Post Panamax? What’s that?

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The Sanko Royal passes through the narrow Gatun Locks in 2008

Great things are happening all around us, but the average person is not noticing them. How many have heard about the widening of the Panama canal, or the effects that will have on shipping? Slated to complete in 2015 the “Post-Panamax” shipping world will be different, and three US ports are making ready, including the port of Miami.


One of the biggest drills in the world finished drilling the second of two underwater tunnels in Miami. The project aims to boost the city’s seaport, and give Miami an economic lift when the Panama Canal is widened.

The Case for Marriage Equality: Perry v. Schwarzenegger

The 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia ended state bans on interracial marriage in the 16 states that still had such laws. Now, 44 years after Loving, the courts are once again grappling with denial of equal marriage rights — this time to gay couples. Two California couples have filed suit against Proposition 8, the 2008 initiative that limited marriage to opposite-sex couples. The American Foundation for Equal Rights engaged David Boies and Ted Olson to lead the legal challenge. The plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger won in federal district court, and the case is now on appeal. Plaintiffs argue that Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution and impermissibly singles out gay and lesbian individuals for a disfavored legal status. The speakers on our panel believe that the principle of equality before the law transcends the left-right divide and cuts to the core of our nation’s character.

Featuring the co-counsels, David Boies, Chairman, Boies, Schiller & Flexner and Former Chief Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee; and Theodore B. Olson, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Former Solicitor General. With comments by the co-chairs of the advisory board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, Robert A. Levy, Chairman, Cato Institute; and John Podesta, President, Center for American Progress.

via The Case for Marriage Equality: Perry v. Schwarzenegger – YouTube.

The Truth About Global Warming – Science & Distortion – Stephen Schneider

Some of the very same people who were telling people that there weren’t relationships between lung cancer and tobacco use are the ones now telling us that global warming doesn’t matter. Please watch, and get mad – I don’t want my grandson’s grandson to live in a limited brutal future that most probably will result if we don’t start acting now.

Stephen Henry Schneider (February 11, 1945 — July 19, 2010) was Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University, a Co-Director at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Schneider served as a consultant to federal agencies and White House staff in the Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

His research included modeling of the atmosphere, climate change, and "the relationship of biological systems to global climate change." Schneider was the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers and other publications. He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II IPCC TAR and was engaged as a co-anchor of the Key Vulnerabilities Cross-Cutting Theme for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) at the time of his death. During the 1980s, Schneider emerged as a leading public advocate of sharp reductions of greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming.

Basic Information

Awards

MacArthur Fellowship (1992), Nobel Peace Prize (2007)

via The Truth About Global Warming – Science & Distortion – Stephen Schneider – YouTube.

According to Mitt Romney it’s not Wall Street that America Needs to worry about – it’s Sesame Street.

It’s an entirely fair charge, in the last debate Mitt expressed a lot of concern over the PBS portion of the deficit, which amounts to .012 percent. President Obama talked about combating Welfare fraud,  which comprises billions in waste. Who do you think is going to be more effective at reducing deficits?

The other key thing to remember is that we had Romney’s current fiscal style of thinking in office in the 7 year run up to the recession, who do you think is more likely to prevent a future crash? President Obama will keep regulations in place that will keep Wall street from playing fast and loose with other people’s money, while Mitt Romney is more likely to cut his Bain buddies and their offshore accounts loose in a wild west casino economic policy.

47 percent

Recently, Mitt Romney held a high dollar fundraiser behind closed doors. We asked Americans what they thought about what he said to his donors. As one woman shares:”I don’t think anybody’s ever looking for a handout. I think that..we all want are chances and opportunities.”

via 47 percent – YouTube.

The Demise of Spinning Disks and Other Technology Verges

It’s very clear that memory devices that use spinning platters and disks are all headed to obsolescence soon. This means Hard drives, CD players, DVD’s and DVD players. So what will the replacement be?

The most likely replacement is streaming digital mixed with the SD-MMC card in some form or another. Since manufacturers are making 128 GB versions of these chips, it’s likely that the lower GB versions will become dirt cheap soon, and when that happens 16 GB chips might become the media that movies get sold on. (The typical HD or Blu ray movie takes less than 8GB on average on DVD’s now.) There are also solid state devices using similar memory technology for capacity right now, while solid devices like the Ipod touch are relatively expensive for the average consumer for the memory (64 GB), they will improve.

Disk based industries have a vested interest in keeping spinning platter formats alive, but engineering and physics really demand that the switch be made. CD’s and DVD’s can skip when you hit bumps in cars or when you bounce while walking, while the solid state chips require zero moving parts to play. You can also plug SD-MMC chips into any player device with an SD slot, they are low energy, and the minimal storage space required makes these portable – all are media properties that consumers would desire if manufacturers only provided them. At Best Buy and other stores you could place that entire row of bins of CD’s and DVD’s on a couple of spinning racks of cards with MMC’s on them. Manufacturers already see this coming and are starting to bridge technologies – e.g. if you have an elder Sony Blu ray player, you can get a chip that enables BD-Live.

When this will happen is probably in a span of under ten years but more than a couple, however do keep in mind that many early adopters have already switched to all digital, all streaming for media purchases. The average consumer will still want physical media, but the savings for industry are clear (how much fuel and space do you save shipping MMC’s over CD’s and DVDs?)

I haven’t bought a CD in years, and the past two it’s been the same story for blu ray and DVD formats — why would you when you can just get what you want digitally?

What does this mean for car stereos? Will the MMC slot replace the CD player, and how soon? Will built-in GPS units come solid state and update via SD? Will car stereos come with memory and wi-fi — will you be able to share your full ITUNES or other player library with them? What about DVD players? Will the blue ray player be replaced by a slot in the TV pretty quickly, if not why not?

Meanwhile it’s still expensive for storage on spinning disks once you get to terabyte or better hard drives, and there is a shortage due to flooding in Thailand a while back so the prices will remain high for the short-term, but once SSD’s start dropping in price & raising in capacity the switch is going to happen fast.

So your Blu ray player and that 2 terabyte hard disk drive will become quaintly humorous examples of old tech like an 8 track tape player is now. The changes to storage, shipping, sales, players, and the refresh of technology and network in nodes to support streaming and some form of solid state media will drive industry for years. These are the types of changes that keep the economy growing and the world spinning, so help push back against the recidivist and entrenched industries fighting against change — I mean isn’t it past time that you should be able to stream your entire music library into your car’s stereo player? Isn’t it past time that you should be able to safely archive your photos and media for at least the length of your remaining life span?