Free Republic

If you read Stephen Moore's column, he noted how the consensus over oil is wrong. We're not running out of oil. In fact, many have been saying we're going to run out since the 1930s: These stupid predictions of the end of oil have been going on for most of the last century. Just over 100 years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Mines estimated total future production at 6 billion barrels, yet we've produced more than 20times that amount. In 1939 the Department of the Interior predicted U.S. oil supplies would last 13 years. I could go on. The folks...

I remember reading obscure things concerning biblical prophecy when I was a child. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around them. But these days, the Bible seems more like a newspaper than a book of prophecy. Look over these photos/verses and please add your own!

AFTER a year of big Apple releases, analysts are predicting a flat 2016 where the world's biggest tech company refines product lines rather than produces the next big thing. Apple's share price has taken a battering in the past six months, with more than $220 billion slashed from the company's value as analysts look towards an era of smartphone saturation. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty recently predicted that 2016 would be first time that iPhone sales would shrink, dropping by up to three per cent.

There may be no more American thing to do than to bemoan the declining state of everyone younger than you. Even Ben Franklin believed the youths of the 1700s fell short of the generations that had gone before. "The best capacities require cultivation, it being truly with them," Franklin said, "as with the best ground, which unless well tilled and sowed with profitable seed, produces only ranker weeds." A prime catalyst for those fears frequently has been new and evolving technology. In the early 20th century, even bicycles were seen as a tool of immorality, as romantic trysts between young...

The Intercept has obtained a secret government catalog that law enforcement agencies use to source even-more-secret cellular spying devices, mostly variants on the Stingray/Dirtbox, which pretend to be cellular towers in order to harvest the subscriber details of all the people within range (up to an entire city, for the airplane-mounted Dirtboxes). The catalog details the capabilities and costs of the different devices in use in at least 60 law enforcement agencies in the US, most of whom will not admit to owning them (this can go to absurd lengths, such as lying in court, or police-on-police raids to confiscate...

Many consumers believe smartphones will cease to exist within five years, according to new research carried out by researchers on behalf of Ericsson. The company's ConsumerLab questioned more than 100,000 customers in its native Sweden and 39 other countries, seeking their views on their technological desires for the future.

Lawmakers continue to wrangle over a bill that would overhaul the nation's immigration system. One provision in this bill would allow companies to import a lot more skilled workers. The tech industry has lobbied hard for this, despite fears among some American workers about the extra competition. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin says the bill has American workers covered. --Employers will be given a chance to hire a temporary foreign worker when truly needed. But first, they'll be required to recruit Americans. No exceptions, no excuses,-- he said. Still, making companies recruit Americans isn't the same as making them hire them....

The Amish are online, onscreen, and multiplying fast. In their battle with modernity, it’s tough to say who’s winning I’ve probably visited more Amish settlements than anyone. Who would venture out to the most remote corners of Montana, Maine and South Texas if they didn’t happen to be a student of Amish culture? Perhaps a peddler of pots and pans; many Amish cooks, I have noticed, gradually gave up their cast iron for stainless steel in the past 50 years... In my 25 years exploring Amish communities, I’ve witnessed changes that would be unnoticeable to the average outsider... To the...

China continues to rack up successes in exporting its nuclear power technologies as it seeks to become a leader on the global stage. Chinese President Xi Jingping wrapped up a state visit to the United Kingdom at the end of October, in which he inked a deal with the UK to help build nuclear reactors in England. The deal will see the China General Nuclear Power Corporation acquire a 33.5 percent stake in the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant. The power plant could be the most expensive reactor ever built and although it will be constructed years behind schedule, it...

Wireless power has been a dream of mankind’s for decades, but the technology finally appears to be gaining some traction. Theoretically, numerous studies have shown that wireless power is possible through a variety of aerial transmission modalities. Yet the problem with wireless power has been getting the technology to work at a reasonable range. So far, commercial use of wireless power has been limited, but progress is being made. For instance, Samsung now has a commercially available wireless charger for its cell phones. With the charger, consumers do not need to plug their phone into the wall for it to...

During the fourth Republican debate, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina correctly noted that "big government has created a big business called politics. And there are lots of people invested in the status quo of that big business called politics." What Fiorina did not say was that, particularly in the tech sphere, the big business of politics loves to attempt hostile takeovers, often in the guise of trying to stop genuinely predatory behavior. Ironically, the biggest beneficiaries of such takeovers are usually the predators themselves. No better example of such disingenuous action exists than the current proposed FCC enforcement action...

Transmittance spectrum of the 54Al2O3-46Ta2O5 glass in the UV/vis region. The inset picture shows the glass sample used for the transmittance experiment. Credit: (c) 2015 Scientific Reports (2015). DOI: 10.1038/srep15233 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with The University of Tokyo and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute has created a type of glass that is stronger than many metals. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers describe how they overcame one of the major hurdles in creating glass imbued with extra amounts of an oxide of aluminum, by using what they call aerodynamic levitation. Glass that does...

With the exception of Mrs. Clinton and her email scandal, few presidential candidates of either party have been moved during their campaigns to discuss technology at length. That changes today, as Donald Trump gives an exclusive interview to Breitbart Tech about hacking, cyber-warfare and artificial intelligence. BREITBART TECH: What’s your position on the NSA? Has it overreached in recent years, or is it an essential line of defense in the fight against terrorism? TRUMP: The National Security Agency (NSA) is charged with collecting electronic intelligence from a host of sources around the world and from those who live in America who might...

Your next tinfoil hat will won’t be made of tinfoil. A small company called Conductive Composites out of Utah has developed a flexible material — thin and tough enough for wallpaper or woven fabric — that can keep electronic emissions in and electromagnetic pulses out.

It comes at different times, and in different forms. But as they have charted the war in southeast Ukraine over the past year, drones flown by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe have run into the same problem: Russian troops on the ground are jamming them into virtual blindness. It’s just one part of a sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW) effort in Ukraine that has proved a sobering experience for the U.S. Army. Faced with how the newly modernized Russian army is operating in Ukraine and Syria — using equipment like the Krasukha-4, which jams radar and aircraft...

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email scandal didn’t stop the head of the CIA from using his own personal AOL account to stash work-related documents, according to a stoner high school student who claims to have hacked into them. CIA Director John Brennan’s private account held sensitive files — including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance — until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated, the hacker told The Post. Other emails stored in Brennan’s non-government account contained the Social Security numbers and personal information of more than a dozen top American intelligence officials, as well as a government letter...

Thanks in part to advances like email, Facebook, and Twitter, mail carriers will be all but obsolete in the not-so-distant future. By 2022, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 28% decline in postal-service jobs, totaling around 139,100 fewer positions. Mail carriers aren't the only ones whose jobs are disappearing. Technology and market shifts have affected a wide range of fields. Based on the BLS's occupational outlook data, here are 15 American jobs that are on their way out. 1. Printing worker According to the BLS, printing workers inspect random samples during print runs to identify problems and make...

As technology changes, so does the job market. Two centuries ago, most low skilled workers would have found work as farmhands, while a century ago they would have been employed in a factory. Today they are most likely to work in the service industry, whether in retail, food service, janitorial services or as personal care aides in a nursing home or hospital. As I have written before, these jobs are often important stepping stones to better ones, even if they do not offer a direct path to advancement. Low skilled jobs still teach workers how to follow instructions and become...

On Friday a group of government officials, environmentalists, and local bigwigs gathered in the coastal town of Squamish, British Columbia, about an hour north of Vancouver, to mark the onset of what could one day be a new industry: creating carbon-neutral transportation fuel made from carbon dioxide captured from air. The company that built the plant, Carbon Engineering, was founded by a Canadian scientist named David Keith. A Harvard professor of applied physics, Keith has made headlines before for his outspoken advocacy for more research into geoengineering (specifically, seeding the lower stratosphere with sulfuric acid to reflect sunlight and cool...

The number of private tech companies valued at $1 billion or more has surged so much this year that on average 1.3 so-called unicorn companies have been created every week in 2015, according to data from CB Insights. But now it looks like winter is coming to Silicon Valley. Fortune's Dan Primack went to San Francisco this week and met with a number of people involved with unicorn companies with ballooning valuations. He says the mentality of people in Silicon Valley is starting to change, and people are getting scared. "As in the past, they are nearly unanimous in sentiment,"...