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Welcome to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. Today we have a look at Chapter Thirteen, “The Life of the Universe.”

Excerpt:

If our comoving patch defines an approximately closed system, the next step is to think about its space of states. General relativity tells us that space itself, the stage on which particles and matter move and interact, evolves over time. Because of this, the definition of the space of states becomes more subtle than it would have been in if spacetime were absolute. Most physicists would agree that information is conserved as the universe evolves, but the way that works is quite unclear in a cosmological context. The essential problem is that more and more things can fit into the universe as it expands, so—naively, anyway—it looks as if the space of states is getting bigger. That would be in flagrant contradiction to the usual rules of reversible, information-conserving physics, where the space of states is fixed once and for all.

Of course we’ve already looked a bit at the life of the universe, way back in Chapter Three. The difference is that we’re now focusing on how entropy evolves, given our hard-acquired understanding of what entropy is and how it works for black holes. This is where we review Roger Penrose’s well-known-yet-still-widely-ignored argument that the low entropy of the early universe is something that needs to be explained.

In a sense, this is pretty straightforward stuff, following directly from what we’ve already done in the book. But it’s also somewhat controversial among professional cosmologists. The reason why can be found in the slightly technical digression that begins on page 292, “Conservation of information in an expanding universe.”

The point is that physicists often think of “the space of states in a region of spacetime” as being equal to “the space of states we can describe by quantum field theory.” They know that’s not right, because gravity doesn’t fit into that description, but these are the states they know how to deal with. This collection of states isn’t fixed; it grows with time as the universe expands. You will therefore sometimes hear cosmologists talk about the high entropy of the early universe, under the misguided assumption that there were fewer states that could “fit” into the universe at that time. (Equivalently, that gravity can be ignored.) This approach has, in my opinion anyway, done great damage to how cosmologists think about fine-tuning problems. One of the major motivations for writing the book was to explain these issues, not only to the general reader but also to my scientist friends.

At the end of the chapter I deviate from Penrose’s argument a bit. He believes that a high-entropy state of the universe would be one that was highly inhomogeneous, full of black holes and white holes and what have you. I think that’s right if you are thinking about a very dense configuration of matter. But matter doesn’t have to be dense — the expansion of the universe can dilute it away. So I argue that the truly highest-entropy configuration is one where space is essentially empty, with nothing but vacuum energy. This is also very far from being widely accepted, and certainly relies on a bit of hand-waving. But again, I think the failure to appreciate this point has distorted how cosmologists think about the problems presented by the early universe. So hopefully they read this far in the book!

I am continuing to get the iPad more integrated into my production routine, and finding it pretty useful at many things. The iPad lacks a file system as many will point out, and that does present a challenge for building a fully productive environment. I am getting around that shortcoming using a tool I recently implemented for file-sharing among multiple computers. SugarSync is a cloud service that keeps folders on computers in sync, while providing a cloud backup of the files. There is an iPad app for SugarSync that works well with the service, and I am using it to access my files from the iPad.

Once the SugarSync app is installed, a simple login is all that is required to get access to every file I have in sync with the service. This is all of my documents, photos, movies and music that I use on both the Mac and Windows PC. Most of the documents are Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe PDFs, all of which I can use on the iPad.

I have over 20 GB of files on SugarSync and I don’t want them on the iPad with the limited memory. I don’t even want a few of them, I prefer to just grab a file as needed. I open the SugarSync app on the iPad and search for the file I want. Tapping it gives the option to view it or email it. If I only need to refer to something in the file I simply view it. The viewer handles DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT and PDF formats with ease and displays them nicely. It probably handles other formats, but these are the ones I have tried.

If I need to edit the file, I send it to myself via email through the app. This is handled internally in SugarSync and works OK, although I wish it remembered common email addresses I send files to. Once it’s sent I open the Mail app and tap on the document link in the preview pane. This opens the file in the web browser, along with a button to open it in the appropriate iWork app if installed. You have to be really quick to hit this button, as once it disappears it’s gone forever. If you miss it you have to go back and hit the email file link again to hit the button. Once the document opens in iWork, the full editing features are available and the file is saved locally.

This method has worked well so far, and I am using it more than I thought I would. I always have various files in progress on the Mac, and just keeping them in the Documents folder automatically syncs them to SugarSync. I wish the process was as simple as pushing a single button, but it will do for now.

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Last week’s post covering upper recommendations garnered so much interest – and additional questions – that I thought we’d give it another go around. While last week’s list took on basics like protein and fat as well as worthy indulgences like chocolate and – drum roll, please –BACON (break for rampant applause), this week I’ll take on a mix of specific foods and activity. Thanks for everyone’s great comments and questions last week, and be sure to weigh in on this week’s round.

Coffee

Why not start off today with the typical morning ritual? Our society, many say, is fueled by coffee, and a number of us might think we’d barely be standing some days without it. For coffee lovers, a good cup of joe is a work of art. From a health standpoint, it’s not a bad deal at all. Ample antioxidants, potent anti-inflammatory powerhouse, protective factors against conditions like diabetes, certain cancers, Parkinson’s, yada, yada, yada.

Coffee’s controversy, of course, is rooted in the caffeine. Personally, I happen to like the taste, and I have one big cup every morning with a healthy splash of heavy whipping cream. But leaning on it a little bit isn’t the same as letting it become a regular crutch. Caffeine’s effect on people spans a wide spectrum. A half cup of decaf leaves some of us bouncing off the walls, animated with a manic fervor that scares small children. Others of us keep our local brew house in business with nary a hint of spastic energy. In the short term, unmistakable symptoms tell you when to put the coffee cup down: insomnia, jitteriness, anxiety, stomach issues. As far as the long term, I think the tipping point is relying on it for sustained energy levels. Caffeine can give us the occasional leg up, but if it’s keeping us upright day after day, it’s covering a larger problem. In both cases, the amount is unique to each person, although it’s known that we grow more sensitive to caffeine the older we get. For most folks, 200-300 mg of caffeine a day (100 mg being the typical content in a 6 oz. serving) – imbibed at least eight hours before bed – probably won’t cause significant problems. Once you’re downing a whole pot (500+ mg), however, you put yourself at risk for everything from heart palpitations to muscle tremors. My suggestion for upper limit: gauge your individual tolerance, but drink only what you need and keep it below 3 cups/300 mg of caffeine daily (generally when health benefits level out and negative symptoms increase). If you’re pregnant, I think there’s enough ample reason to avoid it period.

Sodium

This one got people talking last week. I still stand by the Primal bacon, but there’s a good point to be made about sodium intake. Although I don’t consider myself part of the alarmist camp on sodium, I do think there’s reason to exercise moderation. Yes, salt is crucial for muscular and neurological function as well as the maintenance of extracellular volume. Salt intake around the world varies considerably, ranging from the .2 grams/day to more than 10.3 grams/day.

There is definitely a connection between higher sodium intake and higher blood pressure levels, but the impact is highly individualized. A portion of the population is genuinely salt sensitive, and they’re considerably more affected by their sodium intake than non-sensitive individuals.

Upper recommendations, as offered by medical organizations, vary between 1.5 grams and 2.3 grams per day. Sure, certain populations (like those of Northern Japan) seem to be fine with higher levels, and I don’t think it’s necessary to omit healthy sea vegetables (or to give up true delicacies such as bacon). Nonetheless, I’d suggest going with conventional current in this instance and limiting sodium to the recommended range. By the way, a good Primal diet devoid of processed foods slashes sodium automatically, given that more than 70% of the average American’s sodium intake comes from processed food. Furthermore, most Primal people find that their taste for salt tends to “self-regulate” (meaning they add salt when they sense they need it and avoid salty foods when they don’t). I don’t think it’s worth stressing over every grain of Na, but use it as a general benchmark, and keep up your potassium levels to keep the full picture in balance.

Nuts

As regular readers know, I love my macadamias, and I do a small handful of nuts or nut butter equivalent a few times a week. They’re powerhouses of protein, fat and minerals, B-vitamins and the like. As I discussed in a post some weeks ago, some nuts do contain a fair amount of omega-6. Although I don’t think it’s reason to avoid nuts, it’s enough to suggest the concept of moderation and a mind to overall omega-6/omega-3 ratio. If you have no sensitivities to nuts and avoid chemically treated/high heat roasted or oiled nuts, I think you can generally base your intake on the omega-6 content of the specific nut variety you enjoy. For most nuts, a small handful a day is fine. However, if you have a penchant for pine nuts or walnuts – or if you’re eating more than a couple large fistfuls of most other nuts each day – you might want to scale back. Macadamias are by far the best because they have the highest saturated and mono-unsaturated fat content with relatively low O-6.

Eggs

Yesterday’s seasonality post discussed angles of “excess” and moderation. Yolks: we love you. Egg whites? They’re the rationale for taking a break once in a while. As I mentioned yesterday, Grok likely gorged when he got the chance, but it wasn’t an everyday opportunity. My suggested “ceiling” on eggs has less to do with amount and more to do with frequency. (Although I don’t think anyone should go so overboard that eggs becomes their sole protein source or edge out variety in their overall diet.) Since some folks develop sensitivities to eggs (again, the whites and their natural antimicrobial powers specifically) over time, I recommend taking regular breaks (and cutting back if sensitivities begin to appear). Skip certain days each week or take a longer “vacation” now and then – especially if you notice yourself not feeling quite the same after those crustless Primal quiches.

Fiber

Another common question. If you eat a well-balanced Primal diet, you should be getting more than enough fiber to leave you in good shape. Ample and various veggies and a reasonable intake of fruits will offer your body plenty of natural and healthful sources of fiber, and I don’t see any reason to restrict these. You certainly don’t need the fiber in grains, however, and I think commercial fiber supplementation is totally unnecessary and likely detrimental in the long run. Visit GutSense.org for more info.

Cardio

As with a lot of things, upper limits on cardio vary from person to person. Obviously, there are a number of factors in play here, including regularity (how many days/week), duration (how long per session) and intensity (% of maximum heart rate). It also depends on your current fitness and whether your goals include competing. As my book suggests, low/moderate level cardio is great for anyone. Although I think 3-5 hours a week can work for most folks, I don’t think there’s much need to hold back here. (More IS better to a point, but that doesn’t mean you have to be moving every second of the day either.) As for intense cardio, I have said it’s unnecessary on a regular basis, although it’s OK to do once in a while. As I discuss in the book, even a single 30-minute session of intense cardio was enough to throw off subjects’ immune function as well as raise whole body inflammation levels for three full days. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing a rigorous mountain trek every now and then (or a 10k race or whatever intense activity floats your boat), it’s not necessary to work this hard with any frequency to achieve all-around peak fitness. Do it as it serves your sense of fulfillment and adventure, but don’t force it just because CW tells you to run yourself ragged on the treadmill. Once every couple weeks is fine for longer (an hour+) intense sessions. For shorter bouts, I wouldn’t suggest more than twice a week. You’re better off working in an interval session, which leads me to…

Sprinting

I get the sprinting question now and then. How much is necessary? How much is too much? First off, I often do it once a week. If I’m really in the mood, I’ll do it twice (my Ultimate Frisbee game on Sunday involves a ton of sprinting, so I count that). Honestly I don’t think it’s necessary to do it more than that, and I wouldn’t recommend doing it more than twice a week. Primarily, your body wants to do its thing to recover sufficiently from the exertion. Just as significant, I think, is the unnecessary use of time. I’m all for shortcuts and efficiency. If sprinting more than twice a week doesn’t add much benefit beyond what 1-2 a week does, why waste the effort? Use the time for resistance training, some fun low level cardio/play or trying out new Primal recipes. Part of the PB’s beauty is its efficiency – using our time and efforts to give us the best return with less investment. Who’s really interested in high maintenance when there’s so much to do and so much fun to be had? Instead of “over-sweating” it, get out there and enjoy.

Have a great week everybody. Thanks for reading and for all the fantastic comments last time. I’ll look forward to reading your thoughts on this round.

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Related posts:

1. Cheap Meat Round II: “Thrift Cuts”
2. Sensible Vices: Round 2
3. Sensible Vices Round 3: Personal Day Spa

Reunited exes Ryan Cabrera and Audrina Patridge are dunzo once more.

Cabrera, 27, rekindled a previously-failed relationship with Patridge in January, and was spotted filming scenes for the soon-to-be axed Hills in Los Angeles — but it’s all over now and Audrina has been popping up at parties all over Hollywood stag.

“Ryan and Audrina are definitely not together right now,” a motormouth muttered to E!’s Marc Malkin this weekend. “It’s still a touchy subject for her…Audrina’s not talking about it, but people were talking about it over the weekend.”

Another source said: “Audrina came to Perez’s [Blogger Perez Hilton] birthday with a girlfriend. When she was asked, ‘Where’s Ryan?’ she made a mortified face and changed the subject right away. She gave off a weird vibe and seemed very awkward.”

The couple’s romance was filmed for the upcoming sixth and final season of The Hills, but there is no word if the breakup will be featured.

Word is the split between the musician and the busty brunette may have something to do with Ryan’s alleged obsession with another ex-girlfriend, Riley Keough, who just happens to be Elvis’ granddaughter.

In February, Star Magazine claimed Ryan hadn’t given up hope of convincing Riley, who moved in with the much older star when she was just 17, to give their love another chance. He had reportedly been texting and calling the beauty incessantly behind Audrina’s back.

“Ryan believes he has a spiritual connection with Riley,” a snitch said at the time. “He really misses her and wants her back.”

A commenter takes a microbe-lover to task. It’s on! Jonathan Eisen, we await your flying scissor kick!

[Link to comment fixed]

VISUALISATIONS are fun:

Via.

Updated: A three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today ruled that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have the authority to censure Comcast for throttling peer-to-peer packets, and also called into question the agency’s ability to regulate broadband as a service. The move not only undercuts the FCC’s Comcast decision, but is a huge blow to the agency’s efforts to regulate network neutrality.

However, for those worried that the FCC’s loss means Comcast will start throttling again, a spokeswoman says the cable provider plans to keep its existing network management plan, which slows speeds for heavy users only during times of congestion. The FCC has not yet responded to my request for comment, and notably could appeal this decision to the entire court of appeals or even to the U.S. Supreme Court. Update: The FCC issued its comment saying that while the court closed one door to net neutrality, the FCC won’t drop the issue and its broadband policies. However the agency said, “It will rest these policies — all of which will be designed to foster innovation and investment while protecting and empowering consumers — on a solid legal foundation.”

Comcast filed its appeal of the original FCC ruling in August, calling into question the FCC’s ability to force it to follow the so-called “broadband principals” that governed net neutrality at the time without ever having established a rulemaking proceeding for them. It also called into question the FCC’s ability to regulate broadband under a broader clause in the 1934 law that resulted in the agency’s creation. A month later, the FCC formally began a rulemaking process for net neutrality (the final round of comments on the issue are due this week), and it of course argued that it did have the ability to regulate broadband.

However, this ruling could mean that the FCC’s efforts on net neutrality and perhaps other broadband regulations such as privacy efforts or Universal Service Fund reform will need more Congressional help. If it can’t regulate broadband under its original authority, then Congress would have to act to give it that authority. For a history of the issue, check out Susan Crawford’s post on the topic. It boils down to the difference between providing transport or an information service. Back in the day the FCC said the phone companies were clearly transport companies, while the cable providers were information services.

That decision is now coming back to haunt the agency — and may, in the process, haunt all those companies in favor of net neutrality. After all, there are plenty of members of Congress who aren’t too excited about net neutrality.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

The New Net-Neutrality Debate: What’s the Best Way to Discriminate?

The academic fields and disciplines of the 2009-2010 Glennan Fellows vary as widely as the projects in which they are engaged.

Glennan Fellowships are administered by the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE). The awards are designed to reward excellence in faculty and to nurture their growth as teachers and scholars. Each Glennan Fellow has been awarded $6,500 to be used toward their projects.

The Daily will continue to feature each of the award recipients. Today, learn about R. Mohan Sankaran‘s project.

R. Mohan Sankaran, assistant professor of chemical engineering

Project: “Chem-E-Car Experience as an Educational Tool for Undergraduate Chemical Engineers”

As a Glennan Fellow, Sankaran plans to implement a new Chem-E-Car experience for undergraduates in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

“A Chem-E-Car competition occurs annually through the leading organization for chemical engineers, AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers),” Sankaran wrote in his proposal. “My objective is to use the competition, which involves building a fuel cell vehicle, as an educational tool to expose students to important concepts in chemical engineering and to make them aware of relevant societal issues such as sustainability.”

Fourth-year students Andrew Krajewski and Curtis Grant have been working together as a team to design, build and test the car. Meanwhile, faculty members have provided guidance on building the car, and some have even incorporated their own research into the design of the car. Sankaran said additional students are welcome to join the team.

The car will eventually be powered by an H2 fuel cell. Once the vehicle is completed, it will be unveiled at next year’s AIChE conference. Sankaran plans to incorporate the project into several of his classes.

TYLER COWEN quotes Paul Krugman:

So what the legislation needs are explicit rules, rules that would force action even by regulators who don’t especially want to do their jobs. There should, for example, be a preset maximum level of allowable leverage — the financial reform that has already passed the House sets this at 15 to 1, and the Senate should follow suit.

And he writes:

I favor this but I nonetheless think it remains problematic.  The more binding the leverage restrictions, the more banks and other intermediaries may try to recreate implicit leverage off the balance sheet…

[M]anaging off-balance sheet risk requires an ongoing, hammer and tongs approach.  There isn’t any “once and for all” solution to banking regulation and the harder we try to find one probably the more we will end up relying on regulator discretion and judgment…

And now we can return to why financial reform is hard to blog.  There’s always a new proposal and a big tizzy over the particular contents of that reform.  Whatever one thinks of the specific suggestions, I keep returning to the notion that the quality of the regulators — most of all Congress — truly matters.

I think both men are basically right. At any given point, regulators are subject to all kinds of pressures that might lead them to conduct their jobs with less zeal than the general public would hope, and so you want a system with clear benchmarks and reduced discretion. But the more effective the regulatory regime is, the greater lengths financial firms will go to in order to get around those regulations, at which point you’ll need officials willing and able to use their discretion to rein in dangerous or harmful activities. This obviously didn’t happen to an appropriate extent as the shadow banking system grew. And then, of course, if you manage to get good regulations and good regulators, legislators are likely to take advantage of the complacency that follows a well-regulated, crisis-free period to weaken the prevailing regime.

The takeaway is that over a long enough timeframe, crisis is inevitable. That doesn’t mean that the effort to craft better rules in the meantime is worthless. Periods of financial stability, like that in the postwar decades, are very good for sustained growth. But it’s best to be realistic. If you imagine that ideal regulations may exist, then you might mistakenly come to believe that you’ve stumbled onto them, in which case overoptimism will lead to crisis in no time.

by Jonathan Hiskes

Courtesy Michael @ NW Lens via FlickrOn a wintery, gusty morning last Saturday, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn rode his bicycle down from his north-side home to a downtown architecture and design firm for a rather unmayoral event. Some 60 or 70 people had gathered for a daylong “unconference,” a loosely organized bring-your-own-lunch affair, to plot how Seattle can become the first carbon neutral city in North America.

Here’s the background, quickly: Last fall, at a two-night lecture at Seattle’s Town Hall, Worldchanging’s Alex Steffen invited the city to adopt a goal of complete carbon neutrality by 2030. This drew attention. Saturday’s event was an attempt to flesh out the plan.

Steffen opened it by showing a slide of a unicorn. “The rest of the world sees us as magical,” he said. If Seattle can’t figure out urban sustainability, no one can, he said. If we can, other places will imitate us.

The rest of the day was an exchange of ideas led by the sustainability thinkers and organizers (Seattle’s green rock stars, if you will): people like Sightline’s Eric DePlace and Roger Valdez, waterfront defender Cary Moon, scientist Peter Erickson of the Stockholm Environment Institute, and Walkscore developer Jesse Kocher.

One panel explored to make car-free living more attractive. Another looked at radical building efficiency. Sustainability-minded neighborhood organizers talked about “how to take your neighborhood council.” City council member Mike O’Brien suggested turning drivers’ licenses into transportation licenses by embedding ORCA (regional transit) card technology into them.

This stuff was impressive enough. I thought the mayor’s presence was even more interesting.

McGinn has been in office just three months, after a local organizing career with the Sierra Club and Great City, an urban advocacy group he co-founded. Saturday’s group seemed to accept him as a co-conspirator, and he seemed to know what the roomful of wonks and ideas people needed to hear.

He focused on the success of the Alki Foundation—the political arm of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce—in convincing city politicians to support its priorities.

“It’s about politics, folks,” he said. “It’s not about having the best ideas.”

Despite the rich aroma of wonkery in the room, McGinn told the crowd that he needed hacks, not wonks, to push their shared dreams through the machinery of city politics. “Helping elect people matters. It’s about having access,” he said.

There was tremendous energy for this work, in the room and around the city lately too. It brought to mind Paul Hawken’s ode to social change last year: “Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement.”

Related Links:

A firestorm of comments over LaHood’s big bike speech

A movement far larger than the Tea Party

One more blow to the ailing Great Barrier Reef

Latin America is in the spotlight today as the World Economic Forum’s regional summit kicks off — and so, too, is GE’s presence in Brazil, which is marking its 90-year anniversary. With the country accounting for 40 percent of GE’s South American revenue — $7.5 billion in 2009 — we briefly talked to GE Brazil President and CEO Joao Geraldo Ferreira about the 90-year milestone and what the country means to GE and the region. “Brazil definitely has the momentum right now,” Ferreira said. “Brazil was the last one to get into the economic crisis, and the first one to get out of the crisis. The economy was supposed to grow by ½ percent GDP in 2009. This year they’re projecting 5.2 percent, and maybe more GDP growth.”

High flying: Ninety years ago, GE established a product distribution center in Brazil, which at the time had almost no modern factories. Donkeys transported the new products. Nowadays, it’s high-tech, such as the jet engines that are serviced in GE Celma’s aviation plant in Petrópolis, Brazil — a small town near Rio de Janeiro — seen above.

Happy Birthday: GE is responsible for many of Brazil’s “firsts” — from refrigerators in 1952 to its first digital mammography and cardiac disease scanners in 2003. GE’s locomotive plant is above.

 
Ferreira noted that because Brazil’s exports account for a relatively modest 14 percent of GDP – compared to China’s 40 percent — the country only needs to absorb a much smaller share of the surplus goods it produces during years of economic downturn.

“In a frozen global market, that’s significant,” he said. “Brazil may not be growing like India or China with 9, 10, 11 percent GDP growth every year, but we have very diversified growth. And that is critically important.”

In addition to aviation and locomotives, there are immense opportunities for GE in water, healthcare and wind energy, Ferreira said. For example, the Brazilian government recently held its first “wind auction,” and Ferreira said GE captured close to 30 percent of the market.

“When you think about diversifying the energy matrix in Brazil, and then when you think of the products that GE has, it makes a lot of sense for us to be offering those solutions,” he said.

Local heroes: Zaqueu Sérvulo de Alcantara, a 20-year veteran of GE Transportation in Contagem, told us. “In May 2008 I received a crystal-made miniature locomotive directly from the hands of the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. At that time, I told him ‘Your Excellency, you remember when you said that you would not buy new locomotives, because they were too expensive to import? No need to worry, because GE makes them here in Brazil now!’”

The subject of how Latin America can achieve a sustainable recovery following the economic crisis is precisely what the 400 business, government and thought leaders assembled at the 3-day WEF summit in Cartagena, Colombia are tackling this week. Ferdinando “Nani” Beccalli-Falco, President & CEO of GE International, will be on tomorrow’s panel — which will be webcast live — that is addressing the short-term reforms and policies needed in the region to promote a strong economic recovery. Rogerio Patrus, GE’s CEO for Latin America, will be moderating a closed session on Development of Infrastructure across Latin America at the summit.

* Watch the live webcast at 3:15 p.m. ET (2:15 p.m. Colombia) on April 7

It’s a gas: GE began its oil and gas operations in Brazil in 1989. Just last year the company won a $250 million contract to supply Petrobras of Brazil with 250 of GE’s advanced VectroGray subsea wellheads for deep-sea drilling. The VectroGray wellheads are manufactured in the GE Oil & Gas Jandira plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil. “Overall, oil and gas is one of the major opportunities we have in Brazil,” Ferreira said.

Learn more about GE in Brazil in these GE Reports stories:
* “Brazil’s turbines sweetly hum with sugar-based ethanol”
* “The sugar-land express: Brazil orders 50 locomotives”
* “Brazil’s new Azul airline inks $1B services deal with GE”
* “GE wins $250 million offshore drilling contract in Brazil”
* “Brazil boosts clean gas in the Amazon; wind in the East”

* Learn more about GE’s citizenship efforts at our aviation facility in Brazil

Conservatives keep compiling a collection of videos that future generations will ponder with combination of anger and bewilderment.  Here’s the lastest, courtesy of Think Progress.

Last year, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) attacked the House’s climate change bill saying that “it looks like imperialism” because of the cap-and-trade provisions in the bill. However, Daniels refrained from addressing climate change science, saying that it is “being addressed by others.”

But yesterday on C-Span, Daniels weighed in on the science and it appears that he comes down on the side of the global warming deniers:

DANIELS: In terms of climate change, I think that everyone would be well advised to take a substantial time out. There’s been nothing but dubious news about the science of all this now for about a year, including apparent scientific wrongdoing. Meanwhile, we’re left with a situation where even if the zealots had their way, and the most extreme measures were taken, by their own computer models, we don’t move the world thermometer at all.

In referring to “apparent scientific wrongdoing,” Daniels is presumably referring the the so-called “Climate-Gate” non-scandal in which scientists at the University of East Angila’s Climatic Research Unit in the UK were accused by conspiracy theorists of tampering with data in order to exaggerate the threat of global warming.

However, just last week, the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee cleared the scientists of any “wrongdoing,” concluding that “the scientific reputation of [the scientists] and CRU remains intact.” The committee said that there is no evidence that data presented by the CRU challenges the scientific consensus that “global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.”

Moreover, it’s unclear whose “computer models” Daniels is referring to when he claims “extreme measures” won’t reduce global warming. The Met Office Hadley Centre, the UK’s “foremost climate change research centre,” found that taking “rapid” action to reduce greenhouse gases in 2010 could prevent average world temperatures from increasing by up to 4.3 degrees Celsius.

The International Panel on Climate Change has concluded that global warming and climate change are real and that it is man made. In fact, a panel of eminent U.S. and European scientists recently “confirmed the widespread scientific consensus that the Earth’s climate is warming due to human activities.”

The PS3 Slim’s going portable next month. No, this isn’t another Ben Heckendorn special. It’s a third-party attachment from Hori that slaps an LCD screen on top of Sony’s slimline console.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel shares the cover of Washington Life with actor Michael Douglas in the mag’s issue on who–besides Rahm– is on the “A” list. (hat tip, Patrick Galvin, Politico.)

Henry Blodget says he’s pretty confident taxes are headed higher to deal with the historic rise in federal spending  and agrees with Northern Trust’s Paul Kasriel that higher rates won’t be an economy killer. Blodget quotes Kasriel:

The economy performed pretty well in the eight years ended 2000 even though the top marginal tax rate was higher in these eight years than it was in the prior eight years. The economy did not perform better because of the increase in the top marginal tax rate. Nevertheless, this increase was not sufficient to derail economic progress. In the eight years ended 2008, the economy performed relatively poorly despite the lower top marginal tax rate.  The economy did not under-perform because of the marginal tax rate cut. Nevertheless, the cut in the tax rate was not sufficient to enhance economic performance. The point of all this is that although tax rates matter, they are not all that matters.

Me: I agree that taxes matter but they are not the only thing that matters. But they do matter a lot.  Back when tax rates rose in the 1990’s, the economy was starting from a position of strength, not weakness. There was already  a powerful, self-sustaining recovery in place. Let me point out this 2009 study that examined the affect of higher marginal tax rates on the rich:

Taxes trigger a host of behavioral responses designed to minimize the burden on the individual. … all such responses are sources of inefficiency, whether they take the form of reduced labor supply, increased charitable contributions, increased expenditures for tax professionals, or a different form of business organization, and thus they add to the burden of taxes from society’s perspective.

Following the supply-side debates of the early 1980s, much attention has been focused on the revenue-maximizing tax rate. A top tax rate above X is inefficient because decreasing the tax rate would both increase the utility of the affected taxpayers with income above X and increase government revenue, which can in principle be used to benefit other taxpayers. … Using our previous … the revenue-maximizing tax rate would be 55.6%, not much higher than the combined maximum federal, state, Medicare, and typical sales tax rate in the United States of 2008.

And this is before the 2011 tax increases and the increase in taxes related to healthcare reform. We are probably now on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve.  Greg Mankiw also makes the case that Americans are not undertaxed compared with the rest of the planet’s advanced economies.

Mutual fund sales in Canada rose again in March as investors continued to pile into long-term funds at the expense of money market funds.

Preliminary results, including those of CI Investments Inc., the largest fund company that does not report monthy sales data to the Investment Funds Institute of Canada, indicate net sales of between $1.4-billion and $1.9-billion.

That is down from RRSP-fuelled net sales of $3.3-billion in February, but well above net sales of $541.6-million a year ago in March.

Long-term funds showed net sales of $4-billion, while money-market funds saw net redemptions of $2.2-billion.

“We remind investors that only a year ago, the trend was reversed with long-term funds experiencing net redemptions and money-market funds experiencing strong net sales,” Stephen Boland, a GMP Securities LP analyst, said in a note to clients.  

David Pett

Filed under: Budget, Sedan, Performance, Ford, Australia, Rumormill

It’s a good time to be Australian, kids. Yes, winter has just begun setting in down that way, but rumor has it that Ford has decided to wedge a supercharged version of the Coyote V8 into the nose of the Falcon XJ8. Why? Aside from being the kind of awesome we can all get behind, the move is designed to celebrate the model’s 50th anniversary.

According to Go Auto, the blown 5.0-liter engine should produce somewhere around 422 horsepower in its base form, but the Blue Oval may offer up to three versions, each with more power than the last. This all sounds good to us, but Ford hasn’t said one way or the other as to whether the rumors are true or not. We’re all for supercharged aluminum V8 engines, even if they’re only sold in another hemisphere.

It’s easy to see why Ford would want to give the new V8 a little extra PSI to chew on. The Falcon’s main rival, the most-excellent Holden Commodore SS, benefits from a 6.0-liter V8 that has no problem churning out 362 horses all day long. We won’t call checkmate just yet, though. While the rumors of the blown Coyote are plenty tasty, we’ll want to see that supercharger with our own eyes before we call the game.

[Source: Go Auto]

Report: Ford to give Falcon XR8 and FPV supercharged Coyote V8 to celebrate 50 years originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen many advances in mobile services over the past five years. We can now access almost any website, from any place in the world with little more than a few clicks. One development we haven’t yet seen come full circle, though is mobile shopping. It seems that security issues have people a bit leery of entering their credit card numbers and other personal information into mobile websites and applications. This will surely change soon, and I’m sure we’ll have a robust mobile shopping marketplace within the next few years. Until then you might find the pickings slim. We’ll go over a few BlackBerry applications that let you buy stuff right from your device.

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By Jesse Benton

Courts have ruled against so-called “net neutrality,” keeping the governements hands off the internet, at least for the time being.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

Tuesday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company. It had challenged the FCC’s authority to impose so called “net neutrality” obligations.

It marks a serious setback for the FCC, which needs authority to regulate the Internet in order to push ahead with key parts of its massive national broadband plan.

 

Read the rest here.