Lifeboat Foundation

It’s been called an online Iron Curtain.

On Friday, a controversial law went into force that enables Russia to try to disconnect its internet from the rest of the world, worrying critics who fear the measure will promote online censorship.

The Kremlin says its “sovereign internet” law, which was signed by President Vladimir Putin in May, is a security measure to protect Russia in the event of an emergency or foreign threat like a cyberattack. The law will allow Moscow to tighten control over the country’s internet by routing web traffic through state-controlled infrastructure and creating a national system of domain names.

Around the world, a movement is gaining momentum that grants legal rights to natural phenomena, including rivers, lakes and mountains. Robert Macfarlane investigates the rise of the new animism.

Okay, Science time.

• Article
• Published: 21 October 2019

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The universe is getting messy. Like a glass shattering to pieces or a single wave crashing onto the shore, the universe’s messiness can only move in one direction – toward more chaos and disorder. But scientists think that, at least for a single electron or the simplest quantum computer, they may be able to turn back time, and restore order to chaos. This doesn’t mean we’ll be visiting with dinosaurs or Napoleon any time soon, but for physicists, the idea that time can run backward at all is still a pretty big deal.

Normally, the universe’s trend toward disorder is a fundamental law: the second law of thermodynamics. It says more formally that any system can only move from more to less ordered, and that the chaos or disorder of a system – its entropy – can never decrease. But an international team of scientists led by researchers at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology think they may have discovered a loophole.

A new proposal scheduled to be released from the office of Senator Lee (R-Utah) tomorrow would put the airspace up to 200 feet in altitude over private property under the control of the property owner – and would restrict the FAA’s right to regulate airspace below 200 feet in altitude, making any zoning or regulatory decisions the right of the state or tribal entity governing the land.

DRONELIFE received a summary of the bill from Senator Lee’s office. We may not quote from the summary, as the bill is due to be released tomorrow. In essence, the bill seeks to clarify and control two significant legal issues that remain unresolved: 1) Establish the airspace to 200 feet in altitude above private property as under the exclusive control of the property owner; and 2) Establish state, tribal and local governments as having exclusive and absolute rights to regulate that airspace.

In summary, the bill would propose that the altitude between 200 and 400 feet be designated for the use of civilian drones – although it wouldn’t prohibit the FAA from allowing drones above 400 feet. The area under 200 feet would be under the jurisdiction of state, local and tribal governments – and the bill would call for a redefinition of “navigable airspace” to make that clear.

Hemp just became legal to grow in the United States for the first time in nearly a century. Levi’s is helping the superplant regain its reputation by blending it into its iconic denim.

Hemp is one of the most powerful plants in the world, producing twice as much fiber as cotton, using far less water and pesticides… and fixing the soil while it’s at it!

Circa 2018

After first spotting this crazy looking motorcycle-styled hoverbike in early 2017, we were skeptical the contraption would ever move beyond just an odd engineering curiosity. However, Russian company Hoversurf has just revealed its hoverbikes are now ready for production and preorders are open, with delivery scheduled for sometime in 2019.

Continue reading “For $150,000 you can now order your own Hoverbike” »

John Mullan, professor of English literature at University College London, wrote an article on The Guardian titled “We need robots to have morals. Could Shakespeare and Austen help?”.

Using great literature to teach ethics to machines is a dangerous game. The classics are a moral minefield.

When he wrote the stories in I, Robot in the 1940s, Isaac Asimov imagined a world in which robots do all humanity’s tedious or unpleasant jobs for them, but where their powers have to be restrained. They are programmed to obey three laws. A robot may not injure another human being, even through inaction; a robot must obey a human being (except to contradict the previous law); a robot must protect itself (unless this contradicts either of the previous laws).