Oil Company Announces Installation of Solar Panels at 5,000 Gas Stations
November 16th, 2016Via: Electrek:
Total, the major French multinational oil and gas company, announced today a $300 million investment to install about 200 MW of solar capacity at 5,000 gas stations around the world. The investment is being presented as a way for Total’s operations to reduce its carbon footprint, but what if its the first step to convert the gas stations into electric vehicle charging stations?
…
Total didn’t specify where its new solar installations will be deployed other than at “5,000 of its service stations worldwide” including “800 in France” and they will be deployed over the next five years.
The panels will be supplied by Sunpower, which is owned by Total.
Mike Pence Orders Lobbyists Be Removed From Transition Team
November 16th, 2016Yep, make sure to drain one’s own swamp first…
Via: NBC:
Vice President-elect Mike Pence has ordered all lobbyists be removed from Donald Trump’s White House transition team, NBC News has learned. This would bring the transition more in line with Trump’s campaign-trail pledge to “drain the swamp” of veteran politicians and special interests in Washington.
That was the explanation given for the firing of at least one top foreign policy official, Matthew Freedman. A campaign official said Freedman was let go because he works as a lobbyist. But if Pence’s directive is fully implemented, it could result in the exit of at least nine current aides, and likely more, according to an organizational chart for the operation obtained by Politico.
CRISPR Gene-Editing Tested in a Person for the First Time
November 16th, 2016Via: Nature:
A Chinese group has become the first to inject a person with cells that contain genes edited using the revolutionary CRISPR–Cas9 technique.
On 28 October, a team led by oncologist Lu You at Sichuan University in Chengdu delivered the modified cells into a patient with aggressive lung cancer as part of a clinical trial at the West China Hospital, also in Chengdu.
The Post Virtual Reality Sadness
November 16th, 2016Via: Tobias van Schneider:
I think about it this way. I just spent a couple hours painting with fire or any material I want in a 3D space in Virtual Reality. I’m so confident & fluid using these VR tools, they feel almost native. I scale my environment up and down, rotate objects and teleport around my own dream world.
I feel like god for a couple hours, with magical and powerful tools right at my finger tips. I can do anything I want!
After leaving a world like this, the rest of the day in reality makes me kind of sad. I have no more super powers. I want to touch the sky, rotate the clouds, stretch them and paint on them. I feel deeply disturbed and often end up just sitting there, starring at a wall because I just don’t feel like doing anything else. I wouldn’t say I’m feeling depressed, but there is a lack of motivation and sad feeling in my chest.
AT&T And NASA To Build National Drone Tracking System
November 16th, 2016Via: Vocativ:
The largest telecommunications company in the world wants to serve as a watchdog for all drones in the United States — and in the process, play a major role in supervising the national airspace.
On Nov. 10, AT&T announced that it was collaborating with NASA to develop an Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management program to allow agencies to monitor drones. An AT&T release states this program will make it safer for drone operators to plan and monitor flight paths, navigate drones, and use drones for surveillance. The company stated that its main focus is to lower the risk of drone-related cyberattacks.
Cities Nationwide Enacting More Policies to Criminalize Homelessness
November 16th, 2016After eight years of Hope and Change…
Via: CBS:
A new report says cities nationwide are enacting more policies that criminalize homelessness.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty said Tuesday many cities have banned living in vehicles, camping in public areas and panhandling.
Nearly Half of Eligible Voters Didn’t Vote
November 14th, 2016Via: Daily Sheeple:
Nearly half of all eligible voters did not vote, according to The United States Election Project. Out of 231,556,622 in the Voting-Eligible Population (VEP), there were only 131,018,000 ballots counted.
When compared with the 2008 and 2012 elections, we see almost 9 million less people voting in 2016.
Are Universities Causing Brain Damage?
November 14th, 2016I did my university time in the 1990s and I don’t remember anything as nuts as this.
WTF happened to these people? Is this the result of too much GMO soy food and NPR? Is this part of some concerted effort to destroy the left? An open air MKULTRA experiment?
What is going on here?
Via: New York Post:
The University of Michigan offered its traumatized students coloring books and Play-Doh to calm them. (Are its students in college or kindergarten?)
The University of Kansas reminded its stressed-out kids that therapy dogs, a regular campus feature, were available.
Cornell University, an Ivy League school, held a campus-wide “cry-in,” with officials handing out tissues and hot chocolate.
Tufts University offered its devastated students arts and crafts sessions. (OK, not kindergarten — more like summer camp.)
At campuses from elite Yale to Connecticut to Iowa and beyond, professors canceled classes and/or exams — either because students asked or because instructors were too distraught to teach.
After Trump Win, Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Dead
November 13th, 2016Via: Guardian:
White House officials conceded on Friday that the president’s hard-fought-for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal would not pass Congress, as lawmakers there prepared for the anti-global trade policies of President-elect Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, congressional leaders in both parties said they would not bring the trade deal forward during a lame-duck session of Congress, before the formal transition of power on 20 January.
Anger Grows in India as Banks Struggle to Swap Banned Notes
November 12th, 2016Via: Reuters:
Anger intensified in India on Saturday as banks struggled to dispense cash following the government’s decision to withdraw large denomination notes in an attempt to uncover billions of dollars in undeclared wealth.
Tempers frayed as hundreds of thousands of people queued for hours outside banks for a third day to swap 500 and 1,000 rupee bank notes after the notes were abolished earlier in the week.
The banned bills made up more than 80 percent of the currency in circulation, leaving millions of people without cash and threatening to bring much of the cash-driven economy to a halt.
“There’s chaos everywhere,” said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a rival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing the premier of wreaking havoc on poor and working Indians while the wealthy found ways to skirt the new rules.
