The UK government, in an upcoming report, is set to put forward a plan such that every household in the UK will be able to request a free device that shows how much electricity is being used in the home at any point in time.  The hope is that these "real-time monitors" will help cut greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of energy wasted by appliances being left on standby.  It is estimated that households in the UK are responsible for about one third of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and as such have been a focus in an attempt to reduce energy consumption.

The UK government recently committed itself to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% from 1990 levels by 2050 and this program is seen as one of the steps to fulfilling that goal.

"People can see immediately what impact their behavior has, not just in terms of money but in terms of carbon as well."

The key  is that the devices must provide meaningful information or like anything they'll become a fad/toy and consumers will merely throw them into a drawer and forget about them.  At the end of the day if it helps the consumer save money and cut emissions then it will be a big win all the way around.

BBC link here where you can click on the image on the page and see a much larger view of the interface.

The nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - Big Brother is now in the shadow of the author's former London home.  It took a bit longer than he predicted but his vision of a society where cameras and computers can spy on every person's movements is now here.

According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.

The flat's rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.

In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell's favourite pub, the Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every person entering or leaving the pub.

Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras, together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.

I came across two very interesting articles where one looked at income distribution and the other at poverty.



The first looked at income distribution around the world based on World Bank figures and while it found that the most inequality existed in Latin America, in countries such as Brazil, Chile and Mexico, the US was the largest of any other major economies.  In the United States the wealthiest 10 percent receive almost 30 percent of national income.

The second article reported on a McClatchy Newspapers study that found the percentage of poor Amercians who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, where millions of working Americans are following closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the "haves" and the "have-nots" continues to widen.    Using 2005 census data, the research found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty (family of 4 with two children with an annual income of $10,222 or individuals who make less than $5,244 a year).  The analysis further found that the number of severely poor grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005 which was 56% faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period.

McClatchy goes on in the report to stress that while worker productivity has increased dramatically since 2001, wages and job growth have lagged behind.  All while at the same time the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries.  That helps to explain why the median household income for working families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

Venture Vehicles today announced the development of a revolutionary, 3-wheel, tilting, plug-in Hybrid vehicle under the working name VentureOne. It’s a two-passenger Hybrid vehicle that will get 100 mpg, accelerate from 0-60 in 6 seconds, will have a top speed of over 100 mph, all while being priced at under $20,000. Here are the expected models:


A key feature of the VentureOne is the patented Dynamic Vehicle Control tilting technology that allows the body of the vehicle to actually tilt when going through turns while all three wheels maintain firm contact with the road as seen in the picture above.  And if your're curious the view as seen from the cockpit:


When I first saw it I immediately thought of the cars in the Disney movie Tron


Venture One:


According to the company's website we can expect to see the VentureOne in July 2008 throughout California.

When my son played hockey the jersey number he always choose was "17" (as he admired Jari Kurri the great hall of fame right winger who played with Wayne Gretzky during the Edmonton cup years and then again in LA for the Kings).  What was interesting is that as much as he wanted it on a number of his teams the number had been previously taken so he ended up wearing instead "71"

With that as background I've always had an affinity for the number 17 and today I happenned to come across an article in which a blogger who writes on Cognitive Data did an analysis where he posited that 17 would always be the most common answer when people are asked to choose a number between 1 and 20.  In fact out of 347 responses he could confirm that 17 was significantly more popular than any number.



The computer point on the curve was calculated by generating 347 random numbers and interestingly enough  using the computer, the number 19 was most common, but it was chosen just 8 percent of the time. Humans picked the number 17 significantly more often than the computer picked 19.

Lots morehere, this post on Pharyngula, and this article on Cosmic Variance.

Interesting post in sustainability engineer Pablo Päster latest column. Turns out that producing and shipping one bottle of Fiji bottled water around the globe consumes nearly 27 liters of water,  nearly a kilogram of fossil fuels, and generates more than a pound of carbon dioxide emissions.

Now you know why it costs $1.50 for a bottle...

The personal savings rate for Americans, at a negative 1% is at the “lowest level since the Great Depression.” Economists “warn that the phenomenon exists at a particularly bad time with 78 million baby boomers approaching retirement age.”

As he stooped to the floor of a bombed-out cathedral in Germany, picking up a few bits of colored glass, Army Chaplain Frederick McDonald had no grand plan in mind.

The year was 1945 and Fr. McDonald was crossing Europe with Allied troops, seeing villages that had nearly burned to the ground, families mourning their dead, fields torn up by bomb craters. To remember those shattered sanctuaries, McDonald collected pieces of glass from two dozen churches in England, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, tucking them in envelopes and mailing them home to his mother.

In his 465-page memoir, "Remembered Light" Fr. MacDonald wrote:

"Saddening to me were the number of church towers shot down, those upward-pointing symbols of the majesty of God"

Now, more than a half-century later — and nearly four years after his death — this wreckage of war has been transformed into a prayer for peace, a work of beauty. Led by French-born artist Armelle Le Roux a team of artists have created 25 stained-glass windows that incorporate the fragments that McDonald collected. The finished art pieces range from 11 inches to several feet across, with McDonald's shards making up just a small portion of each. In one, the bits he collected are notes on a musical scale, in another, they're headstones on hastily dug graves.

The plan originally was to combine all the shards into a single pane but Le Roux quickly realized that each shard had it's own story and could stand on its own. For example, McDonald told her a story where in Wiesbaden, Germany, a third of the town had been leveled in a single 20-minute bombing raid. In the ruins of a chapel there, McDonald met a cleaning woman who said when the bombs hit, she had been rushing to a shelter, carrying a child. The blast blew the youngster from her arms and she never saw the child again.

The exhibition called "Remembered Light: The McDonald Memorial Peace Windows Project" is currently at the former officers club at the Presido of San Francisco, but their permanent home will be the site's Spanish mission-style chapel, undergoing a three-year, $3.5 million renovation by the nonprofit Interfaith Center at the Presidio.

Each of the 25 windows are listed here along with commentary from Fr MacDonald giving some context to each one.

Fox "News" Sends Strange Subliminal Message: 'Obama ~ Sex Offender'

We report you decide...

Link

The company that killed the first electric car announced today that it is getting back into the business - GM announced today the 4-door sedan Chevrolet Volt and while not a pure electric like the EV1 is pretty darn close (here is a comparison of the two cars).  The Volt relies on batteries and electric motors for nearly all of its propulsion.  A true "plug-in" it can be charged at home using a standard household outlet and includes a small turbo-charged gasoline engine to help keep the batteries charged.

Estimates run that for a consumer driving about 40 miles a day or about 15,000 miles a year, compared to a 30 mpg car, the Volt would save about 500 gallons of gasoline per year. If the car is charged every night, the driver should be able to achieve that mileage using virtually no gasoline!. With a further estimate that the same example would also save 4.4 metric tonnes of CO2 every year from each car.

Autoblog Green has a complete write up here; but for the highlights:

The power train is a turbocharged, 1.0L three cylinder engine with 71 hp that has no mechanical connection to the wheels. The ICE runs at about 1800 rpm and drives a 53 kW generator that charges the lithium ion battery pack. The engine starts and stops automatically as needed to charge the battery.

The battery pack provides power to a 161 hp (120 kW) electric motor that's connected to the front wheels to provide the motive force. It's the same motor that's used in the fuel cell Equinox. The LiIon battery has a peak output of 136 kW and a total capacity of 16 kWh. The battery can be charged by plugging it in to any standard 110 V outlet and is fully charged in about 6-6.5 hours. There are two plugs, one on each side of the car, to facilitate home charging.

The Volt has a range of about 40 miles on the battery alone which might not seem like much. But, considering that most people drive fewer miles than that per day, it should mean that a lot of drivers will never use a drop of gas on their daily commute. However, when the fuel tank is filled to it's capacity of 12 US gallons of gas, the Volt has a range of 640 miles. In addition, the Volt ICE is fully flex fuel capable and can run on any combination of gasoline or ethanol up to E85. The power-train is sized to achieve 0-60 mph acceleration of about 8.5 seconds.

Complete specifications can be viewed here.

Much work still remains to be done to take the concept car to production. However this really does represent a significant change in heart on the part of GM. Battery development is a key and GM is suggesting that a suitable unit might be ready for production 2010 or 2012.

However with GM entering the plug-in market this aggressively look for the other guys (especially the Japanese) to jump in here as well which could force alternative designs and faster time to market.

This is really a great step forward

"In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy."
- Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, 1973

This past Monday night Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (which I think is an excellent show) aired its Christmas episode, which featured a group of New Orleans musicians organized by the Tipitina's Foundation.  This all-star musical ensemble performed an absolutely stirring rendition of "Oh Holy Night" which featured a fantastic trumpet solo by Troy Andrews - being an old trumpeter myself the flow and transition from the low to high octaves of this song was absolutely stunning and moving.

The Tipitina Foundation was formed following Hurricane Katrina to save the musical traditions of New Orleans by working on initially addressing the needs of exiled musicians by providing assistance.  Now the foundation is using the legendary music club, Tipitina's Uptown, as the center of its relief efforts by hosting a newly-opened Music Co-op Office that allows musicians to conduct their business activities during the daytime, free legal and accounting seminars, free music lessons for music students, regular Master Seminars, and help with housing information. An important aspect of the rebuilding process has involved finding replacement instruments for both professionals and music students alike. So far the foundation has given away over $500,000 of new instruments.

The song is available for free download on i-Tunes and if you want to listen to it go here and click on the link "A musical Christmas tribute to the city of New Orleans."

Junk food getting cheaper - healthy foods more expensive:



The ERS's loss-adjusted annual per capita food supply series suggests that average daily calorie consumption in the United States in 2000 was 12 percent, or roughly 300 calories, above the 1985 level. Of that increase, grains (mainly refined grains) accounted for 46 percent, added fats 24 percent, added sugars 23 percent, fruits and vegetables 8 percent, and the meat and dairy groups together declined 1 percent. Per capita availability of total dietary fat, after remaining steady from 1985 to 1999, jumped 6 percent in 2000.

US per capita food supply trends: more calories, refined carbohydrates, and fats

The actual cost of food might be an explanation given the fact that other costs continue to rise (eg health care) without corresponding increases in real wages causing families to economize in this area - not to mention preparation time and other societal factors.

I became very intrigued while watching Casino Royale (an excellent movie by the way) with a particular chase scene where the actors literally seemed to defy gravity.  I did some research and it turns out that the free-running that was employed in the movie is known as parkour which turns out to be be an ultimate new urban sport that involves leaping and swinging across buildings, while literally risking life and limb.  The star of the movie, David Craig apparently took lessons from French star Sebastien Foucan - one of the recognized founders of parkour (along with David Belle).  Foucan - who once made a spectacular leap across a gap in the roof of the Millennium Stadium, in Wales - plays the character Mollaka in the film.

The pastime Parkour involves finding new ways of crossing an urban landscape on the part of the participant called a "traceur" - by vaulting, leaping and climbing, with a grace and fluidity of movement that is more akin to dance than sport.


The amazing thing while watching the movie is that what is depicted were actual Parkour moves done in real time and not with the help of any special effects.  I thought it was amazing what Foucan in particular was able to do.

Here is an excellent photo journal from the BBC about Parkour in the UK

As a **huge** Battlestar Galactica fan I have always enjoyed the opening theme music especially the transition from the melodic chanting to the pounding of the drums.  It is difficult to understand exactly the words that are being sung so I did some research and learned that the singing/chanting  is actually an abbreviated form of the Hindu Gayatri Mantra; the understanding and loving of which, is seen by many to be one, if not the most powerful ways to attain God.

The words are sung in Hindi but translated into English they mean:

Oh God! Thou art the Giver of Life,
Remover of pain and sorrow,
The Bestower of happiness,
Oh! Creator of the Universe,
May we receive thy supreme sin-destroying light,
May Thou guide our intellect in the right direction.

I was watching the most recent episode of Studio 60 (which I really like) and Amanda Peet's character used a Palindrome during a segment when being interviewed by Time Magazine.

I became really intrigued and did some research.  A palindrome is a noun which is a word or phrase that reads the same backward as forward.  The word itself is derived from the Greek palíndromos, meaning running back again (palín = AGAIN + drom–, drameîn = RUN).

Some example phrases::

"Madam, I'm Adam." (Adam's first words to Eve?)
"A man, a plan, a canal--Panama!" (The history of the Panama Canal in brief)
"Able was I ere I saw Elba." (Napoleon's lament)

Some example words:

RACECAR (which is what Amanda Peet used)
DEED
LEVEL
ROTOR
CIVIC
POP
MADAM
EYE

Anyway - learn something every day....

This last weekend while on a visit with my son and daughter--in-law we got to talking about family and recording significant events in photographs; I mentioned to them about a guy who for the past 30 years has been photographing his family in the same manner and the same day every year recording his family history.  I could not recall the website but found it last night.

The website, maintained by Diego Golberg of Buenos Aires, Argentina is called "The Arrow of Time" where on June 17th every year the family photographs themselves "...to stop for a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by"

Here is David and his wife Susy as they looked in 1976:


and their family last year:


While trying to locate his website,  I learned that in Argentina, because of some of the atrocities committed by the military junta back in the early 1980's where over 30,000 people "disappeared", portrait photography has been a way to chronicle family members as a way to document relationships.  This follows on a very strong tradition of portrait photography in Argentina in general.

Also I was intrigued by Diego's title "the arrow of time...".  Turns out that it is a term coined in 1927 by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington usedto distinguish a direction of time on a four-dimensional relativistic map of the world.  From wikipedia:

Physical processes at the microscopic level are either entirely or mostly time symmetric, meaning that the theoretical statements that describe them remain true if the direction of time is reversed; yet when we describe things at the macroscopic level it often appears that this is not the case: there is an obvious direction (or flow) of time. An arrow of time is anything that exhibits such time-asymmetry.

Anyway pretty cool.

So this is fun - Carve a pumpkin without making a mess the with the Pumpkin Simulator!

Click and drag your mouse to cut up your pumpkin. Click "DONE" after you've finished and you'll see it light up. Make sure you drag close to your starting point before releasing or the carve may not register.

Pretty cool...

So this is pretty funny! One of the guys in my group pointed this to me last week and I finally got around to watching it this weekend. Weird Al did this video spoof/rap song called "White and Nerdy" which has such memorable lines as:

Once you see my sweet moves you're gonna stay amazed
my fingers movin' so fast I'll set the place ablaze
There's no killer app I haven't run
At Pascal, well, I'm number one
I do vector calculus just for fun
I ain't got a gat but I gotta soldering gun
Happy Days is my favorite theme song
I can sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong
I'll ace any trivia quiz you bring on
I'm fluent in Java Script as well as Klingon

I edit Wikipedia
I memorized the Holy Grail
Really well
I can recite it right now and have you ROTFLOL
I got a business doing websites
When my friends need some code who do they call?
I do HTML do for them all
Even make a homepage for my dog!