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I’ve run a number of posts on the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project, and there’s some interesting news from this week — this past Monday Jerome Weeks covered the project for his National Public Radio/KERA show Art&Seek.

From the second link:

Each year, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers presents RAPID, a trade show for all kinds of 3D imaging, prototyping and printing. The society wanted to encourage artistic applicants — a new avenue for the industry to explore — and approached Hairston, who had spoken at RAPID several times. SME just wanted to call for any “artistic” prototypes to be submitted, but Hairston wanted to engage working professional fine artists to take a step into the engineering field — no math skills needed. Hairston’s would be more of a curated show.

HAIRSTON: “I thought the most interesting way to attract artists is to make the case why this is a good business decision. It definitely compresses the time. And you know, it’s a new medium. It stretches them out and gives them a challenge.”

Nancy Hairston (left) and Ginger Fox at SMU’s Rapid Prototyping Lab: Pay no attention to the sign behind them

by Grist

Photo courtesy Mrs. QTo understand the problem of school lunch in America, try the following experiment. Go to the supermarket and buy ingredients for a single meal for your family—or a group of friends. Limit yourself to 90 cents per person. If that sounds like too little, consider that it’s about what cafeteria administrators have to spend on the ingredients for kids’ lunches each day.

Cafeteria workers face another major challenge too: as many as half of all school cafeterias in America have no cooking equipment. Such “kitchens” are really reheating centers that no longer require skilled cooks—button-pushing clerks will do. 

And what kind of food are they churning out? Last fall, a teacher in a Midwestern school district decided to find out. Mrs. Q—she remains anonymous to avoid losing her job—is eating in her school’s cafeteria every day for the entire school year and documenting the experience, with snapshots. Her blog, Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project, provides a rare and often unpalatable window into what’s cooking in our public-school cafeterias—and we couldn’t resist sharing it with you. For this slide show, we lifted a few representative images and dsscriptions from Mrs. Q’s blog—with her permision, of course.

For more on the school lunch issue, see Grist’s extensive coverage of the topic, particularly Tom Philpott’s recent piece “Why even the childless should care about school lunches.”

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q

Today’s menu: Spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans, a breadstick, chocolate milk, and a blue-raspberry icee thing.

As far as school lunches go, this one is pretty good. The meat sauce
over penne was passable, and the green beans were OK too. I ate all
of main stuff, but I only took one bite of the breadstick, which was
too chewy yet semi-hard, and the blue raspberry thingy…I took one
suck and knew it was not for me. Of course, I drank all the chocolate
milk.

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q

Chicken patty with peas, two slices of bread, fruit cup, and chocolate milk.

There was sauce on the patty. I guess it was tomato sauce, but it was
tasteless and of course you can see that it was burnt. The fruit cup
was partially frozen. In fact, I stabbed it with my spork.

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q

Peanut butter and jelly graham cracker sandwich, apple juice, fruit cup (peaches), and milk.

I could barely eat this meal, so I didn’t. And then I was deliriously ravenous driving to get my little one.

And then it got worse.

I got sick when I got home. I can’t say what exactly did it. Whether it
was the lunch (I ate only half of one sandwich) or the not eating enough
(also family history of vertigo) or taking a vitamin toward the end of
the day without much in my stomach or just plain getting sick…

I noticed a LOT of kids with packed lunches today. Maybe they knew
something I didn’t.

Photo courtesy Mrs. QCheese croissant, broccoli, fruit jello, and milk (not pictured).

Stale. Enough said.

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q

Hamburger, wheat bun, fries, pear, and milk.

I was happy to eat fruit
today!

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q Bagel dog (turkey), tater tots, apple, and milk.

A dear friend of mine had a family member who owned an apple orchard. She told me, “Never
eat around the stem because when they spray, the pesticide collects in
the top.” It wasn’t soon after that I started eating only organic
apples. Of course, I don’t have a choice in this project. I try to sample every
food, but I find it really hard to take a bite of the apple.

 

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q Meatloaf, bread, fruit cup, mystery greens (!), and milk

To qualify for the label “meatloaf,” I think meat should be baked in a
loaf pan and then sliced. So given that definition, it is obvious that
what I ate today is not meatloaf, but instead a meat patty.

And I was so thrilled to see what I assumed to be spinach! I was
floored. But then when I took a bite, they were so very bitter. After
work I chatted with my mom about it, and she thinks they are collard
greens. But I’m not sure it was. All I
can say is that this was the first time I could not finish my veggies
during this experiment.

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q

Mac and cheese, mixed veggies, breadstick, fruit cup, and milk.

I can’t tell how the mac and cheese looks in the photo (I think it
looks ok, but my husband doesn’t agree). What I can tell you was that
it was very cheesy. It’s probably something the kids really enjoyed.
You know, it wasn’t that bad and I’m not trying to be nice. All I’m doing is comparing this meal
to the other school lunches that I’ve eaten and I can say that this
ranks a little higher than most. I was able to eat everything but the
fruit cup.

Photo courtesy Mrs. Q“Tex-Mex,” beans, tortilla chips, and banana.

What “Tex-Mex” refers to is taco meat over
rice with a little cheese on top. I enjoy comfort food and this is nice.

I took a close-up of the beans, which are darker on the top (at first
glance you think “black beans”) and lighter on the inside (then you
think “pinto beans”). I don’t know what kind of beans they were, but
I’ve always liked refried beans. They were OK.

 

 

Photo courtesy Mrs. QChicken nuggets, carrots, corn muffin, fruit jello, and milk.

I can’t remember how this meal tasted. Even just a couple hours after I
consumed it, I have no idea what flavors were present. I don’t remember
a texture jumping out at me. I don’t remember eating the corn muffin. It’s like I blocked it out. The other day I ate the fruit jello and I thought it was fabulous.
Today I took a couple sporkfuls and that was it. Could my taste buds
have amnesia? Or worse have they deserted me? Whatever the case the
little buds that remain in my mouth may need therapy.

 

Photo courtesy Mrs. QCheese sandwich, tater tots, pretzels, fruit icee, and milk (not pictured).

I ate most of the cheese sandwich. In case you were wondering the tater
tots count as the veggie here. Yes, I’ll say it again—tater tots (or
fries for that matter) count as a veggie. I know. I was shocked too but
now I just shrug.

Then the fruit icee bar! The packaging has been
upgraded. AND it is 100% juice so that’s an improvement. I was able on
it suck on it and I didn’t pucker up from a massive influx of sweet
hitting my taste buds.

Related Links:

USDA Inspector General: meat supply routinely tainted with harmful residues

What I learned at Michelle Obama’s historic obesity summit

Egger’s Head: School lunches

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., raised $1.16 million in the first quarter of 2010 and has $9 million in cash on hand.

However, that was less than half of the $2.3 million his Republican challenger Pat Toomey raked in during the same time period.

Specter, the incumbent Democrat still maintains a serious cash-on-hand advantage with $9.06 million in his warchest, while Toomey reported just over $4 million.

However, Specter is beginning to spend money in his Democratic primary fight with Rep. Joe Sestak.

Sestak has not announced his first quarter fundraising numbers, however he has long complained about the difficulties of fundraising while being abandoned by the Democratic establishment.

Last spring when Specter bolted the Republican party, President Obama assured him White House support.

Sestak has since been openly bitter about national Democrats supporting Specter, a man who Sestak points out was a lifelong Republican until last year.

Specter’s quarterly fundraising totals have been in decline ever since he switched parties.

The Pennsylvania senator raised $1.92 million in the third quarter of 2009 and $1.15 million in the fourth quarter, before posting his latest, $1.16 million haul.

by Tyler Falk

Move over Balloon Boy. Cluster ballooning’s as real as it gets.Photo: omnibus via FlickrIt’s carbon-free, it flies, and it has lots of balloons. How are cluster balloons not catching on?

Well at least one man is getting around the way Balloon Boy
pretended to do and the way the old man in UP does.

Last weekend, Jonathan Trappe flew “The Spirit Cluster”—57 helium-filled balloons and a small harness—109 miles in 14 hours above his home state of North Carolina, AOL News reports.

“Flying a gas balloon is unlike any other
    experience. There is no sound. No propellers, no jet engines. No
burner,
    no heart-thumping rotors of a helicopter. Not even the wind that
gliders
    experience. This is true, silent flight,” Trappe said on his website. “When you launch a balloon, part of the wonder is that you do
    not know where you will land. You are carried with the wind,
towards destinations
    unknown. It is a wonderful adventure, and it is the most pure form
of flight.”

It might not stimulate the new green economy, but if this catches on look for a boom in circus shops and landing gear (scissors).

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Like what you see? Sign up to receive The Grist List, our email roundup of pun-usual green news just like this, sent out every Friday.

Related Links:

But can you dance and chew gum at the same time?

Everybody poops…for a price

Insane posse of climate deniers?

Launchpad LA has chosen 10 startups to participate in its second annual mentorship program, among them an online resource for genetic information, a cloud-based publishing network, a game design company, a Hispanic wedding service and a next-generation shopping platform still in stealth mode. Launchpad LA’s mentorship program is six months long and brings together venture capitalists and experienced entrepreneurs from Southern California to provide advice and skills to help startups succeed. In order to be eligible, companies must not have raised any institutional venture capital and be located in or willing to relocate to Los Angeles.

Here’s the full list of the winners:

• AccessDNA –- an online consumer resource for genetics that combines information about genetics with tools that can help individuals identify personal disease risk.

• AwesomeBox –- currently in stealth mode, AwesomeBox has created a marketplace for Flash sales.

• Circle Street -– a cloud-based platform for merchants to publish to multiple distribution networks, including social, mobile and email.

• DataPop -– is building a platform that enables real-time creation and delivery of ads to consumers on a massive scale.

• Gendai Games -– develops game creation technologies enabled by the social web.

• Gyroscope Technologies –- is working on a mobile retail commerce platform.

• Laughstub -– helps consumers find live comedy shows with local listings, user reviews, video previews and more.

• MOVIECLIPS.com -– a premium online video destination.

• Para Ti Novia -– a wedding web site for the Hispanic market.

• ShopNation –- currently in stealth mode, ShopNation is working on a next-generation shopping platform.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user jurvetson

One day, our computers will have their sentient revenge. Until then, it’s called Excel spreadsheets. [SavageChickens via TheNextWeb] More »

On tax day, Republican legislators unveiled a budget proposal that they say is balanced without raising taxes or cutting aid to cities and towns. The plan would save millions by cutting the salaries of all legislators, commissioners, and constitutional officers by 10 percent and eliminating the free mail that is sent by legislators.

The budget-cutting proposal also says that only the governor would be entitled to a state-paid driver, taking away the drivers for the lieutenant governor, attorney general, and all constitutional officers. The plan is being proposed to kick-start negotiations as the legislature barrels headlong toward the May 5 deadline.

Although the state employee unions already have a deal that covers the second-year of the two-year budget, the Republicans are asking for $150 million in concessions from the unions through a salary freeze for one year, imposing a $250 co-pay for in-patient hospital stays, and furloughs.

“First and foremost, we’ve already responded to the current governor’s requests for givebacks,” said Matthew O’Connor, a spokesman for CSEA/SEIU Local 2001. “Larry Cafero says they are working on the 2011 budget, but it sounds an awful lot more to us that they’re getting to work on the 2010 gubernatorial campaign. This is all politics. Instead of putting forward a political document, they should be working with the other side of the aisle and state workers. … If this is a ploy to help one or more of the candidates who share a R next to their name, that’s a real shame. There’s a time for campaigning and a time for doing the real work of the people.”

In a related development, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell also sent a letter to all legislators, asking for bipartisan cooperation in the final three weeks of the regular legislative session. She praised the consensus budget bill that was passed and signed into law Wednesday that will eliminate the state’s projected $350 million deficit for the current fiscal year.

“Together, we passed into law a plan that closes this year’s deficit without tax increases or cuts to municipal aid,” Rell wrote. “Today is April 15 – tax day. With that in mind, I believe we can honestly say that this week we have done a service to the beleaguered taxpayers of Connecticut. However, as you are well aware, we still have major fiscal challenges to confront.”

Despite the legislative action this week, the state still faces projected deficits of $725 million in the fiscal year that starts in July and more than $3 billion in the 2012 fiscal year.

Rell intends to call a meeting for Monday with all of the top legislative leaders to plot the next steps for the next fiscal year. At that meeting, Rell will unveil a new proposal that would close the deficit without any cuts to municipal aid or tax increases – just like the Republican plan unveiled Thursday.

House Speaker Christopher Donovan, who has strongly opposed many of Rell’s budget cuts over the past 14 months, did not rule anything out Thursday.

“We have demonstrated this week that Democrats, Republicans and the governor can work together to close the deficit,” Donovan said. “I will ask our nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis to review the details of the Republicans’ budget proposal, and I look forward to meeting with the governor and legislative leaders next week to discuss ideas on closing the 2011 budget shortfall. I hope we can all take the goodwill from this week and continue to work together on solutions for 2011.”

Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat, said he was concerned that Republicans are continuing their support for the estate tax, which is now charged only on estates of more than $3.5 million. Previously, any estate over $2 million was subject to the tax, but that was changed by the legislature as of January 1, 2010.

Democrats have been trying to impose a 20 percent rate on the portion of the estate above $10 million, which Republicans charge would be the highest estate tax in the nation.

“We are disappointed that Republicans continue to support a tax break for multi-millionaires that will cost taxpayers $75 million,” Looney said. “Republicans help pay for it by cutting funding for local school services – leading to a likely increase in municipal property taxes. Under their plan the rich get a tax cut and everyone else pays for it – that’s not what families call common-sense. However, there are some sound ideas in their proposal – including agency consolidations and job creating investments. We remain confident there is room for compromise and that a solution can be reached in the coming weeks.”

Despite the smiles on the faces of legislators and others, the Republican frontrunner in the governor’s race – Tom Foley of Greenwich – was not happy with the legislature’s bipartisan action. He said the legislature essentially had kicked the can down the road.

“Yesterday Connecticut’s legislature continued to push the state toward financial disaster by passing a budget that does nothing to fix the underlying problem of the government’s wasteful spending,” Foley said in a statement. “The new budget doesn’t address our looming budget crisis, which demands that we reduce the size and cost of state government.  The legislature has simply passed the buck to the next governor when they could have started us on the road to recovery with more responsible action.  As governor, I will solve these problems by reducing the cost of state government and focusing on policies that will create jobs.  We need new leaders in Hartford who didn’t create this mess and who will bring a new approach to getting Connecticut on the path to recovery.”

A member of CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 said that getting people back should be a top priority for the legislature.

“The legislature’s vote is a reminder that Governor Rell and the legislature must work on a serious plan to put people back to work,” Vincent Steele, a correctional lieutenant with the State Department of Correction, said in a statement. “We cannot afford politicians who play it safe. What we need is an FDR of our time with the wisdom and the courage to lead us toward a more prosperous and economically secure future.  What we need are leaders who understand that helping working families improve their budgets is how you balance the state budget. You do that by getting the people of Connecticut back to work.”

A man passionate about the Amazon rain forest, a woman committed to safeguarding the world’s water, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner were all part of a Harvard discussion Wednesday (April 14) about the future of the planet.

And much of what they outlined wasn’t good.

The environmental experts offered dire warnings and grim predictions about the Earth’s future, even as they offered glimmers of hope.

The scholars were part of the fourth and final panel celebrating the Harvard Extension School’s 100th anniversary. It was titled “Sustaining Our Earth’s Ecosystems.” Steve Curwood ’69,  executive producer and host of the National Public Radio program “Living on Earth,” was the moderator. He asked the panelists what they saw as the greatest challenge facing the planet.

It’s man’s “disconnect with the environment,” said Eric Chivian, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. People don’t realize that what they do has tremendous impact, both on the environment and their health, argued the founder and director of Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. In addition, because the loss of biodiversity happens so slowly, he noted, the problem is too “abstract” for many to comprehend.

Climate change “is so hard to see; it’s so hard to experience in our everyday lives.”

Panelist Mark Plotkin was a high school dropout who was working moving dinosaur bones around Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology when he became hooked on the Amazon and its issues after taking a class with former Harvard professor Richard Schultes. People need to understand that the Earth’s problems are all interconnected, he said.

Forest destruction is a main cause of climate change, said the Harvard Extension School graduate and authority on ecosystems, who went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees and found the Amazon Conservation Team.

Plotkin, who has worked for years in the Amazon rain forest with indigenous peoples examining how their shamans use jungle plants for medicine, is also working with the same indigenous populations to help save the area’s forests.

Such conservation work is critical, he said, because the greatest threat to mankind is “drug-resistant bacteria.” If staphylococcus aureus swaps genes with streptococcus, “It’s going to melt the human race like a wax museum on fire,” said Plotkin. “Eighty percent of antibiotics still come from nature,” and the richest source of life is the Amazon.

“We need to know that when we are destroying Mother Nature, we are destroying ourselves,” Plotkin said.

People fail to understand how their actions directly impact the environment, echoed Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of famed undersea explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. “Our choices have far-reaching consequences to people on the other side of the globe. … [Forgetting that fact] is something that everybody is guilty of.”

The problem is endemic, said the water advocate, who described exploring with other environmentalists how everfishing had damaged a remote village, and then watching in horror as her colleagues ordered the very same endangered fish at lunch in a nearby restaurant.

There’s an “inability to understand the cycle that starts happening because of our choices,” said Cousteau, who noted that governments, industries, environmental organizations, communities, and indigenous groups all have roles to play in changing the dialogue.

The panelists also discussed how they became involved in their work.

Chivian, who won the Nobel Prize in 1985 for helping to develop International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said his seminal moment came as a young physician. He recalled how a former professor helped to halt U.S. government’s plans for a fleet of supersonic transport planes by testifying that their nitrogen exhaust would harm the ozone and cause a rapid rise in malignant melanomas.

I realized that “ultimately environmental issues are issues of human health,” said Chivian, co-author of the 2008 book “Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity.”

Cousteau’s love of water came, unsurprisingly, from her grandfather, who took her on her first scuba dive at age 7. “I was hooked,” said Cousteau.

The environmentalist is planning a four-month trip across the United States this summer to explore the nation’s water issues. The work will be part of her nonprofit Blue Legacy project that advocates the conservation of the world’s water resources.

Ultimately, there is still hope for the planet, said the speakers.

Like in the past, as children learned in school about the dangers of smoking and became the most effective opponents when they took the warnings home to their smoker parents, working environmental education into school curricula will be an effective way forward, said Chivian.

Additionally, he said, big businesses understand there are savings involved in using more environmentally friendly practices, and money to be made in the business of renewable energy.

“There are big bucks in going green, and that’s a big, important development.”

Plotkin offered a further note of hope, saying, “These problems were all caused by people. They can be solved by people.”

The speakers’ comments were “gratifying, frightening, and inspiring,” Jack Spengler said near the conclusion of the two-hour talk at Lowell Lecture Hall. Spengler is the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation at Harvard and director of the Extension School’s Graduate Program in Sustainability and Environmental Management.

»  Twitter plans for an official Android app. [TechCrunch]

»  Why platforms like iPhone and Twitter are becoming control freaks. [DigitalBeat]

»  New survey says 47 percent of smartphone owners play games on their phone at least once a month, compared to 16 percent of feature phone owners. [PocketGamer.biz]

»  HTC asks Facebook users what it should name its new phone. [Engadget]

»  Doodle Jump is now the most downloaded paid app of all time, so says one of its creators. [SAI]

Environmental trends could have significant financial repercussions for the $40 billion food and beverage industry in South and Southeast Asia, according to a report released today by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and HSBC’s Climate Change Centre of Excellence.

“The food and beverage industry is particularly vulnerable to climate change and water scarcity in Asia. The region is already struggling with increased water demand because of population and economic growth,” said Dana Krechowicz, a WRI associate and co-author of the report.

The industry’s dependence on agriculture, aquaculture and water resources for business operations makes it particularly susceptible in a region where climate change is projected to severely intensify water scarcity problems.

WRI’s report, Weeding Risk, examines the impacts these growing trends will have on seven economically important food and beverage sub-sectors in six countries – India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The report’s findings suggest that the edible oils, starches, and sugar sub-sectors will be most vulnerable to increasing agricultural prices, while aquaculture, poultry, and dairy will be vulnerable to disease and contamination. As part of the study, HSBC’s analysis on an Indian sugar company shows that a sugarcane price increase of 1 percent can lead to a decline in profit of up to 10 percent.

The risks identified in the report are already affecting some food and beverage sectors. Drought during the monsoon season in India caused sugar prices to reach a 28-year high in 2009. This is particularly troubling considering experts estimate that by 2020, the demand for water in India will exceed all its sources of supply.

“Water stress is set to have a growing role in shaping the sector,” said Nick Robins, head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC. Roshan Padamadan, a HSBC analyst at the Centre stated, “The strategic choices made by a company along its value chain can mitigate these risks, making it important for investors to understand its sourcing, inventory, and operational performance.”

Weeding Risk is the first report in a three-part series. The second report, Over Heating, analyzes the power sector in South and Southeast Asia. Surveying Risk, Building Opportunity, assesses the environmental risks to commercial real estate in the region.

Published April 14, 2010
By Michelle Dupler, Tri-City Herald

One Tri-City college campus appears to have dodged a budgetary bullet while another prepares for another round of painful cuts.

Washington State University officials said Tuesday that they’re not asking the Tri-City regional campus to make any cuts as it figures out how to slash $13.5 million from its overall operating budget.

Joan King, WSU executive director of planning and budget in Pullman, said the four-campus university system would try to make up the deficit through voluntary retirements and holding open vacant positions as people leave.

“We will hold the budget cuts centrally,” King said. “There are no specific cuts identified for the Tri-Cities.”

College and university officials have been on tenterhooks in recent months as the state Legislature struggled to adopt a supplemental budget balancing a $2.8 billion deficit for the remainder of the 2009-11 biennium.

WSU already took a $54 million, or more than 10 percent, cut to its state funding in 2009. The reduction led the university to eliminate nearly 200 jobs and hold open nearly 170 more.

Pasco-based Columbia Basin College lost $3.4 million, or about 13 percent, in state funding from its $23 million allocation.

That led the community college to eliminate its fire science day classes, and human services, paralegal and auto body programs.

CBC President Rich Cummins now is preparing for another $1.6 million in cuts under the budget adopted by the Legislature early Tuesday — the last day of a 30-day special session.

“This is going to be hard,” Cummins said. “I’ve read a lot of economic reports and have monthly meetings with (college economists). It’s going to be a long slog ahead.”

Both campuses have experienced record levels of growth over the last several years.

WSU Tri-Cities Chancellor Vicky Carwein said applications and admissions are both up compared to this time last year, while Cummins said CBC enrollment numbers remain high as displaced workers look for retraining and high school students take advantage of the Running Start program.

Cummins said he’ll do everything he can to make sure budget cuts at CBC don’t affect the quality of instruction.

“I wish higher ed could have been better protected,” Cummins said. “Once we turn off the education pipeline we begin turning off the future. At the same time, I understand the economy and understand business and know times are tough everywhere. … There is no way we’re going to allow this to weaken us as a college. It may make us smaller, but it won’t diminish us.”

Additional news stories can be accessed online at the Tri-City Herald.

Google this afternoon released its Q1 2010 earnings report, showing $6.77 billion in revenue over the first three months of the year — a 23 percent increase over 2009. Net income was $1.96 billion, up from $1.42 billion over Q1 2009. As of March 31, the company — which employs more than 20,000 people — had $26.5 billion cash on hand. Full press release here. We’re going to listen in on the earnings call and post any Android musings after the break, so check back.

read more

At its 12th meeting of the year on April 14, the Faculty Council continued its discussion of the College’s academic dishonesty policy and discussed the voting status of senior lecturers. In addition, the council reviewed reports on the Ph.D. programs in systems biology and social policy.

The council’s final meeting of 2009-10 will be on May 5. The preliminary deadline for the May 11 faculty meeting is April 26 at 9:30 a.m.

When Jerry and Judy Bohl saw the plight of the people in the poor regions for clean drinking water, they decided to do something about it. They built an affordable water purification unit with the help of their son’s teacher Paul Flickinger, a Western Michigan art professor. The purifier costs around $750 to build but the Bohl’s organization, ’Clean Water for the World’ donates it for free to the people in the poor regions for community use. The purifier works like a normal purifier, but it has the additional advantage of using UV light to clean the water. After passing through a cotton filter which removes the bigger impurities, the water is made to pass through a metal chamber fitted with a UV bulb. Since the UV rays travel with a very high frequency, they are able to penetrate the cell walls of bacteria and kill them.

The Bohls have taken this initiative to inspire other people donate and help the less fortunate in any way they can.
[discovery]

Filed under: Spy Photos, Budget, Sedan, Hyundai, South Korea

Typically when we show you spy shots, you’re seeing photographs taken by people not directly employed by Autoblog. Today, however, is different. Yours Truly and Drew Phillips were driving back from San Diego after the Aptera state-of-the-state address. We were getting off the phone with Senior Editor Damon Lavrinc when I said, “And Drew’s going to pull out his camera and look to his right.” Thar she blows, a fully dressed up prototype, about to exit the freeway in heavy, mid-day Irvine traffic.

We pull up next to the car at the bottom of the off ramp. “Don’t look at them!” Drew advised, wanting to wait until we had at least one clear shot until we alerted them of our true nature. Still, we were scrambling to figure out what was idling next to us. At first glance, I thought the compact, obvious B-segment car might be a Ford Fiesta sedan. But every Fiesta we’ve ever seen sports rear drums, not big discs like this camo’d car. Also, the side mirrors looked different. However, we could see the top of the center stack and it featured lots of sharp looking chrome bits, quite like the diminutive Ford. “It’s definitely a Fiesta” I said confidently to Drew. “Look at the interior.”

“Isn’t that a Hyundai “H” on the steering wheel?” Drew pointed out. And so it was. Then the light turned green. We got in their rear three-quarter blind spot, and Drew’s Nikon suddenly exploded in a volley of “Click-Click-Click-Click.” We tailed them until the next light and then Drew leaned across me and let ‘er rip. At this point, the Accent’s passenger (we had already determined that this must be the new Accent) had made us. Drew jumped in the back seat and slid his lens out the window and began firing. The jig was up – but the game was on. Click through to the jump to read the rest of what happened.

Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

Continue reading Spy Shots: 2011 Hyundai Accent caught testing near Disneyland

Spy Shots: 2011 Hyundai Accent caught testing near Disneyland originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The scientists of the Climatic Research Unit have now been exonerated twice, which is two times more than their anti-science critics.  So it seems only fair to hear what CRU has to say about their most notorious attacker, a man who has laid a trail of disinformation that circles the globe (see Dr. Ben Santer says, “Mr. McIntyre’s unchecked, extraordinary power is the real story of Climategate”).

Everyone’s favorite leporid blogger [that’s what google is for], Eli Rabett has that story, which I repost below so you don’t have to hop over to his site, which you ought to be doing for his sense of humor alone — he is a bunny, bunny guy.  For instance, the Nelson “Ha Ha” is from his well-headlined post, “Denialists denied again.” [Note:  I’ll move the ha-ha below the jump in a day since I don’t think it will grow on you.]

In its response to the Muir Russell commission, the CRU discusses the Yamal imbroglio:

Our work later became the subject of widespread misrepresentation in the media, amounting to hysterical and defamatory reporting of a posting on the “Climate Audit” website, managed by Steve McIntyre. McIntyre produced an alternative chronology omitting many of the modern sites we had used and replacing them with data from another single location. This alternative chronology differed markedly from our chronology during the late 20th century. McIntyre implied that this is evidence that Briffa had improperly selected certain tree-ring data, specifically in order to manufacture a false impression of recent enhanced tree-growth in the Yamal region.

This assertion is entirely false. On the contrary, McIntyre’s omission of the data we had validly used and its substitution with data showing an atypical pattern of tree-growth variations in the region, itself constitutes a biased analysis. A detailed refutation of McIntyre’s implied accusations (Briffa and Melvin 2009) was posted on the CRU website (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/) on 27th October, 2009. A copy is included with this submission. This includes details of a recent re-analysis we made of the Yamal chronology, in response to the posted criticisms. In this re-analysis we incorporate additional living-tree data made available by Rashit Hantemirov at our request. The inclusion of the additional samples and the use of improved statistical processing techniques produced only small differences in the tree-growth pattern (see Figure 1.3 below). From this it is clear that our original work was sound and where the CRU Yamal chronology is incorporated in multi-proxy reconstructions, the choice of which version will not significantly affect the outcome of the final reconstruction.Figure 1.3 – Extracted from Briffa and Melvin (2009)
Comparison of published and reworked Yamal chronologies. This Figure shows the two earlier versions of the Yamal RCS larch chronology in red (published in Briffa, 2000) and blue (Briffa et al., 2008) compared to the new version, based on all of the currently available data (Yamal_All) for the original (POR, YAD and JAH) sites and including the additional data from the KHAD site (in black). Tree sample counts for this ‘new’ chronology are shown by the grey shading. The upper panel shows the data smoothed with a 40-year low-pass cubic smoothing spline. The lower panel shows the yearly data from 1800 onwards. All series have been scaled so the yearly data have the same mean and standard deviation as the Yamal_All series over the period 1-1600.

And, oh yes, they don’t much like Fred Pearce neither

In an article in the Guardian, published on 3rd February, 2010, Fred Pearce provides a misleading account of an email relating to this affair. Professor Tom Wigley wrote to Phil Jones on the 5th October, 2009, expressing some disquiet that our Yamal analyses might be suspect, from which it is obvious that he had been misled by reading Mcintyre’s posts. Pearce’s article is written in such a way as to strongly imply that Wigley had read the CRU response to this issue (posted on 27th October, 2009) and was dissatisfied. In reality, Wigley’s email predates the response by 3 weeks and after he did read it he was fully satisfied, as he explicitly communicated in a later email to a colleague on 3rd February 2010 (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/mr/Wigley_email.pdf).

Which James Randerson might be interested in reading

Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:46:23 -0700
From: Tom Wigley

I can see why you are concerned about Fred’s latest piece in The Guardian. It does look as though he has deliberately chosen dates to make it appear that I was dissatisfied with Keith’s response. Either that or it was a genuine mistake — or he is simply ignorant and has not seen the full response. Whatever, he really should write an apologetic P.S. to his piece.

I was completely satisfied with Keith’s response. Not only did it answer all of my concerns and questions, but it also shows that the real villain here is McIntyre (although Keith is careful not to draw that conclusion).

I am enclosing a chronology, and my own summary of the issue. Pearce is a good science writer, but he has really dropped the ball in his series of Guardian articles over the last few days. Sad.

Best wishes,
Tom.

Oh nos! Steve is such an innocent little lamby.

– Eli Rabett

Postmaster General John Potter appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to make his case for scrapping service on Saturdays, and what he had to say about the USPS wasn’t exactly rainbows and sunshine.

“Today, we stand on the brink of financial insolvency,” he admitted to the committee. “The way Americans communicate has changed dramatically and we’ve got to change with it.”

With fewer and few people using the Postal Service these days, the USPS lost $3.8 billion last year and stands to lose more than that in 2010.

In addition to putting an end to Saturday deliveries, the Postmaster has suggested cutting back on payments to the pension plan. An inspector general report shows that the USPS has been required to overfund the pension by $75 billion, as well as having to prepay billions into a fund that covers health benefits for retired USPS employees.

“Over the past three years, the Postal Service has paid $15.4 billion to Treasury to prefund future retiree health benefits. During that same time, the Postal Service borrowed more than $8 billion from Treasury so that it could make those payments,” says Ruth Goldway, chair of the Postal Regulatory Commission. “Borrowing by the Postal Service to make the payments does not make sense.”

For some reason, USPS is the only federal agency required to make these pre-payments, and only Congress can eliminate the requirements. Additionally, by law USPS can only borrow from the U.S. Treasury to make these payments.

However, Postmaster Potter believes that even if the entire $75 billion in over-payments were to be returned, the decrease in the amount of mail would still ultimately require the cut to Saturday service.

He added that, with thousands of employees set to retire this decade, cuts to staffing at USPS could be done through attrition rather than layoffs.

Goldway chided the Postmaster for being short-sighted and pessimistic, saying “the Postal Service should reposition its goals to meet the needs of an evolving society” instead of ringing the death knell because people send e-mail instead of letters.

Potter countered by saying that USPS is attempting to find new revenue streams, but doing so is going to require investment.

But his suggestion of placing post offices in non-government places of business was given the smack-down by Goldway, who challenged, “Ask the small towns of America if they think government business should be conducted in Walmarts.”

Saturday Mail: to deliver or not to deliver [Philly.com]

A second independent inquiry in Britain has cleared climate scientists at the University of East Anglia of any wrongdoing. In the ClimateGate scandal last year, thousands of emails from the university’s Climatic Research Unit were hacked into and released, after which climate change skeptics mined the emails for evidence that the researchers were distorting scientific evidence related to global warming.

The independent inquiry into “ClimateGate,” however, found such allegations to be baseless. But it seems not everyone was convinced.

Here’s a roundup of headlines from some news outlets that covered the inquiries findings: Can you spot the newsroom with an ax to grind?

The New York Times: Britain: Inquiry Finds No Distortion of Climate Data

LA Times: Panel clears researchers in ‘Climategate‘ controversy

Huffington Post: Second expert panel shows “ClimateGate” was a ClimateSham

The Wall Street Journal: Panel Says Scientists Didn’t Act Improperly

Fox News: Top Climate Scientist Under Fire for ‘Exaggerating’

Image: iStockphoto

IBM is holding two different recruiting sessions on Monday, April 26th, and they are looking to fill 50 different positions in eleven different areas.

1. Web Developers (Java/J2ee, C++, C#, HTML, .Net)

2. Legacy Developers (Cobol, Powerbuilder, Assembler, IMS, JCL, CICS)

3. DBA’s (Oracle, DB2, SQL) or Application Testers

4. Data Warehousing Specialists(Cognos, Informatica, Hyperion, Datastage)

5. Lotus Notes Developers

6. SAP Developers

7. Business Systems Analysts

8. Software Testing Specialists

9. IT Project Team Leads

10. System Administrators (Unix or SQL)

11. Data Security Analysts

Although the preferred qualifications are a bachelors degree with two years of experience and fluency in english, the required qualifications are only a high-school diploma/GED with six months of experience and intermediate english ability.  Interested individuals should register either online or by phone (248-353-0735) and bring a resume to the event.

The events will be held at the headquarters of the Engineering Society of Detroit, located at 20700 Civic Center Drive, Suite #450, Southfield MI 48076.  The first is from noon to 2:00PM and the second is from 6:00 to 8:00PM.

April 15th marks a date most Americans despise: tax day. Naturally, the Atlantic has plenty of tax-related coverage to mark the unhappy occasion. Megan McArdle has a post exploring the difference between tax rates and tax burdens. Chris Good has pieces on the Tax Day Tea Parties and what the first family owed. Max Fisher over at the Wire has a roundup of views on the politics of tax day. Derek Thompson has a several posts as well — one about the coming tax wars, another about a tax day Tea Party poll and one more about a Gallup Poll that found 45% of Americans think their tax obligation is “about right.”

On that last question, we thought it might be nice to give Atlantic readers a voice to respond: did you find your 2009 tax burden fair? Vote in the poll below, and leave a comment as well if you’d like to share some thoughts on paying your 2009 taxes.