Solar Boats – up to 60 passengers and 11 knots in Europe; NYC ferry service suspended

The Swiss Firm MW Line makes solar boats that are ferrying people around lakes and rivers in Switzerland, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The only backup power, apparently, is on-shore charging from the grid. They’re also the shipbuilder for the PlanetSolar project which plans to have a solar-only craft in the water ready for a two-person, 120-day around-the-world trip in 2009. bateau-vectoriel.png

isoview1.jpgThe New York Times reported on January 4th that New York Water Taxi, the only operator of Queens/Manhattan and Brooklyn/Manhattan ferry service has cancelled service for the winter – largely because of fuel price increases. That notwithstanding a monthly subsidy from the real estate developers who established Schaefer’s Landing, a high-end project in Williamsburgh. A ferry powered by photovoltaic cells wouldn’t be directly affected, if at all, by petroleum price increases. Given the relatively short distances involved, on-board solar panels and batteries could be supplemented with electricity dockside. If that electricity is generated via wind (often best captured on or near water) or solar, ferry operating costs could be insulated from petroleum price fluctuations.

After violent clash, New Orleans Council Votes to raze public housing

Adam Nossiter and Leslie Eaton reported last week in the Times that:

After protesters clashed violently with the police inside and outside the New Orleans City Council chambers on Thursday, the Council voted unanimously to allow the federal government to demolish 4,500 apartments in the four biggest public housing projects here.


Advocates for public housing residents contended that HUD plan would not provide housing for all of the 3,000 families who lived in the projects before Katrina, almost all of them black.

The Council also called on the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reopen some apartments in the closed projects immediately and to rebuild all of the public housing units that it bulldozes. The agency plans to replace barracks-style projects, known as “the bricks,” with mixed-income developments.

“We need affordable housing in this city,” said Shelley Stephenson Midura, a Council member who proposed the resolution that was adopted. But, she added, “public housing ought not to be the warehouse for the poor.”

Advocates for public housing residents contended that the agency’s plan would not provide enough housing for the 3,000 families who lived in the projects before Hurricane Katrina, almost all of them black. Many of them have not been able to return to the city, and some protesters said they were being deliberately excluded from New Orleans.

“The issue is and the question remains, who’s in the mix,” said the Rev. Torin T. Sanders, pastor of the Sixth Baptist Church, referring to the plan for mixed-income housing. He and other speakers at the four-hour hearing before the vote said past redevelopment efforts had shut out most public housing residents.

The city’s shortage of low-cost housing was only going to get worse in the coming months, as the federal government tried to move more than 30,000 people out of government-owned trailers, said Courtney Cowart, strategic director of disaster response for the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana.

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Death on the Marathon – Risk of dying is twice as high when driving

Marathons may save lives by reducing automobile traffic:

Worried about dropping dead if you run a marathon? Researchers in Canada say you can put your mind at ease. The risk of dying on a marathon course is twice as high if you drive it than if you run it, they find.

In fact, they conclude, marathons may actually save lives: more people would die in traffic accidents if the race course had not been closed to vehicles on marathon day. (Nor was there any spillover of extra deaths on alternative routes.) Their paper is being published Friday in The British Medical Journal.

“For each death in a marathon, two motor-vehicle crash deaths were averted,” said Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and the lead author of the new study. “It’s riskier if you decide to drive your car around on a Sunday morning than if you go out and run.”

As might be expected, marathon directors were pleased.

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At funeral, Mayor Giuliani calls cop a "hero;" in court proceedings, city claims officer caused his own death

We hold police officers to high standards of conduct – not least being truthful about bad outcomes that arise from their work. Part of the bargain ought to be that, in return, the government be equally frank towards police officers – and a high level of care in training and equipping them.

As a citizen, I think it’s difficult to demand high standards of conduct from the police when their employer – the City – treats them shabbily.

When Officer John M. Kelly crashed his police car during a chase on Staten Island in 2000, thousands of officers attended his funeral, where Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared: “John Kelly is a hero. Nobody can take that away.”

Officer Kelly’s wife, Patricia M. Kelly, a police officer herself before retiring in 2000, has been trying for years to show that her husband’s supervisors knowingly sent him on patrol in an unsuitable car, something the department denies.

city lawyers have argued that Officer Kelly caused his own death

Her lawyers have obtained documents showing that highway officers had reported steering problems in the model and a similar one.

In stark contrast to the mayor’s words at the funeral, city lawyers have argued that Officer Kelly caused his own death by driving recklessly and failing to use his seat belt. After years of litigation, Ms. Kelly has been denied in her efforts to question all the officers who had evaluated the cars.

Officer John Kelly patrolled the north shore of Staten Island for an auto larceny unit. He won high marks for his driving skills, vehicle maintenance, career potential and general demeanor.

“Officer Kelly reserves his action until he has assessed the situation completely,” his supervisors wrote in a year-end review for 1999. “He considers all aspects and develops a sound judgment of the situation.”

Still, there was friction between the extended family and the department. Mrs. Kelly’s sister, Virginia Duffy, joined a broad federal lawsuit accusing the department of sexual harassment and retaliation. The city eventually settled those claims for about $1.85 million awarded to six current or former officers.

On the afternoon of July 17, 2000, Officer John Kelly was assigned to patrol for traffic offenders. Alone in his car, an unmarked 1999 Chevy Lumina, he called in the license plate of a passing motorcycle, learned it had been stolen and gave chase. On Gulf Avenue in the Bloomfield section, he veered into a utility pole. Officer Kelly, 31, was pronounced dead within hours.

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Privacy v The Professional Competency of an Addict

Thousands of physicians practice while in rehab, according to Associated Press, covered in Wired . Should they be out on disability?

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Troubling cases in which doctors were accused of botching operations while undergoing treatment for drugs or alcohol have led to criticism of rehab programs that allow thousands of U.S. physicians to keep their addictions hidden from their patients.

Nearly all states have confidential rehab programs that let doctors continue practicing as long as they stick with the treatment regimen. Nationwide, as many as 8,000 doctors may be in such programs….

Now some high school math: According toPhysician Executive, July August, 2005, quoted on BNET Research,on average Primary Care physicians in the U. S. see 85 patients per week. If a doctor sees 85 patients per week, and sees patients 42 weeks per year, allowing time off to play golf, attend conferences, and take vacations, he or she sees 3,570 per year. For 8,000 doctors, that adds up to 28.56 million people per year. The story continues …

These arrangements largely escaped public scrutiny until … California’s medical board outraged physicians across the country by abolishing its … program. A review concluded that the system failed to protect patients or help addicted doctors get better .

Opponents of such programs say the medical establishment uses confidential treatment to protect dangerous physicians.

“Patients have no way to protect themselves from these doctors,” said Julie Fellmeth, who heads the University of San Diego’s Center for Public Interest Law and led the opposition to California’s so-called diversion program.

Most addiction specialists favor allowing doctors to continue practicing while in confidential treatment, as does the American Medical Association.

Supporters of such programs say that cases in which patients are harmed by doctors in treatment are extremely rare, and would pale next to the havoc that could result if physicians had no such option.

Because these events are “rare” doesn’t mean they are acceptable.If “rare” translates to one in 1 million, that’s 29 events per year. Not a lot in a population of 300 million, but too many if you or your child is one of the 29 people. But what is “rare”? One in one million? One in ten thousand? What is the the rate of medical malpractice due to addiction?What is the rate due to operating or practicing medicine while intoxicated?

According to Injury Board, a Medical Malpractice law firm, “a study by Health Grades reports 575,000 preventable deaths /were/ caused by medical errors over a three year period …”

As a patient, I see a physician when I am sick. I want, expect, and am paying for the advice of a competent expert on a potentially life threatening situation.

Perhaps physicians with addictions should be granted some disability compensation while they undergo treatment. It could be bundled with their disability or malpractice insurance – which seems reasonable, if you view addiction as a disability, and given that it also seems reasonable to expect to see a causal relationship between addiction and malpractice.

 

FDNY: Rope device saves firefighters life — amNY.com

Good news from one of our local fire companies, Ladder 102:

From A.M N.Y. Newsday:

Nearly three years after two New York City firefighters jumped from a burning building and plunged to their deaths, a 24-year FDNY veteran Monday became the first to use a widely hailed safety device to escape from a Bro klyn house fire that almost engulfed him. Raymond Pollard, 50, of Brooklyn, rappelled away from searing flames that had trapped him near a fourth-floor window of an apartment building on Willoughby Avenue, fire officials said. The fire was reported at 3:41 a.m. Pollard drove the second unit to arrive at the scene, Ladder Company 102 from Bedford Avenue.

Within 10 minutes, officials said, Pollard broke three fourth-floor windows facing the street and entered the building to look for occupants.

When he moved to the hallway, fire surged up the stairway and over his head, blocking his exit. He moved to the next room, where the fire forced him to retreat to the window.

“Just as the fire was blowing over his head, he took the hook out and jammed it into the windowsill” said Stephen Raynis, safety command battalion chief.

Pollard rappelled two feet below the ledge and firefighters slid a bucket ladder towards him and lowered him to safety, Raynis said.

Around 5:50 a.m., the roof collapsed onto the fourth floor.

Pollard, who declined to be interviewed, was treated for second-degree burns on his left hand at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, officials said. Three other firefighters suffered minor injuries.

The emergency device, called a personal safety system, was developed by FDNY members in the wake of the deaths of Lt. Curtis Meyran and firefighter John Bellew, who jumped from a window of a burning Bronx building in January 2005, when they could not find the fire escape. Four other firefighters who also leapt from that building were critically injured.

The lifesaving invention consists of a forged aluminum anchor hook that can penetrate brick, a 50-foot rope, a descending device operated by a trigger, a carabiner, and a waist belt with leg loops.

Since January 2006, it has been distributed to about 11,500 FDNY members, including all 8,500 firefighters, officials said.

Fire marshals deemed the fire suspicious and are investigating.

Laura Rivera, Newsday/A.M. N.Y. , “FDNY: Rope device saves firefighters life“

This is what the system looks like:

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Image via All Hands Safety.

If you’re in need of an explanation – Lindsay Beyerstein has already supplied it here

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Man Apes Squirrel

Jeb Corliss is one of a number of people competing to be the first person to jump out of a plane without a parachute:

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All of this is technically possible,” said Jean Potvin, a physics professor at Saint Louis University and skydiver who performs parachute research for the Army. But he acknowledged a problem: “The thing I’m not sure of is your margins in terms of safety, or likelihood to crash.”

*Flying Squirrel gallery after the jump …* Continue reading →

United Nations headquarters complied with New York fire code – during Eisenhower Administration

But not since the Eisenhower Administration. Now, 55 years later, Marjorie Bloomberg Tiven – the mayor’s sister and the city’s chief of diplomatic protocol, has persuaded the United Nations to do the right thing:

In January, the city’s Fire Department found 866 violations of the fire code. By October, less than 20 percent of the violations had been addressed. (Because of concerns about possible terrorist attacks, Ms. Tiven will not be more specific about the violations.)

The U.N. took 9 months to allow a fire inspection

In an Oct. 30 letter, drafted by Ms. Tiven’s office and signed by the mayor, the city demanded that the United Nations provide proof of, among other things, a fire safety plan, additional smoke detectors, and resolution of the remainder of the 866 violations by early next year.

“If the United Nations does not adhere to these deadlines,” Mayor Bloomberg said, “the city will be forced to direct the cessation of all public school visits to the United Nations.”

“The mayor has been patient,” Ms. Tiven said, “but he can’t be patient forever. The city is going to do the right thing.”

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DOJ reverses position that emergency response is “routine;” had attempted to deny death benefits to firefighter’s widow

“Firefighter’s Widow to Get Death Benefits,” The New York Times, November 23rd:

Since her firefighter husband died of a heart attack nearly four years ago after responding to an emergency, Kathleen Shea has not received any death benefits, despite a 2003 federal law that indicated she was entitled to them.

But this week she learned that in a reversal, the Department of Justice had determined that she was entitled to benefits under the Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefits Act. The law extends federal benefits to the survivors of firefighters, police officers and other first responders who die of heart attacks or strokes while on duty.

Ms. Shea lives in Elsmere, N.Y., southwest of Albany, where her husband served as the volunteer fire chief.

The Department of Justice had denied benefits to Ms. Shea and scores of other families around the country, arguing that language in the law indicated they were ineligible because their family members died during routine activities.

But Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who sponsored the original legislation introduced by Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, helped Ms. Shea and other families appeal the decisions because he said responding to an emergency was “inherently nonroutine.”

So far, all four appeals have resulted in benefits for families, but nearly 40 more families still have to go through the process.

David Leonhart on the costs of reduced alcohol taxes

David Leonhart argues in the Times

that alcohol taxes have, in effect, been dropping, and that the principal benefits of alcohol taxes – reductions in use (and the consequent harms), and offsetting the costs of alcohol use. From “Let’s Raise a Glass to Fairness,

” published on December 26th:

Since the early 1990s, the federal tax on wine — $1.07 a gallon — hasn’t budged. The taxes on beer and liquor haven’t changed either, which means that, in inflation-adjusted terms, alcohol taxes have been steadily falling. Each of the three taxes is now effectively 33 percent lower than it was in 1992. Since 1970, the federal beer tax has plummeted 63 percent. Many states taxes have also been falling. At first blush, this sounds like good news: who likes to pay taxes, right? But taxes serve a purpose beyond merely raising general government revenue.

Jonathan Gruber: “taxes are way too low on alcohol” ff

Taxes on a given activity are also supposed to pay the costs that activity imposes on society. And for all that is wonderful about wine, beer and liquor, they clearly bring some heavy costs. Right now, the patchwork of alcohol taxes isn’t coming close to covering those costs — the costs of drunken-driving checkpoints, of hospital bills for alcohol-related accidents and child abuse, and of the economic loss caused by death and injury. Last year, some 17,000 Americans, or almost 50 a day, died in alcohol-related car accidents. An additional 65,000 people a year die from other accidents, assaults or illnesses in which alcohol plays a major role. Mr. Cook, besides being a wine lover, has been thinking about the costs and benefits of alcohol for much of his career, and he has come up with a blunt way of describing the problem. “Do you think we should be subsidizing alcohol?” he asks. “Because that’s what we’re doing.”

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Vinod Khosla v Hermann Scheer

Why is Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, venture capitalist, and environmentalist, critical of Dr. Hermann Scheer, economist, member of the German Parliment, and author of Germany’s clean energy program?

Is this like a Wind Power advocate from west Texas criticizing California based Solar installer because there is too much rain and cloud cover in Seattle, for solar to work effectively?

Diane Moss

Diane Moss, above, writing on Diane’s POV

, has a comprehensive analysis of Khosla’s criticism of Scheer.

As noted in my previous post, Scheer sayssays “A Solar global economy will enable the total demand for energy and raw materials to be met. … By the systematic use of solar … all material needs of humanity can be satisfied on a permanent basis.” (For the text of the article, click here.) And the fact is that Germany has set the standard.

Then there’s Ausra Solar

, which has some pretty hot technology and hopes to be a pioneer in what the Venture Capitalist might call “The Solar Thermal Space.” Venture Capitalists, including Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield, and Byers , and Khosla Ventures, have just invested $40 Million in Ausra. And Khosla runs Khosla Ventures. Maybe Khosla’s critical of Scheer because Scheer focuses on PhotoVoltaics, not Solar Thermal. Are Khosla’s criticisms of Scheer and Solar in Germany like Bill Gates’ criticisms of Steve Jobs and the Mac – i.e. different – and competing technology?

Military leaders conclude simpler technology less failure-prone, more reliable.

Not actual military leaders. The fictional military leadership of the re-imagined series Battlestar Galactica. 

The tech/gadget blog DVice – published by the Sci Fi Network, which airs BSG, points out the low-tech nature of the show’s fictional universe – which includes sound-powered telephone, a technology we’ve flogged here and in other forums – points this out in 9 Awesome Gadgets from Battlestar Galactica

Solid-State Tactical Planning Tools

Forget your holographic models or your CGI simulations, this is the way to plan a war: with not-to-scale models on a big table. Best of all, if you run out of pieces for something important, like Vipers, you can just substitute spare change or something.

Read the rest of 9 Awesome Gadgets from Battlestar Galactica – funny, yes, but a reminder that good emergency planning uses lots of redundancy and lots of simplicity – especially when tools are going to be used by people with little or no training.

from Ideo at Cooper-Hewitt (Smithsonian Museum): Vernaid bandage

This bandage – in a shape designed to be useful in more than one configuration – was covered with language-free instructions for use. From the amazing (and amazingly wide-ranging) “Ideo Selects ” exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt

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[singlepic=219,320,240,,left] If you’re in or going to be visiting New York, the Cooper-Hewitt is at 2 East 91st Street – that’s at Fifth Avenue on the East side (just east of Central Park). Their number is 212.849.8400 – hours and directions here. To be candid – I love the Cooper-Hewitt – but I’m not sure why – as part of the Smithsonian, a publicly funded museum, it charges admission. But one suspects this is more a legislative/executive branch decision – the Smithsonian museum system, alas, not described in the constitution as a coequal branch (but it might be an improvement).

For our readers concerned with disaster preparedness, there are (at least) four other items in the Ideo show that are worth a look, and in at least one case, of substantial historical significance:

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