Category: News

[Caution, I’m going to get on my soapbox for this post. If you are not interested in soapboxes, I suggest you avert your eyes]

Yesterday, I touched on the Legality of IPodMeister’s digitizer service. Bringing up the First-Sale doctrine opened up a can of worms in my mind.

I love digital media, but I won’t pay for it (or steal it obviously). I have never purchased a song from the iTunes Store. For too many years, all the songs were looked up so that they’d only play on certain Apple products. There were workarounds, but they were less than convenient for this Lazy Man. The iTunes Store is heading in the right direction making it so their songs do play everywhere (or so I’ve read). You could burn a CD of the songs you bought on iTunes and then rip that to MP3. There was some software that was a little more direct, but it just seemed to be a gamble. If I could spent money and get something without restrictions, why spend money and get restrictions? It’s no problem to sell a CD to someone, but have you ever tried to sell a song you purchased on iTunes? Good luck with that.

I like the idea of the Amazon Kindle. I was very close to saying that I love it. After all it’s a nice way to carry pile of books with you while traveling. However, when I looked at the Kindle in depth, I saw too many drawbacks. People aren’t likely to steal a book at the beach if you go for a swim. If I like a book, I can’t lend it to a friend. And like the iTunes Store, you can’t sell the books you bought to others.

Amazon gets around this by stating in their End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), that you aren’t really buying the book, but the rights to read it. You can read more here. Okay, I can play ball with that restriction, but you need to give me something else in return… like a much cheaper price. Of course as CNET’s Rick Broda points out you often don’t save much money on eBooks. You would expect a lot of savings considering that eBooks eliminate the need for: Paper, ink, shipping (gasoline, trucks, and drivers), warehouse storage, shelf space, sales staff, etc. but that’s not the case. When you give up the rights to sell the book it’s looking like a worse deal.

I don’t want to pretend that there are no advantages to eBooks. There are features like search and digital annotation in addition to the aforementioned portability that are quite nice. In the end though, I think it comes up to be a wash or regular paper books having the advantage. This disappoints me, because I think we should be making moving forward with innovation and eBooks could be a large part of that – except that arbitrary restrictions hold them back.

It’s that right of first sale that I don’t understand. It would be technically easy for Amazon (and others) to implement one of two things

• Credit an Owner’s Account a Percentage for Deletion of the eBook – In this scenario, you are essentially selling the book back to Amazon. Why would Amazon buy the book back? Simply because they know you A) are more likely to buy a book in the first place knowing that you can sell it back and B) will use the credit to buy more books hence making them more sales.
• Allow People to Sell their eBooks – It’s easy to transfer the “Amazon license” from one account to another. In fact, Barnes and Noble’s new Kindle competitor, the Nook allows you to lend eBooks to others, as long as you only do it once per book for a maximum of 14 days. It is a baby step in the right direction.

Some say that publishers don’t want this digital media transferable because it’s simply too easy and would cut into sales. People might just buy the first hundred thousand copies while the cheap guys (like myself) wait for them to finish and then buy them for the lowest price. I don’t know why publishers fear this so much because that already happens. You can buy used books on Amazon. You can use PaperBackSwap.com to get books for free. And then there is that library system.

The Best Digital Media Solution

The RIAA should maintain some kind of huge database that notes the digital rights that everyone has. As long as you paid for the rights, you can get the music in any form you wish for a nominal free (downloading for free, a mix CD for a buck or two, etc.). Sure it’s a privacy nightmare. However, I think consumers would buy into it. There are a lot of consumers out there who are fed up after buying Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic in 5 times (vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, iTunes). The RIAA says that a lot of the cost is paying the people producing the album, but if you paid those people with your vinyl purchase, why do you have to pay them again for the cassette version? If my CD gets scratched, it should be replaceable for the cost of the CD as all the parties are already properly compensated. If Toys in the Attic gets remastered or if we are talking movies with DVD extras, it’s fair to charge the consumer a bit more to upgrade their license. However, the consumer should get the choice to keep the license for the previous work which they’ve paid for.

This solution would work for all digital media. If I bought a book on a Kindle and later decide that the Nook is a better device, whatever organization that binds book publishers should transfer over that license for easy downloading.

It’s inevitable that we get there, it’s just going to take time for media publishers and owners to realize that this is the fair way to make sure that everyone gets compensated fairly.

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Boy, was today a long day! But it really flew by.

Here is the low-down: Pt in their 50’s in for thyroidectomy. Sx goes fine, pt transfers to medical floor. At one point, the patient receives prn (as needed) vasotec (ace inhibitor for blood pressure) for their BP to keep it nice and normal for the incision site. Pt is only on the floor for about an hour, I believe. Pt begins to have shortness of breath, they almost call a rapid response, but then he/she codes (PEA) and he/she arrives to the unit shortly before 1 am.
They proceed to code him/her for almost 2 hours. Surgery and anesthesia are at the bedside. They have a terrible time getting him/her intubated because of a lot of swelling at the incision site (neck). They reopen the incision site and find no hematoma or bleeding. At this point, the patient has received a crap-load of epi, vasopressin, and a bunch of other meds. He/She has also been shocked a few times. Eventually, he/she is intubated and on the vent. FiOs at 100%.

Fast forward to 6am when my shift begins.
He/She is on the following drips: levophed, amiodarone, epinephrine, LR.

During my assessment, the patient’s pupils are fixed and dilated, size about 6.

I could not elicit any sort of response from the patient: pupils unreactive to light, unreactive to corneal stimulation (ie–take cotton ball and touch eye ball), no response to pain what-so-ever.
For whatever reasons, the MD’s do not want a CT scan. Vital signs are labile. BP will be 135 systolic one minute and literally shoot up to 180/100 with HR in 70’s, and then minutes later, she/he is 95/60 with HR 58.
Intensivist decides around 8 that he wants to do Arctic Sun:

Basically, we cool the patient down to 33 C (make him/her super-duper cold) for 24 hours with the hope that the hypothermia will reduce some of the ischemic (lack of oxygen) injury to the brain and hopefully preserve some sort of function and then rewarm her 24 hours after we reach the set point temperature and then see how he/she does. It is pretty damn cool, you know, when it works. Apparently, it can reduce mortality from 35-39%. It has to be started within 6 hours after the patient arrests, and we were pretty much right on the 6 hour mark, with the hopes of cooling her to the set point within 2 hours.

(here is an article on Arctic Sun http://www.uihealthcare.com/news/pacemaker/2008/spring/articsun.html)

This automatically made the patient a 1:1 assignment, which means the nurse can only have this one patient and no other. Luckily, we only had an open room at this time, so we did not have to pawn any patients off to any other nurses.
We reached our set point at noon. At this point, the patient is now on: amiodarone, levophed, insulin, epinephrine, fentanyl (to prevent shivering since that will increase her oxygen demand), insulin, and propofol (aka–the med that Michael Jackson was taking. I know most people are familiar with this drug now because of that, but it is routinely given for sedation while in the ICU and on the ventilator).

We do not expect him/her to survive. We contacted LifeLink (organ transplant people) early in the AM and they are now following the patient.

Can any of the medical people guess what caused him/her to code?

Update tomorrow. This is a drama-filled patient.

As a side note, November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month!
For the month of November, I’ve been wearing my white ribbon:

And also a blue ribbon that was handed out to me today to show that I am a non-smoker! They also had cute keychains that said, “Don’t choke me with your second hand smoke.”

Lung cancer is no joke.

Statistics on lung cancer:
-Most common cause of cancer death
-Second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and women.
“In 2008, more than 215,000 new cases were expected to be diagnosed and about 162,000 Americans were expected to die from lung cancer.”

Vist here for more information.

Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Performance, Audi

German tuner MTM has a long history with Audi’s inline-five. In fact, company founder Roland Mayer helped develop the turbocharged five-banger for the Sport Quattro back in the mid-80s, and MTM produced a 400 horsepower version of the motor as one of their earliest performance packages. Nearly 20 years later the technology and the cars have changed, but MTM is still doing its thing.

Its latest project is Audi’s TT RS, which boasts 340 horsepower and 332 lb-ft torque in stock trim. MTM is offering three stages of engine packages ranging from 404 to 424 horsepower courtesy of tweaks to the engine control unit and and an upgraded exhaust system. Naturally, the Stage Three kit provides a substantial boost performance, including a top speed of 185 mph and a 0-100 km/h time of just 4.2 seconds. A variety of other upgrades are available as well, including MTM’s 19-inch Bimoto wheels, 15-inch brakes with eight-piston calipers, and lowering springs. Follow the jump for the official press release and check out the high-res gallery below.

[Source: MTM]

Continue reading MTM Audi TT RS packs up to 424 horsepower, 185 mph top speed

MTM Audi TT RS packs up to 424 horsepower, 185 mph top speed originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Poynter has an interesting article, looking at The Daily Show as being a leader in media criticism, an area where it does an excellent job, even if that’s not its intention. But, what struck me most of all in the description of the team behind the show, was that it has a full-time researcher and fact-checker, who looks for multiple sources to verify the content that they’re using in the show. Now, in a typical news room, this shouldn’t be surprising. But, instead, we’ve actually seen the opposite. Fewer and fewer news operations have full-time fact checkers (or fact-checkers at all). Yet, here we’re talking about a comedy program, whose main job is to make people laugh, and it employs a fact-checker who verifies points with multiple sources. Doesn’t that seem backwards?

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Under the leadership of its new executive management team established in April of this year, Sony has reformed its organizational structure in order to bolster profitability and transform its operations, with the aim of accelerating innovation and growth and optimizing business processes, particularly within its electronics and networked service businesses. As a result, approximately 80% of Sony’s targeted 330 billion yen (3.7 billion USD) of group-wide cost reductions for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2010 compared to the previous fiscal year have been achieved in the first half of the current fiscal year. Furthermore, Sony is now positioned to launch a succession of competitive products from the end of this calendar year and into 2010.

This also means that Sony is becoming a quicker, leaner organization which is more responsive to the market. They have promised that they will no longer develop products based on underlying technologies, but rather focus on the user experience. Please keep an eye out for some exciting developments we’ve spotted in this presentation in future posts. In this blog post, I will simply outline their goals.

In order to permit further growth and continue to enhance profitability, Sony is implementing additional transformation measures centering on the following four initiatives:

– Target consistent profitability in core hardware businesses (TV, game and digital imaging)
– Provide new user experiences integrating innovative hardware, software and services
– Reach out to new customers and develop new geographic markets
– Increase Sony’s focus on environmentally conscious products and processes

Through these measures, Sony targets an annual 5% operating income margin and a 10% return on equity by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.

Details of these initiatives are as follows:

Target consistent profitability in core hardware businesses (TV, game and digital imaging)

Regain the leading market position in LCD TV business
• Target returning the LCD TV business to profitability in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011 and achieving a 20% worldwide market share on a unit basis in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.
• Create a new revenue model beyond conventional TV business models.
– Introduce “Evolving” TV that delivers new applications over the network.
– Develop new generation displays using proprietary Sony devices.

Strengthen profitability of game business
• Target returning to profitability in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011.
• Increase revenues by expanding hardware/software sales and enrichment of PlayStation®Network services.
• Improve profitability in the game business by cost reduction and other measures.

Maintain leading position as the number one digital imaging brand in the world
• Strengthen business through outstanding product differentiation and cost competitiveness based on key devices such as image sensors and imaging engines.

Provide new user experiences integrating innovative hardware, software and services

Network-connected products and services
• Further expand Sony’s networked service business by utilizing the rapidly growing PlayStation®Network services (over 33 million registered account users as of November 16, 2009) and by integrating attractive hardware, including new mobile products and other consumer electronics, with networked services. Target annual revenues of 300 billion yen from networked service business by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.
• Strengthen and expand networked mobile business.
– Strengthen collaboration with Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.
– Accelerate rollout of e-book (hardware and content) business.
• Expand Sony’s lineup of network-connected products. Target installed user base of 350 million units by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.

Expand 3D-related product businesses in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011
• Engage Sony’s group-wide assets from content production to display devices and game to make available a wide variety of attractive content and hardware, and drive the creation of new 3D markets.
• Launch 3D-related products for the home, including TV, Blu-ray DiscTM players/recorders and 3D gaming on PlayStation3 in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011.
• Provide solutions for 3D content production, distribution and theatrical projection to lead the field in broadcast and professional businesses.
• Target revenue from 3D-related products of more than 1 trillion yen (excluding content) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.

Growth strategies for lithium-ion battery business
• Secure high profitability in existing businesses.
• Analyze possible entry into new business domains (storage/e-Vehicle battery).

Reach out to new customers and develop new geographic markets

• Strengthen direct marketing strategies.
• Promote Sony Group’s unified brand message “make.believe” globally.
• Continue to invest in emerging markets, including BRIC countries, to develop new customer bases.

Increase Sony’s focus on environmentally conscious products and processes

• Target absolute 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from Sony Group sites in CO2 emissions by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, compared to the level of the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001*.
• Target 30% reduction of power consumption per product by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, compared to the level of the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009*.
• Target zero environmental footprint throughout the lifecycle of Sony’s products and business activities as long-term goal.

Filed under: LA Auto Show, Convertible, Performance, Porsche

Porsche drivers don’t like waiting. That’s why they buy a Porsche, after all. So while a few weeks might not seem like a long time for most people, to a Porsche driver used to rocketing to 60 miles per hour in four-point-right-now seconds, the span of weeks must seem like an eternity.

Although we’re still weeks away from the LA Auto Show, where Porsche is set to unveil the new Boxster Spyder, Zuffenhausen has kept its enthusiasts placated with a fresh batch of photos showing its newest, lightest vehicle in all its glory. We’ll be on hand for the unveiling next month, but before then check out the updated high-res image gallery below.

[Source: Porsche]

Pics Aplenty: Porsche Boxster Spyder originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 11.19.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 is finally available for order from TotalPDA. The Omnia Pro has taken a while to become available to the general public, but but has finally shown up with Windows Mobile 6.5 in tow.

Unlike its distant relative the Samsung Omnia Pro B7620 it does not come with a touchscreen, so it’s back to the days of using a D-pad instead. It also has the unusual 320 by 320 resolution, which many applications do not support.

The smartphone features Quadband GSM, AT&T 3G, full qwerty, 528Mhz processor, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G, Wi-Fi, 3.2MP camera and 1500mAH batteries.

The device is available from TotalPDA for £234.99.

Read more about the device at TotalPDA here

WM

Mobileburn have published a 2 part video review of the Samsung Intrepid smartphone currently available on Sprint.

While the reviewer is relatively happy with the device, he observes, and we concur, that the device does seem to be a bit dated for a brand new release at the end of 2009.

Read their text review here.

Filed under: Motorsports, Europe, Hatchback, Fiat, Specialty

Think you’ve seen the most hardcore 500 already? Sure, Abarth has churned out some pretty wicked versions of the retro-hatch, but even the 695 Tributo Ferrari and R3T rally machine can’t hold a candle to the beast above.

Given the name, you might think this latest Cinquecento was the result of another collaboration between Abarth and its big sister companies. But this 500 is actually a product of independent racing garage Romeo Ferraris, which has rebodied the 500 in carbon fiber and fitted it with a wing that looks big enough to sustain a jumbo jet’s flight path. If that’s not bonkers enough, Ferraris has squeezed out an insane output of 360 horsepower from the Abarth’s 1.4-liter turbo four. That’s more than 257 horsepower per liter, and rivals even the similarly insane 427 Cinquecento from SEMA for pure lunacy.

Drivers Aldo Cerruti, Michela Cerruti and Mario Ferraris will be taking turns behind the wheel at the upcoming 6 Hours of Vallelunga endurance race on November 22. We’d suggest everyone else get the hell out of the way.

[Source: CarScoop]

Romeo Ferraris 500 Abarth packs 360 tarmac-munching Italian stallions originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the NARM presentation), and had adjusted his presentation to be a response of sorts to mine. Except it wasn’t. His presentation was yet another great example of a musician who understood exactly what works in the industry, even as he thought he disagreed with me. We later chatted briefly about it, and realized we’re actually very much in agreement about where we stand on the industry. The confusion came about because he is really focused on the music, and felt that my presentation focused too much on the money aspect.

And, indeed, my presentation did focus somewhat on how to make money, but that’s because if I just focus on the music, people complain that no one will make money and then no one will make music. But, of course, that’s ridiculous. None of these models work particularly well if you don’t make great music. And Òlafur Arnalds makes great music — and once we started talking, even he admitted that in order to do what he does, he needs (and wants) to make a living (which he does). And his actual presentation was about how to do just that. It was all about how he closely connected with his fans and gave them a reason to buy (even if he didn’t like to think that way). Instead, he noted that he needed to come up with a good story to go with the music, that would help attract his fans, better connect them to him while also giving them a reason to support him monetarily.

So, with that idea (having a story behind the music) as his basis, he came up with a great project called ‘Found Songs’, where he would write, record and release a new song every single day for seven straight days. He did it all out of his bedroom. His fans then stepped up and created artwork for each song, and in some cases, amazing videos, such as this one below, which is truly beautiful, and within days had thousands upon thousands of views:

You can watch the videos, look at the artwork people created for the songs and even download all the songs for free as mp3s. But, there’s also a store where you can buy the beautifully packaged vinyl or CD versions of the album, and some higher quality digital downloads. In other words, it was yet another perfect example of connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy (and, yes, it involved great music as well — which is, in fact, key). The importance of having a good story to go along with things, as we’ve seen with other projects, is a particularly good point. And, again, it shows how an infinite good (a good story) can increase the value of a scarce good (the products you’re selling). He also showed how his own fanbase increased massively after doing this project — much more so than when he was out opening for Sigur Rós. So, in the end, we absolutely agreed, and I found out about some more great music and yet another great story and example to go along with all the others.

Beyond that, I met a bunch of fascinating people doing very interesting and unique things in the music industry in the Nordic region. All of the Nordic countries are working hard to help enable their bands to adapt to a changing music environment, and there are definitely some very creative indie labels, artists and managers who are thinking through and implementing some great ideas that left me quite enthusiastic for what comes next. I also got a chance to meet Moto Boy, who took part in our CwF+RtB experiment, and see him perform live (which was fantastic). Overall, a very encouraging trip.

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When using traditional sweet potato casserole recipes, with their sugar, butter, eggs, nuts, and toasted marshmallow topping, Thanksgiving cooks across the U.S. will be cooking up the most fattening and unhealthy side dish on the Thanksgiving Day buffet. There are healthier sweet potato recipes, however, that can turn the traditional Thanksgiving tuber into a […]

The book reviewed here is ‘Socialnomics’ by Erik Qualman and narrated by Nick Sullivan. I was interested in listening to this audiobook in order to gain insights into wider cultural changes driven by social media technology. Such cultural changes are closely intertwined with illness in numerous ways and whilst illness is not the subject of the book I expected that the material would be indirectly relevant. Sullivan gives a solid performance as the narrator, using subtle changes in intonation at time to highlight the more important material. Turning to Qualman’s work itself, I found that this covered a variety of social media technologies such as YouTube, Google and Facebook. He looks at how social media transformed politics with the example of Barack Obama’s political campaign in the run-up to his election as president. Qualman also addresses the business sector illustrating how social media will affect their relationship with customers. I was puzzled by Qualman’s use of the term ’schizophrenic behaviour’ when referring to behaviour that changed from one situation to another. I thought perhaps what Qualman was referring to here was persona, the promotion of a behaviour appropriate to the social context and indeed a little after the initial reference he indeed refers to persona. He even recognises the serious nature of schizophrenia and emphasises this when using the term although. Apart from this Qualman covers a broad range of material, suggesting future trends in places and speculating on potentially successful strategies for companies. There are a number of stories that feature throughout the work that serve as exemplars of the phenomenon that Qualman is describing. One of the themes that emerged within the book was that social media is accessed by people of all ages. Qualman also discussed how social media is influencing the relationship between employers and employees. On a broader note, I thought many of the points could be generalised to the relationship between organisations of varying sizes and individuals both inside and outside of these organisations. Thus a number of the arguments could be applicable to non-business organisations e.g. government and non-government organisations. These in turn would have some relevance to healthcare delivery on a number of levels. I found Qualman’s book to be informative and helpful in providing an overview of the influence that social media is having on wider society.

References

Erik Qualman. Socialnomics. Narrated by Nick Sullivan. Audible inc. 2009.

Twitter

You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link

Podcast

You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

TAWOP Channel

You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link

Responses

If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]

Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.

Briefing note: 19 November 2009
Impact of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use: US Organic Center report evaluation by PG Economics

PG Economics welcomes the Organic Center (OC) latest release Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use: the first thirteen years by Charles Benbrook, which confirms the positive impact biotech crops have had on reducing insecticide use and associated environmental impacts. However, the OC’s assessment of the impact of biotech herbicide tolerant traits (HT) is disappointingly inaccurate, misleading and fails to acknowledge several of the benefits US farmers and citizens have derived from use of the technology.

For those reviewing the issues examined in the OC report, the following should be noted:

• Confirmation: of biotech insect resistant (IR) impact on insecticide use: the OC paper confirms the findings of other work that the use of IR technology has resulted in important reductions in
insecticide use on these crops that would otherwise have been used with conventional
technology;

• Failure to acknowledge the environmental benefits arising from use of HT technology. These include facilitation of no/reduced tillage production systems [2] which has resulted in important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. For example, US HT biotech crops contributed, in
2007, to the equivalent of removing 9.48 billion pounds (4.3 billion kg) of carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere or equal to removing nearly 1.9 million cars from the road for one year. In
addition, whilst usage of broad spectrum herbicides, notably glyphosate (and to a lesser
extent glufosinate) has increased significantly, usage of less environmentally benign products
such as pendimethalin, metribuzin, fluazifop and metalochlor has fallen substantially, leading to net benefits to the environment [3];

• Inaccuracies: It uses assumptions relating to herbicide use on biotech crops in the US that do
not concur with actual practice. As a result, it overstates herbicide use on US biotech crops
significantly. For example, it overstates herbicide use on the HT crops of corn, cotton and
soybeans for the period between 1998 and 2008 by 63.4 million pounds (28.75 million kg) of
active ingredient;

• Misleading use of official data: The OC report states many times that the pesticide impact data
is based on official, government (USDA NASS) pesticide usage data. Whilst this dataset is
used, its limitations (namely not covering pesticide use on some of the most recent years and
not providing disaggregated breakdowns of use between conventional and biotech crops)
mean that the author’s analysis relied on own-estimates of usage and cannot reasonably claim
to be based on official sources. As a result, the herbicide usage assumptions on conventional
crops, if they replaced biotech HT traited crops, are significantly understated and unreliable.
Combined with the overstated use assumptions on HT biotech crops, it is therefore not surprising that the document concluded that biotech crops lead to an increase in US herbicide use. This contrasts sharply with the findings of PG Economics’ peer reviewed analysis [4] that estimated that biotech crop adoption in the US has reduced pesticide spraying in the US, eg, by 357 million lbs (162 million kg: -7.1% 1996-2007) relative to what might reasonably be expected if the crops were all planted to conventional varieties;

• Weak approach: the approach of the OC report author is based on personal assumptions of
herbicide use for biotech versus conventional crops and extrapolation of average trends in
total crop active ingredient use (from an incomplete dataset). It also does not present any
information about typical weed control regimes that might be expected in conventional
systems. Not surprisingly, this resulted in significant over estimation of herbicide use on
biotech HT crops (see above) and under estimation of usage on conventional alternatives. As
such, the approach delivers unreliable and unrepresentative outcomes. It is noted that the
OC author is critical of the approach used by other analysts5 to estimate the herbicide usage
regimes that might reasonably be expected on conventional crops if biotech HT traits were
not used in the US corn, cotton and soybean crops over the last thirteen years. The NCFAP/PG Economics approach, criticized by the OC report, is to present and estimate the conventional alternatives based on a survey of opinion from over 50 extension advisors in almost all states growing these three crops. Observers should note the key differences between the two approaches with the NCFAP & PG Economics approach being much more
reliable and representative.

Given the complexities of agricultural production systems and the nature of weed and pest control
systems, more detailed comment and critique of the OCS report is detailed below.(see linked PG Economics site for details).

For additional information: contact Graham Brookes, PG Economics on 00 44 1531 650123 or
[email protected]

PG Economics Home page

Some earlier GMO Pundit posts on Dr Benbrook:

Commentary on Charles Benbrook’s anti-GM tour heats up

US Big picture at variance with Benbrook comments

Most major racing disciplines around the world have a clear and comprehensive framework to allow aspiring drivers to learn the ropes. Pretty much everyone starts in karting, but from there F1 hopefuls go on to Formula Renault and other open-wheeled series; NASCAR aspirants to ARCA and the Nationwide Series; rally prodigees to local championships; and so on and so forth. But teams fielding Le Mans prototypes had to recruit from other disciplines. That is, until now.

Earlier this year, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest – the organization behind Le Mans and its associated series – launched Formula Le Mans, known in America as the Le Mans Prototype Challenge. The idea was simple: everybody driving the same cars, designed on the same model as LMP1 and LMP2 racers, in support races to existing LMS events. French racing team (and, since acquiring Courage Competition, chassis constructor) Oreca was contracted to design and build the cars and help organize the series.

The purpose-built chassis known as the FLM09 packs a Chevy LS3 tuned to 430 horsepower with Magneti Marelli engine management, driving an Xtrac six-speed sequential gearbox to Michelin slicks housing Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes. Eight teams participated in the inaugural season this year, fielding some 50 drivers at races at Spa-Francorchamps, La Sarthe, Algarve, the Nurburgring, Silverstone and Magny-Cours.

The opening season was a success, prompting ACO and Oreca to launch a winter series, currently under way. But for next year’s series, Formula Le Mans will be fully integrated into the Le Mans Series as another category, much as they’ve been run in the American Le Mans Series since their inception. In order to separate the FLM cars from the higher-level LMP2 and keep them running for the full race distance, however, the Oreca FLM09s be equipped with restrictor plates. The integration of FLM into the full series ought to make for some interesting racing and a more hands-on training ground for aspiring drivers when they join the grid next year, but for now you can read the full press release after the jump and browse the mega gallery by hitting the thumbnails below.

[Source: Formula Le Mans]

Continue reading Formula Le Mans joins the big boys in the Le Mans Series

Formula Le Mans joins the big boys in the Le Mans Series originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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