http://bigstory.ap.org/article/toilet-tech-fair-tackles-global-sanitation-woes
"These are lofty ambitions beyond what most of the world's 2.5 billion
people with no access to modern sanitation would expect. Yet,
scientists and toilet innovators around the world say these are exactly
the sort of goals needed to improve global public health amid challenges
such as poverty, water scarcity and urban growth.
Scientists who accepted the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's
challenge to reinvent the toilet showcased their inventions in the
Indian capital Saturday. The primary goal: to sanitize waste, use
minimal water or electricity, and produce a usable product at low cost.
The World Bank estimates the annual global cost of poor sanitation at
$260 billion, including loss of life, missed work, medical bills and
other related factors. India alone accounts for $54 billion - more than
the entire GDP of Kenya or Costa Rica.
India is by far the worst culprit, with more than 640 million people
defecating in the open and producing a stunning 72,000 tons of human
waste each day - the equivalent weight of almost 10 Eiffel Towers or
1,800 humpback whales."
These toilets create fuel, electricity, and other products instead of just causing health and sewage issues. Great going!
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Off-the-grid woman forced to go on the grid
http://rt.com/usa/florida-woman-private-utilities-735/
"City spokeswoman Barron said the sewer would have been capped sooner, but the city decided to wait for the code hearing. The city had actually overlooked Speronis’ setup until she did an interview with a local television station regarding her living arrangements.
Eskin did admit, though, that the city’s code may be obsolete.
'Reasonableness and code requirements don’t always go hand-in-hand … given societal and technical changes (that) requires review of code ordinances,' said Eskin, who actually dropped two of three counts against Speronis."
I can see someone in the city limits having to obey city ordinances. But I also see a need to make ordinances more flexible for such people to get their power however they can, within reason.
"City spokeswoman Barron said the sewer would have been capped sooner, but the city decided to wait for the code hearing. The city had actually overlooked Speronis’ setup until she did an interview with a local television station regarding her living arrangements.
Eskin did admit, though, that the city’s code may be obsolete.
'Reasonableness and code requirements don’t always go hand-in-hand … given societal and technical changes (that) requires review of code ordinances,' said Eskin, who actually dropped two of three counts against Speronis."
I can see someone in the city limits having to obey city ordinances. But I also see a need to make ordinances more flexible for such people to get their power however they can, within reason.
Monday, January 20, 2014
What will become of libraries?
http://carnegie.org/publications/carnegie-reporter/single/view/article/item/309/
"This old idea of the public library as co-working space now offers a modern answer – one among many
– for how these aging institutions could become more relevant two
millennia after the original Alexandria library burned to the ground.
Would-be entrepreneurs everywhere are looking for business know-how and
physical space to incubate their start-ups. Libraries meanwhile may be
associated today with an outmoded product in paper books. But they also
happen to have just about everything a 21st century innovator could
need: Internet access, work space, reference materials, professional
guidance.
Why not, Lea suggests, put these two ideas together? Arizona State is planning in the next few months to roll out a network of co-working business incubators inside public libraries, starting with a pilot in the downtown Civic Center Library in Scottsdale. The university is calling the plan, ambitiously, the Alexandria Network."
There is a lot of discussion about what the role of libraries will be now that the digital age has taken over. Access to the Internet is of course a part of this, for those who need it. Books will remain an important part of their role, I believe. But community interaction will play a larger role as well. People need people. And libraries are a community space where that can happen on a neutral basis.
"So for now at least, the American people want their
libraries. The question then is, what will be the role of the library in
the digital tomorrow? Susan Hildreth, a former top librarian in Seattle
and for the state of California who is now director of the federal
Institute of Museum and Library Services, has thought about these issues
and offers a sensible vision for what’s ahead. 'I see three big goals
for libraries,' she writes. 'Provide engaging learning experiences,
become community anchors, and provide access to content even as the
devices for accessing that content change rapidly.'
As we’ve seen, libraries are already working hard on
providing engaged learning, and have been doing so for decades. As to
their role as community anchors, well, that goes back more than a
century. Which leaves us with the matter of access to the materials of
culture. In the popular mind the best known mission of the public
library, of course, is lending books, to say nothing of videos and other
material—all the wonderful stuff reductively known nowadays as
“content.” And public libraries are well on the road to lending that
content in digital form, which will surely be the main form in which it
is consumed a decade or two from now. OverDrive, a leading distributor
of eBooks for libraries, reported that in 2011 users checked out more
than 35 million digital titles, while 17 million titles were put on
hold."
Why not, Lea suggests, put these two ideas together? Arizona State is planning in the next few months to roll out a network of co-working business incubators inside public libraries, starting with a pilot in the downtown Civic Center Library in Scottsdale. The university is calling the plan, ambitiously, the Alexandria Network."
There is a lot of discussion about what the role of libraries will be now that the digital age has taken over. Access to the Internet is of course a part of this, for those who need it. Books will remain an important part of their role, I believe. But community interaction will play a larger role as well. People need people. And libraries are a community space where that can happen on a neutral basis.
Income distribution does matter
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/oxfam-combined-wealth-of-the-85-richest-people-is-equal-to-that-of-poorest-35-billion-29931690.html
"Global inequality has increased to the extent that the £1 trillion combined wealth of the 85 richest people is equal to that of the poorest 3.5 billion - half of the world's population - according to a new report from development charity Oxfam.
And the report, entitled Working For The Few, claims that growing inequality has been driven by a "power grab" by wealthy elites, who have co-opted the political process to rig the rules of the economic system in their favour."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/20/poll_most_in_us_unhappy_with_wealth_distribution_121287.html?google_editors_picks=true
"About two-thirds of adults are dissatisfied with how wealth and income are distributed in the U.S., according to a new survey. The Gallup poll was conducted ahead of President Obama’s State of the Union address, which is expected to include a focus on income inequality."
If you have a certain amount of income being generated, and an extraordinary amount of it gets sucked up by just a few people, then you are encouraging poverty. This is a similar situation in the Middle Ages when a Lord had his castle and ran everything, and everybody else was a serf dependent on the few crumbs left outside the castle. Is this what we want?
"Global inequality has increased to the extent that the £1 trillion combined wealth of the 85 richest people is equal to that of the poorest 3.5 billion - half of the world's population - according to a new report from development charity Oxfam.
And the report, entitled Working For The Few, claims that growing inequality has been driven by a "power grab" by wealthy elites, who have co-opted the political process to rig the rules of the economic system in their favour."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/20/poll_most_in_us_unhappy_with_wealth_distribution_121287.html?google_editors_picks=true
"About two-thirds of adults are dissatisfied with how wealth and income are distributed in the U.S., according to a new survey. The Gallup poll was conducted ahead of President Obama’s State of the Union address, which is expected to include a focus on income inequality."
If you have a certain amount of income being generated, and an extraordinary amount of it gets sucked up by just a few people, then you are encouraging poverty. This is a similar situation in the Middle Ages when a Lord had his castle and ran everything, and everybody else was a serf dependent on the few crumbs left outside the castle. Is this what we want?
Friday, January 17, 2014
Technology will make the job situation more unstable in the near future
"It is partly just a matter of history repeating itself. In the early
part of the Industrial Revolution the rewards of increasing productivity
went disproportionately to capital; later on, labour reaped most of the
benefits. The pattern today is similar. The prosperity unleashed by the
digital revolution has gone overwhelmingly to the owners of capital and
the highest-skilled workers. Over the past three decades, labour’s
share of output has shrunk globally from 64% to 59%. Meanwhile, the
share of income going to the top 1% in America has risen from around 9%
in the 1970s to 22% today. Unemployment is at alarming levels in much of
the rich world, and not just for cyclical reasons. In 2000, 65% of
working-age Americans were in work; since then the proportion has
fallen, during good years as well as bad, to the current level of 59%.
Worse, it seems likely that this wave of technological disruption to the job market has only just started. From driverless cars to clever household gadgets (see article), innovations that already exist could destroy swathes of jobs that have hitherto been untouched. The public sector is one obvious target: it has proved singularly resistant to tech-driven reinvention. But the step change in what computers can do will have a powerful effect on middle-class jobs in the private sector too."
It's going to be hard to guess what jobs will be needed in the future. Society needs to gear up ahead of time to train people for those jobs, but what will those jobs be? A tricky dilemma.
Worse, it seems likely that this wave of technological disruption to the job market has only just started. From driverless cars to clever household gadgets (see article), innovations that already exist could destroy swathes of jobs that have hitherto been untouched. The public sector is one obvious target: it has proved singularly resistant to tech-driven reinvention. But the step change in what computers can do will have a powerful effect on middle-class jobs in the private sector too."
It's going to be hard to guess what jobs will be needed in the future. Society needs to gear up ahead of time to train people for those jobs, but what will those jobs be? A tricky dilemma.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Our paranoia is making us poor and weak
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/how-much-longer-can-america-afford-be-so
"
"
Over the past decade, however,
another branch of government has emerged, and it dwarfs the other
three. It’s powerful, skirts our laws, and composed of three core
entities: the military; the Department of Homeland Security, which
encompasses airport security, and 15 intelligence services (National
Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, etc.). All exist to
protect America and its citizens from enemies — both real and imagined.
We might call it the paranoid branch.
Our post-9/11 paranoia doesn’t
come cheaply, though. We Americans spend nearly a quarter of every
dollar we generate as a nation on the military ($682 billion), Homeland
Security (about $60 billion), and 15 intelligence agencies (combined
perhaps $75 billion). While our government raced through some $3.67
trillion in 2013 it took in only $2.77 trillion in revenue, which means
it has to borrow about $900 billion just to stay afloat.
Of the money the United States
raises from its citizens, more than $1.7 trillion is spent on salving
our collective paranoia or borrowed from banks and nations. That’s 40+
percent of the total."
I have nothing to add to this article. Well said.
Friday, December 20, 2013
How to, or should you, keep a downtown economy going
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/does-a-fun-downtown-create-a-healthy-downtown/article_55c4d726-30be-5fd2-b8ee-445b88e2a509.html
"Dan Senftner, president and CEO of Destination Rapid City, said downtown is as vibrant as it has ever been. It certainly has a much nicer atmosphere than 10 or 20 years ago.
'It was not as friendly and nice a place to be as it today,' he said.
Jana Koupal of the Vita Sana Olive Oil Company at 627 St. Joseph St., said the business has benefited from the foot traffic downtown events generate. The store that also operates in Casper, Wyo., opened its Rapid City location in July.
She said the business, which sells more than 40 flavors of extra virgin olive oil from around the world, has been doing well.
'I love the downtown atmosphere, a place like this is where we need to be,' Koupal said.
Another stretch of Main Street saw a recent rebirth. On the west end of downtown, in the 800 and 900 blocks of Main, a small revitalization recently took place with the addition of Beau Jo's Pizza, and new loft apartments above a redone pet shop and art store.
Brett Mathern, owner of SoleMate Shoes and the Uniform Center in the 600 block of St. Joseph Street, said downtown has a great overall environment. But he acknowledged the perks also come with some drawbacks.
Mathern said he has a lot of repeat customers, and he enjoys the atmosphere and the camaraderie the cluster of small businesses promote."
So here in Rapid City, South Dakota we have a vibrant downtown. There are very few empty shops. Parking is a problem, with diagonal parking and one poorly built parking garage. But, the city spent big on Main Street Square, an open space with marble carvings, a grassy area for concerts or free movies in the summer and an ice rink in the winter. It's a fun but smallish space.
In contrast, I lived in Clearwater, Florida for a year and a half. Their downtown was and is in pretty sorry shape economically. They have different problems, though. For one, Clearwater Beach is across a bridge and sucks most tourism or even locals there. And the Church of Scientology has taken over many buildings in the downtown area. I doubt their downtown will ever be vibrant again, despite their recent investment in a downtown theater.
So do US cities need a thriving downtown business area? Malls were the first attack. Then came Big Block stores like Walmart. Shopping was more convenient elsewhere. Mom and Pop stores started disappearing.
I don't know the answer. Here specialty stores seem to have filled in the downtown nicely. But whether places like Clearwater should just leave their downtown to dwindle, I'm not sure.
"Dan Senftner, president and CEO of Destination Rapid City, said downtown is as vibrant as it has ever been. It certainly has a much nicer atmosphere than 10 or 20 years ago.
'It was not as friendly and nice a place to be as it today,' he said.
Jana Koupal of the Vita Sana Olive Oil Company at 627 St. Joseph St., said the business has benefited from the foot traffic downtown events generate. The store that also operates in Casper, Wyo., opened its Rapid City location in July.
She said the business, which sells more than 40 flavors of extra virgin olive oil from around the world, has been doing well.
'I love the downtown atmosphere, a place like this is where we need to be,' Koupal said.
Another stretch of Main Street saw a recent rebirth. On the west end of downtown, in the 800 and 900 blocks of Main, a small revitalization recently took place with the addition of Beau Jo's Pizza, and new loft apartments above a redone pet shop and art store.
Brett Mathern, owner of SoleMate Shoes and the Uniform Center in the 600 block of St. Joseph Street, said downtown has a great overall environment. But he acknowledged the perks also come with some drawbacks.
Mathern said he has a lot of repeat customers, and he enjoys the atmosphere and the camaraderie the cluster of small businesses promote."
So here in Rapid City, South Dakota we have a vibrant downtown. There are very few empty shops. Parking is a problem, with diagonal parking and one poorly built parking garage. But, the city spent big on Main Street Square, an open space with marble carvings, a grassy area for concerts or free movies in the summer and an ice rink in the winter. It's a fun but smallish space.
In contrast, I lived in Clearwater, Florida for a year and a half. Their downtown was and is in pretty sorry shape economically. They have different problems, though. For one, Clearwater Beach is across a bridge and sucks most tourism or even locals there. And the Church of Scientology has taken over many buildings in the downtown area. I doubt their downtown will ever be vibrant again, despite their recent investment in a downtown theater.
So do US cities need a thriving downtown business area? Malls were the first attack. Then came Big Block stores like Walmart. Shopping was more convenient elsewhere. Mom and Pop stores started disappearing.
I don't know the answer. Here specialty stores seem to have filled in the downtown nicely. But whether places like Clearwater should just leave their downtown to dwindle, I'm not sure.
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