3.5-mile-long train has state officials worried | train, trains, long – News – The Orange County Register

Officials at the California Public Utilities Commission have expressed concerns regarding 3.5-mile-long freight train that Union Pacific sent cross-country and arrived in Southern California over the weekend.

“Our safety concerns with the train in question include that there is adequate braking capacity for a train that size, that the track structure could handle the forces generated by a train of that size, and that the train not block crossings for more than 10 minutes,” said CPUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper in San Francisco.

via 3.5-mile-long train has state officials worried | train, trains, long – News – The Orange County Register.

German banker sees no defense of industry bonuses | Money & Company | Los Angeles Times

The head of Germany’s second-largest bank said huge financial-industry bonuses have gone “absolutely out of bounds,” and called on other major banks to slash the payments.

Commerzbank Chairman Klaus-Peter Mueller told Bloomberg News in an interview that massive bonuses were “almost a kind of betrayal on shareholders. It is simply impossible that you give up to 50% of earnings on businesses into bonus pools.”

via German banker sees no defense of industry bonuses | Money & Company | Los Angeles Times.

Survey outs Britain as nation of tech twits • The Register

Oh yeah?, Well I think you’re a dongle.

One in 20 Britons think Steve Jobs is a Division II footballer, six per cent think a virtual hard disk (VHD) is a sexually transmitted disease, and 10 per cent believe a wireless dongle to be a sex toy.

via Survey outs Britain as nation of tech twits • The Register.

Ray Kurzweil on the future of digital books | Technology | Los Angeles Times

Big fan of Kurzweil.

May he live to see the singularity.

Inventor and technology futurist Ray Kurzweil thought the same thing. So the man who developed optical character recognition and voice recognition came up with Blio, a digital book software program that promises to put those gray-scale displays to shame.

via Ray Kurzweil on the future of digital books | Technology | Los Angeles Times.