Monthly Archives: February 2011

Guardian.co.uk coverage of the Middle East

The Guardian News Blog has committed substantial resources to covering developments not only in Egypt, but in every country where popular sentiment for change has made itself known. Here’s one  excerpt from the last hour or so (times are, we think, GMT):

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers remarks on the current situation in Egypt“We’ve been very clear from the beginning that we do not want to see any violence. We deplore it. We think it is absolutely unacceptable,” Clinton told the ABC News program This Week, according to a transcript released by the network. She stopped short of calling for regime change.
“We very much want to see the human rights of the people protected, including right to assemble, right to express themselves, and we want to see reform,” Clinton said. “And so Bahrain had started on some reform, and we want to see them get back to that as quickly as possible.”

 

Egypt, Wisconsin – It's the Economy, Stupid

Image of the James home

The James home, Knoxville Biz.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is trying to stimulate the economy by eliminating corporate income taxes and regulations on businesses and cutting taxes on wealthy people (click here or here). These kinds of activities do stimulate GDP.  Here’s how.

Wealthy people, like Lindsay Lohan, Brittney Spears, Mel Gibson, and Charlie Sheen have people, including paparazzi and media people following them around.  That costs money. They do things in a spectacular way,  and when they do stupid things in a spectacular way they have lawyers get them out of trouble. Economists call this “multipliers.” The lawyers, paparazzi and media folks need to eat, sleep, rent hotel rooms, etc. And they don’t camp out and chow down on toast, water, and dried fruits and nuts. Celebrities often require high powered consultants from the sex and pharmaceuticals industries.  When they trigger rapid increases in the entropy of hotel rooms, by “trashing” them, carpenters, electricians, decorators, architects and others need be hired to restore the room – all this costs money, and stimulates GDP.

When regulations are lax or eliminated businesses regulate themselves.  This stimulates GDP.  Consider the recent GDP stimulus of Wall Street, when those now-legendary credit default swaps raised real estate values (until they crashed). Similarly, when industries are releived of the burden of environmental regulations, they create products which increase GDP and pollution which is not counted in GDP.  When the pollution is cleaned up, at taxpayer expense, the GDP again increases. We see this dramatically in Tennessee, at the site of the Kingston Steam Plant. When a flood released 1.2 billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge from the coal-fired power plant, December, 22, 2008, the cleanup costs were added to the bills of the people who buy power from the TVA.
Continue reading →

Bernie Madoff, Richard Feynman, and The Financial Crisis

Bernie Madoff

Bernie Madoff - In Prison

Interviewed in prison, Bernie Madoff asserted that banks and hedge funds were “complicit” in his elaborate fraud. Diana Henriques, writing in the NY Times, 2/15/11, (here) said “Madoff described as ‘willful blindness’ their failure to examine discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information,” Quoting Madoff, “They had to know. But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.’ ”

Look at this in the context of the the Financial Crisis. The bi-partisan committee on the financial crisis, FiscalCommission.Gov,  released its findings on Thursday, 27, January, 2011.  The Commission, I think, got this one right. The financial crisis could have been avoided.  This thirty-year economic experiment in de-regulation, which started under President Reagan, has proven that self-regulation doesn’t work; the government must regulate the financial industry. The foxes can’t guard the henhouse. Continue reading →

Trunk Organizer/Storage Bin – usable as go-bag/jump bag from Lee Valley Tools

Lee Valley is offering this Trunk Organizer/Storage Bin for only $13.50 (USD).  My personal experience with Lee Valley has always been good.

Lee Valley Trunk Organizer/Storage Bin

From Lee Valley’s description:

This is a product anyone can use. We designed this soft-sided interpretation of the ubiquitous milk crate after finding similar products to be overpriced or poorly executed. This one has hinged rigid panels to give the sidewalls support, while allowing the two-compartment container to collapse into a compact 3″ thick bundle, making it easy to store (and easy for us to ship!).

Made from a tough woven polyester, it has padded handles and piped edges, and measures 23-1/2″x13″x7-1/2″ when open. The coated interior surface helps to contain any spills, and makes it easy to clean. It is ideal for use in a car or truck, holding all sorts of items to keep them from sliding or rolling around as you drive, particularly for keeping grocery bags upright. In the home, it?s as useful as a basket for both storage and transport of anything from woodshop offcuts to children?s toys.

via Trunk Organizer/Storage Bin – Lee Valley Tools.

Some caveats: There’s no lid, so it’s either got to end up on the top of things – or at least without anything on top of it.  On the  other hand – for quick hauling of anything – perhaps to and from a  vehicle, or other hastily assembled packages, one or more might do well kept in their folded state.  My calculations suggest about 2291 cubic inches; corrections or confirmations from readers welcome.

And here are some additional images:

Bob Hennelly/WNYC's "Stucknation: 911 Off the Hook"

In Stucknation: 911 Off the Hook, WNYC’s Bob Hennelly outlines the current problems – basic problems – with the nation’s 911 emergency telephone reporting/dispatch systems in coping with the proliferation of mobile phones:

Almost a decade after the attacks of September 11th the nation’s most essential emergency local lifeline — 911 — remains a local patchwork of antiquated technology vulnerable to failure when people need it most.

In 2010 the Congressional Research Service, CSR, reported the nation’s underlying 911 local call systems “operate exclusively on an analog technology using an architecture of circuits and switches” that date back to when ATT was the “regulated monopoly providing most of the nation’s phone service.”

That monopoly was broken up in 1984, 27 years ago. As we know, digital technology and cell phones have been dominant for years.

Yet even now, CSR finds 911 systems across the country are “unable to accommodate the latest advances in telecommunications technology and are increasingly out-dated, costly to maintain, and in danger of failure.”

Consider the tragic case of the Virginia Tech students in 2007 caught up in that grisly mass shooting. Many thought they could text 911. They could not. And yet even today the overwhelming number of Americans cannot text 911. The college kids must have thought that surely, by 2007, the grown-ups would have figured out how to make that possible and made it happen. Continue reading →

Google Chrome – Get a fast new browser. For PC, Mac, and Linux

Google Chrome – Get a fast new browser. For PC, Mac, and Linux.

Pacific Disaster Center Active Hazards Widget

Widget to display PDC Active Hazards

  • Retrieves latest active Hazards from the Pacific Disaster Center.
  • Rows are colored based on severity (refer to CSS).
  • Can change the widget title.
  • Can opt to show 1, 3, 5, 10, or all active Hazards.
  • Each Hazard is hyperlinked to the public information drop-zone.
  • Does not auto-refresh; reads XML from PDC on each page load.
Author: Steve Kunitzer (FesterHead)
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* Helicopter Rope Suspension Technique – Wikipedia

* Helicopter Rope Suspension Technique

[edit] References

1. ? [1]

2. ? FMFM 7-40 Helicopter Rope Suspension Training (HRST) Operations

3. ? Bruce F. Meyers, Fortune Favors the Brave: The Story of First Force Recon, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000).

via Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction – Wikipedia.

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Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction – Wikipedia

The Special Personnel Insertion/Extraction was first designed by the Marines of 1st Force Reconnaissance Company, the Marine division’s 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing riggers. They created and combat tested several versions of the SPIE before it was officially recommended to be tested. In May 1970, the commanding general of 3rd Marine Amphibious Force coordinated input from the 1st Marine Division and his 1st Marine Air Wing. A request was sent to the Commandant of the Marine Corps and to the Development Center for certification of the SPIE rig and to its safety and use.[3]

The parachute test jumpers of the Naval Parachute Unit (NPU) and Marine Corps, all qualified parachutist designers and engineers, assembled together at El Centro for the initial testing and evaluation of the SPIE rig. After a few test dummies were tried, Marine Major Bruce F. Meyers, and along with four Navy NPU parachutist engineers, successfully attempted the first flight on the SPIE assembly.

[edit] See also

* Helicopter Rope Suspension Technique

[edit] References

1. ? [1]

2. ? FMFM 7-40 Helicopter Rope Suspension Training (HRST) Operations

3. ? Bruce F. Meyers, Fortune Favors the Brave: The Story of First Force Recon, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000).

[edit] External links

* Media related to Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction at Wikimedia Commons

via Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction – Wikipedia.

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Fulton system in use

The Fulton system in use from below

The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system (STARS) is a system used by the CIA, United States Air Force and United States Navy for retrieving persons on the ground from an MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft. It involves using an overall-type harness and a self-inflating balloon which carries an attached lift line. An MC-130E engages the line with its V-shaped yoke and the individual is reeled on board. Red flags on the lift line guide the pilot during daylight recoveries; lights on the lift line are used for night recoveries. Recovery kits were designed for one and two-man retrievals.

This system was developed by inventor Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. for the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1950s. It was an evolution from a similar system that was used during World War II by American and British forces. The earlier system did not use a balloon, but had a pair of poles that were set in the ground on either side of the person to be retrieved, with a line running from the top of one pole to the other. An aircraft, usually a C-47 Skytrain, would trail a grappling hook and engage the line, which was attached to the person to be retrieved.

via Fulton surface-to-air recovery system – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

File:Airborne wind generator-en.svg – Wikimedia Commons

File:Airborne wind generator-en.svgAirborne_wind_generator-en.svg? SVG file, nominally 720 × 720 pixels, file size: 46 KBThis image rendered as PNG in other sizes: 200px, 500px, 1000px, 2000px.[edit] SummaryDescription Airborne wind generator-en.svgEnglish: Helium or hydrogen inflated airborne wind generator. Unit is 17 m by 9 m.

via File:Airborne wind generator-en.svg – Wikimedia Commons.

MIT Mobility Lab's "Leveraged Freedom Chair" (Core 77, BoingBoing)

This open-source tech, constructed with bicycle parts, is designed so that it can be constructed for under $100 USD.

3rd Gen Leveraged Freedom Chair - MIT Mobility Labs

 

Link to Cory Doctorow’s piece, Wheelchair for the developing world: cheap, rugged and easy to maintain, on BoingBoing.

The Core77 Article: Case Study: Leveraged Freedom Chair, by Amos Winter and Jake Child.

The Freedom Chair’s own website.

The MIT Mobility Lab site.

Using oysters for remediation of rivers

Architect Kate Orff:

sees the oyster as an agent of urban change. Bundled into beds and sunk into city rivers, oysters slurp up pollution and make legendarily dirty waters clean — thus driving even more innovation in “oyster-tecture.” Orff shares her vision for an urban landscape that links nature and humanity for mutual benefit.

Video here: Kate Orff: Reviving New York’s rivers with oysters (TEDTalks)

 

Kate Orff is, among other things, Director of The Urban Landscape Lab.

Reflective Clothing from RAF

Reflective Apparel Factory makes OSHA/ANSI compliant clothing, has what look like pretty competitive prices – and takes the trouble to explain most of the OSHA/ANSI standards on its website.  We’re not sure whether the rules  apply – but here in New York, I’ve had a number of conversations about the failure of delivered-food restaurants to give their delivery workes (usually on bicycles, or mopeds) reflective clothing and fit the vehicles and foodcontaners with Reflexite or Scotchlite.  My guess is that those workers don’t have a lot of bargaining power to spare.

Back to RAF – as we try to provide more information about responder gear characteristics, performance, and pricing, we’ll have more to say.  But Reflective Apparel Factory seems a good resource. They’ll sell single units, don’t engage in the dodge of declining to post prices – a practice, which while legal, should give purchasers pause – and the prices seem quite reasonable, and the range of garments and sizes pretty good.  Certainly worth a look for anyone planning a CERT  or SAR team.