity of web users
The National Security Agency has made repeated attempts to develop attacks against people using Tor, a popular tool designed to protect online anonymity, despite the fact the software is primarily funded and promoted by the US government itself.
Top-secret NSA documents, disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveal that the agency's current successes against Tor rely on identifying users and then attacking vulnerable software on their computers. One technique developed by the agency targeted the Firefox web browser used with Tor, giving the agency full control over targets' computers, including access to files, all keystrokes and all online activity.
'Tobacco-free' plan for Republic of Ireland
Dr James Reilly has defined a "tobacco-free Ireland" as a state where less than 5% of the population smoke.
According to the latest figures, 22% of people aged 15 and over regularly smoke cigarettes in the Republic of Ireland.
The plan makes 60 recommendations to significantly reduce smoking over the next 12 years. Tobacco would still be available, but at an increased cost.
Bruce Enberg: And I saw a Pale Horse
Obama is talking to Wall Street about the Government Default as in (the end of the F'n world) being a very real possibility. We'll see what that does to the markets starting in Asia in just a couple of hours. Is he really talking about a Pale Horse who's rider said unto him, "Come and see"....
Maybe we're just talking about the Federal Reserve going all QE666 and buying up all the outstanding dollar denominated debt on the planet. They could actually do that. It would put an awful lot of cash into circulation.... I'm not sure what that would really do.... Since all that cash would be in only a relatively few hands, maybe nothing would happen.
Fracking Study: Gas Production In Pennsylvania May Be Polluting Creek With Radioactive Waste
Fracking may be contaminating a Pennsylvania river with radioactive waste, a Duke University study to be published this week shows.
Scientists found elevated levels of radioactivity in river water at a site where treated fracking wastewater from oil and gas production sites in western Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale is released into a creek.
Alex Baer: On Exhausting All of One's Possibilities
Well, after more than a decade of heavy use and pushing their certified load limits, it's finally happened: I've broken the backs on all my expletives. They're in traction, up at Lingua Franca University Hospital, in Esperanto.
I blame the current GOP-created-and-sponsored government shutdown as much as I do the amount of overwork my profane and explicit oaths and exclamations have been subjected to, ever since Reagan slipped through the cracks of the founding fathers' notions of a wise and informed populace, and a watchdog press, keeping a close and good eye on its leaders and their use of power.
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