Concerns About United States Coal Industry Intensify

Peabody coal, the largest coal mining concern in the United States, faces concerns that it could follow its smaller competitors into bankruptcy (archived). Patriot Coal, Walter Energy, and Alpha Natural resources filed for bankruptcy last year while Arch Coal filed for bankruptcy on January 11th of this year. While oil has dominated the mainstream news cycle, the energy extraction industry as a whole is leading the fiat march to suffering. Continue reading

Fiat Feeling Pain Below The Corn Belt

A movement is building in the Middle West to compel the United States Government to raise the amount of debt that qualifies for restructuring under Chapter 12 "family farm" bankruptcy terms (archived). This push comes amid widespread fear from agricultural lenders concerned that the present limits would push many of the year's anticipated farm bankruptcies into either Chapter 7 liquidation or a far more expensive Chapter 11 reorganization, alternatives which would make their receiving eventual repayment far less likely. Depressed prices for corn and other staple agricultural products in the United States along with declining export sales are leading to grim prospects for 2016 on the farm. Sorry for your loss.

Intel Skylake Brings Optimized #ROWHAMMER Exploit

In spite of marketing that Intel's latest Skylake family of chips would be more resistant to the Rowhammer exploit through use of DDR4 memory, it has come out that not only does Rowhammer survive (archived), exploiting it is more optimizable than ever (archived) thanks to the new clflushopt instruction. Remember to watch your bits and be selective in the code and hardware you choose to run.