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What Marc Andreessen Gets Wrong About Our Future Robot Overlords

by KareemLalonde Posted on June 25, 2014

Mother Jones

Marc Andreessen recently wrote a widely shared post about how robots will change the economy. The Netscape founder turned mega-venture-capitalist predicts that we’re headed toward a future when robots do our grunt work, launching a “Golden Age” where humans are freed from wage-grubbing to do “nothing but arts and sciences, culture and exploring and learning”:

Housing, energy, health care, food, and transportation — they’re all delivered to everyone for free by machines. Zero jobs in those fields remain…It’s a consumer utopia. Everyone enjoys a standard of living that kings and popes could have only dreamed of…Since our basic needs are taken care of, all human time, labor, energy, ambition, and goals reorient to the intangibles: the big questions, the deep needs. Human nature expresses itself fully, for the first time in history. Without physical need constraints, we will be whoever we want to be.

Andreessen is not the first to daydream about this scenario. My colleague Kevin Drum has written about it extensively, and he shares some of Andreessen’s optimism about what this world might look like:

Global warming is a problem of the past because computers have figured out how to generate limitless amounts of green energy and intelligent robots have tirelessly built the infrastructure to deliver it to our homes. No one needs to work anymore. Robots can do everything humans can do, and they do it uncomplainingly, 24 hours a day. Some things remain scarce—beachfront property in Malibu, original Rembrandts—but thanks to super-efficient use of natural resources and massive recycling, scarcity of ordinary consumer goods is a thing of the past. Our days are spent however we please, perhaps in study, perhaps playing video games. It’s up to us.

Also, read our brief history of awesome robots.

Basically, it’ll be pretty sweet. But both Andreessen and Drum caution that this consumer utopia is at least several decades away, and getting there will be a bumpy ride until we come up with new ways for people to get the things they want and need. Because unlike the original Luddites, the British artisan weavers who protested the Industrial Revolution by ransacking garment mills, only to find new work running the machines, huge swaths of today’s workforce aren’t wrong to suspect a dead end ahead. “The Digital Revolution is different,” Drum says, “because computers can perform cognitive tasks too, and that means machines will eventually be able to run themselves. When that happens, they won’t just put individuals out of work temporarily. Entire classes of workers will be out of work permanently.” Which means many of us are headed for Hooverville 2.0, a possibility that Andreessen doesn’t disagree with, at least in the short term.

So how best to brace ourselves for that hiccup on the road to utopia? Here’s where Drum and Andreessen part ways. In Andreessen’s vision, we “create and sustain a vigorous social safety net” for the economically stranded. Sounds great, but how do we pay for it? He veers into late-night infomercial territory here: “The loop closes as rapid technological productivity improvement and resulting economic growth make it easy to pay for the safety net.” The machine will pay for itself!

In other words, robots make everything faster, easier, and better, so humans will make more money selling goods and services, and we’ll all end up with more dimes to spare for those still finding their feet in the robot-powered economy. So we shouldn’t listen to the “robot fear-mongering” about machines coming to eat our jobs—the robot revolution is also a personal-tech revolution, and iPhones and tablets are new reins on the global economy:

What never gets discussed in all of this robot fear-mongering is that the current technology revolution has put the means of production within everyone’s grasp. It comes in the form of the smartphone (and tablet and PC) with a mobile broadband connection to the Internet. Practically everyone on the planet will be equipped with that minimum spec by 2020. What that means is that everyone gets access to unlimited information, communication, and education. At the same time, everyone has access to markets, and everyone has the tools to participate in the global market economy.

Yet plenty of people are less worried about job-stealing robots than the people who will own the robots. As technologist Alex Payne points out, using a smartphone doesn’t mean you’ve got your hands on the “means of production.” Using a robot will never be fractionally or profitable as owning a robot, or a robot factory, or the data center that stores the information collected by the robot. “The debate, as ever, is really about power,” argues Payne. And it’s no secret that a narrow segment of white and Asian males currently occupies nearly all the ergonomic chairs at that table.

Drum has no doubt that robots are in fact coming to eat our jobs, and it’s the folks with the social and financial capital to buy robots that will call the shots: “As this happens, those without money—most of us—will live on whatever crumbs the owners of capital allow us.” If the robot-owning 1 percent of tomorrow is anything like today’s, then there is little indication that they’re willing to share their spoils. Take a look at this chart of productivity versus worker wages over the last 60 years. Productivity has been shooting up, helped in no small part by greater efficiencies thanks to technology. But worker pay hasn’t been rising alongside these productivity gains:

So where’s all the extra money, the “resulting economic growth” from all this “rapid technological productivity improvement” that Andreessen promises? It’s parked in the pockets of the 1 percenters. Here’s how the share of income is divided between capital owners—the people who own the technology—and labor:

Drum says these metrics are a few of the economic indicators that make up the “horsemen of the robotic apocalypse” in which “capital will become ever more powerful and labor will become ever more worthless.” The other indicators are fewer job openings, stagnating middle-class incomes, and corporations stockpiling cash instead of investing it in new goods and factories. These don’t look so hot, either:

Drum points to a couple of options economists have floated to fend off the robotic apocalypse. The first is redistribution through taxing capital: The wealthy robot owners will employ a few laborers to churn out massive amounts of goods and services, and government turns over a cut of their profits to displaced workers, who spend their days buying the products made by the wealthy’s robots. But corporate execs are likely to fight higher taxes, despite the obvious downsides of an impoverished consumer base. In any case, many of us would probably prefer real jobs to “enforced idleness.” Still, says Drum, “the ancient Romans managed to get used to it—with slave labor playing the role of robots—and we might have to, as well.”

Redistribution could play out in a couple other ways. If people can no longer expect to get by on their brawn or their wits, Drum suggests that government steps in and gives each child a handful of stocks, or maybe a robot of their own—something to give everyone a stake in the sweat-free economy. Other options have been suggested, like Jaron Lanier’s idea of Big Data paying users in “micro-payments” for letting them collect and use our data. But here, too, the linchpin is corporations and their owners’ willingness to share.

The rest of Andreessen’s solutions are straightforward. First, make sure everyone has access to technology and education on how to use it. I’ve argued extensively for the latter, and Drum sees it as a no-brainer. Second, “let markets work” so that “capital and labor can rapidly reallocate to create new fields and jobs.” Yet unless reallocation is the new corporate-speak for fairly redistributing profit, there’s simply no way the rest of us humans won’t get creamed by our robot overlords.

Additional research and production by Katie Rose Quandt and Prashanth Kamalakanthan.

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What Marc Andreessen Gets Wrong About Our Future Robot Overlords

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Neo-Confederate Ally Chris McDaniel Moves One Step Closer to Winning Mississippi’s Senate Race

by PhilomenaRawson Posted on June 4, 2014

Mother Jones

For months, conservatives have thrown their money and might behind Mississippi state Senator Chris McDaniel in an effort to defeat longtime Sen. Thad Cochran in the state’s GOP Senate primary. Tea party activists swooned over McDaniel as the candidate who, in a year of failed challenges from the right, could succeed in knocking off a GOP incumbent. Mississippians went to the polls on Tuesday and gave McDaniel a slight edge over Cochran. A run-off is likely. With a fired-up base behind him, McDaniel is in a solid position to defeat the six-term senator.

As Mother Jones has reported, McDaniel is a southern conservative with a controversial track record. Last summer, he delivered the keynote address at an event hosted by a chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a neo-Confederate group that, as my colleague Tim Murphy wrote, “promotes the work of present-day secessionists and contends the wrong side won the ‘war of southern independence.'” McDaniel spoke at past Sons of Confederate Veterans-affiliated events, according to a spokesman for the group.

From 2004 to 2007, McDaniel hosted a syndicated Christian conservative radio program, Right Side Radio. Once, McDaniel weighed in on gun violence in America by blaming “hip-hop” culture. “The reason Canada is breaking out with brand new gun violence has nothing to do with the United States and guns,” he said in a promotional sampler for the radio show. “It has everything to do with a culture that is morally bankrupt. What kind of culture is that? It’s called hip-hop.” He went on:

Name a redeeming quality of hip-hop. I want to know anything about hip-hop that has been good for this country. And it’s not—before you get carried away—this has nothing to do with race. Because there are just as many hip-hopping white kids and Asian kids as there are hip-hopping black kids. It’s a problem of a culture that values prison more than college; a culture that values rap and destruction of community values more than it does poetry; a culture that can’t stand education. It’s that culture that can’t get control of itself.

McDaniel also used his radio show to defend the efficacy—despite reams of evidence saying otherwise—of torture as a way to gather intelligence.

In April, McDaniel raised eyebrows when he appeared on a different radio show, “Focal Point,” hosted by the Bryan Fischer, an top official at the rabidly anti-gay American Family Association. Here’s a brief rundown of Fischer’s penchant for bomb throwing:

In March, Fischer told his listeners that while he didn’t think President Obama is the antichrist, “the spirit of the Antichrist is at work” in the Oval Office. He has said that people turn to homosexuality (which he’d like criminalized) when the Devil takes over their brains. He once called for a Sea World Orca whale to be Biblically stoned after it killed its trainer. He said the secretarial job in his office is “reserved for a woman because of the unique things that God has built into women.” Even some Republicans have distanced themselves from Fischer—at the 2011 Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC, Mitt Romney condemned Fischer’s “poisonous language.”

Mark your calendars: A McDaniel-Cochran run-off would take place on June 24.

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Neo-Confederate Ally Chris McDaniel Moves One Step Closer to Winning Mississippi’s Senate Race

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60 Years Ago Today, The Supreme Court Told Schools to Desegregate. Here’s How Fast We’re Backsliding.

by SFGJrg Posted on May 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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Sixty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The changes required by Brown v. Board of Education decision were not immediate, but they were profound and lasting. Today, schools in the South are the least segregated for black students in the nation.

Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story. In honor of the Brown anniversary, UCLA’s Civil Rights Project released a report that analyzes the progress of desegregation since 1954. According to the report, starting in the 1980s, schools began to ditch integration efforts and shift focus to universal education standards as a way to level the playing field for students in unequal schools. In 1991, when the Supreme Court ruled that school districts could end their desegregation plans, it put the nail in integration’s coffin.

Black students integrating a Clinton, Tennessee, school in 1956 Thomas J. O’Halloran/Library of Congress

Today, the picture of American schools is far different than what the 1954 ruling seemed to portend. The UCLA report notes that Latino students are the most segregated in the country. In major and mid-sized cities, where housing discrimination historically separated neighborhoods along racial lines, black and Latino students are often almost entirely isolated from white and Asian students—about 12 percent of black and Latino students in major cities have any exposure to white students. Half of the students who attend 91-100 percent black and Latino schools (which make up 13 percent of all US public schools) are also in schools that are 90 percent low-income—a phenomenon known as “double segregation.” And the Northeast holds the special distinction of having more black children in intensely segregated schools (where school populations are 90-100 percent minority) in 2011 than it did in 1968. In New York state, for instance, 65 percent of black students attend schools that are intensely segregated, as do 57 percent of Latinos students.

Bused to a white school, New York City children face parent protests in 1965. Dick DeMarsico/Library of Congress

Even in the South, where Brown made such a profound difference, school integration is being rolled back. The chart below shows the percentage of black students attending majority white schools in the South over the last 60 years. You can see the progress made after Brown—and how rapidly it’s dissolving.

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60 Years Ago Today, The Supreme Court Told Schools to Desegregate. Here’s How Fast We’re Backsliding.

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Meet the Insiders Posing as Grassroots Members of the NRA

by DonetteKoss Posted on May 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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Every year at the National Rifle Association’s convention, executive vice president Wayne LaPierre makes a point of extolling the broad, grassroots appeal of the organization’s membership, which may or may not be 4 to 5 million strong. “I think that in human history, seldom has there been a meeting quite like this,” his speech last weekend in Indianapolis began. “A gathering—and you know we are—of all ages, all political parties, races, all religions. A gathering of people who just love our great nation.”

LaPierre and the NRA also unveiled a glossy new video meant to reinforce that all-American message and push back hard against Everytown for Gun Safety, a new group combining Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Illegal Guns and armed with major funding from Michael Bloomberg.

The NRA video opens with a casually dressed, rugged-looking white guy talking directly into the camera: “Michael Bloomberg says he has 50 million dollars to attack my gun rights. Well, I have 25 dollars to protect them.” He’s referring to the cost of a one-year NRA membership. Then, a veritable rainbow coalition of youngish NRA members flashes by, all of them in agreement: “I’ve got 25 dollars,” says a black guy with a goatee and baseball cap. “And me too,” says a smiling Asian guy. “I’m a mom, and I do too,” says a blonde woman. Hispanic woman? Check. Additional women? Check. A banner across the top invites viewers to “join now.” Then the rugged guy comes back around to ding Bloomberg again: “This guy thinks he can scare us into running from a fight to protect our rights and our freedoms. He’s one guy with millions. We’re millions with our 25 bucks.”

In fact, this group has quite a bit more firepower than it’s letting on. At least seven of the ordinary-looking folks in the video work for NRA News, the media arm of the nation’s biggest gun group. They comprise the official team of NRA News commentators, part of an operation billed as “America’s premier source for Second Amendment news,” which includes a website, multiple video channels, satellite radio programming, and a magazine.

An executive producer for the network, John Popp, confirmed in an email to Mother Jones that the people in the Bloomberg video “are employees of NRA News.” The main talking head is Dom Raso, an ex-Navy SEAL who also stars in a forthcoming NRA production, I Am Forever. In that show, according to the Blaze, Raso “takes his experience as a former operative and breaks it down for a young, 17-year-old girl in an attempt to teach her how to not only be proficient in guns, but also be smart and defend herself.”

NRA News’ Dom Raso schools the young ladies on being badass. NRA

Just prior to this year’s gathering in Indianapolis, NRA News announced that it had added three new commentators to the official team, including two women, Gabby Franco and Nikki Turpeaux, and an openly gay former Google employee from San Francisco, Chris Cheng. They all appear in the video, as do the rest of their colleagues on the team, Natalie Foster, Billy Johnson, and Colion Noir.

It’s unclear what financial rewards underwrite the group’s passion for the Second Amendment: Popp declined to answer questions about the terms of the commentators’ employment, including how much they’re paid for appearing in NRA videos and other programming. Team member Noir recently confirmed in the Los Angeles Times that he was approached by the NRA and agreed to a deal, but also declined to discuss his compensation.

It’s not as if the NRA has gone to great lengths to hide the identities of the people in the video; they are all profiled on the NRA News site. But the video itself doesn’t identify any of them, and most viewers are unlikely to wonder much about who they are, let alone go looking for more information about them.

Such sleight-of-hand is perhaps unsurprising from an organization that raises the specter of a federal gun registry from legislation that in fact specifically outlaws one, or that rolls out a report with a phony mass shooting in it as it calls for more guns in schools. Yet, launching the new video in tandem with LaPierre’s grandiloquent praise in Indianapolis for rank-and-file members may have been intended for a specific purpose—to divert attention from the increasing chasm between the extreme politics of the NRA’s leadership and the views of most Americans, including those of most NRA members.

It may also seem ironic for the NRA to appropriate a David-versus-Goliath theme, given the prodigious sums of money it gets from gun companies and other corporate patrons and that it pumps to its favorite politicians. But it’s also a savvy tactic: LaPierre and company no doubt recognize that they’ve got a growing public-relations problem in the post-Sandy Hook era, not least with women. It’s no coincidence that the NRA also gave its women’s network a makeover last year. (Natalie Foster, one of the NRA News commentators appearing in the video, explains here how the NRA approached her for help and she negotiated with them for months before deciding to “accept the offer.”)

Even if the NRA hopes to come off as a diverse, lady-friendly underdog with the new Bloomberg spot, the finale suggests that the gun group won’t wander far from its usual approach of strafing the opposition. As Raso puts it, “Let’s see who crushes who.”

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Meet the Insiders Posing as Grassroots Members of the NRA

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Xishuangbanna Journal: In Land That Values Ivory, Wild Elephants Find a Safe Haven

by CharoleRIQ Posted on April 25, 2014

green4us

Gardening Basics For Dummies, Mini Edition – Steven A. Frowine & National Gardening Association

Your green-thumb guide to planning, planting, and cultivating a garden With some basic knowledge, the right tools, and a little work, anyone can transform a boring old yard into a beautiful garden. This friendly guide tells you how. From improving your soil to selecting plants and caring for them, you get just the information you need to start playing in the

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Warhammer: Wood Elves – Games Workshop

For millennia, the Wood Elves have dwelt beneath the leaves of Athel Loren, defending their greenwood home from the perils of the world. When the King in the Woods sounds his horn, longbows are strung and spears are sharpened as the hosts of Athel Loren assemble beneath ancestral banners. In the depths of the forests, enchantresses sing songs of awakening, r

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Codex: Astra Militarum (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

The Astra Militarum are the mighty Hammer of the Emperor, an army so vast that it has never been fully recorded by the scribes of the Administratum. Drawn from a million worlds, its men and women are the thin line between Humanity and the void. On hundreds of thousands of warzones across the galaxy the armies of the Astra Militarum hold back the advance of a

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Straw Bale Gardens – Joel Karsten

You’ll find a bumper crop of vegetable gardening books on the shelves today, but it is a very rare title that actually contains new information. Straw Bale Gardens teaches gardening in a way that isn’t only new but is thoroughly innovative and revolutionary to home gardening. It solves every impediment today’s home gardeners face: bad soil, weeds, a short gr

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America’s most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of German shepherds and as t

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White Dwarf Issue 12: 19 April 2014 – White Dwarf

It’s a hobby extravaganza this week as host of new hobby tools are released; in a special edition of Sprues And Glue we go in-depth on using them, while Paint Splatter takes an in-depth look at texture paints. You’ll also find Astra Militarum tactics, a Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey Battle Report and much more. About this Series: White Dwarf is Ga

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Codex: Militarum Tempestus (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

Codex: Militarum Tempestus The Scions of the Militarum Tempestus are the highly skilled elite of the Astra Militarum. Trained from youth in the combat schools of the Schola Progenium, each one has been psycho-conditioned to obey without question and kill without remorse. In battle, the toughest missions fall to the Tempestus Scions. Their specialist sq

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The Complete Compost Gardening Guide – Deborah L. Martin & Barbara Pleasant

Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin turn the compost bin upside down with their liberating system of keeping compost heaps right in the garden, rather than in some dark corner behind the garage. The compost and the plants live together from the beginning in a nourishing, organic environment. The authors’ bountiful, compost-rich gardens require less d

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel’s Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, “Yes,

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Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draw

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Xishuangbanna Journal: In Land That Values Ivory, Wild Elephants Find a Safe Haven

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Is it Time to Replace the Cult of Finland With the Cult of New Jersey?

by JonathonSundber Posted on April 3, 2014

Mother Jones

Vikram Bath takes on the cult of Finland today. What’s that? You didn’t realize Finland had a cult? Well, it does in the education community, where Finland’s consistently high scores on the international PISA test make it the go-to destination for education writers looking for agreeable junkets they can turn into long-form thumbsuckers about how American schools are doing everything wrong.

But Bath points out that Finland isn’t actually the world’s top performer on the PISA test. Shanghai does better. So does Hong Kong. Now, maybe those are cherry-picked examples that owe their success to government authorities who game the tests, and therefore deserve to be ignored. But Japan does better too. And South Korea. And Taiwan. So why have they fallen out of vogue lately in the popular press? Why do we hear endless tributes to Finland instead? Bath suggests the reason we like Finland is fairly obvious:

“Be like Shanghai” is for the Wall Street Journal crowd. Shanghai is rote memorization and beating your kids and no bathroom breaks and pretending you aren’t numbed by classical music. Finland is culture and castles and liking classical music because you’d be a better person and maybe windmills.

Fine. Asian countries are culturally different. Maybe it makes sense to look instead at countries that are more similar to America. The problem is, Finland isn’t really much like America either. It’s ethnically pretty homogeneous and has extremely low rates of poverty. Obviously tackling poverty would be great, but facts are facts: we’re not likely to reduce our poverty rate to 3 percent anytime soon. So does that mean we’re stuck with no place to aspire to at all?

No. There is still a much, much better non-Asian model. It’s Massachusetts.

14% of children in Massachusetts live in relative poverty. That’s still below the US average, but much more American-like than Finland.

Unlike Finland, Massachusetts has already figured out how to deal with all the existing regulations imposed by the US government.

Unlike Finland, Massachusetts has figured out how to cooperate productively with US teachers unions.

Unlike Finland, Massachusetts has demonstrated how to get results from US-trained teachers rather than masters holders from Finnish research schools, of which the world only has so many.

Unlike Finland, Massachusetts has experienced success teaching real American students who go home every day to be subjected to American parenting styles.

I’d add a fairly large caveat to this: When you disaggregate scores, Massachusetts still does well, but not spectacularly well. Judging from the latest NAEP scores for eighth graders, Massachusetts does a great job with its white students, a good job with its black students, and a fairly mediocre job with its Hispanic students. Overall, they perform pretty well, but part of that is due to the fact that Massachusetts has a very high proportion of white students and apparently does a superb job of teaching them.

Nevertheless, Bath’s point is well taken. But you might want to choose a different state: New Jersey, which has a high composite score not because it’s mostly white (it’s about 60 percent white), but because it does an outstanding job of teaching kids of all colors. Judging by NAEP scores, it ranks among the top four states in both math and reading for whites, blacks, and Hispanics.

Of course, New Jersey’s poverty rate is pretty low, and we know that poverty is a prime cause of poor educational outcomes. This helps account for New Jersey’s high scores, and also acts as an object lesson in not fetishizing particular countries, states, or programs. This stuff is complicated, and there’s no point in just substituting one simplistic analysis for another. That said, I’d say Bath is worth listening to. We should take good ideas from wherever we can find them, but there’s not much reason to go haring around the world looking for educational lodestars to emulate. We have 51 laboratories of democracy right here at home, all of which are more culturally similar to each other than any foreign country is. And some of them do pretty well, already working within the framework of American culture, American laws, American ethnic makeup, and American parents. Why not study them instead?

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Is it Time to Replace the Cult of Finland With the Cult of New Jersey?

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Global buying spree is saving solar panel manufacturers

by IKSNoellstniyi Posted on March 19, 2014

Global buying spree is saving solar panel manufacturers

By

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The sun is starting to shine again on the solar-panel manufacturing industry, a year after a string of corporate collapses.

The glut of cheap solar panels that pushed manufacturing giant Suntech and others into bankruptcy is being whittled away by a worldwide surge in solar installations. The manufacturing sector’s gradual return to profitability comes eight months after China announced it would go on a solar-buying spree to cash in on the oversupply of panels.

Yingli Green Energy Holdings Co., the world’s leading producer of solar panels, on Tuesday announced its 10th consecutive quarterly loss — but said it expected to rejoin many of its competitors in turning a profit by the third quarter of this year. Reuters reports:

A recovery in solar panel prices after a four year slump has helped Yingli’s rivals such as Trina Solar Ltd [and] JA Solar Holdings Co Ltd post profits in recent quarters, while JinkoSolar Holding Co Ltd posted a profit last August.

Bloomberg explains why the glut of panels that triggered the sector’s woes a year ago is starting to disappear:

Developers installed 37.5 gigawatts of panels worldwide last year, up 22 percent from 2012, and that figure may increase as much as 39 percent this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

That growth is starting to “sponge up” much of the glut, especially among Chinese manufacturers, that resulted from a buildup in the late 2000s, Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in Houston, said in an interview. “That has made a real dent in the overcapacity.”

China, which surpassed Germany to become the biggest solar market last year, may install more than 14 gigawatts this year, aiding domestic producers. The Asian nation added a record 12 gigawatts of solar power in 2013, compared with 3.6 gigawatts a year ago, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

There seems to be a little bit of good news in here for everybody.


Source
Solar Makers Shift to Profit as Demand Eases Oversupply, Bloomberg
Yingli to stay in the red to win solar panel price war, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Global buying spree is saving solar panel manufacturers

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Can You Ever Have Too Many Choco Pies?

by JulioSteiner Posted on February 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Tyler Cowen points today to a story from a few months back about cuts in benefits to workers at North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Complex:

Due to financial difficulties at Kaesong caused by the complex’s five-month halt in operations…the number of Choco Pies distributed will be reduced and North Korean workers — known to resell Choco Pies on the black market for a considerable profit — will have a major source of income cut.

Before the closure of the complex, those working in chemical and heat treatment factories would receive five to 10 Choco Pies a day and those working night shifts would receive up to 20. Choco Pies would then be resold on the black market for 500 to 600 North Korean won each. However with the new regulations restricting each worker to $0.20 worth of snacks a day, the workers will receive a maximum of two Choco Pies.

Choco Pies. Can anyone explain Choco Pies to me?1 Here in Irvine we have lots of Asian supermarkets, and every one of them features enormous floor stacks of Choco Pies. Not just during certain holidays, and not just during special promotions. All the supermarkets. All the time. And judging from the selection of other sweets in these stores, Choco Pies must account for upwards of half of their sweet sales.

There’s no American equivalent I can think of. It would be as if every supermarket greeted its customers with a gigantic display of, say, Snickers bars, which accounted for 50 percent of all candy bar sales.

I bought a box of Choco Pies once. They were OK, but it was hard to see anything special about them. So what’s up? Is this just one of those particular cultural things for which there’s no real explanation? Or is there some fascinating historical reason for the immense popularity of Choco Pies among Koreans? Anyone know?

1Not among North Koreans, of course. That’s just a hook for this post. Their black market value in a place like North Korea is pretty obvious.

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Can You Ever Have Too Many Choco Pies?

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Stop Calling Office Parks "Nondescript"

by elvys303 Posted on January 30, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The wars of the future will be fought over clichés.

Last week, WonkBlog‘s Brad Plumer took aim at one of the soundbite industry’s most pernicious crutches—describing a good-but-not-gamechanging thing as “not a panacea.” Plumer was right to criticize “not a panacea,” but “nondescript office park” and “nondescript office building,” are just as common—and just as bad. Office buildings and office parks are as a rule architecturally bland, so there’s no reason to point it out. Moreover, there’s nothing counterintuitive about an interesting project that’s housed in a boring building. If news reports are any guide, interesting projects are often housed in boring buildings.

In the interest of killing this cliché, here is a comprehensive list of all the things the New York Times has reported are housed in a “nondescript” office space:

Expecting Models, a modeling agency for pregnant women.

Y Combinator, “an organization that can be likened to a sleep-away camp for start-up companies.”

Public, a Brisbane restaurant whose “menu of sharing plates draws inspiration from around the globe.”

Bar High Five, owned by “master bartender” Hidetsugu Ueno.

High Tide, a Jacksonville eatery that specializes in a pita-wrapped cold cut sandwich called the “camel rider.” Hess Brewing, a San Diego-based “nano-brewery.”
The Brooklyn Table Tennis Club on Coney Island Avenue.
A meeting of the Asian-American Writers’ Workshop.

Frederick Taylor University, an unaccredited state-approved online institution.

Indus Entrepreneurs, a South-Asian professional network that invests in Silicon Valley start-ups.
The studio at MacGuffin Films, which serves as a set for Olive Garden commercials.
The current site of a planned New Jersey development that residents agree “will change the personality of West Windsor for better or worse.”

Atlantic Philanthropies, a once secretive charity that has “decidedly hung its shingle out in the open.”
A prototype of a new Russian A.T.M. that comes with a built-in lie-detector.
The Duluth headquarters of Lake Superior Brewing.
The corporate headquarters of Deutsche Börse, which operates the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The Central Yiddish Cultural Organization, “the only secular Yiddish bookstore in New York.”
The Ecole de Cuisine Alain Ducasse, a Paris culinary workshop located “in a stolid bourgeois neighborhood in the outlying 16th arrondissement.”
The Perpignan branch of the Algerian Circle, a historical society devoted to the nation’s colonial age.
The glass-walled room in which Treasury officials auctions bonds to Chinese investors while wearing helmets.
The Republican National Committee’s Denver war room.
“A casino larger than the blackjack, dice and roulette pits at many Las Vegas gambling halls,” where card dealers learn their trade.

Rush Limbaugh’s new studio, “on a boulevard lined with tall palms.”
A stop on the Latin American Consular Fair in Harrison, New Jersey.
The Manhattan offices of The Smoking Gun.
A food pantry that caters to foreclosed homeowners.
The second-biggest gold depository in New York.
The “windowless studio” of WABC-TV and WPLJ-FM traffic reporter Joe Nolan.

Maus Hábitos, a vegetarian restaurant in Oporto that also offers massages.
A shareholder meeting for the London-based advertising-buying firm Aegis Group.
The “Spartan lodgings” of Realogy, the nation’s largest real estate company.
A training school for competitive barbecue judges.

Digital Chocolate, a start-up that develops apps for mobile phones.

Private Capital Management, “a little-known money management firm that discreetly handles the investments of wealthy families.”
An “unmarked building” in Irvine where video game designers add new features to World of Warcraft.
The company that wants to reinvent troll dolls.
President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign headquarters.

Community Prep, “New York City’s first public high school for students who have been recently released from juvenile prisons and jails.”
A casting agency for television commercials.
The Business Software Alliance, an anti-piracy organization.
Nafka House, stone-and-cement structure in the Eritrean capital that is also “towering at nine stories above all surrounding structures.”
A Washington television studio appropriated by Sacha Baron Cohen.
The Air Transportation Stabilization Board.

Django, a Manhattan restaurant with “glittery, crystalline room dividers and a whimsical wall-papered rear.”
The former New York City digs of the Internal Revenue Service.
The Midtown offices of soft-core magazine empire Crescent Publishing Group.
The administrative offices of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

A movie theater “at the end of a placid, palm-lined street in Marina del Rey.”

Princeton eCom, an electronic billing service.
The Brazilian IT security firm Módulo.
Three Star Leather, a tailor on the Upper East Side that specializes in skintight pants.
The practice studio for the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Association.
California Independent System Operator’s Folsom offices, the non-profit power grid-manager that is “ground zero for the energy crisis in California.”
The offices of Macintosh splinter Eazel Inc., “filled with Silicon Valley-style cubicles and adorned with the ubiquitous penguin mascot of the Linux free software movement.”
A New York City mosque.
Esaki, a trendy Tokyo restaurant in “a part of town known for its trendy shops and boutiques.”
“A modest little company called Audible Inc., which just happens to have outsize ambitions.”
The Harrisburg law office of former Democratic Rep. Don Bailey.
Monica Lewinsky’s legal team.
The London headquarters of N.M. Rothschild & Sons, marked by “starkly empty corridors.”
The New York Times‘ archives.
GM’s European headquarters.
Adcom Inc.-Psychic Fairs, which organizes festivals for astrologists at suburban malls.
The Manhattan office of LBJ biographer Robert Caro.
The suburban Atlanta space where Mickey Hall is building the perfect pitching machine.
New York’s Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (next to the “equally undistinguished” Daniel Newburg Gallery).
Geneva’s European Free Trade Association building, where the Vatican reached an historic agreement to pay creditors of a defunct Italian bank.
The suburban Virginia Soviet department of the C.I.A., “directed by Robert M. Gates, the Deputy Director for Intelligence who is a Soviet authority himself.”

International Business Government Counsellors Inc., a DC political intelligence firm.
A Connecticut electronic shopping service where “the future of American retailing is taking shape.”
Ronald Reagan’s presidential transition offices.
The offices of the Fortune Society, which helps convicted felons get jobs.
Conservative direct-mail pioneer Richard Vigeurie’s Falls Church, Va. war room.
The New York Neighborhood Dry Cleaner’s Association.
The former Empire Theater.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s only ombudsman.
The Winnipeg Commodity Exchange.

Ban clichés.

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Stop Calling Office Parks "Nondescript"

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Florida citrus growers binge on pesticides, endangering bees

by GeoffreyBlaine Posted on October 1, 2013

Florida citrus growers binge on pesticides, endangering bees

By

Shutterstock

Don’t breathe in!

Floridian citrus growers are upping the chemical ante as they struggle to save their groves from citrus greening — a devastating bacterial infection spread by tiny invasive insects known as Asian citrus psyllids.

While the orange growers used to spray insecticides a few times a year, The Ledger newspaper reports that they are now dousing their groves monthly. (And we recently told you about a Florida’s Natural supplier that was accused of spraying its crops every four days with multiple chemicals, killing off honeybee colonies and leading to a $1,500 fine.)

Needless to say, the region’s apiarists are none too pleased to see their bees being killed by the insecticides. The Ledger article describes a growing war between Florida’s powerful citrus growers and the smaller apiary industry:

A major issue for beekeepers comes during the citrus bloom period, which generally comes in March and April but can extend weeks earlier or later depending upon weather conditions.

Beekeepers involved in honey production traditionally place hives in or near groves so the bees produce citrus-flavored honey, one of the most popular varieties.

That practice puts bees in the line of fire when growers spray during bloom, an important period for controlling psyllids, who are especially drawn to new growth, Rogers said.

“The days of putting bees right in the middle of a grove, I think those days are gone,” said Bobbi Bell of Bell Apiaries LLC in Fort Meade, a 32-year veteran of the industry.

But beekeepers also contract with other growers to release bees in their fields for pollination, which also puts them at risk from pesticides in citrus groves.

The conundrum has Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who is also a citrus grower, desperate to find a solution that can protect both the state’s fruit and honey industries.


Source
Citrus Growers, Beekeepers at Loggerheads Over Pesticides, The Ledger

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Florida citrus growers binge on pesticides, endangering bees

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