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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… 5 days ago
- At a great talk about individual cities as the right scale for renewable energy systems innovation at #wref2012 1 week ago
- Heard rural Wyoming folk talking local Chinese coal/gas investments, hacking of their SCADA water system. I live in a @GreatDismal future. 1 week 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. 4 months ago
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: tools
Collusion tracks the trackers
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 … Continue reading
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Tagged firefox, privacy, software, surveillance, technology, tools
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OpenPaths
OpenPaths is a mobile application that allows you to log your location in a way that minimally impacts your phone’s battery life, and keeps that information secure (supposedly out of reach of law enforcement w/ zero knowledge encryption) while still … Continue reading
Open Source Coal
Open Source Coal is a nice database interface to consolidated data from the EIA-923 and EIA-423 forms. Put together by Matt Wassen and others at Appalachian Voices.
Open source phone/laptop anti-theft software
The Prey Project is an open source package that lets you turn your laptop or phone into a location aware spying machine, tracking its own motions, and reporting on the usage of the person in possession — screenshots, webcam photos, … Continue reading
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Tagged privacy, software, surveillance, technology, tools, transparency
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Discounted cashflow analysis of scientific programming
Software Carpentry does a little math describing the value of teaching scientists how to build good software. Even with very pessimistic assumptions, it’s clearly worthwhile. With realistic assumptions, it’s a frigging research bonanza. WTF? Why don’t advisers and administrators make … Continue reading
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Tagged programming, research, science, software, technology, tools
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The Missing Wikipedians
An interesting analysis of the cultural biases of the Wikipedia. As participation by the developing world increases, we need to come up with a better way of assessing “notability”. Especially with English, shared language is not shared culture or context. … Continue reading
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Tagged culture, developing, globalization, internet, technology, tools, wikipedia
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Anki: intelligent digital flashcards
Aaron recently pointed me at Anki, an open-source flashcard system. I’m using it to refresh my Spanish language skills, but it’s a very generalized system that one can use to remember just about anything. You create linked “facts” (n-sided flash … Continue reading
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Tagged education, language, memory, spanish, SRS, study, technology, tools, vocabulary
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Links for the week of August 20th, 2010
If you want to follow my shared links in real time instead of as a weekly digest, head over to Delicious. You can search them there easily too.
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Tagged film, globalization, government, history, law, money, photos, politics, russia, sunlightfoundation, technology, tools, transparency, war
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Links for the week of June 4th, 2010
If you want to follow my shared links in real time instead of as a weekly digest, head over to Delicious. You can search them there easily too.
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Tagged activism, africa, architecture, art, bicycle, biology, biotech, books, boulder, bp, business, caltech, capitalism, cities, colorado, computational, cu, culture, delta, documentary, drugs, eaglerock, electricity, environment, film, folk, glasses, government, iran, jobs, journalism, kickstarter, law, local, losangeles, marijuana, media, niger, nigeria, non-linear, nonprofit, oil, policy, politics, pollution, posters, research, review, satire, science, sharing, shell, shopping, society, sustainability, system:filetype:pdf, system:media:document, technology, tools, vonnegut, waste, wind, yesmen
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Links for the week of March 19th, 2010
If you want to follow my shared links in real time instead of as a weekly digest, head over to Delicious. You can search them there easily too.
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Tagged advocacy, architecture, bicycle, building, cities, design, google, government, green, infrastructure, internet, lacbc, law, losangeles, maps, nyc, open, policy, politics, sustainability, technology, tools, transparency, transportation, xprize
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