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Linkstream
- 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: May 2009
Shared Links for May 29th
Post-Scarcity Prophet: Economist Paul Romer on growth, technological change, and an unlimited human future. – Reason Magazine – An excellent interview with Paul Romer from Stanford, who has apparently been thinking along the same lines as I have about the … Continue reading
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Tagged architecture, bicycle, capitalism, cities, copyright, corporations, design, economics, economy, google, green, growth, history, internet, interview, lessig, maps, non-linear, planning, policy, politics, science, socialism, sustainability, technology, transportation, wiki, wto
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China and Continuum Privatization
We watched a Long Now talk last night, by Orville Schell (currently a fellow of the Asia Society in New York) entitled “China thinks long term, but can it re-learn how to act long term?“ His main point was that … Continue reading
Cradle to Cradle + Renewable Energy = Material Autarky
Somehow, in the course of watching this talk by Orville Schell on China and long term thinking, I was finally struck by the potential consequences of really doing Cradle to Cradle design, and scaling up renewable energy. It would mean … Continue reading
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Tagged china, economics, energy, material, public, renewable, sustainability, trade
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Shared Links for May 26th
The Story of Stuff – A 20 minute video on where "stuff" comes from, and where it goes, and a little bit on why, and how we might do it differently. Yeah, it's sustainability propaganda, but sometimes that's okay. (tagged: … Continue reading
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Tagged agriculture, architecture, cars, cities, climate, design, economics, energy, environment, europe, food, garden, green, passivhaus, policy, politics, recycling, russia, science, sustainability, system:filetype:pdf, system:media:document, transportation
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Michael Pollan on Deep Agriculture
I can’t believe how much I enjoy the Long Now talks. Thoughtful and intelligent people, usually talking about things I happen to think are important, and interesting. I almost feel like it’s a re-invention of the oratory form. I’m glad … Continue reading
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Tagged agriculture, food, green, light, longnow, personal, policy, politics, public, reviews, sustainability, talks
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Shared Links for May 24th
Math and the City – The same scaling laws seem to apply to both cities and organisms: infrastructure requirements per capita (or per unit body mass) go down as population (size) go up. Not so surprising, since both cities and … Continue reading
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Tagged africa, agriculture, art, bicycle, biology, china, cities, design, economics, food, gardening, infrastructure, nasa, policy, politics, space, sustainability, system:filetype:pdf, system:media:document, trade, transportation
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What Are Cities For?
Kurt recently asked me: Assuming (1) that you like the outdoors, open spaces, gardening, etc. and (2) that you would prefer high-density urban design to low-density, suburban, car-oriented sprawl, then how would you fuse these two together in an ideal … Continue reading
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Tagged architecture, bicycle, cities, design, economics, history, personal, policy, public, sustainability, transportation
6 Comments
The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
I finished reading Taleb’s second book, The Black Swan. He openly admits that it’s not really a new book, but a re-writing of his first book, Fooled by Randomness, which I loved. He’s gotten really incredibly lucky with the timing … Continue reading
Tagged books, economics, finance, non-linear, philosophy, probability, reviews, science
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Shared Links for May 21st
Car-Free Housing in European Cities – A survey of sustainable residential development projects across Europe, including Vauban, outside Freiburg. The study is from 2000, so it's a little out of date, but an interesting overview anyway. It would be great … Continue reading
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Tagged architecture, bicycle, chile, cities, copyright, design, economics, environment, europe, green, internet, kayak, law, paddling, patagonia, policy, politics, religion, spanish, sustainability, technology, transportation, travel
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Genes are sentences and genomes books
It’s really a pleasure to talk to smart people who don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I think it forces you to come up with the best analogies and metaphors. The most essential explanations. It turned out that … Continue reading
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Tagged biology, engineering, genetics, non-linear, personal, public, science
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