Monthly Archives: December 2013


I've heard of the Star Wars holiday special before but had never actually seen…

I've heard of the Star Wars holiday special before but had never actually seen it

Sadly, such things cannot be unseen. Who would have thought that Jar Jar Binks could actually be considered not so bad??

The ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’ you don’t want to watch
The Star Wars Holiday Special was only shown once in the US. The two-hour show aired just before Thanksgiving in 1978, and told the story of A New Hope’s Chewbacca and his family on “life day,” an…


When you're dipping into a rapidly expanding world of new technology, you must…

When you're dipping into a rapidly expanding world of new technology, you must keep an eye out for the charlatans that will pop up

Despite all of the advances in battery technology over the past century, they remain woefully inefficient methods of storing energy compared to many other systems.

The best batteries in use today hold about 250 Watt-hours per kg. When someone claims they have a viable method to hold 400 watt-hours per kg, you have to take a look. By way of comparison, a gallon of gasoline has about 11,400 watt-hours per kg

Fortunately for +General Motors they paid very close attention to what Envia was doing before investing too much in the technology. ?

The mysterious story of the battery startup that promised GM a 200-mile electric car
At the end of November 2012, Atul Kapadia and Sujeet Kumar hosted the staff of their startup company for a holiday lunch of Mexican food at a Palo Alto, California restaurant. For days, the pair—the CEO and CTO, respectively, of a lithium-ion battery company called Envia Systems—had awaited an email from General Motors. It was…


Ian Bayne represents so much of what is wrong with today's Republican party 9

Ian Bayne represents so much of what is wrong with today's Republican party

Illinois congressional candidate compared Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson to Rosa Parks:

"In December 1955, Rosa Parks took a stand against an unjust societal persecution of black people, and in December 2013, Robertson took a stand against persecution of Christians"

Robertson is completely free to say whatever ignorant and idiotic things he wants. No one is persecuting him or stopping him from being offensive. However, just as Robertson is free to ask an uninvited trespasser to leave his property, A&E has a right not to provide a platform to spout his beliefs. ?

GOP Congressional Candidate: ‘Duck Dynasty Star Is Rosa Parks Of Our Generation’
WASHINGTON — Embattled “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson has been suspended from his show by A&E for his remarks about gays and African-Americans, and now some high-profile conservatives are rallying to his side and defending him. On Friday, GOP congressional candidate Ian Bayne went all in, comparing Robertson to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.


Don’t buy the right-wing myth about Detroit 2

Reshared post from +Don Denton

Don’t buy the right-wing myth about Detroit

Conservatives want you to think high taxes drove people away. The real truth is much worse for their radical agenda

Excerpt:
In the wake of Detroit’s bankruptcy, you may be wondering: How could anyone be surprised that a city so tied to manufacturing faces crippling problems in an era that has seen such an intense public policy assault on domestic American manufacturing? You may also be wondering: How could Michigan officials possibly talk about cutting the average $19,000-a-year pension benefit for municipal workers while reaffirming their pledge of $283 million in taxpayer money to a professional hockey stadium?

These are fair questions — and the answers to them can be found in the political mythology that distorts America’s economic policymaking.

As mythology goes, the specific story being crafted about Detroit’s bankruptcy is truly biblical — more specifically, just like the fact-free mythology around the Greek financial collapse, it is copied right from the chapter in the conservative movement’s bible about how to distort crises for maximum political effect.

In the conservative telling of this particular parable, Detroit faces a fiscal emergency because high taxes supposedly drove a mass exodus from the city, and the supposedly unbridled greed of unions forced city leaders to make fiscally irresponsible pension promises to municipal employees. Written out of the tale is any serious analysis of macroeconomic shifts, international economic policy failures, the geography of recent recessions and unsustainable corporate welfare spending.

This is classic right-wing dogma — the kind that employs selective storytelling to use a tragic event as a means to radical ends. In this case, the ends are — big shocker! — three of the conservative movement’s larger long-term economic priorities: 1) preservation of job-killing trade policies 2) immunity for corporations and 3) justification for budget policies that continue to profligately subsidize the rich.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/23/dont_buy_the_right_wing_myth_about_detroit/?

Don’t buy the right-wing myth about Detroit
Conservatives want you to think high taxes drove people away. The real truth is much worse for their radical agenda


If +T-Mobile does this, I'm in and I'll be leaving +Verizon Wireless behind… 12

If +T-Mobile does this, I'm in and I'll be leaving +Verizon Wireless behind in an instant?

T-Mobile’s next move could be devastating for AT&T and Verizon
T-Mobile CEO John Legere hinted that his company was about to make another big splash in the wireless industry and if this report from TmoNews is accurate then he wasn’t kidding. An unnamed source …


Automakers go to great lengths to hide new cars from photographers?

Automakers go to great lengths to hide new cars from photographers?

How Ford Hid the New Mustang From Car Spies | Autopia | Wired.com
When the first Mustang prototype rolled out of Ford’s testing facility on a rainy day in June, photos were posted on auto sites in less than an hour. But they didn’t show much.


Do recent +Samsung USA patent filings point at future driverless EVs? 1

Do recent +Samsung USA patent filings point at future driverless EVs?

Will Samsung build autonomous electric cars with Google?
Samsung could repeat its smartphone business model by partnering with Google and Renault-Nissan to produce self-driving EVs using technology from all three companies.