Mekka

Clinton's Worldview

He free to say whatever he wants now, so he chats on about everything from AIDS in China to global warming to Roswell (Yes, that Roswell) at the recent CPSA Investor's Forum in Hong Kong.

"So I think there's a lot of economic opportunity if you can figure out how to organize a clean-energy sector.
I'll just give you one example. In America today, I reduced the energy usage of the Clinton presidential library, which is a huge, glass-and-steel building. I cut the energy bill by 34% by doing only two things. I put 305 solar reflectors on the roof and I built the floors out of compressed bamboo, running miles and miles of tubing underneath where we put cold water in the summer and hot water in the winter, and just those two things cut our energy usage by 34% and also my contribution to climate change.
There is now a three-month back-up in the States for people ordering solar reflectors. Today, in Latin America there are a million poor people who get all their energy for light and cooking from small-scale solar generators attached to their homes and the cost is about the same as a month's supply of candles. There could be 100 million down there, there could be 500 million down there. There could be a billion in Asia. The money is enormous to be made out of doing the environmentally responsible thing. The price of solar energy is dropping 15% a year, with economies of scale.
I flew into Copenhagen the other day, and if you fly over, you see the bays full of windmills. I've been to the Canary Islands, off the west coast of Africa, and in Tenerife, the biggest island, the south part is covered with windmills. China is beginning to get into wind energy. The price of wind energy is dropping at 15% a year. The efficiency of the turbines is far better; now they will turn with less strong winds. And they're easier to maintain. If I was a young entrepreneur, and I could figure out how to do it, I would organize a fund to develop clean energy.
The possibilities of creating energy through conservation are staggering. America today uses 9% more oil than it did 35 years ago even though our economy is twice as big - because of conservation. And we could easily double that again. And there's money there. Sixty percent of the energy put in to generating electricity in most generating facilities across the world is waste heat.
Now I could give you lots of other examples, so, my view is that if I were doing this in the short term, I would be trying to figure out if there were any good deals in oil. In the medium term I would be looking to see if there's anything to this clean-coal technology.
Can you really trap CO2? And can it safely be deposited in the ground? And will it stay there or will it just come back as methane and still make a contribution to global warming and therefore the whole technology will be a waste? And can we do anything to create, on a large scale, what is inherently small-scale technology in solar and conservation? Because, basically the new-energy economy, unlike the old one, is disorganized and undercapitalized, highly entrepreneurial but without any political influence, anywhere in the world. But we have a chance now to think about this because you've got $65 oil.
And I don't care what happens, the price of oil may drop, but I'd be astonished if it doesn't go between $45 and $75 a barrel and bang around in that range for the next five years - and then go higher after that…so that's my take on it, and that's what I would do if I were 25 years younger and starting a different life. And I might be broke in a couple of years, but I don't think so."...

Part 1, Part 2.

(Found at MetaFilter)

Zero Emmissions in the Future?

"Smaller than a DVD player - small enough to sit comfortably under the hood of any truck or car - it could be big enough to solve the world's greenhouse gas emission problems, at least for the near future.

In fact, it could make the Kyoto protocol obsolete. "

[Found at MetaFilter]

Rescuers Find 76-Year-Old Man in Big Easy - AP News

KREM.com | News for Spokane, Washington | AP Headlines:

Staff Sgt. Jason Randor, a military police officer with the Massachusetts National Guard, watched the rescue from another boat that was helping provide security for the search team. He recalled jubilant yells from the firefighters when they realized someone alive was inside.

Martin emerged, wearing jeans and a shirt.

"While they were putting him in the chopper, he asked if they could stop on the way at Taco Bell to get something to eat," Randor said.

Another hydrogen pellet technology is announced

Another hydrogen pellet technology is announced

 

Researchers at the Technological University of Denmark have announced the creation of another solid-state form for  storing hydrogen. In this scheme, which differs significantly from  hydride storage techniques, ammonia is absorbed into a  tablet of sea salt in what appears to be a twist on the  ammonia borane concept. The  ammonia would be released from the salt in some unspecified manner (through heating, perhaps), and when passed over a  catalyst, it would release hydrogen. This would result in a relatively safe way to store energy, without high pressures  or risk of fire or explosion. Ammonia is already one of the most common industrial and agricultural chemicals (not to  mention its popularity with meth producers), and some feel strongly that it’s  suitable for use as an energy storage mechanism. A  thank-you goes out to our reader sine~language for the tip.

[Found via Autoblog]

The American Military Coup of 2012

Here is where the Human Spirit takes a stand...

"In 1992, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, awarded the prize for his strategy essay competition at the National Defense University to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dunlap for 'The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012'.  Rumor is, Colonel Dunlap's essay has been circulating among the military's top brass and strategists.        Vice Adm. Allen's appointment as successor to FEMA Director Michael Brown could be conditioning Americans (intentional or not) to accept the idea of Martial Law.  Rep Cynthia McKinney's (D-GA) mention of "impeachment" four days ago on the House floor was omitted from the record.  If our representatives will not be heard and if we do not want to live under a military dictatorship, then what? It makes me think of Romania (1989) Of course there's always concentration camps and slave labor."

[MetaFilter]

Katrina: Wardriving occupied New Orleans on 9/11.

Katrina: Wardriving occupied New Orleans on 9/11.

I tend not to post too much on current news events such as this, but I felt not only did this story serve to show what a couple of technologist citizens are doing to help, but also what our government is doing to hurt the situation.

Via Xeni Jardin:       

Image: a New Orleans resident who remains in the city, and says he will not leave. Behind him, code markings left by rescue and/or disaster mortician teams. Shot in NOLA today by Jacob A., Link to his photostream (contains graphic images of dead).

Jacob Appelbaum and Joel Johnson are in the New Orleans area, helping with communications reconnect efforts and documenting what they witness. They have connectivity, a solar-powered backpack, iChat capabilities, and the ability to do live streaming video.

This morning, I woke up to my cellphone ringing with Jacob on the other end. He and Joel were on foot inside NOLA, seeing corpses in the streets. Jacob was trying to decrypt the markings spray-painted on a trash dumpster by DMORT (disaster mortician teams). "What does '9705 CF' mean? Does CF mean corpses found?" asked Jacob. From what I could figure out, the markings meant that a team visited this spot on Sep. 7, and observed that there were dead at this location. Four days later, the body (or bodies) had not been removed from the road. "I gotta hang up," he said, "the death smell is too much, we have to get away from this spot now. This place is a perfect example of duality in response. Some parts of the city are heavily guarded and under repair, other parts of the city are flooded and full of locked, unsearched houses."

On the phone with another friend who's there with a television news network -- my friend says, "This place looks a lot like Iraq. Only in Iraq, when there's a dead body, it's never on the street for more than an hour -- someone, Iraqi or US forces, rertrieves it right away. Here, they're just sittiing out there for days, weeks, rotting." 

Jacob blogs:

We’re heading into the [New Orleans] city center for various reasons. I’m bringing a gps unit, a laptop with a 200mw 802.11b card and a laptop on the car power inverter. We’re going to log and then make maps tonight.  If I provide kismet logs with GPS information is anyone interested in making a google maps hack? It’s certainly possible to make this a once a day operation.

Snip of an earlier post from Jacob last night, when he and Joel were visiting the home of Malik Rahim (his portrait is below.):

    As I’m sitting here, the only light I can see is the light of my laptop illuminating my fingers. My cell phone would light up if people could call in. Only rarely does that work, no one has left voicemail but when they do get through they tell me they’ve rung for hours, upwards of two dozen times.

We didn’t have to pass through a single check point to enter the city, we simply went around them. There was much debate about the amount of danger we would be in by coming here and so far I feel pretty safe. We didn’t bring a gun, partly because we didn’t want to believe it would be so bad that we would need one and because it was probably impossible to get one at such short notice. I don’t think that was a mistake, we don’t need firearms. I do find it pretty surprising that the American government has recently hired Blackwater security forces to patrol the streets here. At the same time they’re removing firearms from citizens who rightfully feel they need them. It’s a strange future we’re living in and have no doubt about it, we’re living in the future. It’s too bad that we’re living in that other future, the dystopian one. The one with terrorists, murderers, corruption at the highest government levels, global wars and a world with an environment being destroyed by serious pollution. A world where people are now literately drowning in it.

(...) We recently got video streaming working from one of our laptops. Some of the best hackers on the planet decided that our neo-gonzo journalism was worth some bandwidth, I’m pretty flattered and I hope I don’t let them down. I hope they’re ready to watch Joel and I cook food, build computer networks, scout antenna locations and otherwise talk about the current state of New Orleans.

There’s that light again, the patrol seems to be pretty frequent. The helicopters are flying overhead again. I wonder if they have thermal imaging gear? Certainly they’re working overtime to patrol the skies but I wonder what they’re collecting data on and what they plan to do with it.

The people on the ground here, Malik being the main man, are really righteous people. They’re getting ready to help the citizens of this parish to live, to eat, to be clean, to sleep safely, to communicate with the world.

(...) Hopefully all the plans we have will actually work out, hopefully we will be able to get more fuel into the generators, hopefully we’ll get more generators on the ground. Hopefully we’ll be able to get better uplinks without having to resort to using the cell network but it seems doubtful. I haven’t heard back from the people at DirectNIC. I suppose they’re busy with something else, hopefully someone else can supply these people with uplinks to the real world.

It’s late and I have to be up in the morning because the military is going to march down the road here in some sort of security exercise. I want to photograph it because I can’t believe it’s happening in an American city. 

 

Image: Corpse at a school in the Algiers region (15th Ward). "It has been there for probably 10 days," says Joel Johnson, who shot this photo, "but despite the neighborhood informing the police, it has not been removed... we asked two federal officers about it and they were unconcerned." Link to his photostream (contains graphic images of dead.)

Joel blogs about the damage to New Orleans, and gear requests:

Jacob was kind enough to write up an updated list of equipment. If you can ship this stuff to Baton Rouge, we can probably use it. No worries if you can't, but the more we have, the more we can deploy. We expect to deploy everything we brought with us from Houston, save perhaps the big Wi-Fi antenna (but you never know). Also, Verizon, if you'd like to loan me an activated Samsung i730, I can give it back to you when I'm done.

Joel also blogs about allegations that a volunteer nurse named Bobby Lee Huss was apprehended just outside of NOLA by armed Homeland Security forces, who seized all of the medical supplies from his truck at the request of the Red Cross. Anthony Lappé has more details on GNN:   

According to Huss, he was given over $25,000 worth of medical supplies by the Red Cross in Covington. He claims he was given all the necessary credentials and Red Cross workers helped him load up his 1989 Dodge Caravan. But not less than 10 minutes later, he found himself staring the barrel of a gun at a Homeland Security checkpoint on the north side of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. According to Huss, a state police officer told him the Red Cross had requested he be detained.

Shortly after a Red Cross official showed up and said he wasn’t authorized to have the supplies (The Red Cross is officially mandated by FEMA to act as their on-the-ground medical and relief agency). Huss says his van was ransacked and the supplies were confiscated. He says he was interrogated for hours by state police officers, who asked him about his entire background, and even accused him of being a child molester because he had baby supplies in the van. Huss said he had just went through an FBI background check.

Huss said he wasn’t released until 12:40 AM Sunday morning, after 11 hours of detention. He says he was only given one bottle of water and was held for most of the time in the back of a police cruiser. He was given his van back, but the supplies were confiscated. “They are keeping supplies from people who are in need,” Huss told me. Huss also accused the Red Cross of hoarding much-needed supplies.  Huss is now on his way back to Texas, demoralized and angry. “Tell the people of Algiers I’m sorry,” he said.

Link to the full text of Anthony's post. 

 


Joel blogs about confrontations with armed private security contractors from Blackwater:

We got yelled at some by police and official-types who wanted us out of areas where they were operating. Herding media isn't really their job, but they weren't rude about it (just brusque). The Blackwater employees, on the other hand, were phenomenally unpleasant. Jake has a lot more to add soon, I'm sure, but there's a serious question as to the authority of these mercenaries.

Previously:

Bloggers Joel and Jake visit NOLA for geek aid

Blackwater gets carte blanche.

[ Found via Boing Boing]

Cops have to pay $41k for stopping man from videoing them

Cory Doctorow: Jeff sez,

Last month a federal judge awarded $35,000 in compensatory and $6000 in punitive damages to a man state troopers arrested for video taping them.

Given the Utah rave case and the Oakland police stop reported today, this seems like an important decision because it makes it clear that citizens are free to video law enforcement in action.

The ruling finds violations of the plaintiff's first and fourth amendment rights. It states "The activities of the police, like those of other public officials, are subject to public scrutiny...Videotaping is a legitimate means of gathering information for public dissemination and can often provide cogent evidence, as it did in this case. In sum, there can be no doubt that the free speech clause of the Constitution protected Robinson as he videotaped the defendants on October 23, 2002....Moreover, to the extent that the troopers were restraining Robinson from making any future videotapes and from publicizing or publishing what he had filmed, the defendants' conduct clearly amounted to an unlawful prior restraint upon his protected speech....We find that defendants are liable under § 1983 for violating Robinson's Fourth Amendment right to be protected from an unlawful seizure..."

PDF Link  (Thanks, Jeff!)

[Found via Boing Boing]

It's the feel-good thrill ride of the summer!!!

Hollywood trailer voices

David Pescovitz:

 

I love this promotional video for the Hollywood Reporter's Key Art Awards. It's fun to put faces to the familiar, bombastic, melodramatic voices you'll recognize from big budget movie trailers. Two thumbs up... way up. The white knuckle thrill ride of the year. I'd see it again and again. Link(Thanks, Eric Paulos!)

UPDATE: Here's another link to the video. Link(Thanks, Ben Houston!)

[Found via Boing Boing]

In Memoriam: Robert Moog

Xeni Jardin:

           

Robert Moog, the gentle genius known to many as the father of electronic music, died at his North Carolina home today. He was 71.

Link

Image: Mr. Moog in 1965.

[Found via Boing Boing]

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth."

[Motivational Quotes of the Day]