photo: goldrushfieldtrips.com California has a history rich in gold, but despite sky high prices, the gold mining industry doesn’t seem positioned for a revival in the state. The price of gold is more than $1363 an ounce, causing some folks in areas near historic lodes to clamor for a renewed mining industry in California. But cultural attitudes have shifted, and residents concerned about the environmental impacts and effects on tourism seem more inclined to preserve mining as a relict of the past. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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By Mike Luckovich Related Entries November 25, 2010 North Korea Attack: ‘It’s Whatever’ November 24, 2010 Cultural Rebirth in the Old World
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By Mr. Fish Related Entries November 25, 2010 North Korea Attack: ‘It’s Whatever’ November 24, 2010 Cultural Rebirth in the Old World
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Article by WN.Correspondent Dallas Darling. Even now, as some of Ireland’s leaders and the European Union are imposing harsh austerity measures on their nation, which are being met by tens of thousands of protesters and civil unrest; it is reminiscent of the “Irish Question.” Starting in the 1100′s, the English implemented a millennial age-old conquest against Ireland, taking possession of much of its fertile farmland and denying the Irish of many basic human rights. But Irish political nationalism and economic independence could not be controlled. Even the Great Hunger of the 1800′s, which one visitor described as “…six famished and ghastly skeletons, to all appearances dead, were huddled…
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Hundreds of thousands of State Department documents leaked Sunday revealed a hidden world of backstage international diplomacy, divulging candid comments from world leaders and detailing occasional US pressure tactics overseas. (Nov. 28)
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And they’ve done it again. According to diplomatic cables obtained and leaked by the whistleblowers extraordinaire, the king of Saudi Arabia asked the U.S. to attack Iran, Hillary Clinton instructed her diplomats to spy on U.N. leaders and others, Vladimir Putin is deeply involved with the Russian mafia, military leaders lack confidence in the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and unstable state are as worrying as they seem and a rogue shipment of nuclear material nearly caused an “environmental disaster” last year. These are just some of the initial revelations. More are promised. If you want to read about Muammar Gaddafi’s voluptuous Ukrainian nurse, you’re going to have to go straight to the source. The Guardian: The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year. At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated “secret” – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership. These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches, which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers’ website, also reveal Washington’s evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues. Read more Related Entries November 25, 2010 North Korea Attack: ‘It’s Whatever’ November 24, 2010 Cultural Rebirth in the Old World
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More News The first batch of newly leaked U.S. diplomatic cables Sunday documented that the king of Saudi Arabia, echoed by other Arab leaders, have urged the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. They also revealed a U.S. State Department instruction to U.S. diplomats to spy on United Nations officials and collect their personal data, and they contained unflattering portraits of a number of world leaders. Further releases in coming days will outline U.S. fears over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear program, U.S. and South Korean discussions of Korean reunification and alleged Chinese cyber-sabotage, according to the five media organizations…
Continue reading …Comcast internet down across parts of the eastern seaboard, fix on the way
November 29, 2010 No Comment
Twitter’s abuzz with angry Comcast customers tonight, as internet service is down in Boston and parts of the eastern United States, a situation the company’s since confirmed at its official Twitter account. Comcast’s calling it an unexpected outage and says that “engineers are finalizing the correction” as we speak, though it’s admittedly been a couple of hours since that tweet. Meanwhile, Twitter at large seems to have figured out it’s a Comcast DNS issue, and have had some luck switching to alternate servers like Google’s at 8.8.4.4. and 8.8.8.8. Let us know if those work in comments after the break! [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Comcast internet down across parts of the eastern seaboard, fix on the way originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 23:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …MIT developing smart adaptive LED lighting system to reduce energy use by up to 90 percent
November 29, 2010 No Comment
It’s very well that manufacturers are constantly pushing for more efficient LEDs , but we can do better than that: what if we could have an LED lighting system that pumps out just the right amount of juice to suit our changing environment? That’s exactly what the tree huggers at MIT are working on right now. Said adaptive system relies on a small box that not only acts as a position tracker, calibrator and sensor for the dimmable overhead LED fixtures, but also lets the user set the desired tone and light intensity for the room. In other words: no matter how sunny or cloudy it is outside, you’ll still be comfortably basking in the same steady shine in your room, while also saving up to 90 percent of energy. Our guess is that Philips — the project’s sponsor — will eventually release a product based on this technology, but for now, you can see the system in action after the break (from 1:07). Continue reading MIT developing smart adaptive LED lighting system to reduce energy use by up to 90 percent MIT developing smart adaptive LED lighting system to reduce energy use by up to 90 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 23:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …It’s a strange and troubling news story: on April 8th of this year, an estimated fifteen percent of all web traffic was “hijacked” and routed through China , including military and government domains . A lengthy new congressional report on U.S.-China relations details two major Internet security events that saw Chinese data policies and practices ripple beyond the border to affect users in other countries, including the United States. The more alarming event came in April, when the state-owned China Telecom managed to redirect foreign Internet traffic through Chinese servers. As a result, for a brief period on April 8, about 15 percent of the world’s Internet traffic, including large portions of government and military transmissions, were “hijacked” and rerouted to Chinese servers, according to the new report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission . “Although the Commission has no way to determine what, if anything, Chinese telecommunications firms did to the hijacked data, incidents of this nature could have a number of serious implications,” the study’s authors wrote. “This level of access could enable surveillance of specific users or sites.” That’s right, now that they had access, they could be continuing to surveil military and government communications. Great. We worry about the “national security threat” posed by Wikileaks revealing information about things we’ve already done, how about the threats posed by the Chinese knowing what we plan to do in the future? Of course, “experts” are playing down the threat as is the Chinese telecom company involved.
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