Amateur Earthling » linkstream

Canadian Oil Sands Flyover

Zane Selvans — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:58:50 +0000

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 … Continue reading →

Clean energy will unfortunately be political

Zane Selvans — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:10:16 +0000

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 politics, does not mean that politics will not take an interest in you.” Clean energy is political, as is climate change. Yes, it’s stupid, but that’s the way it is. We have to deal with it. Though, I have to admit, if prices keep dropping like they have been, it will be fun to watch the right-wing culture warriors backpedal, as massive renewable deployments become profitable without subsidies of any kind in the next decade.

The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry

Zane Selvans — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:59:16 +0000

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

Zane Selvans — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:33:23 +0000

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

Zane Selvans — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:01:18 +0000

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.

Underneath Paris

Zane Selvans — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 23:05:08 +0000

There’s a secret society underneath Paris. Two thousand years worth of tunnels and passageways ready to explore.

Collusion tracks the trackers

Zane Selvans — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:02:04 +0000

There’s a cool experimental Mozilla plugin called Collusion which lets you see what other sites are being told about your web browsing habits as you surf around. Even with ad-blocking and do-not-track and a host of other privacy enhancing features turned on, the list of notified trackers grows pretty darned quickly!

The Corporate Surveillance State

Zane Selvans — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:35:31 +0000

A completely creeptastic article from the NY Times on how Target can figure out that your 16 year old daughter is pregnant before she’s willing to talk to you about it, based on what she’s buying and when. Big Brother isn’t a mustachioed Stalinist, he’s a mild-mannered statistician attending corporate board meetings and sending out personalized coupon books that purposefully camouflage just how much his computers know about you and your so-called “private life”.

Sequencing Risks

Zane Selvans — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:00:14 +0000

A reporter from Bloomberg joins the PGP, only to discover that he carries a rare and potentially pathogenic acquired mutation, found in people with blood disorders. He doesn’t know how to deal with it, and neither do the doctors, really. Which is half of what this study is all about. What do we need to learn as a society to deal with knowing our sequences? A lot, I’m guessing.

Picturing Coal

Zane Selvans — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:42:48 +0000

A great series of photos looking at the coal industry worldwide from The Big Picture. Even ignoring coal’s irreversible long term damage to the atmosphere and climate, it’s a pretty desperate business for a lot of people, who are still scratching it out of the earth deep underground, by hand. Popular with the kids too — they can really get into those hard-to-reach places.