China's Solar-Powered City: Rizhao : MetaEfficient

China's Solar-Powered City: Rizhao : MetaEfficient:

"
In Rizhao [City, China], 99% of households in the central districts use solar water heaters, and most traffic signals, street and park lights are powered by photovoltaic solar cells. In the suburbs and villages, more than 30% of households use solar water heaters, and over 6,000 households have solar cooking facilities.

The achievement was the result of an unusual convergence of three key factors: a government policy that encourages solar energy use and financially supports research and development, local solar panel industries that seized the opportunity and improved their products, and the strong political will of the city's leadership to adopt it.

Mayor Li Zhaoqian explained: "It is not realistic to subsidize end users as we don't have sufficient financial capacity." Instead, the provincial government invested in the industry to achieve technological breakthroughs, which increased efficiency and lowered the unit cost.

Found via Ottmar Liebert.

Did a comet wipe out prehistoric Americans? - space - 22 May 2007 - New Scientist Space

Did a comet wipe out prehistoric Americans? - space - 22 May 2007 - New Scientist Space:

The Clovis people of North America, flourishing some 13,000 years ago, had a mastery of stone weaponry that stood them in good stead against the constant threat of large carnivores, such as American lions and giant short-faced bears. It's unlikely, however, that they thought death would come from the sky.

According to results presented by a team of 25 researchers this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Acapulco, Mexico, that's where the Clovis people's doom came from."

These claims are pretty wild, but they're interesting. If the researchers are right, the Clovis people didn't kill off all the big North American mammals and then starve to death. Instead the lot were wiped out by hellfire and brimstone. Or, rather, by ice, rock and dust that started some very big fires.



Update: If you have an online subscription to Scientific American, the New Scientist article above might make an interesting contrast to this recent article on restoring Pleistocene-era big mammals to North America.

The theory--propounded 40 years ago by Paul Martin of the University of Arizona--is that overhunting by the new arrivals reduced the numbers of large vertebrates so severely that the populations could not recover.

Also see the Pleistocene Rewilding website. It looks like White Man's Burden with a paleontological twist.

ONLamp.com -- Tools for Geographically Distributed Software Development

ONLamp.com -- Tools for Geographically Distributed Software Development.

Lots of familiar stuff. Some items, such as writewith, are news to me and worth investigating, since all of my projects now involve distributed teams.

Reagan, Unscripted: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Reagan, Unscripted: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Interesting reading.

n'Goita

"n'Goita" is one of Aigerim's favorite words. Google didn't turn up any matches, so I thought I should create a definition page for it here.

Sometimes she says "n'Gah'ta" instead. We think this is her name for Ceniza.

Real ID: Mark of the beast

National ID card a disaster in the making | CNET News.com




I wonder why those who are charged with national security so often converge on solutions which destroy the freedoms they are supposed to protect.

In a recent CNET article Mssrs Forno and Schneier summarized the Real ID national identity system system, which was approved by Congress after having been buried in a 2005 "must pass" military spending bill.

There is something in the system to worry everyone. Christians may see aspects of the mark of the beast. Jews may see reminders of sufferings they have already endured. IT types will note the increased risk of identity theft inherent in a national identity database.

... the functionality of a single database remains intact under the guise of a federated data-interchange environment.

...the very last paragraph of the 160-page Real ID document deserves special attention.,, DHS declares that states are free not to participate in the Real ID system if they choose--but any identification card issued by a state that does not meet Real ID criteria is to be clearly labeled as such, to include "bold lettering" or a "unique design" similar to how many states design driver's licenses for those under 21 years of age.

In its own guidance document, the department has proposed branding citizens not possessing a Real ID card in a manner that lets all who see their official state-issued identification know that they're "different," and perhaps potentially dangerous, according to standards established by the federal government. They would become stigmatized, branded, marked, ostracized, segregated. All in the name of protecting the homeland; no wonder this provision appears at the very end of the document.

Hacking Your Body's Bacteria for Better Health -

Wired recently ran an article on probiotics. It had so many interesting observations that I've had a hard time summarizing it.

Okay, the summary is that we need bacteria in order to stay healthy.

Hacking Your Body's Bacteria for Better Health:

We assassinate microbes with hand soap, mouthwash and bathroom cleaners. But some scientists say ... all this killing may actually cause diseases like eczema, irritable bowel syndrome and even diabetes.

"Probiotics have resulted in complete elimination of eczema in 80 percent of the people we've treated," says Dr. Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr., a practicing physician and former member of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. Pizzorno says he's used probiotics to treat irritable bowel disease, acne and even premenstrual syndrome.

"After the Second World War, when our lifestyles changed dramatically, allergies increased. Autoimmune diseases like diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease are increasing," says Kaarina Kukkonen, a University of Helsinki allergy expert.

Microbial exposures early in life, scientists believe, cause mild inflammation that calibrates the body's responses to other pathogens and contaminants later in life. Without exposure as infants, researchers say, people can end up with unbalanced immune systems.

"Many of the most difficult problems in medicine today are chronic inflammatory diseases," says Blaser. "These include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, atherosclerosis, eczema and multiple sclerosis. One possibility is that they're autoimmune or genetic diseases. The other possibility is that they are physiological responses to changes in microbiota."

Microsoft's Silverlight

Microsoft has announced details of their competitor to Flash -- and to JavaScript, and to ... It's called Silverlight.

To me the most interesting thing about it is that it allows developers to build browser-side web apps using Python and Ruby instead of JavaScript.

Silverlight apps can use a subset of the .NET framework. Embedded video can run at HD revolutions up to 1280x720.

It all looks pretty interesting. It'd be more interesting if it provided a 3D API; but so far I see no evidence of that.