Category: News

Michael Giberson

Even before the current oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico it was well understood that drilling offshore sometimes results in spills.  The current oil spill in the news has brought the idea of spills to the attention of many, many more people, people who don’t usually think too much about these things.  But it isn’t obvious to me that the spill should cause us to revise our estimates of the likelihood of spills, or otherwise alter any of the factors that go into well reasoned policy analysis.  And if all of the inputs going into a well-reasoned policy analysis stay the same, then the policy recommendation should stay the same too.

If you now favor changes in regulations to reduce the likelihood of future oil spills, you should identify the new policy-relevant information upon which you base your call for changes.  Or, in other words, you should specify what was wrong with your understanding of offshore oil development as of about two months ago, and then explain how correcting that mistake leads you to favor more restrictive regulations.

It is possible, too, that correcting mistakes in your earlier thinking could lead you to favor less-restrictive regulations.  After all, there is no reason to believe that all errors in earlier thinking were biased in the same direction.  For example, learning about advances in movie-star funded clean-up technologies might lead you to reduce your estimate of the expected costs of spills.

By the way, with Canadian tar sands soon to become the largest single source for U.S. oil imports, any advocates of regulatory changes that diminish oil production from offshore U.S. sources on environmental grounds should  include in their analysis the environmental effects of marginal increases in tar sands output and other oil sources.  (Or did your policy analysis assume that diminished offshore production would be compensated for by people driving less and riding sustainably-fueled robot unicorns more?)

SEE ALSO: Robin Hanson on regulation ratchets for related.

The Mortgage Bankers Association says that if you just missed a morgage payment, you’re not alone — 10% of homeowners just did the same thing.

Despite that somber-sounding news, the association’s chief economist, Jay Brinkmann, says that the foreclosure crisis does not appear to be getting worse. The trouble is that it’s not exactly improving either.

“I don’t see signs now that it’s getting worse, but it’s going to take a while,” he said. “A bad situation that’s not getting worse is still bad.”

Most troubling is the fact that the crises has moved from bad mortgages to a crisis of unemployment and reduced income. Borrowers with good credit who took out fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures, says USAToday:

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are the main catalysts for foreclosures this year. Initially, lax lending standards were the culprit. But homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures.

Those borrowers made up nearly 37% of new foreclosures in the first quarter of the year, up from 29% a year earlier.

10% of homeowners missed a mortgage payment in Q1 [USAToday]

I’ve been interested in gadget manufacturing for a while now and, as I reported a few months ago, things are pretty bad but they’ve been worse. Now, however, we’re seeing clusters of suicides at Foxconn as well as an undercover “report” from Foxconn’s “Hell Factory.” I’m calling bull.

First, consider that Foxconn has 400,000 employees in Shenzhen alone. Cleveland, Ohio has 478,403 residents as of the 2000 census and I suspect that’s gone down. You’re not amazed by the number of suicides in Cleveland, right? It’s par for the course. People go nuts in Cleveland, even though they have a great meat market and the Cleveland Clinic is really nice. People don’t want to live, sometimes, right?

As for working conditions – the dead eyes, the exhausted employees, the beatings – well, that happens in Cleveland, too. When a mass of humanity coalesces into one place all sorts of things happen. People get tired. People die. People are abused. People abuse.

Look: we built Foxconn. Sure, Taiwan build the factory proper, but we build the demand. We want free feature phones and we want them now. We want $500 laptops. We want 60-inch TVs for $999. We want, we want, and we want. Steve Jobs isn’t standing on a table with a whip, exhorting these employees to apply the ceramic back to the iPhone HD more quickly. These people, as many reporters better than I note, (read Factory Girlsand Country Driving) need these jobs and they do everything we do to get a better deal. Foxconn is successful because it can mobilize an army to manufacture your cellphone. But China is changing and they won’t be able to pull many more shenanigans. The workers are gaining power and when that happens, watch out.

Manufacturing is a shitty business. It really is. Every factory I’ve visited, from fine watch factories in the mountains of Germany to a place where they make promotional USB keys, is soul-taking and deadening. Those who lament that manufacturing jobs have left the US never worked in manufacturing. Ten out ten college graduates don’t want to sit and solder 5,000 USB connectors to 5,000 PCB boards a day. Heck, we can’t even get Americans to work in slaughterhouses.

But the factory gives the employees a living wage, offers them respite from the poverty and strictures of the countryside, and creates the potential for advancement. They didn’t have that before they walked through the factory gates.

We used to manufacture things in America until we got smart. Then we sent manufacturing further and further afield and, I would wager, none of us understand the true nature of manufacturing. Two generations have gone by since the last real steel barons led the world in production and we look back on those days with nostalgia. My grandfather Herman worked in the Wheeling Steel plant. They lived in company housing, ate company food, and lived a company life until they made a little money and moved into town. I doubt he was fulfilled, but it was a job. His step-son, my father, graduated from college and went to work for the government at a warehouse – one step away from manufacturing. Now I, his coddled son, get to dick around on the Internet all day. Give the Chinese another fifty years and they’ll have shipped all their manufacturing to Mars and they’ll dick around on the Internet as well.

Go ahead: Cry for the folks at Foxconn. Rail against the injustice. But if you follow the money, you’ll realize the injustice stems from our desire to have more in more ways. So much crap comes out of China it boggles the mind. But someone is buying that crap. Someone, somewhere, is taking what China makes and they’re taking it every second of every day.

Our neophilia knows no limits. The Evo 4G just came out today. Hoopty doo. It’s another phone that was built by another person on an assembly line in China. Want to know why more amazing stuff doesn’t leak out of Foxconn? Because the employees don’t care. A phone is a phone is a phone and they can’t afford a new one anyway.

I always say this: vote with your dollar. Don’t upgrade your phones every five months. Don’t throw away your old PC. Work with what you have. There is no sane reason for a laptop to cost under $300. But they exist. Manufacturers figured out that people who see devices as disposable will buy more and more of them. Do research, buy what you think is best, and hold onto it. Then Foxconn can shut down.

Then what happens to those 400,000 people? I don’t know, but we’d better be ready for them because they kicked our ass in manufacturing and they’re about to kick our ass in everything else as well.

I loathe those neat little summary headlines that purport to tell you why things sold off–“Dow Drops 100 points on unemployment worries” and so forth–as if the journalist surveyed all the millions of people who bought and sold stocks and found out why they did what they did.  So any attempt to fully explain this morning’s ugly market behavior in terms of one factor or another is bound to be deeply flawed.

I think what we can say is that the market is as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  And no wonder.  Greeks are rioting again, casting serious doubts on the viability of this austerity plan. European leaders are still muttering about “wolfpacks” in the markets, which is usually the last refuge of desperate finance ministers taking unrealistic positions.  The euro has “relapsed“, falling back towards $1.20.  Jobless claims in the US rose unexpectedly last week, dampening the sense of forward momentum in the economy.  Mortgage applications are down, which means the housing market may retreat from any tentative gains now that the tax credit has expired. Financial reform is moving towards passage “with all the consistency and predictability of an old pickup with a busted clutch.”  And we seem to be hovering on the brink of deflation.

All of this raises the possibility of the dread “double dip” recession. 
Worse, that recession was expected to come (if it did) when fiscal and
monetary stimulus were withdrawn–not when a peripheral member of the
eurozone ran out of borrowed money.  The parallels to the Great
Depression are not perfect . . . but they’re certainly uncomfortable. 
And if we do double-dip now, there’s a good possibility that we’ll
eventually triple-dip, because all that extra money does have to be
mopped off at some point.

Which of these factors is driving the markets down so sharply?  Frankly,
any of them would be enough to trigger at least a little selloff.  At
the moment, we seem to be in the middle of a highly imperfect storm.

Below is a list of Speaker Pelosi’s guests for President Calderon’s Joint Meeting Address today at 11 a.m.

Front row of the Speaker’s box (left to right):

Mr. Paul Pelosi

Ambassador Carlos Pascual, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico

The Honorable John A. Pérez, Speaker of the Assembly, State of California

The Honorable Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor, City of Los Angeles

Ms. Dolores C. Huerta

Ms. Rosa Rosales, President, League of United Latin American Citizens

Dr. Elena Rios, President and CEO, National Hispanic Medical Association

Rev. Luis Cortes, President and CEO, Esperanza USA

Arturo Vargas, President, NALEO

Other guests in the Speaker’s box include:

Madeleine Albright, Former U.S. Secretary of State

Jim Jones, Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico

Henry Munoz, Chair of the Commission for a National Museum of the American Latino

Ali Noorani, Executive Director, National Immigration Forum

Rosario Anaya, Executive Director of the Mission Vocational School in San Francisco

Santiago “Sam” Ruiz, Executive Director of the Mission Neighborhood Center in San Francisco

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Dieter and Keith discuss the AT&T Palm Pre and much more, listen in!

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Thanks to everybody for writing and calling in!

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“It’s a perverse use of eminent domain,” says Brian Rainville. “There is no public good here.”

He stood on a green field, filled with alfalfa and grass, on the gentle rolling hills of his family’s Franklin, Vermont farm… just steps from the Canadian border. He says the barn dates back to 1800, and the land is on the national registry of historic places. But Brian’s family, who have been dairy farmers here since 1946, may not have the land much longer. The United States Government says it needs 4.9 acres of the family’s property to help protect national security.

The Rainville farm sits on the Morses Line border crossing, a sparsely used two lane blacktop with an aging Customs and Boarder Protection building that the Department of Homeland Security wants to modernize and expand. The agency plans to use stimulus funds to build a new $8 million dollar, multi-lane complex, and says it needs the nearly five acres of the Rainville’s farmland to complete it.

The Rainvilles say the project will put their farm out of business. With the farm losing money, every inch of land is needed, especially the land they use to grow hay to support their cows for the production of milk.

“We are in a good fight here,” says Brian, “This has been a good living for three generations. We are only the third family in 200 years to own the property, and the thought that our own government is going to destroy us! This has been our American dream for a century, it can’t end that way,” he says sadly.

The crossing is lightly used. Government statistics from the Customs and Border Protection agency show just over 14,800 vehicles cross the border every year. That works out to about 40 cars a day, or roughly two and a half an hour. The crossing is not even open 24 hours a day. Brian thinks it should be closed completely, and the traffic moved to larger crossings nearby. But the government is intent on upgrading the facility, which includes the small customs building built in the 1930’s, that sports a small bench with handcuffs.

“The Morses Line Port is more than seventy years old and has dilapidated infrastructure and outdated technology,” said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rafael Lemaitre in a statement to Fox News.

“By making critical upgrades to the Port, we will meet essential Post-9/11 security and operational standards while fulfilling the economic goals of the recovery act.”

Lemaitre says the agency takes the concerns “very seriously,” and wants to “work to find a solution that balances security with the needs of the local community.”

Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy told a Senate hearing that “people have been driving back and forth on that roadway for decades,” and that the plan is “creating animosity.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano promised to conduct a public hearing on the issue, and to “have a meeting with the community.” She also said there are efforts to reduce the amount of land her agency would need for the project, but that there is a minimum amount of land that would be needed, and “unless you do it, you might as well not do it at all,” she said.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is beefing up crossings on both the borders of Canada and Mexico, and has received $420 million in stimulus funds for that purpose. The agency also says the project will help the local Vermont economy, by providing more than 90 jobs. The agency says “modernizing the Morses Line Port will address a critical national security need.” The goal of Homeland Security officials remains the protection of our country, and the agency insists it is working in a way to balance the local concerns with its mandate to protect the nation.

The government has offered $39,500 for the acreage, but Brian remains adamant. His 70 year old father still milks the cows, as he has since he was six years old, and his brother also works the farm. Brian, who teaches High School history and civics classes, has created the e-mail site: [email protected], to generate support.

“As a civics teacher, I’m astounded,” he told Fox News.”I talk to my students about a responsive government, a government that protects rights, a government that protects property. And I have a representative of my own federal government, sit down in my parents’ kitchen and tell them that the federal government sees no reason why they should keep their land?” he says angrily.

“We’ve been lied to, I’ve been misled and I’ve had enough of it,” he says defiantly. “It’s heartbreaking.”

If the government does resort to using eminent domain, Brian says “the message is we don’t care what you do, or how long you have been there. If we want it, get out of our way. And that’s not the United States of America.”

This is the latest installment of the Fox News “It’s Your Land” series. If you have property issues, contact Fox News Senior Correspondent Eric Shawn and Producer Becky Diamond at: [email protected]. Segments can also be seen on the Fox News Channel, Sunday mornings from 10 a.m. to 12 Noon, E.S.T.

Via Prison Planet.com » World News

Quentin Peel
Financial Times
Thursday, May 20, 2010

The man at the eye of the financial storm that has engulfed the euro has learnt to be patient after 20 years confined to a wheelchair. But Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, is also a man in a hurry.

He wants urgently to rewrite the rulebook of the euro zone to prevent any such crisis happening again, and at the same time to revive the momentum of international negotiations on tougher regulation of financial markets. He has returned to the idea of an international financial transaction tax, to make financial institutions share in the costs of the crisis, even if it can be agreed only inside the European Union.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

He admits that the greatest problem affecting the markets is one of trust in the ability of the EU, and especially the 16 members of the common currency area at its heart, to bring their debt and deficits under control as they have promised. “That is the task we must perform,” he tells the Financial Times aboard his Luftwaffe Challenger jet bound for Berlin. “But that doesn’t alter the fact that financial market regulation is also necessary.

“I’m convinced the markets are really out of control. That is why we need really effective regulation, in the sense of creating a properly functioning market mechanism.”

Full story here.

1-800-Contacts is the rare company where an actual human picks up the phone when you call–no maze of phone menus. Peter tells Consumerist that he had a fantastic experience where a customer service rep went above and beyond in the service of the health of his eyes.

I just wanted to mention my love for 1-800-contacts, and how they go above and beyond as a usual part of their business. Besides having a direct-to-CSR phone line (no phone-menu’s to navigate through, a real person picks up the phone immediately), friendly CSR’s, quick service, and a great return policy, today they went above and beyond what I would expect them to do. Let me explain:

I recently was told by my eye care professional to take a month break from contacts. My glasses were really old and cracked — pretty much unwearable. I went to an in-the-mall-one-hour glasses place to get a new pair before work the next day. They tried to call my optometrist’s office to get a copy of my current prescription so that they could fill the order for new glasses. Well, it turns out my doctor was on vacation, and so nobody would be able to send my prescription for several days.

I knew that 800contacts had my prescription since I order contacts from them. I called their number, and a friendly CSR answered right away. After verifying my identity, the CSR was eager to help by faxing a copy of my prescription (which they had on file) to the glasses place at the mall. She even offered to look up the mall-store’s phone number and fax number. Sure enough, they faxed it over, and I was able to get a new pair of glasses this evening.

I find these responsible actions to be refreshing. 800-contacts didn’t need to fax my prescription (in some sense the glasses store in the mall is a competitor — they sell contact lenses too). But, they went ahead and did it since it was the right thing to do. I’m continuously impressed by their level of service.

The cyclone Laila Landfall started on the coast of the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, and went out to sea, after leaving a trail of destruction in several towns in the area.

According to the Service Indo-Asian News (IANS), the tropical storm entered the mainland in the afternoon of Thursday in the vicinity of Bapatla, Guntur district.

Laila, the first hurricane that formed this year in the Bay of Bengal, was accompanied by winds of 125 kilometers per hour and heavy rain.

“We are assessing the damage caused by the storm in coastal Andhra,” said a state government official who was quoted by IANS.

According to the report of the Indian agency, Laila went back into the sea after a short journey by land, now continues towards Balasore in Orissa state, although is a little weaker.

Strong winds and rain since yesterday affecting the catchment area of the storm have caused serious damage to crops and infrastructure, while reportedly had 14 victims.

The Indian defense ministry said in a statement it had mobilized nearly one hundred troops, including several doctors, and four helicopters to help the victims.

Around 50 000 people living in flood-prone areas were evacuated before the arrival of the hurricane, and thousands more moved to safety by their own means.

“We have taken all necessary precautionary steps to reduce human and material losses. The official machinery is prepared for any eventuality,” said local mayor, K. Rosaiah, told reporters in the state capital of Hyderabad.

In May last year, the storm Aila ended 169 lives and left more than seven million victims in its passage through India and Bangladesh.

Related posts:

1. Fifteen People Dead from Cyclone in India
2. Storm in India: Kills more than 30
3. Serious Cyclone Hits India

Who didn’t see this coming? A few days ago we learned of one woman’s inability to buy an Apple iPad with cash at an Apple Store. Store policy was such that they would only accept credit cards or debit cards. Apple was totally in the right legally, but it came across sorta funky, particularly given the woman’s backstory. Well, after a few days of bad press Apple has changed the policy: you can now walk into any Apple Store and buy an iPad with cash.

Apple issued the following statement to KGO-TV, the station where this story first broke:

About a month ago, we said we’d like you to use a credit card when you buy your iPad, and that was the best way we could think of to make sure that people only bought two per individual. And then it came to our attention that Diane [Campbell], through your story, was very interested in buying an iPad with cash, and we made a decision today to change that.

That’s that, then.

As of right now, you should be able to walk into your local Apple Store and walk out with a shiny, new iPad having paid cash.

A victory for the little guy, for sure.

Sonia, Rent-a-Center’s Public & Community Affairs person, popular post, “How Predatory Lending Works, From Payday Loans To Rent-To-Own” and has a rebuttal that shows how they do math. I showed it to Jess, the creator of the infographic, and he has a rebuttal to the rebuttal. Let the chips fall where they may:

Sonia writes:

The graphic shows Rent-A-Center selling a mattress for $1000 at 90 days Same as Cash but we don’t carry a mattress that costs $1000 at 90 days. In fact, a customer can walk in our stores today and acquire a brand new queen-sized mattress at 90 days for $467. (Even if you were to use their example, a good FYI is that $500 wholesale cost on a mattress going at $1000 retail is not uncommon in the retail world as furniture generally has a 2 to 3x mark up for suggested retail pricing.)

Since some people don’t have $467 on hand, yes, we break the cost up into weekly payments like the graphic shows, but we don’t have any mattress that would have a 104 week agreement. Our longest weekly mattress term is 65 weeks, and 12 months is a lot more common and even then, people can pay off earlier to pay less.

And customers being locked into agreements? No way! And since customers can stop their rental at any time, that means if they have a change of circumstance, they can return the item and stop making payments. If they want to pick the rental back up in the future, they pick up payments where they left off. They don’t lose what they paid in.

The graphic says that customers have to pay sales tax on the higher price? No, like all businesses, we charge tax only on what a customer pays. If they pay $467 at 90 days, they pay tax on $467.

And insurance…well, many of our customers who don’t have existing insurance opt for our liability damage waiver so that if the rented item is stolen or damaged by flood or fire, they don’t have to keep paying rent on something they no longer own. We don’t require any customer purchase the waiver.

I shared Sonia’s email with the graphic’s designer. He rebuts:

Ben,

Thanks for the fwd. The mattress example was taken directly from a former Rentacenter manager.

I just called my local rent-a-center and asked how much the Serta Grand Choice Queen mattress was which is advertised on the RAC site. They told me it was $19.95 a week for 104 weeks. Due the math, its $2,074 plus all the extras. So I am not sure what fine point the RAC is trying to convey here as they are either giving false info, or are not in tune with their retail location policies.

The locked-in thing is splitting hairs. Sure, if you don’t make payments they will come and repo your mattress. You either pay it off in full, or lose everything you paid in.

As for the tax, if you pay off your matress at the 90 day price, yes its only $467, if you pay if off weekly its $2,074 and you pay the tax on what the price is. The problem is, when they sell you a $467 mattress, I doubt they mention that the taxes could be $150 if they opt to string the payments along.

If anything, I think I took it easy on RAC, which offers all the services in the graphic. Not only Rent-to-own schemes, but cash advances, payday loans, check cashing, pre-paid visa cards, money orders, and just about any financial service that allows people in need to part with their money.

Credit to Sonia and Rent-A-Center for engaging in the discussion, but I think I’ll still pass on renting my bureaus from them.

PREVIOUSLY: How Predatory Lending Works, From Payday Loans To Rent-To-Own

For well over a month, I’ve been looking forward to an opulent birthday dinner reservation. But the day before the celebration, I canceled it over a single tweet. More »










Twitter – Online Communities – Social Networking – Trending and Popularity – Celebrities

PALATINE, IL – The Harper College Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of Dr. Judith Marwick as the College’s Provost, effective July 1, 2010. Dr. Marwick, currently Executive Vice President of Instruction and Student Services at Kankakee Community College, has more than 20 years of higher education experience, having served on both the faculty and administrative ranks at two- and four-year colleges in Illinois and Indiana.

Dr. Marwick began her higher education career as a graduate student and mathematics instructor at Purdue University’s campus in Hammond, Ind. She also has served as Associate Professor of Mathematics and Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, Ill; Dean of Arts and Sciences at Morton College in Cicero, Ill.; and Assistant Vice President for Academic Programs at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Ill.

Dr. Marwick holds a doctorate in community college executive leadership from the University of Illinois and a master’s degree from Purdue University. She has presented at local, national and international conferences and workshops, authored numerous academic publications and helped champion a number of community college initiatives in her previous posts. Those include developing new curriculum; launching a new student orientation program; creating a student tutoring center; collaborating with high schools to improve college readiness; developing a summer program allowing talented high school students to learn more about college; creating weekend college and accelerated courses for adults; and installing smart, technology-rich classrooms.

She is a member of the Illinois Community College Board’s Program Advisory Board, a board member and Midwest regional representative of the National Council of Instructional Administrators, and a systems appraiser and site visitor for the Higher Learning Commission. She was a 2001 University of Illinois Community College Leadership Fellow.

Dr. Marwick was chosen for the Harper position following a national search, and spent two days on campus with administrators, student leaders, faculty and other employees as part of her interview process.

She was formally appointed at the Harper College Board of Trustees’ regular meeting on Wednesday, May 19.

Filed under: Classics, Convertible, Performance, Auctions, Videos, Ford

The Ford GTX1 Prototype – as in, the car claimed to be the first GTX1 built – in its blemish-free debut color, Valencia Orange with Tungsten stripes, is being offered for sale on eBay. This car was to become a limited-run evolution of the Ford GT built by the Gennadi Design Group, the same folks who built the prototype. Gennadi planned to build 600: one hundred SEMA show cars, five hundred customer cars. That didn’t happen, and only 100 ever made it to the road.

According to the seller, this very first GTX1 was created from the second Ford GT built in 2005, sold to Gennadi, who built it, and Gennadi sold it to its current owner in Atlanta. Recent dyno results paint a picture with 626 horsepower and 585 foot-pounds of torque at the rear wheels, which should keep you in the game even five years on.

At the time of writing, there are no takers on the opening bid stands at $300,000. If your well heeled fancy is being tickled, though, you can save yourself some time and click on the Buy It Now price of $525,000. Those not in the market can have less expensive fun in the gallery of high-res photos below, as well as the video after the jump in which one Jeremy Clarkson flogs this exact car (ProTip: fast-forward to 3:30). Top tip, Kip!

[Source: eBay Motors]

Continue reading eBay Find of the Day: 2005 Ford GTX1 prototype

eBay Find of the Day: 2005 Ford GTX1 prototype originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 20 May 2010 09:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Buzz certainly made a splash when it came out, but it wasn’t the kind of attention Google was looking for. The company’s latest crack at the social web proved to be a privacy nightmare and subsequent fixes and changes still haven’t erased those first memories. But Google is in it for the long haul and has unveiled the Google Buzz API, in … (read more)

The latest and newest 2011 Ford Mustang GT features the new 5.0L Ti-VCT V8 engine.
Packing 412 horsepower and 390 lb-ft of torque, the engine produces 97 hp and 65 lb-ft more than the 4.6-liter V8 used in the 2010 Mustang GT.

Despite the added power, Ford projects fuel economy will rise to 17 city / 25 highway (up from 17 city / 23 highway) for models equipped with a six-speed automatic transmission.

The fuel economy rating for the six-speed manual will remain unchanged at 16 city / 24 mpg highway.

To squeeze out the extra mileage, Ford equipped the car with Twin Independent Variable Camshaft Timing (Ti-VCT), an Electric Power Assist Steering (EPAS) system, and an additional rear decklid seal (to improve aerodynamics).

Source

BrightSource: A green energy success story

BrightSource Energy announced this morning that it is tapping the deep pockets of the California State Teachers Retirement System and Alstom, among others, for $150 million in equity financing.

BrightSource plans to use the cash to build 14 solar power plants in the U.S. Southwest by 2016 that will generate 2,610 megawatts that are already contracted to Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison.

The Oakland-based company has become a bona fide green energy success story in recent months.

Earlier this year, BrightSource won approval to build the Ivanpah Solar Electric plant in the Mojave Desert –despite facing objections from conservationists – and received a $1.37 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in February. Construction on Ivanpah slated to begin later this year.

The company also has plans for international expansion.

Today’s Series D financing includes investments from VantagePoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley and Draper Fisher Jurvetson and brings the total equity financing to $300 million.

Alstom is putting up $55 million in its first investment in the solar space, according to the BrightSource release.

BrightSource Chief Executive John Woolard said,

A Series D capital raise of this magnitude reflects the market’s confidence in our world-class team and the important role of our Luz Power Tower technology in meeting the growing global demand for cost-effective and reliable solar power.

BrightSource’s technology uses thousands of mirrors, or heliostats, to reflect sunlight onto a liquid-filled boiler on top of a metal tower. The liquid turns to steam and is piped from the boiler to a turbine to generate electricity.

iCab Mobile is the browser for the iPad I’ve been waiting for. Using the same WebKit rendering engine as Mobile Safari, iCab brings a true “desktop” class browser to the iPad. Where Mobile Safari scales up from the iPhone, iCab Mobile has scaled down from the desktop version of iCab, one of the oldest Mac browsers still around.

For additional learning on Safari for Mac, checkout Safari 101 and Mac Browsers (subscription required).

Tabs

The first noticeable thing about iCab is that it actually uses real tabs. The UI borrows heavily from Mobile Safari; the URL bar looks almost identical. However, underneath the URL bar is a bookmarks bar, and underneath that is the tab bar, which seems to function just like the tab bar in any desktop browser.

The tab bar does two things to the interface: one, it adds what some might consider “clutter” to the window. When compared to Safari, iCab has more of the “chrome” around the web page because of the additional buttons. The second thing the tab bar does is far more important: it reduces friction. Hiding tabs as Mobile Safari does puts them out of the thought process, it creates an independent experience for each tab. In iCab, when all the tabs are grouped together in the tab bar, I can see immediately what I have open, what I still have to read, and what I need to close. I can’t count how many times I’ve opened up the tab window in Mobile Safari and found eight tabs that are already open in the background of sites I forgot to read. Keeping all of the tabs visible means that I have one less step to go through to get to the tab that I want. In iCab, it’s simple; just look and touch. In Mobile Safari, I first have to remember which icon is the tab icon, then find the tab I’m looking for from the collection of website screenshots. It’s pretty, but adds friction.

Settings

iCab has many more settings than Mobile Safari, allowing your browsing experience to be customized to your liking. My favorite setting is the ability to open links to other domains in a background tab. This is by far the best browsing experience on any platform. Have a list of Google search results to check? Just tap each one and it opens in a background tab automatically. Reading through Daring Fireball’s Linked List? It’s as simple as scanning Gruber’s summary and tapping the link to open the tab in the background and on to the next one. This is how I’ve browsed for years on the desktop.

Another favorite setting are the filters. iCab comes out of the box with 142 filters to help block annoying ads. The filters are not enabled by default, but can be easily. Customizing filters is also very easy, assuming you know some basic wildcards.

Instapaper and Twitter are supported via modules. Modules are similar to Firefox’s extensions, but much simpler. They are more like bookmarklets on steroids. iCab does not have a very large collection of modules right now, but it does have a fairly simple tutorial on how to develop them. The repository has modules for jumping to the bottom of the page or the top of the page, and a handful of others, but if someone whips up a Readability module, I think that will have all the important stuff covered.

iCab may not be for everyone, since not everyone is going to need all of the features. I’ve just touched on some of the features that I’ve found useful, I didn’t even mention ScrollPad (place three fingers on the screen to scroll super fast!), the multiple privacy options, support for downloading files and opening them in another installed app, import and export of bookmarks, or full screen and kiosk mode. iCab is $1.99 in the App Store for a universal iPad/iPhone app. If you care about your browsing experience on the iPad, go get it.

Palm has really been out and pounding the pavement to get in touch with developers lately. In addition to having a booth at Google IO to show off the Ares development environment, they also recently presented at the CELF Embedded Linux Conference.

The presentation was called "Engaging Developer Communities, Lessons and Opportunity from webOS" and from looking at the slides (PDF link), the title doesn’t lie. Matthew Tippett of Palm (and formerly of AMD) gave the talk and in addition to talking about Palm’s own efforts, the presentation drills down into communities. Specifically, Tippet talks up WebOS-Internals, patches, themes, and the like. The key from Palm’s perspective is that webOS doesn’t require rooting, jailbreaking, or other extreme hackery in order to get into hombrew, instead you just put the sucker into development mode, plug it into your computer, and you’re in. In other words, webOS is open, almost radically open.

The key for us (besides the warm fuzzy feeling from seeing PreCentral called out) is that the ratio of devices in the field to excited and engaged developers and hackers is as high as we’ve ever seen on any platform. 

If you’re interesting in learning how to install Homebrew apps and patches, here’s a nice how-to article for you.