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- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
An aerial/telephoto exploration of the Canadian Oil Sands operations. Two trillion barrels of oil in the ground. Pyramids of sulfur and coke. Lakes of oil stretching to the horizon. At $200k/yr, it's easy to understand how one might get roped in, gold rush style. - Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy, as revealed by ALEC bills and other PR documents. This morning at the World Renewable Energy Forum, in response to a (long winded) question about how we might re-frame the energy discussion in light of the unfortunate hay which was made from Solyndra's failure, US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu re-iterated that clean energy should not be a political issue -- that it's just common sense. That may be true, but it doesn't mean it will remain apolitical. As Pericles once said... "Just because you do not take an interest in - The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry
A look at the increasingly outsourced world of underground pharma. Domestic black-market chemists handle R&D and distribution, and the actual manufacturing is done in China. Seems that way with everything. - Google Street View for building energy efficiency
Essess is doing drive-by thermal imaging in high density urban areas across the US, hoping to target possible building energy efficiency opportunities. Another company is using urban satellite imagery to choose the best rooftops for solar energy siting. Big Brother may be watching you... but at least occasionally he's got the right idea. - The Neapolitan Mob’s Most Dangerous Family
A character sketch of Paolo di Lauro, one of the Neapolitan Camorra's former leaders. Southern Italy it seems, like some parts of Mexico, operates with more than one quasi-state organization governing in parallel. A tacit negotiation between the official and unofficial systems, which sometimes erupts into violence -- ironically, at those times when the so-called "criminal" organizations have become weak.
- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
Twitterfeed
- Incredible photo essay on the Athabasca Tar Sands operations: businessinsider.com/canadian-oil-s… 2 days ago
- At a great talk about individual cities as the right scale for renewable energy systems innovation at #wref2012 5 days ago
- Heard rural Wyoming folk talking local Chinese coal/gas investments, hacking of their SCADA water system. I live in a @GreatDismal future. 6 days ago
- The tar sands have to stay in the ground. Stop the pipeline… again. And again. And again, if necessary. act.350.org/sign/kxl/ 3 months ago
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 3 months ago
Incoming Memes
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Shared Links for Mar 31st
Privacy and the Fourth Amendment – Our laws, or at least, our interpretations of them, desperately need to be updated to deal with information and privacy in a computer mediated world. What will be the framing cases, and how will … Continue reading
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Tagged bailout, banking, bicycle, china, christianity, crisis, cycling, economics, environment, espionage, finance, fixie, green, imf, internet, law, moyers, nytimes, policy, politics, privacy, religion, security, sustainability, technology, tibet, video
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Shared Links for Mar 26th
Postopolis LA – Presentations, films, talks slideshows, discussions and parties, centered around architecture, design, and the future of cities. Wish I knew someone who was going… (tagged: losangeles architecture design urban ) Seville Orange Marmalade Recipe – Going to get … Continue reading
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Tagged AIG, architecture, astrology, bailout, canning, cities, cooking, copyright, creativecommons, design, education, food, funny, losangeles, marmalade, nytimes, open, openaccess, orange, politics, pseudoscience, recipe, science, seville, skeptic
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The Time Value of Information and Material Wealth
Conventional economics says money today is worth more than money in the future. This is why people are willing to agree to pay interest on a loan (and why a creditor requires it). How much more money is worth today … Continue reading
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
I just finished reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. It’s his personal account of working as an economic forecaster for an international infrastructure engineering and consulting company called Chas. T. Main during the 1970s (it’s since … Continue reading
Tagged books, debt, development, economics, imf, reviews, world bank
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Shared Links for Mar 19th
A New Way Forward – Grassroots banking policy? Who'd have guessed? Their plan is "Nationalize. Reorganize. Decentralize." The N-word has some bad connotations, but what they're really advocating for is an FDIC style managed bankruptcy, i.e. letting the banks fail, … Continue reading
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Tagged activism, bailout, banking, climate, economics, environment, fdic, film, finance, green, internet, junkmail, jury, law, mail, paper, phone, policy, recycling, sustainability, technology, trial, yellowpages
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Have you seen the light?
As animals, and especially visual animals at that, we have a particular experience of the light. For us it is illumination, information about our surroundings. For that purpose moonlight or even starlight will do. And for tens of millions of … Continue reading
Shared Links for Mar 14th
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable – A good epitaph for the newspaper, by Clay Shirky. Now if only Elsevier would go bankrupt too. (tagged: technology economy history internet copyright publishing newspapers ) Will Banks Start to Walk Their Talk? Don't … Continue reading
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Tagged agriculture, antibiotics, auction, bailout, banks, carbon, citi, climate, copyright, crisis, economics, economy, energy, evolution, farms, finance, food, health, history, internet, investing, livestock, mrsa, newspapers, obama, policy, politics, publishing, technology
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The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod
The Evolution of Cooperation was, somewhat surprisingly, a story about math. Math that actually describes a lot of things in life. It’s the story of The Prisoner’s Dilemma. What makes The Prisoner’s Dilemma interesting, is that the players in the … Continue reading
Tagged books, cooperation, evolution, politics, reviews, science
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Shared Links for Mar 11th
The Missing $1,000,000 Tax Bracket – There's a fair amount of debate over what the "top marginal tax rate" should be, but it's infrequently noted that there's actually vastly more variation in the income threshold at which that rate becomes … Continue reading
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Tagged bicycle, biology, bush, cartoon, christian, climate, cooperation, fish, green, nature, obama, policy, religion, science, stemcells, tax, transportation, usa
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The holes in my woolens
I discovered a couple of small holes in one of my my merino sweaters this morning. Moth larvae. My fault for not using camphor or some other kind of deterrant. At first, I was bummed because I thought this represented … Continue reading
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Tagged biology, biotech, clothing, compost, genetic engineering, merino, personal, sustainability, wool
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