Month: October 2014

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Positives: This happens nearly every morning in California.

Originally shared by John Poteet

Positives: This happens nearly every morning in California. The sun rises and 4 gigawatts of industrial solar power comes online. There’s another 2.7 gigawatts of residential rooftop solar that doesn’t show on this graph. So what we have here are six nuclear power plants worth of power that are producing minimal carbon emissions and no radioactive waste. 

Of course, this is a fraction of the solar power Germany produces on a clear day so California can do better. It’s still a very good thing. 

image: screencapped from….

http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx#Renewables

     

 

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Cometscape

 

At first glance it looks like a moonlit mountain scene, but on closer examination several strange things become apparent.

First, gravity is wrong for a mountainscape. There are many loose boulders sprinkled around in places where they would slide away, if this was a view of earth.

Second, in the sandy (sand??) area in the lower right there appear to be dune-like ripples, which normally form from wind, which would imply some kind of atmosphere.  But of course, this comet is floating in outer space, and has an extremely weak gravity.

But third, there appears to be some kind of haze in the photo.  Perhaps dust, perhaps gas coming from the comets interior.  Does this have any relation to the dune-like features.

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The Strange Pathways Knowledge Flows  This looks like a great movie.

Originally shared by Will Hill

The Strange Pathways Knowledge Flows  This looks like a great movie.  Thanks, Roger Friedman for pointing it out.  I had not noticed until a few friends were snickering about some technical details.  https://joindiaspora.com/posts/4917057  

Please, Roger, forgive what looks like unkind words.  That big publishers and big companies hide free software from people is something of a sore spot.  Apple is a big BSD user that got their browser from the KDE project.  Microsoft borrows free software all the time and their most successful current investment, Facebook, is wholly driven by gnu/linux.  Even Google hides their use of GNU/linux from users Chromebook, etc.  There are even GNU/Linux distributions that don’t mention GNU.  Such thoughtlessness is often malicious and is almost always offensive.  

I don’t think an entertainment writer should be held up to those standards but would like to help, if you have the time.  

Edward Snowden used Tails, a GNU/Linux distribution designed to protect people’s privacy, especially journalists and whistle blowers.  

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/tails/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tails_(operating_system)

https://www.debian.org/

I imagine he used Lenovo because it’s the best choice of what he might have been offered as a contractor.  IBM Thinkpads have an excellent reputation in the free software community for sturdy build, good size/power balance, excellent documentation and easy repair.  

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

http://www.showbiz411.com/2014/10/12/exclusive-call-him-ed-snowden-used-pc-not-mac-for-his-nsa-takedown