Tag Archives: Mop

This wind turbine has no blades — and that’s why it’s better

by JurgenCorones Posted on May 20, 2015

blade shunner

This wind turbine has no blades — and that’s why it’s better

By on 20 May 2015commentsShare

What do you get if you take the blades off a wind turbine? A better wind turbine.

That sounds like a joke, but that’s actually more or less the model of a new wind turbine prototype. Instead of blades that turn in the breeze, the turbine is just a hollow straw that sticks up 40 feet from the ground and vibrates like a guitar string when the wind thrums by.

The Spanish engineers who founded Vortex Bladeless in 2010 said they were inspired by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster (maybe not the best pitch for clean energy to a disaster-wary public, but I’ll leave that to their marketing department). Here’s how it actually works, from Wired:

Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the … Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse.

…

At the base of the cone are two rings of repelling magnets, which act as a sort of nonelectrical motor. When the cone oscillates one way, the repelling magnets pull it in the other direction, like a slight nudge to boost the mast’s movement regardless of wind speed. This kinetic energy is then converted into electricity via an alternator that multiplies the frequency of the mast’s oscillation to improve the energy-gathering efficiency.

The result is a turbine that’s 50 percent less expensive than a bladed one, nearly silent, and, as one of the turbine’s engineers put it, “looks like asparagus” (sorry, Quixote). And while each Vortex turbine is also 30 percent less efficient at capturing energy, wind farms can double the number of turbines that occupy a given area if they go bladeless. That’s a net energy gain of 40 percent for you non-mathletes out there.”

Plus, the turbine has no gears or moving parts; theoretically maintenance could be much easier than a traditional bells-and-whistles spinning one. No shade to my three-bladed friends, but I can’t complain about a cheaper, more accessible wind-powered future.

Source:
The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades

, Wired.

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This wind turbine has no blades — and that’s why it’s better

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Look forward to a sweaty future, America, thanks to climate change

by VirginiAaron Posted on May 19, 2015

Look forward to a sweaty future, America, thanks to climate change

By on 19 May 2015 3:01 pmcommentsShare

We tend not to bring up one of the most unpleasant consequences of climate change, speaking strictly day-to-day, because it’s one we don’t like to talk about in general.

Sweat.

Sweat in the morning, sweat in the evening. Sweat indoors and out. Sweat in places of your body you weren’t even previously aware of. You know this sweat.

Anyway: We try not to talk about it or think about it, probably because sweating is miserable! There’s no quicker or more wretched way to remind oneself that to be human is to be trapped in 100+ pounds of meat for all of your living days. But there’s a lot of bodily moisture (shoot me, please) to look forward to as parts of the U.S. get warmer, and as more and more confused people choose to move to those parts of the country.

Behold your future, courtesy of a study in Nature Climate Change:

Between 1970 and 2000, the U.S. averaged about 2.3 billion person days of extreme heat each year. But between 2040 and 2070 that number will be between 10 and 14 billion person days a year, according to the study.

The biggest projected increases in person days is the Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas census region where by mid-century heat exposure will increase by 2.7 billion person days. Right behind is south Atlantic region of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C., where heat exposure is projected to increase by 2.2 billion person days.

That’s an increase of 400-600 percent in Americans’ exposure to extreme heat. Extreme heat is defined, for the record, as temperatures in excess of 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the future, we are all Marissa Cooper, gently perspiring and weeping in a Tijuana bar:

Source:
Climate change meets population shift: More people will be hotter

, The Associated Press.

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Look forward to a sweaty future, America, thanks to climate change

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House Republicans do their part to commemorate National Women’s Health Week

by KaiWfbuikghxkh Posted on May 14, 2015

House Republicans do their part to commemorate National Women’s Health Week

By on 14 May 2015commentsShare

For National Women’s Health Week, we’re highlighting women’s health issues in the United States.

Yesterday, after years of Republicans threatening to do so, the House of Representatives voted to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The important thing to remember about abortions is that they are not pleasant things. One does not get an abortion, especially a late-term abortion, for the hell of it — one gets an abortion because she has decided that undergoing an emotionally trying and painful procedure has greater benefits to both her and the fetus than carrying the baby to term.

This particular bill targets women who are most in need, as women who are likely to seek later-term abortions are usually young and low-income. Data from the Guttmacher Institute indicates that nearly 60 percent of women were forced to delay their abortions due to financial and logistical constraints, and 58 percent of women wished they had undergone the procedure earlier in their pregnancy.

From The New York Times:

Representatives Diana DeGette of Colorado and Louise M. Slaughter of New York, Democrats who are the chairwomen of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, said the bill was another attempt by Republicans to erect barriers to medical care for women.

Prohibiting most abortions 20 weeks after fertilization would run counter to the Supreme Court’s standard of fetal viability, which is generally put at 22 to 24 weeks after fertilization.

“Every woman has a constitutional right to make health care choices in the manner she sees fit, and everyone in America should see this cynical attempt to seize control from women for what it is,” Ms. DeGette and Ms. Slaughter said in a statement on Tuesday.

Let’s get this straight: Republicans want to restrict abortions, but they also want to make it harder for women to access birth control. There are few things more dystopian than a state where women are left powerless to make their own reproductive decisions, but at least there’s a glimmer of hope: In January, the White House stated that President Obama would veto a bill like this one. Uteruses around the country salute you, Obama! (No, not like that.)

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House Republicans do their part to commemorate National Women’s Health Week

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Texas doesn’t give a damn about your reproductive rights

by ChantalBaile Posted on May 13, 2015

Texas doesn’t give a damn about your reproductive rights

By on 13 May 2015commentsShare

For National Women’s Health Week, we’ll be highlighting women’s health issues in the United States.

Hello! We’re here with your daily reminder that reproductive rights remain regularly challenged here in the United States, which we often mistakenly consider one of the most advanced countries in the world. And also that, as a country made up of very different states that are each uniquely weird and awful in their own ways, the experience of trying to get reproductive healthcare as a woman in America is wildly variable.

Which brings us to Texas. To start: Allow me say that it’s so easy to shit on Texas that I just refuse to engage in it on principle. Fine — it’s the state that brought us both the Bushes and Ashlee Simpson. But it’s also home to many people who are forced to live with its terrible policies without having any say in them, so I’m not going to insult them by lumping them in with a bunch of old crotchety dunderheads in Austin.

A recent study from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that 55 percent of women surveyed across the state encountered some sort of barrier to accessing reproductive healthcare. That’s the majority of women in one of the most populous states in the country.

From the Texas Tribune:

Affordability, insurance issues and a lack of nearby providers were among the top barriers women reported facing between 2011 and 2014, according to the study, which included 779 women between the ages of 18 and 49. And young, low-income women with less education — particularly Spanish-speaking Hispanic women who were born in Mexico — faced the most barriers to reproductive services.

And today, as a cherry on top of the Hell Sundae that is the Texas woman’s experience of trying to exercise her reproductive rights, a bill that would restrict minors’ and immigrants’ access to abortions will be put to the vote in the Texas House of Representatives. This bill would further complicate and lengthen the already nightmarish process of attempting to get an abortion without parental consent.

From Houston Press:

Under [this] bill, girls seeking an abortion would have to prove “mental or emotional injury to a child that results in an observable and material impairment in the child’s growth, development, or psychological functioning,” and, “physical injury that results in substantial harm from physical injury to the child.

“Quite literally, this would require some teenage girls to be beaten before they can obtain an abortion,” [Susan] Hays [legal director for Jane’s Due Process] says.

The bill also requires the provision of a government ID to obtain an abortion.

Let’s all take a moment for Texas, and allow Tami Taylor* to comfort us with her marvelous voice, magical hair, and monumental wisdom:

*Connie Britton, the actress who played Tami Taylor on Friday Night Lights, is an outspoken supporter of reproductive rights in Texas.

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Texas doesn’t give a damn about your reproductive rights

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It’s time to panic. Olives are in big trouble

by ukiczp43 Posted on May 13, 2015

It’s time to panic. Olives are in big trouble

By on 13 May 2015commentsShare

It’s a hard time to be an olive. After a rash of terrible weather in 2014 and an actual plague of fruit flies, the latest blight to hit the iconic, enigmatic fruit is an actual blight. From the New York Times:

“It is devastating,” said Enzo Manni, the director of ACLI-Racale, an olive cooperative in the heart of the outbreak area. “It is apocalyptic. I compare it to an earthquake.”

Today, scientists estimate that one million olive trees in the peninsula, known as the Salento, are infected with the bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, a figure that could rise rapidly.

The bacterium is an invasive species that has already taken down citrus trees in Brazil and vineyards in California. The omnivorous pest is now eating its way through the olive-rich “heel” of Italy, which means the rest of us will have a harder time doing so. Olives, like California’s much maligned almond trees, are slow-growing, which means they are an expensive investment up front.

In southern Salento, growers are alarmed but determined to learn how to adapt to the presence of the bacterium. It takes seven years or longer for a new tree to begin producing olives, and farmers were initially furious at reports that the European Commission wanted to cut down a million or more trees, and possibly even healthy plants in proximity.

Growers note that about 10 percent of all olive trees in the southern part of the province are infected — meaning that about 10 million trees are still thought to be healthy.

This is a major threat to the way of life of many families that have been farming olives for generations, but it’s also bad news for anyone who likes to eat well, without putting an undue burden on the planet.

Olive oil is delicious, drinkable, liquid gold — it is also vegan. I firmly believe it is one of the major reasons that Italians get away with eating so many plants (yes, pasta counts) and relatively little meat. When you can eat bread sopped in the ambrosial, green nectar of the gods, as far as I’m concerned, dinner is served.

Source:
Fear of Ruin as Disease Takes Hold of Italy’s Olive Trees

, New York Times.

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It’s time to panic. Olives are in big trouble

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No, really, your birth control is supposed to be free now

by StewartDiehl Posted on May 11, 2015

put a (nuva) ring on it

No, really, your birth control is supposed to be free now

By on 11 May 2015commentsShare

For National Women’s Health Week, we’ll be highlighting women’s health issues in the United States.

Let’s play an American history game: Where Were You when you realized that the Affordable Care Act really, actually meant that you wouldn’t have to pay a copay for your birth control?

For me, it was a Walgreens on the north end of Seattle in February 2014, staring dumbfoundedly at a pharmacist who assured me that no, really, there was no charge for those pills.

This was a very happy moment, but one that not all privately insured, contraception-using women have had yet — which is really not OK. So new White House regulations, just issued today, will firmly remind health insurers that, yes, they are required to provide birth control to women at no cost.

Why is this reminder necessary? Vox reports:

Two recent investigations — one by the Kaiser Family Foundation and another by the National Women’s Law Center — found that not all insurance plans were abiding by these rules.

Some insurers seemed to blatantly disregard the Obamacare mandate. The KFF study — which looked at a sample of 20 insurers in five states — found one that simply didn’t cover the birth control ring and four that “couldn’t ascertain” whether they covered birth control implants. These are potential violations of the law.

This is really not complicated: Provide free, easy-to-get birth control, and women’s lives will universally improve. Fail to do so, and life becomes an Amy Schumer sketch — but way less fun. The birth control mandate of the Affordable Care Act has already had real, positive effects on women’s access to contraception. The percentages of privately insured women who have had no copays on their birth control have increased dramatically — in the case of birth control pills, for example, from 15 percent to 67 percent.

Basically, insurance companies, like surly teens, just need to be constantly reminded of what they’re supposed to do. If yours isn’t cooperating, call it every day until it does — or, alternatively, until it lashes out and gets a small, regrettable ankle tattoo.

Source:
The White House just got aggressive enforcing Obamacare’s birth control mandate

, Vox.

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No, really, your birth control is supposed to be free now

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The oldest city in the U.S. could be totally screwed by rising seas

by CortneyJSWB Posted on May 11, 2015

The oldest city in the U.S. could be totally screwed by rising seas

By on 11 May 2015commentsShare

Rising seas are about to engulf the oldest city in the U.S., and it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to do anything about it. That’s because the city of St. Augustine happens to be in Florida, where pythons roam free, Mickey Mouse is king, and climate change doesn’t exist.

St. Augustine is home to Spanish explorer Ponce de Lyon’s Fountain of Youth, an old military fortress, and — like any respectable historical site — plenty of brick roads and old-ass buildings. The 450-year-old national landmark also happens to be one of many cities along Florida’s coast getting increasingly worried about rising seas — a curious trend, given the state’s exemption from a certain global phenomenon.

To figure out what the state plans to do about these mysterious rising seas, Associated Press reporters sifted through thousands of state documents and emails. Here’s what they found:

Despite warnings from water experts and climate scientists about risks to cities and drinking water, skepticism over sea level projections and climate change science has hampered planning efforts at all levels of government, the records showed. Florida’s environmental agencies under [Gov. Rick] Scott have been downsized and retooled, making them less effective at coordinating sea level rise planning in the state, the documents showed.

“If I were governor, I’d be out there talking about it (sea level rise) every day,” said Eric Buermann, the former general counsel to the Republican Party of Florida who also served as a water district governing board member. “I think he’s really got to grab ahold of this, set a vision, a long-term vision, and rally the people behind it. Unless you’re going to build a sea wall around South Florida, what’s the plan?”

What’s the plan, indeed, Gov. Scott? The AP found that local officials in St. Augustine and elsewhere are trying to adapt to rising seas but are pretty much on their own:

Cities like St. Augustine have looked for help, but Scott’s disregard for climate change science has created a culture of fear among state employees, records show.

The administration has been adamant that employees, including scientists, not “assign cause” in public statements about global warming or sea level rise, internal government emails show.

For example, an April 28, 2014, email approving a DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] scientist’s request to participate in a National Geographic story came with a warning: “Approved. Make no claims as to cause … stay with the research you are doing, of course,” the DEP manager, Pamela Phillips, warned.

“I know the drill,” responded Mike Shirley, manager of the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve near St. Augustine.

Agency spokeswoman Engel said Phillips was a lower-level staffer whose views didn’t necessarily reflect the entire administration. When asked whether staffers are told not to assign cause, Scott’s office said “the allegations are not true.”

Bigger cities like Tampa and Miami are also up shit creek without a state-issued paddle. According to the AP, South Miami is so worried that it called for the southern half of Florida to secede from the rest of the state, leaving its northern brethren to their own self-destructive devices.

In a place like St. Augustine, rising sea levels will certainly wreak less economic havoc than in a big city like Miami, but wouldn’t the loss of America’s oldest city mean something? Is a band ever the same after losing its original lead?

Source:
Sea rise threatens Florida coast, but no statewide plan

, The Associated Press.

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The oldest city in the U.S. could be totally screwed by rising seas

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Creeper Rand Paul Staffer Licks Camera Lens at Town Hall Event

by FlynnStahl Posted on May 11, 2015

Mother Jones

Rand Paul is frequently dubbed the most interesting man in politics, but one of his staffers is apparently attempting to best the Republican presidential candidate for the dubious distinction. In the case of David Chesley, Paul’s political director in New Hampshire, however, “interesting” may be generous. Straight up bizarre is more like it.

An innocent tracker was recording video for a town hall event today, when Chesley, a bald middle-aged man, started bobbing his head directly in front of the camera, taking up the entire field of vision. After a few seconds of bobbing—perhaps pondering his next disruptive move—he opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and licked the lens.

Yes, lick.

The campaign has not yet explained why the man who is charged with helping Paul win the key state to New Hampshire did this. But frankly, who cares. Watch the incident below:

From: 

Creeper Rand Paul Staffer Licks Camera Lens at Town Hall Event

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People can’t get enough of Tesla’s new batteries

by RondaMoonlight Posted on May 8, 2015

People can’t get enough of Tesla’s new batteries

By on 8 May 2015commentsShare

World’s chillest billionaire Elon Musk announced this week that demand for his new energy storage devices is “crazy off-the-hook.”

According to Bloomberg Business, Musk’s new home- and utility-scale battery business, Tesla Energy, has already received about $800 million in reservations — an impressive number, given that Musk just unveiled Tesla Energy a week ago. But Bloomberg warns that, for now, it’s just a number:

Before anyone gets too excited, it’s important to note the biggest caveat: reservations don’t necessarily convert to sales. That’s especially true for the home storage batteries sold under the name Powerwall. Anyone can go online and place a reservation, years in advance, with no money down and no commitment to buy. To reserve a Tesla Model X vehicle, by contrast, requires $5,000 up front. Tesla declined to clarify what constitutes a “reservation” for a business or utility-scale project.

Still, the buzz is encouraging. Since the whole point of Tesla Energy is, essentially, to hurry us to the day we can all live in a solar-powered utopia, it’s good to know that the demand for said utopia is high enough to sell out these new batteries through mid-2016. (To their credit, utility companies have also been working on better batteries; they just haven’t had much success — they also lack the charisma of Musk, a.k.a. the real life Iron Man.)

Here’s a taste of what that $800 million number includes:

The Powerwall home batteries designed to be paired with rooftop solar systems received 38,000 reservations, according to Musk’s comments during Wednesday’s earnings call.
Some customers order more than one battery, with an average reservation amounting to somewhere from 1.5 to two batteries. Musk described the total demand as “more like 50,000 or 60,000” batteries in early reservations. Let’s call it 55,000 batteries.
The Powerwall comes in two designs sold at different prices: $3,000 and $3,500 each. Let’s split the difference: $3,250 apiece.
Total Powerwall Orders So Far: $178.8 million.

[…]

Musk said the company has received 2,500 reservations for the commercial-scale batteries and that the typical installation comes with “at least 10 Powerpacks.” So that’s 25,000 units totaling 2.5 million kilowatt hours.
Musk used Twitter last week to disclose pricing for the Powerpack at $250 per kilowatt hour.
Total Powerpack Orders So Far: $625 million.

So most of the money has actually come from the commercial market. According to Bloomberg, Tesla has so far been working with Target, Amazon, Southern California Electrdic, and the Texas-based utility OnCor.

With such high demand, Musk said, Tesla could easily devote its entire Gigafactory — slated to open sometime next year, ahead of its original 2017 goal — to the storage devices. Unfortunately, he said, the company already promised two-thirds of the facility to electric vehicle batteries.

“We should try to make the factory bigger,” he added — probably with a wry smile and nonchalant shrug.

A bigger factory sounds great, Elon, but maybe keep the name Gigafactory — Yottafactory just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Source:
Tesla’s Battery Grabbed $800 Million in Its First Week

, Bloomberg Business.

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People can’t get enough of Tesla’s new batteries

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Look At the Stuff You Can Buy in Rand Paul’s Online Store

by JurgenCisco Posted on April 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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

While GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has a tough road to the nomination, in one area, he may already be the winner: campaign merchandise. Today, the Paul campaign unveiled an expansive online store with a variety of items, ranging from the goofy to the inspired to the downright hideous. There is no denying it: Rand Paul means business. Here’s the best of what he has to offer:

Eye Chart

Rand Paul Store

Rand Paul is an eye doctor by training, and he’s continued to practice since becoming a senator. This sign, retailing for $20.16, should be a hit with Rand fans. “Professionally, he has corrected the vision of thousands and now will do the same thing in the White House,” the page says. “And we’re not talking about a new prescription for President Obama.” (Burn!)

Bag Toss Game

Rand Paul Store

“Bag toss game,” also known as cornhole, is a treasured past-time among the collar-popping College Republicans who are some of Paul’s most enthusiastic supporters. Look for this soon on a college campus near you. Boat shoes apparently not included, though you can score Rand beer koozies to go with it—six for $25!

Ladies Constitution Burnout Tee

Rand Paul Store

“Every fashionable Constitutional conservative needs this ladies fashion burnout tee,” the site proclaims. Good luck getting burned out on the Constitution if you’re wearing it. Unless you burn the shirt. But you shouldn’t do that. (It’s $40.)

Rand Paul Beats Headphone Skins

Rand Paul Store

Beats by Rand: No need to know what the kids are listening to when you are what the kids are listening to. With these $20 headphone “skins,” Paul may have just won the vote of every conservative with a $300 pair of headphones.

The Real Rand Woven Blanket

Rand Paul Store

This could be perceived as a craven play to stake out the GOP’s cuddle caucus. “It might be fun to have Rand in your living room at night engaging in deep discussions about objectivism, libertarianism, conservatism and a few other isms,” the site says. (Easy now, tiger.) For $75, you’ll have to settle for this.

NSA Spy Cam Blocker

Rand Paul Store

Admittedly, this is an extremely on-brand item for Rand. He will literally shield you from the prying eyes of the NSA while you “browse Facebook.” Of course, there is a very low chance the NSA is using your webcam to spy on you, unless you’ve ordered an Islamic State travel guide or have a few too many Yemeni passport stamps. Also to consider: the “spy cam blocker” has already been endorsed by InfoWars.

Rand Macbook Skin

Rand Paul Store

So you have a MacBook—congratulations. You are very cool. For $20, though, you can be even cooler. With this.

Stand With Rand Car Mats

Rand Paul Store

Stand With Rand is all over the Rand store, and this is a nice application of the clever slogan. But the suggestion that one stand with both feet on the mat, while driving, is a dangerous one. If you must, you should Sit with Rand.

Whether or not anyone actually buys any of these things, it’s pretty clear the Rand Paul merchandise team’s launch was a slam dunk compared to the Rand Paul digital strategy team’s launch. Check out some of the banners they made for people to use as avatars on Facebook:

Get those guys a bag toss set, stat.

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Look At the Stuff You Can Buy in Rand Paul’s Online Store

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