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Me, My Site, My Ad Here

November 30, 2007 1:06 PM

John C. Dvorak, an often-provocative writer who comments on computer and Internet technology, has a piece at PC Magazine's site this week titled, "Why Social Networks Stink."

Dvorak complains that social networking--all that sharing of your personal life on MySpace or Facebook, making yourself Time's Person of the Year (remember the mirror on their cover?)--is really a terrific way, in a time when advertising is being shaken to its core, of selling things.

Full disclosure: ABC News this week announced an arrangement with Facebook to share political news and discussions. More HERE if you didn't see it.

"What has been overlooked in the entire social-networking scheme is that at its core, it's not social networking but marketing," writes Dvorak. "In fact, the entire MySpace scene is devoted mostly to selling music and keeping people up-to-date with their fav indie band."

In other words, he says, you become the advertising agency, if you use Facebook or a MySpace--or any of a zillion other sites on which you post your preferences.  If you post a picture on Flickr, for instance, there's data embedded in the image that reports what model camera you used.  Go to this LINK on Flickr's home page, and--well, you can see which camera manufacturers will be most pleased.

One form of this has already backfired.  Facebook said--after getting 50,000 protest signatures on an online petition--that it would dial back its "Beacon" feature, which tells your online friends if you've made a purchase through such sites as Blockbuster.com, Fandango.com or Overstock.com.  More  HERE.

Dvorak published his piece before that happened, but it fits right in with his theme of trendsetting as a form of marketing.  "I'm interested in watching how far this goes with the core target audience: the 16-to-24-year-old demographic," he wrote.  "For some reason, that group considers itself immune to advertising pitches. But they're probably the worst trend mavens since the hippies in the 1960s. Let me assure you, fashion and other fad/trends are not organic. Someone somewhere is pulling some strings."

November 30, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Hurricane Post-Mortem

November 29, 2007 2:09 PM

The 2007 hurricane season ends Friday night, and -- what, you didn't notice it? 

Neither did most people in the U.S.  There was only one hurricane--Humberto, on the morning of September 13--that made landfall on the Texas-Louisiana border.  Otherwise, if you look at NOAA's MAP of storm tracks for the year, most storms hit to the south, or stayed out in the Atlantic.

And there slightly fewer of them than NOAA's Climate Prediction Center had forecast, which has meteorologists there engaged in a bit of introspection.  Back in May they said there would likely be 13-17 named storms; there were 14.  They said there would probably be 7-10 hurricanes; there were six--a total that counts one storm that was reclassified upward after the fact.

"The total numbers weren't far off," said Gerry Bell, the lead forecaster there, when I talked to him on the phone, "but when you look at the number, duration, intensity--there, we were high.  So we're going to do some investigating...figure out what climate factors we may have missed." 

NOAA has an end-of-season summary HERE.

Meanwhile, Eric Berger of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE reports on a small kerfuffle that's broken out over whether the National Hurricane Center, in recent years, has been a little too fast "to designate several borderline systems as tropical storms."  (His piece is HERE, and he adds some detail in a blog post HERE.)

Berger writes that as satellite monitoring and reconnaissance data have improved, storms that would have been ignored in past decades have now qualified as named storms.  That, according to some of the meteorologists he quotes, makes recent years look more active than they might otherwise have been.  He says insurance companies, using the totals to set their rates, are charging coastal dwellers higher premiums.

He quotes Neil Frank, a former director of the hurricane center: "This year, I would put at least four storms in a very questionable category, and maybe even six."  Their winds were high enough to make them tropical storms, says Frank, but their central pressure, another measure of a storm's strength, was too low.

Dennis Feltgen of the hurricane center answers by e-mail, "every storm rating questioned...was justified using conventional methods, including Dvorak satellite estimates, and further supported by QuikSCAT in Chantal and Jerry, and reconnaissance aircraft data in Erin, Gabrielle and Ingrid."  He steers us to two storm-by-storm summaries--you can find them HERE and HERE.  "Surface pressure is not the true measure of a storm," he writes.

Bell, at the Climate Prediction Center, says the seasonal outlooks are useful even if they were high.  "Even though we overpredicted, we alerted people," he said.  "Even when we miss, we perform a service." 

(Satellite image above of Humberto from NOAA Environmental Visualization Program.)

November 29, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (19) | TrackBack (0)

U.S. Greenhouse Gases Dropping? No, But....

November 28, 2007 6:51 PM

ABC's Clayton Sandell reports:

Are the amounts of greenhouse gases coming from the United States dropping?  The short answer is "no."  But read on.

The Energy Information Administration (part of the Department of Energy) today released its final report on 2006 U.S. Greenhouse gas emissions.  President Bush -- in a statement today-- is touting two numbers in the report that show ACTUAL EMISSIONS and EMISSIONS INTENSITY decreased from 2005.  They are technically right, but the Administration seems to be ignoring other figures from the report that paint a more complete picture of where actual U.S. emissions trends are going.  (Hint: it's not down.)

So what's the difference between ACTUAL emissions and emissions INTENSITY?

The ACTUAL emissions number is considered by experts to be the most honest and credible measure of annual greenhouse gas output-- billions of metric tons of pollution from sources like factories, cars, and power plants.
According to the EIA, actual greenhouse gas emissions dropped 1.5 percent from 2005 to 2006.  Why the drop?  The EIA says it had to do in part with a warmer winter and lower natural gas prices that led to a shift away from coal-based electricity production.  In other words the reduction was not-- as President Bush and White House Press Secretary Dana Perino seemed to suggest-- a result of Administration policies. 

Experts say the 2006 drop was a bit of a fluke, but the long term trend tells a different story.  Notably, the EIA said today that all greenhouse gas emissions (things like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide) have actually RISEN 15.1 percent since 1990.  The amount of the greenhouse gas with the most negative atmospheric impact-- carbon dioxide-- has risen even faster: 18.3 percent since 1990.  In addition, the EIA report says based on current data trends, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are projected to increase at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent from 2004 to 2030-- a 28.6 percent jump.

Read the entire EIA report HERE.

The White House today was quick to seize on another number in the report: the 2006 reduction in emissions INTENSITY, which dropped 4.2 percent.  "The largest annual improvement since 1985," President Bush said in a statement.   But the "intensity" number is considered a dubious-- even misleading-- way to calculate greenhouse gas emissions, because it is measured as the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per million dollars of gross domestic product.  So if the GDP grows faster than emissions, you will always get a drop in emissions INTENSITY.  That allows the President to say that the country "is well ahead" of the goal he set in 2002 to reduce greenhouse gas INTENSITY 18 percent by 2012. 

But it's important to remember that this "reduction" is really only on paper.  The more important number to follow, say scientists, is the actual amount of greenhouse emissions pumped into the atmosphere.  And that number, says the U.S. government, is clearly expected to rise.

===========================

A bemused note from Ned, added Thursday afternoon:

In all the back-and-forth over whether I got my greenhouse gases backwards, I think the first line got lost--which is that I didn't write the post.  Clayton Sandell did, and I posted it for him.  I think he takes no offense.

Meanwhile, the L.A. Times has written its own version, which you can find HERE.

November 28, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

Fuel Spill in the Antarctic?

November 28, 2007 3:08 PM

Passengers from the M/S Explorer, the cruise ship that sank last week off the Antarctic coast, are safely in warmer climates.  But depending in which report you see, there may be other victims.

Helen Hughes, who reports for us from Santiago, says Chile's environment minister, Ana Lya Uriarte, has expressed concern about diesel fuel spilling from the wreck.  On Sunday, says the ministry, a flyover spotted a fuel slick of approximately 1 to 1.5 square kilometers (about half a square mile) near the wreck site.  "They also noted the presence of an estimated 2,500 penguins and sea fowl on ice floes in the area," she writes.

The waters where the Explorer sank are disputed territory.  Argentina also claims jurisdiction--and authorities there tell Joe Goldman, who works for us from Buenos Aires, that they do not believe the fuel tanks on the ship broke open.  They say it's quite likely that other liquids from the ship--from bilge tanks, the plumbing system, etc.--got into the water, and if there's a slick, that's what showing up.

There are a few news stories on all this--one from the Russian news agency RIA Novosti can be found HERE.  Earth Times has run a piece, which you can find HERE.

Depending on what may actually have spilled, petroleum breaks up but does not readily evaporate in the cold, choppy water near the Antarctic.  So, Helen reports, the Chilean navy is containing spillage through "mechanical" means--most likely surrounding it with floating booms.

Oil from the ship would be capable of forming a slick. but if it were leaking from a wreck three miles deep, it might not rise to the surface, says the environmental group Oceana.

The Explorer went down 40 miles from any shoreline, we're told.  The water there is nearly three miles deep.  But the location is remote, and information is slow to come back.  More when we get it.

November 28, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

A Nuclear Reactor that Fits on a Truck

November 27, 2007 3:23 PM

A company in New Mexico says it is developing a nuclear reactor about the size of a hot tub.

The firm, Hyperion Power Generation, is using technology developed at Los Alamos National Lab.  Hyperion's chief scientist, Otis Peterson, filed a patent for the device when he was there in 2003. 

They say they hope to have a factory up and running by 2012, turning out 4,000 of the units.  They say it's safer, smaller, cleaner, and less expensive to build and run than conventional nuclear or coal-fired plants.  One "module" could generate 27 MW of electricity, about enough to power 25,000 typical homes.

"Often referred to as a 'cartridge' reactor or 'nuclear battery,'" the company writes on its website, "the Hyperion hydride reactor is self-regulating with no moving parts to break down or corrode. The inherent properties of uranium hydride serve as both fuel and moderator providing unparalleled safety among nuclear reactors."  Find more HERE.

When I e-mailed the firm yesterday they gave a friendly reply that they'd say more when they could.  But in the meantime they've been noticed by their local paper, the Santa Fe Reporter, and they're all over the blogosphere (look HERE and HERE).

Naturally, there will be skeptics.  Even if Hyperion makes a fission "battery" that only heats water to run a turbine, even if there are no moving parts, even if the unit is small, is it as safe and practical as its makers hope?  As Andrew McCaskey wrote on Slashdot Review, "The endorsement of at least some of the scientists at the Los Alamos National Lab is a good start, but it will not be enough to get past the critical public."

November 27, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (25) | TrackBack (0)

Good News for Worms

November 21, 2007 1:03 PM

Scientists have been giving antidepressants to roundworms--but wait, please keep reading anyhow.  This may lengthen your life.

It turned out that when the worms--C. elegans, a tiny species often used in biology experiments--were given the antidepressant mianserin, they lived about a third longer. 

Why?  Were the worms happier?  They're only about a millimeter in length, on average, and they didn't have much to say.  But the researchers--Michael Petrascheck, Xiaolan Ye and Linda Buck of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute--say the medication may have the same benefit as caloric restriction, which has been shown in many species to slow the effects of aging. 

Buck et al have been trying 88,000 different compounds on the roundworms to see if they can increase longevity; they've found 115 so far.  (More on her work is HERE.) They report on the effects of mianserin in this week's edition of Nature.

Most doctors will caution that caloric restriction has not been clearly proven as a life-lengthener in us humans, but it's drawn researchers and believers--take a look, for instance, at the website of The Calorie Restriction Society.   Buck's team hopes to find chemical compounds that have the same effect.

For now, a strictly non-scientific thought: have a good Thanksgiving.  The roundworms only live about three weeks anyhow.

November 21, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Manhunt 2: This Post Rated M

November 20, 2007 4:03 PM

As video games go, "Manhunt 2" is--oh, let's say, on the violent end.  The game, if you're not a gamer, allows you to  play the role of a sociopath who has escaped from a mental institution.   The game has a website HERE, though if you look through you may find violent images.

To quote a release from Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of its maker, Rockstar Games: "We love the  horror genre. Manhunt 2 is a powerful piece of interactive story telling that is a unique video game  experience. We think horror fans will love it."

As you've read elsewhere, some retailers and advocacy groups don't.  The Target store chain refused to carry  it with an M rating.  The British Board of Film Classification refused to give it a rating in the U.K., citing  its "unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone... which constantly encourages visceral killing with  exceptionally little alleviation or distancing."

Now come the politicians--suggesting not only that the game is troubling, but that the whole rating system is too.

Senators Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Sam Brownback and Evan Bayh (yes, we're talking several present and past presidential candidates) have written a letter to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which first gave the game an AO--Adults Only--rating, and then, after the developer agreed to soften some of the more graphic imagery, changed it to an M.  The Senators' letter says "it may be desirable to revise or enhance the current ESRB rating system. We continue to believe that the ESRB  takes seriously its responsibility with respect to the ratings and their enforcement. However, we believe that  a number of issues have been raised regarding the release of Manhunt 2."

They conclude, "we ask your consideration of whether it is time to review the robustness, reliability and  repeatability of your ratings process, particularly for this genre of 'ultra-violent' video games and the  advances in game controllers. We have consistently urged parents to pay attention to the ESRB rating system.  We must ensure that parents can rely on the consistency and accuracy of those ratings.  The full letter, as  posted by Sen. Lieberman's office, is HERE.

I made a call to the ESRB in New York.  Their answer for now: "At this point we are saying only that we  received the letter and will be responding."  We'll update if they come back with more. 

Back on Nov. 2, after word got out that some of those most violent scenes, cleaned up in the game, were still available online, they argued that "Parents need to be vigilant about monitoring what their children are downloading on the Internet and ensure that they are not making unauthorized and oftentimes illegal modifications to software and hardware that remove the controls the industry has so diligently put in place for their own protection."  (Full statement HERE; it's the PDF from what is currently the first link.)

We do, of course, have a First Amendment in this country, which permits the publication of the game.  And we're mindful of complaints that when major media do stories about video games, they're often about violence in video games.  But do the Senators have a point?  Does the industry?

November 20, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (20) | TrackBack (0)

Warming: What to do Now?

November 19, 2007 5:01 PM

Coming right after this weekend's climate report from the IPCC, a paper from MIT and Boston University says greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. could increase more quickly over the next 50 years than over the last, and new technology--often seen as a solution to greenhouse warming--may make things worse rather than better.

"We found that, in spite of increasing energy prices, technological change has not been responsible for much reduction in energy use, and that it may have had the reverse effect," says a statement from retired MIT economist Richard Eckaus, who's been working the issue along with Ian Sue Wing of Boston University.  They've published a paper in the November issue of the journal Energy Policy.  The abstract is HERE.

The IPCC's latest "Synthesis Report," issued at a meeting in Valencia, Spain, over the weekend, is HERE.  It's a 23-page document, dense reading, but worth going through if you want to understand where the climate issue stands now.

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level," it says in boldface on the first page.

"Global atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years," it says in boldface on page 4.

Finally, from page 22: "There is high agreement and much evidence that all stabilisation levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are either currently available or expected to be commercialised in coming decades, assuming appropriate and effective incentives are in place for their development, acquisition, deployment and diffusion and addressing related barriers."

Into this fray steps a new website, called CARMA, as in "Carbon Monitoring for Action."  Its purpose, say its founders, is "to equip individuals with the information they need to forge a cleaner, low-carbon future."  They've put together a database of the world's power plants--50,000 of them, they say--to highlight those that are producing the most carbon dioxide.  Many of the largest, it's worth noting, are 1) outside the United States, and 2) don't produce carbon dioxide because they're hydroelectric.

For people who've asked in the past how human beings, with their paltry contributions to the composition of the atmosphere, could actually be affecting the global climate, Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote an answer back in August.  Find it HERE.

November 19, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

The Riddle of Bottled Water

November 09, 2007 3:35 PM

The website for Equa, a new brand of bottled water, looks as fresh and pure as the wilderness it describes.

"Deep below the world’s largest remaining expanse of undisturbed tropical rainforest, lies an aquifer formed billions of years ago and made of solid rose quartz," it says.  "Flowing up from this ancient reservoir is the purest spring water ever discovered on the planet."

Click on, and the site gets more businesslike: "Bottled water grew a full 25% compared to last year, reaching $3.2 billion in sales, with no indication that this trend will slow.  The success story for bottled water  continues as the category has reached 27 gallons per capita consumption." 

The water, in this case, is coming from an aquifer in the the Amazon basin--one of those places almost sacred to environmental advocates.  Business Week ran a piece last month about the marketing and the allure of bottled water from such an exotic place--and the flood of criticism the industry has faced of late: "Once regarded as a benign alternative to tap, bottled water is now portrayed as a sinful and ecologically unsound indulgence at a time when 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water."  Click HERE for the article.

Apres ca, le deluge.  In Chicago, strapped for cash, the finance committee of the city council this week  passed, among other tax hikes, a five-cent tax on bottled water, reduced from ten cents.  And the state of Illinois is banning its agencies from using state funds to buy bottled water, effective Nov. 16.

Now, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which currently has an exhibit on water and life, has posted some "fast facts" titled, "Bottled Water Everywhere, but is it Good to Drink?"

Among their points:

"--Bottled water costs as much as $10 per gallon compared to less than a penny per gallon for tap water.

"--Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, but in the U.S., less than 20 percent of these bottles are recycled.

"--The total estimated energy needed to make, transport, and dispose of one bottle of water is equivalent to filling the same bottle one-quarter full of oil.

"--An estimated 40 percent of bottled water sold in the U.S. is just filtered tap water."

The International Bottled Water Association says, "Bottled water is a safe, healthy, convenient, food product that consumers use because of its refreshing taste and because it is a good way for them to stay hydrated.  Any efforts or actions that discourage consumer use of this beneficial product are not in the public interest."  Full text HERE.

This week it said Chicago's proposed tax "is an onerous and discriminatory tax that will be paid for by  consumers."

One point they've made to me in the past: they don't see bottled water as a replacement for tap.  They make the argument that water is a healthy alternative to sugary soft drinks, for which some of the environmental issues are very similar.

So.  Thirsty?  What do you prefer to drink?

November 9, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)

A Nice Shade of Mauve Would Do....

November 06, 2007 11:07 AM

Gina Sunseri reports that the computer printer on board the shuttle Discovery has run out of black ink.  So Commander Pam Melroy asked mission control to please send up new messages in BLUE, since there is no place to pull over and pick up fresh ink cartridges in orbit. 

(NASA photo: International Space Station from the shuttle after undocking yesterday.  The solar panel in the far lower left was the one that needed patching up over the weekend.  Click HERE for a large version to see if you can pick out the torn area, about halfway down the panel.)

November 6, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

Going Home

November 05, 2007 1:50 PM

For the first time since the Columbia accident, a space shuttle is scheduled to come directly over the North American mainland as it makes its reentry approaching the Kennedy Space Center.   Discovery undocked from the space station early this morning, and the weather for a Wednesday afternoon landing looks good.

What's the issue?  Well, it was something of one after Columbia broke up, leaving debris in a long streak over Texas and Louisiana. If the ship had broken up just a moment earlier, the debris zone might well have included the Dallas suburbs. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, among other recommendations, said shuttles should avoid populated areas on return until NASA was confident it could avoid a repeat of the accident.  (The board finished its work in 2003, but its website, still active, is HERE.) 

That time seems to have come, say mission managers.  They now inspect a shuttle's exterior so thoroughly that while astronauts still face myriad hazards, the odds of a Columbia repeat are very, very small.

Wayne Hale, the shuttle program manager, said this afternoon there's another reason shuttles have not come in from the north on most flights: they'd rather steer clear of noctilucent clouds--a not-very-well-understood type of clouds that appear at high altitudes relatively close to the poles.   They may be icy, though scientists are not sure.

Most shuttles in the last few years have come up toward Florida from the south, passing over the Pacific and parts of the Central American tropics, making everything simpler.

But Discovery's commander, Pam Melroy, would rather land in daylight, says Hale, and the way to do that involves coming into Florida from the northwest.

If you're in the right place, you may be able to see the streak the shuttle makes in the sky as it descends.  One place to look for info is HERE. 

November 5, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Spacewalkers Repair Solar Panel

November 03, 2007 9:03 AM

Updated Saturday, 12:24 PM EDT

Late this morning, spacewalker Scott Parazynski has finished his work.  He threaded five thin cords--nicknamed "cufflinks"--across the two-foot tear in the ISS solar panel, and then backed off on the station's robot arm while the panel was slowly stretched out. 

It had been folded accordion-style, and was not fully extended when the astronauts noticed the damage to it on Tuesday.

With the so-called cufflinks in place, the panel was stretched out a few feet at a time, and Parazynski reported the fix was holding.

"Excellent work guys, excellent," said Peggy Whitson, the space station commander, after the array was locked in place.  "But it's not over yet, guys.  We've still got to get you back inside."

So Parazynski and his fellow spacewalker, Doug Wheelock, have moved back toward the airlock.  Slowly, the way they've long ago learned to operate in space.

==================

9:03 AM

Saturday morning. We're watching the transmissions from the Space Station as Scott Parazynski, the astronaut assigned to fix that solar panel, does his work.

As he headed out, shuttle commander Pam Melroy told him she'd finally gotten a good view of the torn panel--no small matter, since it's more than 100 feet from the nearest window, blocked by parts of the station.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"Well, it looks to me like the hinge wire at the large tear has been busted at about the point, oh let's see, let me make sure I've got the, I'm trying to think of the name of the vertical tape that has the holes in them, it's about halfway from the inboard edge and that tape. So some hinge wire is still left down there, kind of hanging out in the middle of that most inboard section. And then the rest of it has snarled through the (garble) wire and it also looks like... hang on a second... OK, then the upper hinge wire, the small tear, that hinge wire is also snarled. So it looks to me like both hinge wires, the guide wire and a grommet are all snarled up. In fact, I had kind of a back shadow of it on the panel and I could actually see the little fur ball outlined in shadow."

"Well, that sounds like we have to do the whole enchilada for the repair, huh?" Parazynski said.

"Concur," Melroy said. "It doesn't look like an easy, just rattle-it-and-shake-loose-the-grommet kind of situation."

Most of what Parazynski has been doing since is detail work--cutting some of the loose wires, adding others so that the loose parts of the panel don't flap around when it's moved or jostled. The issue is not getting power--the panel is generating more than 95 percent of what it would normally--but it's a delicate assembly, essentially a long sheet of photovoltaic panels stretched over a lightweight frame.

"Well, it looks like you have some surgery to do, Dr. Parazynski," said Melroy.

"I think so," he said. "Looks like the patient is prepped."

That's an inside joke; Parazynski, in earlier life, was an emergency room physician.

Words like "risky" and "dangerous" have been used a lot over the last few days to describe this EVA, and NASA's been trying to steer people away from them. Sure, they say, this walk is riskier than average, but as long as the astronauts take things slowly, they should be fine.

November 3, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)