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Loan By Drone and Eight Other Silly "Drone" Trademarks

by ElizabeWorth Posted on February 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Drones are so hot right now. That’s why more than 140 active trademarks using the word “drone” are currently registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Some noteworthy ones:

Drone Porn®: This one was bound to happen. A registered trademark covering video and “electronic, electric, and digital transmission of voice, data, and images, all in the field of adult entertainment.” (See also: “Drone Boning”—definitely NSFW.)

Loan By Drone®: Predatory lending meets Predators with “payday advances, payday loans, short term loans, installment loans, title loans, title pawns, check cashing and stored value card services delivered via drone.” The business doesn’t appear to have started yet, but there are already places that will loan you drones or the money to buy them.

Drones Gone Wild®: “Entertainment services in the nature of an ongoing reality based television program.” Thankfully, there doesn’t appear to be any reality TV project with this name yet, but there are some interesting YouTube videos.

DroneRepellent®: This idea for “computer software and hardware for use in diverting unmanned aerial vehicles from airplanes” seems like a pretty solid idea, especially considering some of these recent close calls. The trademark holder, Infatics Inc., also has a service helping people track and control their small drones.

Game of Drones®: Though it also encompasses educational services “in the field of unmanned aerial vehicle use,” this trademark is currently being used to selll quadcopters designed to “resist fire, water and extreme impacts.”

Don’t Drone Me Bro®: A play on the “Don’t taze me, bro” guy, this trademarked phrase has found its way onto a series of T-shirts and stickers, a Facebook page, internet memes, and even a National Review headline.

NADS (National Association of Drone Sportsmen)®: Another registered T-shirt slogan, owned by a nascent political/media strategy group. Or something.

Git-R-Drone®: Registered as a T-shirt slogan, this one doesn’t seem to be on anything yet. Larry the Cable Guy’s lawyers must move quick.

Drone Dudes®: This team of “filmmakers, creatives, tech-heads, music-lovers, flying robots and a pup named Dutch” are doing some cool aerial cinematography. Take a look.

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Loan By Drone and Eight Other Silly "Drone" Trademarks

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Could this rock save the planet?

by SolomonParris Posted on November 10, 2014

Could this rock save the planet?

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10 Nov 2014 4:02 PM

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Meet olivine, a greenish rock that is basically the Clark Kent of the mineral world: It may look boring, but it has a secret superpower. Specifically, it can pull CO2 from the air and sequester it — nothing to sniff at when facing down the supervillain of our age: anthropogenic climate change.

Retired geochemist Olaf Schuiling has spent decades advocating for using the abundant mineral as a solution to our climate change woes — by carpeting as many surfaces as possible in the stuff, from playgrounds to roads to beaches, we could allegedly remove enough carbon from the atmosphere to slow the rate of climate change. According to one analysis, one ton of olivine can dispose of approximately two-thirds of a ton of CO2 — impressive, but that’s still a LOT of rock when we’re talking billions of tons of CO2 a year.

“Let the earth help us to save the earth,” Schuiling says, which makes for a catchy quip, but may not count as a scientific endorsement; Schuiling’s skeptics point out that the olivine cure would take 20 years to start making a difference, and likely account for a slew of new emissions from mining and distributing tons of rock over the surface of the planet. Schuiling rejoins:

Industry extracts and transports huge quantities of coal, oil and gas, he notes, so if society decided that geoengineering was necessary, why couldn’t it do the same with olivine? The annual amount needed, equivalent to about 3,000 Hoover Dams, is available around the world and is within the limits of modern large-scale mining. “It is not something unimaginable,” [Dr. Schuiling] said.

Of course, other geoengineering solutions might be easier to implement — say, spewing clouds of sulphur into the air to imitate volcanic cooling, or fertilizing the ocean to pull CO2 out of the air with a massive algal bloom — but they also hold way more potential for disaster. (As in, “Oh you liked your oceans alive and full of food? Oops.”)

In any case, Schuiling’s proselytizing has caught on in the Netherlands, where those in the know can spot green-sanded paths and gardens throughout certain cities. A Dutch company called greenSand (I bet you can guess why) has sprung up to provide Spanish-mined olivine to enterprising DIY geoengineers in the Netherlands. And more research is being done about the efficacy of fighting climate change with sandboxes:

At the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research in Yerseke, on an arm of the North Sea, Francesc Montserrat, an ecologist, is investigating the idea of spreading olivine on the seabed. Not far away in Belgium, researchers at the University of Antwerp are studying the effects of olivine on crops like barley and wheat.

The National Academy of Sciences is expected to release a report on geoengineering sometime this year, but I’d bet it will still include more questions than answers. Meanwhile, the things we know about climate change — that we caused it, and will continue to do so until we drastically cut emissions — are pretty straightforward.

I guess all I’m trying to say is that if we really want to address the problems of human-caused climate change, it might not make the most sense to start with a magical rock garden.

Source:
Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path

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You know it’s good when your biggest transportation problem is too many cyclists

by CharlesLabarber Posted on October 20, 2014

You know it’s good when your biggest transportation problem is too many cyclists

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20 Oct 2014 6:11 PM

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It must be nice to be Dutch: While the rest of us are dealing with ensuring reasonable access to reproductive healthcare and violent seasonal pumpkin festivals, in the Netherlands, people are taking to the streets to protest poor bike traffic planning.

While we’ve fretted about the possibility that there are TOO MANY bikers in the Low Country before, the truth is more complicated than that.

Citylab’s Sarah Goodyear points out that despite our utopian mental images of happy Dutchmen gleefully coasting along their superior bike infrastructure, even the most advanced of biking societies still have logistical speed bumps to work out when it comes to bike traffic. Case in point: In Utrecht, where an estimated third of trips are taken on two wheels, certain intersections have cyclists waiting so long for a green that some of them have just started running the light. And then the police started doing what they do best: writing tickets. The resulting backup last week was more than 100 bikers deep and rattled the city to its polite and measured core.

So last week, volunteers from the local chapter of Cyclists’ Union broke out the radical tools of social change — sweet rolls and pamphlets — to soothe their impatient compatriots and gently called attention to another of the poorly designed intersections last week. And it’s working! A day after the first incident, city planners conceded that the traffic signal’s timing was off, and readjusted it to cycle more cyclists through faster.

In the U.S., where cars vs. bikes sometimes feels like a physical battle of wheels more than a civil battle of wills, it’s nice to see what can happen when a large number of people ask nicely for a thing that will make their lives better. I don’t mean to go all Kumbaya on you here … so I’ll let Goodyear do it for me:

As the number of people riding bicycles on the streets and roads of the United States and other countries continues to rise, the need to create better infrastructure only becomes more apparent. That includes better bike-specific signal timing and bike-specific regulations such as the Idaho stop (which allows bikes to treat stop signs as yield signs).

Change is possible, even though it may take time. Someday, more places will be lucky enough to have Utrecht’s problems — and, one would hope, also its willingness to find solutions.

Source:
What We Can Learn from a Dutch Bike Traffic Jam

, CityLab.

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Happy 75th Ginger Baker! British Drummer Carried Beat for Cream

by RufusBustos Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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If you’ve ever jammed to “Sunshine of Your Love” or “White Room” by Cream, spent time with the Blind Faith album, got down to Levitation by Hawkwind or listened to Public Image Limited’s classic Album, then tip your hat to Mr. Ginger Baker, who turns 75 on August 19th, 2014.

To celebrate, Here are a few killer photos of Baker playing with Cream on the Dutch television show Fanclub.

F. van Geelen/Fanclub/Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision

And a more recent photo of Mr. Baker:

Peter Edward ‘Ginger” Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream. He is also known for his numerous associations with New World music and the use of African influences and other diverse collaborations such as his work with the rock band Hawkwind. David Levene/eyevine/ZUMA Press

Oh, and Bill Clinton and Tipper Gore also share a birthday today. Whatta party!

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Happy 75th Ginger Baker! British Drummer Carried Beat for Cream

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Greenpeace activists arrested — again — for trying to block Russia’s Arctic oil activities

by HarlanPrentice Posted on May 1, 2014

Greenpeace activists arrested — again — for trying to block Russia’s Arctic oil activities

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Greenpeace

Greenpeace activists aren’t letting a little jail time dissuade them from continuing their fight against Russia’s nascent Arctic oil-drilling program.

The crew aboard Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship tried on Thursday to block the first delivery of oil from Russia’s first offshore oil rig to a harbor in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The crew included some of the same activists who were arrested by Russian authorities in September for attempting to scale the oil rig in frigid waters. The activists were released from jail in December as part of a pre-Olympics amnesty program.

This latest stunt got them arrested again — but this time by Dutch police instead of Russian ones. Reuters reports:

Dutch police stormed a Greenpeace ship on Thursday to prevent environmental activists blocking delivery of the first oil from Russia’s new Arctic drilling platform reaching port in Rotterdam. …

A Reuters photographer said activists had draped banners saying “No Arctic Oil” from the Russian vessel.

“The Russian ship is very big, about 250 meters long, and there are safety concerns when you try and stop it mooring,” Rotterdam police spokesman Roland Ekkers said.

He said the activists had been detained in a room on the Rainbow Warrior until it docked, when the captain was arrested. The oil-tanker Mikhail Ulyanov entered the harbor unhindered, and moored at about 0915 GMT.

These activists seem as stubborn as climate change.


Source
Dutch police storm Greenpeace ship trying to block Arctic oil delivery, 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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Meet 18 Sochi Athletes Whose Struggles (and Style) Will Make You Stand Up and Cheer

by Vonnie Criswell Posted on February 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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Yesterday, during slopestyle qualifiers at the Winter Olympics, Dutch snowboarder Cheryl Maas became the first Olympian to act in direct opposition of Russia’s bigoted anti-gay law when she stared into a television camera and shoved a rainbow-colored unicorn glove at the lens. In doing so, the defiant winter veteran—one of only six openly gay competitors in Sochi—carried on a long tradition of athletes injecting a little character and dissent into the Games, reminding us just why we love sports to begin with.

Considering the staggering tales of mismanagement, corruption, and regional terrorist threats, here are 17 more Olympians we’re hoping do the same:

THE FIVE OTHER OPENLY GAY ATHLETES

SSA TV/Youtube

Partly because of boycotts, and partly because of Russia’s anti-LGBT law, just five other gay athletes—all women—are joining Maas in openly competing in this year’s Games. Four of them—Ireen Wüst (a gold-medal-winning Dutch speed skater), Sanne van Kerkhof (a Dutch short-track speedskater), Barbara Jezeršek (a Slovenian cross-country skier), and Anatasia Bucsis (a Canadian speed skater) are also previous Olympians. For Belle Brockhoff, an Australian snowboarder who came out as gay specifically to protest the Russian law, Sochi is her first Olympic competition. In an interview with the BBC, she explained: “I want to go there because I’m not afraid of these laws and I want others that live in Russia, who are homosexuals, to see that.”

SHIVA KESHAVAN

Imago/Zuma

Last year, the Indian Olympic Association was suspended on allegations of corruption. As a result, none of India’s three Olympic athletes will be allowed to compete under the Indian flag in Sochi. But luger Shiva Keshavan is sliding anyway—and he’s doing so in a multicolored, patterned cap intended to represented his home village. Keshavan is no stranger to fighting the odds: At 16, became the youngest luger in history, and now competes without a coach or winter sports infrastructure. Despite Keshavan winning gold in the 2011 and 2012 Asia cups, acting IOA president Vijay Kumar Malhotra insists that the Indian winter athletes don’t stand a chance of winning. Still, this will be Keshavan’s fifth Olympiad—with or without his country’s official backing.

LANNY BARNES

WBUR/Flickr

Perhaps this year’s quintessential Olympic tale of selflessness, Lanny and Tracy Barnes’ story will melt the icy cockles of your cynical heart. The twin sisters were both expected to qualify for Sochi, but during the final round of US biathlon qualifiers, Lanny fell too ill to compete and was forced to stay home. Tracy, though, made the cut. A week later, Tracy sacrificed her spot so Lanny could race instead. “Love is selfless dedication,” she explained in an interview. “Love means giving up your dream so somebody else can realize theirs.” Though they’re both Olympic veterans, Tracy’s withdrawal comes only four years after barely missing the 2010 Olympics.

NORWEGIAN CURLING TEAM

Cameron Yee/Flickr

In recent years, curling has seen an unexpected and surging growth in popularity. If you tuned in to the 2010 Vancouver Games, you might recall Norway’s amazing patterned pants during its silver-medal-winning performance. In Sochi, the team will don even more outrageous outfits: 1970s-inspired red, blue, and white zig-zag suits referencing the nation’s flag. Appreciation for the team’s loud sense of style even spawned a Facebook page with more than 540,000 fans—nearly as many people as live in Oslo.

YOHAN GOUTT GONCALVES

Yohan Goutt Goncalves/Wikimedia Commons

Goncalves is the first athlete to ever compete in the Winter Olympics for East Timor, a country that’s never seen snow. In fact, the country’s annual temperature stays around 85 degrees. Competing in the ski slalom, Goncalves wants to go to Sochi as a “diplomat” to show that there is “more to East Timor than war.” That’s more than we can say about his mariachi-suited slalom competitor.

JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM

Olympics/Youtube

Heading to the Winter Olympics for the first time in more than a decade, the Jamaican bobsled team has fans hoping for Cool Runnings 2.0. Jamaica’s inaugural bobsled run, in the 1988 Calgary Olympics, ended in a disastrous crash. Upon arriving in Sochi, the team was further hindered as a result of the airport temporarily losing the competitors’ clothes and equipment. Still, 12 years since their last appearance, and crowd-funded by more than $184,000, the two-man team is looking for redemption.

US WOMEN’S SKI JUMPING TEAM

Mht54321/Wikimedia Commons

2014 marks the first year women’s ski jumping will be an Olympic event, with advocacy by American Lindsay Van largely responsible for bringing it there. In an interview on Rock Center With Brian Williams, Van explained how sexism kept the event out of the Olympics for years. (In 2006, International Ski Federation President Gian Franco Kasper said, “It’s like jumping down from, let’s say, about two meters on the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.”) Now, along with teammates Jessica Jerome and Sarah Hendrickson—a medal favorite who’s recovering from an ACL injury—Van finally will see her hard work come to fruition at the Olympics.

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Meet 18 Sochi Athletes Whose Struggles (and Style) Will Make You Stand Up and Cheer

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Timeline: A Short and Sweet History of Fake Meat

by Remona86L Posted on December 4, 2013

Mother Jones

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1896:

John Harvey Kellogg, a member of the mostly vegetarian Seventh-day Adventists, creates a peanut-based “meatless meat,” Nuttose, which becomes popular at sanitariums. He goes on to popularize cereal as an alternative to egg- and meat-heavy breakfasts.

Corbis

1931:

In his essay “Fifty Years Hence,” Winston Churchill writes, “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”

1933:

Seventh-day Adventists found Loma Linda Foods, which makes some of the first commercially available soy- and wheat-based fake meats.

Loma Linda Foods

1967:

British scientists discover Fusarium venenatum, a high-protein fungus.

1981:

Oregon restaurateur Paul Wenner shapes leftover vegetables and rice pilaf into patties and sells them as Gardenburgers.

1994:

UK-based Quorn introduces fake meat made of Fusarium venenatum.

1995:

A struggling vegetarian food manufacturer called Turtle Island Foods sells 500 Tofurky Roasts. By 2012, 3 million have been sold.

1998:

Gardenburger sees sales surge after it airs a 30-second, $1.5 million animated commercial featuring the voice of Samuel L. Jackson during the Seinfeld finale.

1999:

Boca Burger ratchets up ad spending from $500,000 to $4 million; Worthington Foods (which acquired Loma Linda) pours $5 million to promote its FriPats and Choplets. Gardenburger boosts spending to $18.2 million.

2002:

Burger King introduces the BK Veggie Burger. McDonald’s, which sold nonmeat burgers in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and India throughout the ’90s, launches a US version the following year.

Quorn hits US shelves. The American Mushroom Institute complains that fusarium is not in fact a mushroom. Quorn later removes the phrase “mushroom in origin” from its packaging.

2008:

PETA offers a $1 million reward to the first laboratory to create a commercially viable in vitro “chicken” product by 2012.

2009:

The Cornucopia Institute finds that most nonorganic veggie burgers on the market are made with hexane, an air pollutant and neurotoxin.

2011:

A report that Japanese scientists were working on turning human feces into steak turns out to be, well, bullshit.

2011:

The New York Times claims the veggie burger has become “a bellwether for the American appetite.” Today, a patty of hickory-smoked quinoa and lentils costs $14 at New York City’s Blue Smoke restaurant.

2012:

PETA extends its lab-grown meat contest deadline to 2014.

Market research firm Mintel reports that although only 7 percent of consumers call themselves vegetarian, 36 percent report using fake meat.

July 2013:

Fast-food chain Chipotle introduces tofu “sofritas.”

Chipotle

August 2013:

Dutch scientists make the world’s first lab-grown burger from cow muscle cells, fetal calf blood, and antibiotics. In a live-streamed tasting, the patties are pronounced “close to meat” but “not that juicy.”

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Timeline: A Short and Sweet History of Fake Meat

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Arr, matey: Russia charges Greenpeace protesters with piracy

by MarciaHigginbot Posted on October 9, 2013

Arr, matey: Russia charges Greenpeace protesters with piracy

By

Shutterstock

Dressing like this for the protest was the Greenpeace activists’ biggest mistake.

We told you recently that Russian law enforcement suggested that Greenpeace activists violated anti-piracy laws when they scaled the country’s first offshore drilling rig. And we told you that even President Vladimir Putin scoffed at the notion that the activists were ‘pirates’ — given that they were obviously protesters, not looters.

But the cops have persisted, charging all 30 aboard the Greenpeace ship, including journalists, with piracy — a crime that could see them each jailed for up to 15 years.

On Tuesday, a Russian court denied bail to three accused Russians, including a freelance journalist, during a hearing. Other nationals are due to receive their days in court later this week. From Reuters:

Greenpeace says the piracy charges against the activists and crew members are absurd and unfounded and that the conditions of detention have in some cases violated their rights.

“They are now prisoners of conscience, and as such they are the responsibility of the world,” said Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace International.

The Netherlands launched legal proceedings against Russia on Friday, saying it had unlawfully detained the activists and others on the Dutch-registered icebreaker Arctic Sunrise.

On Wednesday, Greenpeace’s international executive director offered to stand in as security for the release of the 30 activists on bail. “I would offer myself as a guarantor for the good conduct of the Greenpeace activists, were they to be released on bail,” Kumi Naidoo wrote in a letter to Putin that was seen by Reuters, offering to move to Russia “for the duration of this affair.”


Source
Russia denies bail to three held over Greenpeace Arctic protest, 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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Shell to drill world’s deepest offshore oil well in Gulf of Mexico

by BessMEIF Posted on May 10, 2013

Shell to drill world’s deepest offshore oil well in Gulf of Mexico

By John Upton

Shutterstock /

Tupungato

It’s getting harder to find the oil to fill ‘er up.

Royal Dutch Shell plans to stick its oil-extracting tentacles deeper under the Gulf of Mexico than any oil company ever has.

Shell is preparing to drill 9,500 feet — nearly two miles — beneath the surface of the sea to suck oil out of a reserve that was discovered eight years ago, 200 miles southeast of New Orleans. The deepest oil well currently in operation, at 8,000 feet deep, is operated nearby in the Gulf, also by Shell.

The quest for deeper wells reflects advancing technology and increasing desperation as shallower reserves dry up. From Reuters:

[T]he project … is estimated to have 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in place.

The lure of offshore development is a strong one, despite the expense and risk.

“Ultra-deep” wells, drilled in water at least 1.5 km (4,500 feet) deep, and often into several more kilometres of rock to the reservoir below, accounted for around half of all the world’s new discoveries in the first half of last year.

NPR’s Debbie Elliot puts the news in some perspective:

The Shell facility will be further offshore and about twice as deep as BP’s disastrous well that blew three years ago. It took months to quell that undersea gusher, in part because of the inherent difficulties and risks associated with drilling for oil so deep under the sea.

Still, deepwater exploration has picked up since the Obama administration lifted a moratorium imposed in the wake of the BP disaster.

[Analyst Lauren] Payne says there are about three dozen deepwater rigs operating in the Gulf right now, and she expects even more.

If we all were driving electric vehicles powered by renewables, there would be no need for this risky behavior by Big Oil.

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Shell wins prestigious award for ineptitude

by NielPostma231 Posted on January 24, 2013

Shell wins prestigious award for ineptitude

By Philip Bump

Quick word of congratulations to our friends at Shell. Yesterday, the company was awarded the Public Eye People’s Award for 2013 — making it (as far as I can tell) the first two-time winner of this estimable honor, having also won in 2005.

What’s the Public Eye Award? From the website for this esteemed prize:

The Public Eye Awards mark a critical counterpoint to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Organized since 2000 by Berne Declaration and Friends of the Earth (in 2009 replaced by Greenpeace), Public Eye reminds the corporate world that social and environmental misdeeds have consequences – for the affected people and territory, but also for the reputation of the offender.

Emphasis added.

infomatique

Guilty … of winning awards!

And why did Shell earn top honors? (Well, alongside Goldman Sachs.) (I accidentally typed “Goldamn Sachs” and thought briefly about keeping that.)

Shell is always involved in particularly controversial, risky and dirty oil production projects. Thus, this Dutch-British corporation, chosen by online users for the public naming and shaming award, is also out in front in the highly risky search for fossil fuels in the fragile Arctic. This has been made possible by climate change and the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap, to which Shell has contributed. Every Arctic offshore oil project means new CO2 emissions. The Arctic’s oil reserves are enough for just three years. For this, Shell is jeopardising one of the Earth’s last natural paradises and endangering the living space of four million people, as well as unique fauna.

The celebratory announcement then walks through the company’s litany of 2012 screw-ups, with which you may already be familiar.

It’s not only Greenpeace that’s celebrating the company. Shell is also a finalist for a very, very, very prestigious (and presumably non-ironic) “Oil and Gas Award” from the oil and gas industry — one of only 130 oil and gas companies to be so named. So that’s pretty impressive, too.

While we don’t sit on the jury for either award, we think Shell deserves both. We are often hard on Shell, sometimes letting our dislike of rampant fossil-fuel extraction, our frustration with runaway oil consumption, our skepticism of rapacious profit-seeking while accepting federal subsidization color our perspective. But no company more deserves accolades from the industry that celebrates those traits and mockery from those who oppose them.

Here’s hoping they don’t repeat in 2014.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Shell wins prestigious award for ineptitude

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