Walk on pavement to create electricity to safely light your way

One of their example uses is placing their pavement in the street so it would light up the crosswalk as you walk across it. How cool & safe would that be?

From an article at Inhabitat:

Every time a rubber Pavegen stone is stepped on it bends, producing kinetic energy that is either stored within lithium polymer batteries or distributed to nearby lights, information displays, and much more. Just five slabs spread over a lively sidewalk has the ability to generate enough energy to illuminate a bus stop throughout the night. But applications are not limited to the street.

Check out PaveGen Systems.

Funky reflection

Plastic that dissolves in water

Years ago I found corn starch "Styrofoam" packaging pellets that dissolved in any temperature water - as in - completely gone. Unfortunately I've had -0- luck finding it again.

This is a plastic bag that disappears in boiling water.

Check out the explanation about the dissolving plastic packaging at Creative Review.

The company behind the packaging and their blog.

So banning plastic bags near water like the Chesapeake Bay really isn't that much of a hassle with solutions like this eh?

AG Cuomo forces insurance companies into more transparency

From NYTimes:

The announcement is part of a settlement reached over the last year with more than a dozen insurance companies concerning one of the industry’s most controversial practices: the payment of out-of-network claims.

Using a database run by the UnitedHealth Group, the insurance giant, the industry was accused of systematically understating the doctors’ fees for more than a decade and shortchanging consumers by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why I never answer quizzes in Facebook

They can't guarantee your private info is safe.

From NPR.org's 2nd part of their 4 part series:

What people often don't realize, Conley says, is that these quizzes are applications. Just like games and other entertainment, they're programs that run in a user's Web browser.

"You think that all you're doing is answering a few innocent questions," Conley says. "But in fact, you're opening up your entire profile and almost all your personal information to whoever wrote the quiz."

Free music at Amazon made easy by downloading their, well, downloader

Check out the Philip Glass Sampler album for free.
Amazon has a bunch of other albums for free too. Over 100.

Soros funds Institute for New Economic Thinking with $50M donation

The hope is it'll be matched up to about $200M.

In case you aren't aware, "traditional" economics and it's models as it's taught in virtually all renowned universities completely failed in the last several years culminating in the economy blowing up in Fall of 2008.

Many believe, including me, that the entire global banking system needs completely overhauled asap. But:

... it's all happening very slowly. And with no rules of the road, we have entered a Mad Max world of economics in which even the most eminent of our top regulators and central bankers can't seem to agree on the fundamental nature of financial markets.

Soros with his resources is looking to speed up the massive shift that must take place to bring reality to economics, it's philosophies, models, etc.

Watch an interview explaining the Institute for New Economic Thinking at FT.com.

"The dogma has lost touch with reality."

Grants will be available from the new Institute.
More about Mr. Soros.

National Geographic Traveler Magazine ranks the Chesapeake Bay a 42

From National Geographic Traveler:

One of America's iconic landscapes, but the bay is dying, both as a natural ecosystem and as a cultural landscape. Almost all indicators of the Bay's health are negative. Is it any wonder, given the rampant sprawl, agricultural runoff, and booming population growth in the watershed?

Sad. Very sad. When will people decide to stop wasting time and start working on protecting this treasure for their great-great-grandchildren?

What did you do for 350 day?

According to 350.org:

What does the number 350 mean?

350 is the most important number in the world--it's what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Amendment to exempt used car lots from proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency

This is funny. As in, how could this Congressman not know all of the info is public.


Go to Change-Congress.org.

Yippie - I'm invited to test Google Wave

Google Wave is:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document.
A wave is shared.
A wave is live.

Whitehouse.gov goes open source !

Congrats to Drupal, an open source content management system [CMS]!

From Personal Democracy Forum:

The great Drupal switch came about after the Obama new media team, with a few months of executive branch service (and tweaking of WhiteHouse.gov) under their belts, decided they needed a more malleable development environment for the White House web presence. They wanted to be able to more quickly, easily, and gracefully build out their vision of interactive government.

Publishing social security numbers online is a 1st Amendment right

I love how this woman has used the rule of law, the Constitution & FOIA, on what you would think would be common sense - that is - government protecting their citizens from publishing social security numbers online.

From ComputerWorld.com:

A fight by the Virginia government to stop a privacy advocate from republishing Social Security numbers obtained legally from public records on government sites on her Web site is attracting the attention of some privacy heavyweights.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a friend of the court brief asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to uphold privacy advocate Betty Ostergren's First Amendment right to publish the numbers.

- - -

Largely in response to her campaign, Virginia lawmakers passed legislation in 2008 that prohibits the dissemination of any records that contain Social Security numbers, no matter how the records were obtained.

Lala la - Where music plays for a dime

Sing it Muddy!

(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man...

Lala.com for more.

There's an app for that - by the end of the year. Check it at Wired.com story.

How several local judges are holding Wall Street's securitaztions accountable using the rule of law

Hopefully this will get a lot of press as it certainly appears that using the rule of law - the little guy will get to protect themselves from banks who take short cuts and who want their cake, have you pay for it, and get to eat it too.

Background:

Your mortgage is "packaged" with other mortgages into a financial instrument. This process is called securitization. It seems the investors who own these new securities - called mortgage backed securities [MBS] do not file the appropriate paper work for deed transfers.

From counter punch:

Three plain talking judges, in state courts in Massachusetts and Kansas, and a Federal Court in Ohio, have drilled down to the “straw man” aspect of securitization. The judges’ decisions have raised serious questions as to the legality of hundreds of thousands of foreclosures that have transpired as well as the legal standing of the subsequent purchasers of those homes, who are more and more frequently the Wall Street banks themselves.

Can you name the 12-million-digit prime number?

You read that right. It's a new prime number just found and the finder won $100k.

More from EFF.org.

Google pink fingers

Ya know how Google is scanning every book ever made and is posting them online?

The person at Google doing it has pink fingers.
Hat tip kottke.org.

Green chile cheese burgers from the land of enchantment

Note: I am a vegitarian 100% of the time between meals.

OMG, do not watch this hungeree.

Link to vid about New Mexico's chile cheese burgers.
New Mexico's Green Chile Cheese Burger Trail.

The warning about your life savings

New Frontline doc The Warning from PBS.

A quote from The Warning:

That's how the business has grown from nothing in 1980 to $600 trillion of contracts today. ~ Mark Brickell Chair, International Swaps and Derivatives Association (1988-1992)

From a Slate article to put $600T in perspective:

By contrast, the value of the world's financial assets—including all stock, bonds, and bank deposits—was pegged at $167 trillion last year by McKinsey.

This market is not only hidden off company's balance sheets to a great extent. This market is almost 100% hidden - that is, not transparent. And most importantly - this market is still completely unregulated.

There is maximum pressure from companies, that we bailed out with trillions by the way, not to regulate this market. These companies, who we gave our money to, are paying lobbyists hundreds of millions to lobby against "us".

If you believe "everything will come back" with your IRA's, 401(k)s etc without regulation, you are as foolish as someone who jumps out of an airplane without a parachute and expects the outcome to be ok.

If you choose to do nothing to fix this, like contacting your elected officials demanding regulations, you are as liable for the outcome as someone who doesn't help their next door neighbor whose house is on fire and is threatening your own.

What are you working on changing?

About Change.org:

Today as citizens of the world, we face a daunting array of social and environmental problems ranging from health care and education to global warming and economic inequality. For each of these issues, whether local or global in scope, there are millions of people who care passionately about working for change but lack the information and opportunities necessary to translate their interest into effective action.

Learn more about Changemakers like Andy Abrahams Wilson and the Changemakers Network:

The Changemakers initiative aims to identify and engage the leading activists, elected officials, authors, bloggers, actors, musicians and thought leaders who have the greatest capacity to spark change on issues of importance.

From Mr. Wilson:



Learn more about the movie Under My Skin.