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Several people have pointed me to Stephen Hawkings’ warning about ‘First Contact’ with aliens. Specifically that we’d be on the short end of the stick. His worry reminded me of something I read as a child which shocked me somewhat when I encountered it, as I was conditioned by a post-Cosmos optimism. Here’s the author:

…I find it mind-boggling that the astronomers now eager to spend a hundred million dollars on the search for extraterrestrial life never thought seriously about the most obvious question: what would happen if we found it, or if it found us. The astronomers tacitly assume that we and the little green monsters would welcome each other and settle down to fascinating conversations. Here again, our own experience on Earth offers useful guidance. We’ve already discovered two species that are very itnelligent but less technically advanced than we are-the common chimpanzee and pygmy chimpanzee. Has our response been to sit down and try to communicate with them? Of course not. Instead we shoot them, dissect them, cut off their hands for trophies, put them on exhibit in cages, inject them with AIDS virus as a medical experiment, and estroy or take over their habitats. That response was predictable, because human explorers who discvered technically less advanced humans also regularly responded by shooting them, decimating their popualtiosn with new diseases, and destroything or taking over their habitats.

Any advanced extraterrestrials who discovered us would surely treat us in the same way….

That was Jared Diamond in The Third Chimpanzee. In terms of this particular concern I have to admit that my attitude is encapsulated by Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction. An advanced alien race is basically going to have magical powers in relation to humanity, and I doubt anything we do will matter either way (i.e., I don’t think we could hide, or, get their attention). But my main question is why haven’t the von Neumann machines already co-opted all the matter and energy in the universe? The Fermi paradox is a real issue. There are still big questions that we have idea clue about.

Seen through Galileo’s telescope, the moons of Jupiter appeared as mere points of light, indistinguishable from one another. Even so, they fomented an instant scientific revolution. Their existence gave evidence for what Copernicus had merely intuited: Not all heavenly bodies circle Earth.

The first morning’s session focused on the moons’ entry into 17th-century society. Although today we know these bodies—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—as the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, Galileo himself wanted to call them the Cosmian Stars, in honor of his potential patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany. Cosimo accepted the moons as a gift but preferred the name Medicean to describe them. Galileo of course complied, in a calculated move that won him a lifetime appointment as court mathematician and philosopher, plus generous Medici support for his research. I saw several scientists in the audience nod on that note, sympathetic with the time-honored need for government funding of big science.

After the initial discovery, Galileo faced the tougher job of studying and timing the moons’ regular orbits. He noted how they were periodically occulted by Jupiter or eclipsed in the planet’s shadow, and he applied these data to the practical problem of determining longitude at sea. (A navigator could compare the precise times at which these phenomena were observed from shipboard with the times they were predicted to occur if seen from a place of known longitude, such as Padua, then use the time difference to calculate his position east or west.) Although sailors never adopted Galileo’s technique, the moons proved a boon to cartography, helping to redraw land maps all over Europe.

Galileo’s successors followed the moons to other new conclusions about nature. Danish astronomer Ole Roemer, for example, watching the moons from the Paris Observatory, noted how their eclipses preceded the predicted times when Jupiter and Earth came nearest each other. Similarly, the moons’ eclipses fell minutes behind predicted times when Jupiter and Earth lay farthest apart. Roemer attributed these discrepancies to the time needed for light to travel across space from Jupiter to earthly observers. With the moons as his touchstone, he clocked the speed of light for the very first time, in 1676. His answer fell 25 percent below the modern value but greatly improved on the previous estimates of “infinite” and “immeasurable”…

BMW, which has trailed behind Lexus as the No.2 luxury brand in the U.S. for the past decade, is unlikely to benefit from the Japanese brand’s recall woes. Analysts say that BMW will probably come in at the No.2 spot again in 2010.

BMW sales will be suppressed this year by the wind down of the old 5-Series, says BMW AG global sales chief Ian Robertson. The 5-Series accounts for about 25 percent of BMW’s sales volume in the United States.

“Effectively, we’ve run out our existing 5 Series and won’t launch our new 5 Series until June,” Robertson said. “So a full-year effect won’t be felt. We still see we will have some growth this year, but it’s a few digit points. How that turns out with competitors’ volumes remains to be seen.”

Analysts say that Lexus has been hurt by parent Toyota’s recall issues and the recent recall of the Lexus GX. However, Lexus sales were still up 42 percent to 20,219 vehicles in March, compared with 2009. During the first quarter of 2010, Lexus sales were up 18 percent to 49,523 vehicles.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

By Matt Holdridge

From the DailyCaller: 

Most people understand that the IRS is likely to need thousands of new agents to enforce the Obama Administration’s new health insurance mandate – starting in 2014, you can either buy health insurance or the government will confiscate your tax refund, at least.

But hidden deep within the 2,000 plus page law is a vast new authority for the IRS that proponents admit has nothing at all to do with health care.

Instead, its purpose is to squeeze more and more tax dollars from businesses to eliminate the so-called “tax gap” – bureaucratese for every red cent Americans owe the IRS but don’t pay up come April 15.

In section 9006 of the health care law, many businesses will be required for the first time to report every expense they incur over $600.

Right now, businesses must report the wages they pay employees. But they are exempt from reporting payments to other businesses and for merchandise.

Interesting how everyday, after the vote of course, we learn about a new provision in this “health care” bill. 

I sort of love the MiFi. (What’s a Mifi? It’s a portable, battery-powered WiFi router that pulls data over a 3G connection.) If I had a box of candy for every time the MiFi got me out of a jam, I’d be.. well, I’d probably be crazy fat.

Good news, people of Japan! Now you have the opportunity to get crazy fat, too!

Today, Novatel is announcing that the MiFi is now available in Japan via Inter Communications, a big ol’ mobile tech retailer. Alas, it seems like this is a per-day rental deal only — and at about $17 USD per day, it’s not exactly cheap.

NTT DoCoMo MVNO a2network has also announced plans to carry the MiFi 2372 beginning sometime around the end of April, though pricing hasn’t been announced there yet. Lets hope it’s cheaper than 17 bucks a day, yeah?

Appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports just now, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) sounded an optimistic note about the prospects for comprehensive climate legislation this year and expressed dismay at Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) indication that immigration reform would be a higher priority — a move that led Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to call off his work on the climate bill in protest this weekend.

“A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the announcement,” said Lieberman, who along with Graham and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was expected to unveil the climate bill today before Graham’s change of heart.

But he emphasized that Graham is still fully on board, that “this is his priority.”

The ball is in Reid’s court now. Lieberman says he talked with Reid yesterday, and the majority leader “explicitly” reassured him that he was still committed to putting the climate bill to a vote once it’s ready. “He assumes that will be before the immigration reform bill is ready,” Lieberman said. “He knows our bill is ready and the immigration reform bill is not.”

Once Graham is convinced of that, the climate legislation process will be back on track. “Lindsey Graham will come back to where he is and never left,” Lieberman said.

Here we go again. First it’s Samsung going with Yahoo services, and now comes word that Motorola’s switching to Skyhook for its location-based services over Google. Devices with the new service will "begin shipping later this year," Skyhook says, and "will have the ability to better support a new wave of location-aware applications by leveraging Skyhook’s precise, reliable and fast-performing location engine."

Hey, fair enough. No reason why it shouldn’t be as good or better than Google’s default services, right? [via Engadget]

Reader Dan writes in to let us know that Home Depot convinced him to shop at Sears. No easy feat, we assume.

Here’s Dan’s story:

I was rather disappointed and frustrated at a recent experience at your store in [redacted]. I went there on Sunday, April 25, in order to purchase a new Maytag Bravo series washer and dryer.

I had done my research and did some in-store price comparison at Home Depot, Sears, Best Buy and Fry’s. Sears happened to have the washer on sale, but your store had the best price on the dryer and included free delivery/installation/haul away.

I walked in and spoke with the associate in the appliances section and asked if he would price match the Sears price on the washer. He immediately brought up some unknown, nondescript website that displayed the Sears price as nearly $200 higher than it really was.

I had the phone number for the local Sears store and he spent about 15 seconds waiting for someone to answer the phone. He quickly gave up and told me that he could not match that price. He then showed me the inventory and told me that I wouldn’t be able to get delivery until approximately June 1.

He also mentioned that Sears probably didn’t have then in stock either. At that point, he seemed uninterested in working with me further and moved on to another customer who came into the department after I did.

I walked out, drove to Sears, negotiated down the price on the dryer and will have them delivered next week.

Next up is a new dishwasher, range and refrigerator. I have a pretty good idea of where I won’t be shopping for those.

Good work, Home Depot! Sears should send you a thank you card.

Has anyone else had trouble haggling with Home Depot?

Again, it isn’t just Republicans making the charge that the Dodd bill does not end Too Big To Fail. So are a quartet of regional Fed bank presidents:

1) Thomas Hoenig of the KC Fed (in a chat with the Huffington Post):

As for Dodd’s treatment of Too Big To Fail, Hoenig said the bill puts too much power in the hands of regulators. “What I worry about [is] if you have a large institution, and it got into very serious trouble and you only have a weekend to take care of it, the procedures under the Dodd bill would make that very difficult,” Hoenig said. “Let’s say you were coming into Monday morning and you didn’t have the ability to get to the judges in time to get this thing approved, and you had to get to another day. What you would tend to do is lend to that institution — if it were not a commercial bank, you would even use the [Fed’s] so-called 13-3 authority… and you would lend to it,” he said in a reference to the legal authority that the Fed claimed gave it the power to lend taxpayer money to AIG. “So you would still have it as an operating bank, you would not have taken control of it, not put it in receivership yet, and yet you would be bailing it out. That’s what we have to avoid.
“There’s still this desire to leave discretion in the hands of the Secretary of the Treasury, and while I understand that desire — because you never know what the circumstance is going to be — the problem is in those circumstances you always take the path of least resistance because of the nature of the crisis.

“You don’t want to be the person responsible for the meltdown, so you take the exception and you move it through.

“But if you had a good firm rule of law, and the markets knew… there were no exceptions… you would be in the long run much better off. It does affect behavior,” he said.

2) Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed (in a speech):

The dangers posed by TBTF banks are too great. To be sure, having a clearly articulated “resolution regime” would represent steps forward, though I fear they might provide false comfort in that a special resolution treatment for large firms might be viewed favorably by creditors, continuing the government-sponsored advantage bestowed upon them. Given the danger these institutions pose to spreading debilitating viruses throughout the financial world, my preference is for a more prophylactic approach: an international accord to break up these institutions into ones of more manageable size—more manageable for both the executives of these institutions and their regulatory supervisors.

3) Jeffrey Lacker of the Richmond Fed (in a CNBC interview with Steve Liesman):

Lacker: The issue of our time has to do with the government safety net for financial firms. And it’s grown tremendously, and containing that, establishing clear boundaries of that, is the number one priority. As I read the Dodd bill and the mechanism it sets up for the resolution authority, it doesn’t strike me that it’s likely to help us there. And in fact, it seems to me like a major danger is that there’s going to be more instability in financial markets instead of less.

Liesman: The Dodd bill allows for a three-bankruptcy judge panel to declare insolvency. It allows losses to go to unsecured creditors; it allows management to be replaced and shareholders to be wiped out. How much clearer could the government be in this bill that there will be real losses to investors?

Lacker: It allows those things, but it does not require them. Moreover, it provides tremendous discretion for the Treasury and FDIC to use that fund to buy assets from the failed firm, to guarantee liabilities of the failed firm, to buy liabilities of the failed firm. They can support creditors in the failed firm. They have a tremendous amount of discretion. And if they have the discretion, they are likely to be forced to use it in a crisis.

4) Charles Plosser of the Philly Fed:

In order to end TBTF, we must have a way that credibly convinces large financial firms and the markets that firms on the verge of failure will, in fact, be allowed to fail. If the resolution mechanism is either too vague or allows for too much discretion by regulators or Congress to rescue firms through subsidies or bailouts, then troubled firms will surely argue that the risks of failure are so severe and systemic that they must be bailed out. This is what we saw in the recent crisis. A credible commitment by government not to intervene or bail out firms must be the centerpiece of the resolution mechanism.

I believe the best approach to making such a credible commitment and thus ending TBTF is amending the bankruptcy code for nonbank financial firms and bank holding companies, rather than expanding the bank resolution process under the FDIC Improvement Act (FDICIA). While the Senate bill has tightened up the proposal with a stronger bias toward liquidating a troubled firm, the bill would still give a great deal of discretion to policymakers to avoid the discipline of a bankruptcy court. I recognize that the current bankruptcy code does not adequately address the inherent challenges in liquidating large financial institutions without risks to the market, but I believe a modified bankruptcy process would eliminate discretion and strengthen market discipline, by permitting creditors as well as regulators to place the firm into bankruptcy when it is unable to meet its financial obligations.

The televised leaders debates are changing the way we think about elections… The third and final debate will be broadcast from Birmingham on Thusday. And it’s the big one, The Economy. Its a perfect chance for us to get leaders thinking about the ROBIN HOOD TAX.

So, we are going to greet them as they go into the dabate and get them thinking about the Robin Hood Tax even before it kicks off. We will be dressed as Robin Hood, Maid Marion and co. We want as many Merry Men and Women to join us! And that means you!

The location is as yet unconfirmed, so watch this space or get in contact with us if you are able to come!

Alternatively… if you live in Hereford, come to the Climate Question Time and ask your local candidates about their views and policies on climate change and other international development issues. More info:

http://www.facebook.com/l/64aee;asktheclimatequestion.org.uk/geo/hereford-herefordshire-south/

by David Roberts

This weekend there was a memorial service for the 29 miners killed in the explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) all spoke. I found Obama’s address infuriating.

Look, obviously, it’s a memorial service. The focus was on the miners and their families, and that’s entirely appropriate. Turning memorials into political rallies is never a good idea.

Nonetheless, Obama’s speech was so bland and gauzy, so resolutely inert, that for me at least it amounted to an insult to the miners’ memories. Why must a tribute involve papering over the realities of their lives and the circumstances that led to their deaths? Do we honor them by romanticizing what they did? Do we honor them by referring to the explosion that ended their lives as though it were an unforeseeable act of God?

Look at this:

All the hard work; all the hardship; all the time spent underground; it was all for their families. For a car in the driveway. For a roof overhead. For a chance to give their kids opportunities they never knew; and enjoy retirement with their wives. It was all in the hopes of something better. These miners lived—as they died—in pursuit of the American dream.

So anybody who works to feed their family is living the American dream? What a lazy, limpid bit of rhetoric. People work to feed their families in other countries too. It seems to me what separates the American dream from the dreams of others is that in America every citizen is afforded a measure of dignity. Every citizen can expect to be treated as a human being, not a cog in a machine. Every citizen has the right to unionize, to protect employee interests. Every citizen has a right to a workplace that conforms to reasonable safety standards and an employer who obeys the law. Every citizen has a right to a working and living environment that does not slowly poison their family. Every citizen has a right to speak out without fear of reprisal or bullying from the owners of capital.

Massey miners had none of those rights. Exploitative work, without union representation, in a patently unsafe environment, run by bullying managers who break the law with impunity? That’s not the American dream. That’s a Third World nightmare. The deaths of these miners was a failure of the American dream. And it didn’t just happen. There were real people behind it, who made real decisions that prioritized rocks over human lives.

Greed and venality killed these miners. Can’t we feel just a little bit of anger about that? Is it really “politics” to allow ourselves that anger?

———

As an addendum, how are the barons and lobbyists of the coal mining industry reacting to Obama’s kind words? Are they giving him any credit? Being reasonable in return?

No:

“You’d be hard pressed to find a president whose actions have been more warlike on coal. There are those who say the president has parked his tanks on our front lawn, and it’s hard to dispute that,” said Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association.

“Tanks on our front lawn.” This from a lobbyist living a comfortable life in D.C., whose manicured nails have never once been stained by a piece of coal, who faces no risk more severe than failing to get a table at The Palm, heading an organization that resolutely fights worker safety protections at every turn. Repulsive. (See Appalachian Voices for more.)

Related Links:

Oil rig leak and the week in fossil-fuel industry disasters

A near thumbs-up for Joe Romm’s ‘Straight Up’

More lessons from Wales for moving beyond coal

by Agence France-Presse

Rooftop garden in Queens. Photo courtesy Your Secret Admiral via FlickrNEW YORK—Urban farming is a growth industry in New York City’s concrete jungle, and with little open land available, agriculturalists and beekeepers have taken to the rooftops to pursue their passion.

Andrew Cote uses the emergency fire ladder to climb up to the roof of his East Village building, where he tends to 250 beehives. Cote, a professor of Japanese literature, doubles up as president of the New York City Beekeepers Association and is happy that the city authorized beekeeping in mid-March after an 11-year ban. The ban forced beekeepers into hiding, fearing a $2,000 fine if caught.

“The city wants to plant one million trees, and the trees need to be pollinated,” Cote said. “Our bees pollinate, and they clean the air. It is a way to connect with nature.”

Bees also produce around 100 pounds of honey per hive per year, he said—honey that he sells at the city’s various farmers markets.

Cote said he has received several requests to install rooftop beehives and has scheduled a course for aspiring apiculturalists.

On the other side of Manhattan, in the posh Upper East Side, Eli Zabar, owner of the upscale Vinegar Factory delicatessen, inspects the crops he is growing on the roof of the old factory bought in 1991.

“I began the greenhouses 15 years ago,” Zabar said. “I grow heirloom tomatoes, lots of different kinds of lettuce, herbs, basil, rosemary, thyme, raspberries, figs, beets. We use the heat of the bakeries and pastries, we recycle the heat. With the use of the heat we have eliminated our [carbon] footprint.”

About half of the items Zabar sells in his deli come from rooftop farms. “You harvest in the morning, you sell in the afternoon, you don’t refrigerate, it tastes better,” said Zabar. “We pick everything ripe and ready to eat. All our products here are organic.”

Depending on the time of day, Zabar says with a smile, “the greenhouses smell of bread, brownie, or croissant.”

From Manhattan to Brooklyn, whether on rooftops, backyards, or in any of the city’s 600 community gardens, urban farming is a growing phenomenon.

The movement is helped along by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who seeks to turn the city into a sustainable development champion. Through “PlaNYC 2030,” a program he launched on Earth Day 2007, people who install “green roofs” can get a tax break.

At Randall’s Island, in New York’s East River, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is currently testing 16 different types of vegetation that could be placed on the roofs of schools, hospitals, or other public buildings. “These are patches of succulent vegetation, like sedum, which protect the roofs [and] isolate the buildings from the heat because the UV sun is not hitting,” said senior project manager John Robilotti.

The rooftop vegetation also helps maintain a steady temperature inside and captures storm water, which would otherwise run off into the street. “The water that does come out is filtered and kept in tanks, and we use it to water when there is no rain,” Robilotti said.

The roofs “absorb carbon and create oxygen, so we take carbon from the carbon cycle,” he said. “And they attract birds, butterflies, bees. We even saw a red-tailed hawk.”

Related Links:

World’s first taxis with easily swapped batteries hit Tokyo

Oil rig leak and the week in fossil-fuel industry disasters

‘Green tea party’ closes out U.S. Earth Day celebrations

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

Flanked by other eco-wares ranging from Philips light bulbs to a home soda-making machine, PC manufacturers on hand at Pepcom’s EcoFocus conference touted new computers that, while Energy Star 5.0-compliant, also happen to be made from recycled and/or non-hazardous stuff.

Lenovo demo’d its new 14-inch L-412 (pictured right) and 15-inch L-512 ThinkPads, two laptops launched last week with customer’s choice of Intel Core i3 or Core i5 processors. Both feature palm rests, covers, and cases which are 20% comprised of recycled material, such as office water jugs and old IT equipment.

Likewise, Sony’s Vaio W Series “mini-notebook” (pictured below) also on display — based on a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom processor, with 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 backlit LCD — uses reprocessed plastic from DVD and CD waste in its palm rest, cover, and incidental parts.

Not to be left out of the eco equation, HP demo’d an all-in-one PC that was introduced last week. The new computer-targeted Pavilion All-in-One 200-5020 PC is designed not just to save on energy and space, but also to reflect HP’s commitment to ridding PCs of hazardous materials.

HP has issued company directives to halt the use of mercury in notebook LED displays by the end of this year, and to stop any remaining use of brominated flame retardant (BFR) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in computing products launched in 2011.

Meanwhile, Soda-Club Group’s soda making machine requires no electricity whatsoever — and no disposable bottles or metal cans, either, for that matter.

Consequently, Sodastream is reminiscent in some ways of the old-fashioned home ice cream-making machines that were apparently all the rage partly through the last century. But forget about any hand cranking here.

You can make your own carbonated soda or sparkling water in just about any flavor you want at the proverbial push of a button. All you need is a Sodastream starter kit — varying in configuration from model to model, but basically including a carbonator and carbonating bottles with “fizz-preserving caps” — and some flavoring, also company-supplied. Oh, yeah, and some water, too.

At the same time, Philips proved that the emphasis on energy conservation keeps working its way down from data centers and laptops to the light bulb level.

Philips’ environmentally friendly LED bulbs last longer than traditional incandescent bulbs, while also gobbling up less electricity and producing brighter light, Betanews was told.

The latest additions to Philips’ line-up, released last week, include ten new models, geared to specific purposes such as indoor spot and flood lighting, track fixtures, outdoor security lighting, along with wall sconces and other “mood-setting applications.”

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences

I’ll see you there if you are attending.

International conference: The Signs of Which Times? Chronological and Palaeoenvironmental Issues in the Rock Art of Northern Africa

3-4-5 June 2010

Palais des Académies / Paleis der Academiën
Espace Baudouin
Hertogsstraat / Rue Ducale,1
1000 Brussels

Programme

Text of introduction

Registration form

Abstract book

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

AndroLib has reported that the total number of applications on the Android Market has exceeded 50,000; this number is a wee bit bigger than what Google itself has reported during a Q1 earnings report. Jeff Huber, Google’s senior VP of engineering reported the number to be a respectable 38,000, which stands as Google’s “official” count.

“We’re sticking to 38,000 for now. We’ll announce when we do our next formal count.”
-Google, to Android Central

50,000 seems to be quite a big over-estimate if Google is sticking to their lower figure; however, I could see the numbers getting easily inflated due to the amount of not-quite-apps on the marketplace. Any search for “Beautiful Widgets” or “Better Home” will give you a sea of entries that are just for skins, which just make finding the original app that much harder. This flood is one of the main critiques of the marketplace, and something I believe needs to be fixed ASAP to bring us a more functional environment to find apps.

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