industryterm:energy

  • U.S. Interior Dept. relaxes rules on offshore oil, gas production | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
    https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL2N1WD1ZH

    The Trump administration on Thursday eased safety rules on offshore oil and gas production put in place after the deadly 2010 BP Plc #Deepwater_Horizon disaster, as part of its effort to slash regulations and boost the energy industry.

    The Interior Department revised the 2016 oil and gas production safety systems rule, part of a series of regulations the Obama administration enacted on offshore drilling and production after the drilling well disaster that killed 11 oil rig workers, led to the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history and cost BP about $65 billion.

    The final rule will appear in the federal register as soon as Friday, according to a document seen by Reuters.

    It eliminates or changes some safety standards for when a well is producing oil or gas, such as requiring that independent third parties certify devices. Other changes involve when operators have to notify the government about beginning oil and gas production and what they have to report about equipment failures.

  • Blackpool activists jailed for anti-fracking protest

    Three environmental activists are believed to be the first people to receive jail sentences for an anti-fracking protest in the UK.

    Simon Roscoe Blevins, 26, and Richard Roberts, 36, were given 16 months in prison and Richard Loizou, 31, got 15 months on Wednesday after being convicted of causing a public nuisance by a jury at Preston crown court in August. Another defendant, Julian Brock, 47, was given a 12-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to the same offence.

    The four men were charged after taking part in a four-day direct action protest that blocked a convoy of trucks carrying drilling equipment from entering the Preston New Road fracking site near Blackpool.

    A barrister for one of the men told Preston crown court that they would become the first environmental activists to receive jail sentences for staging a protest in the UK since the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in the Peak District in 1932, which marked the beginning of the right-to-roam movement. Activists have previously been given jail sentences for charges related to their protests, like breaking injunctions and contempt of court.

    At approximately 8am on Tuesday 25 July 2017, as seven lorries containing drilling equipment attempted to approach the site, Roberts, a piano restorer from London, got through a police cordon and climbed on top of the first lorry, bringing the convoy to a standstill. Loizou, a teacher from Devon, climbed on to the cab of the last lorry.

    At about 3.18pm, Blevins, a soil scientist from Sheffield, also climbed on to one of the lorries. In the early hours of the following morning, Brock, from Torquay, also climbed on to a lorry in the convoy.

    Fellow protesters threw blankets, food and water up to the men as they camped out on the vehicles. Loizou came down on 27 July at 5.10am after 45 hours. Blevins did the same at 4.45pm on 28 July, having spent just over 73 hours on his lorry. Roberts descended at 8.13pm the same day, after 84 hours. Brock did not climb down from his lorry until 29 July at 11.35am, after an estimated 76 hours.

    The site near Preston New Road has been a focal point for protests since the government overturned a decision by Lancashire county council and gave the energy firm Cuadrilla consent to extract shale gas at two wells on the site in October 2016. More than 300 protesters have been arrested since Cuadrilla began constructing a fracking pad at the site in January 2017.

    The company has said fracking is likely to start within the next few weeks, confirming on Monday that 28 lorries had brought fracking equipment to the site.

    Sentencing the men, the judge, Robert Altham, said he thought the three men posed a risk of reoffending and could not be rehabilitated as “each of them remains motivated by an unswerving confidence that they are right”. He added: “Even at their trial they felt justified by their actions. Given the disruption caused in this case, only immediate custody can achieve sufficient punishment.”

    He said that while the defendants were motivated by a serious concern for the environment, they saw the public as “necessary and justified collateral damage”.

    Members of the men’s families sitting in the public gallery burst into tears when the verdicts were read out. They sang a song described as a “native tribal song of power” and blew kisses to them as they were led out of the dock.

    Speaking for the prosecution, Craig MacGregor said the police argued that the demonstration resulted in significant travel disruption, causing the road to be closed initially until a contraflow was established. Police said local residents had had their lives disrupted and local businesses suffered a loss of trade. MacGregor said lorry drivers were told to stay with their cabs and were unable to return home. He said the protest had cost the police £12,000 and Cuadrilla approximately £50,000.

    Kirsty Brimelow QC, the head of the international human rights team at Doughty St Chambers, representing Roberts on a pro-bono basis, told the judge it had been a peaceful and political protest. She said the right to freedom of speech went beyond “simply standing and shouting” and extended to non-violent direct action.

    Brimelow said the fact that central government had overturned the local council to reject Cuadrilla’s fracking application demonstrated that “political process has been exhausted”. She added that “there has been no environmental protester sentenced to jail since 1932”.

    “It is relevant that there is a huge amount of scientific study that points to the damage of increasing climate emissions,” she said, referencing intergovernmental climate panel findings that climate change would displace 75 million people by 2035 and lead to the extinction of one in four species by 2050.

    Speaking outside the courts after the sentencing, Blevins’ mother, Rosalind Blevins, said: “We are all absolutely devastated by the sentences they have received. My son, like the others, was protesting against fracking because of his deep concern about climate change, which would more appropriately be called climate chaos … I am proud of him and of them for standing up for what is so, so important for all of us.”


    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/26/anti-fracking-activists-jailed-for-blackpool-cuadrilla-protest
    #gaz_de_schiste #résistance #prison #condamnation #UK #Angleterre #Richard_Loizou #Richard_Roberts #Simon_Roscoe-Blevins #énergie

  • Irie™ Magazine | Respect | Khalifa
    https://www.iriemag.com/2018/09/respect-khalifa

    Mon ami Khalifa a les honneurs du principal journal de reggae... Caen au centre du monde. Khalifa le mérite.

    Singer and songwriter since 1997 with Positive Radical Sound (PRS), Khalifa believes music can be more than making tunes and performing. Releasing four albums with PRS, two with Sly & Robbie as well as numerous songs featuring Mad Professor, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Sly & Robbie, Taxi Gang, Sugar Minott, Nambo Robinson, Steven Marley Wright and Paul Groucho Smykle, Khalifa is also involved in teaching music in detention centers in France, in refugee camps in Palestine or in youth clubs in Oran, Algeria.

    “Music should help educate while exploring the depths of the Soul”. This is what Khalifa has learned to do.

    Khalifa gets his energy from the sources of reggae music to take us beyond frontiers as shown in his last single ‘There’s a Light’ which music video was shot in Camden, London, or in his cover of French classic ‘Chanson pour l’auvergnat’ by George Brassens, North African style! For nearly 17 years Khalifa keeps producing music and writing songs, inspired by his travels and by everyday life, and backed by a powerful rhythm. A must-see performance!

    For his album, ‘Hard Times for Dreamers’, Khalifa rounded up an international crew, bringing in Mad Professor, Winston Mac Anuff, Nambo Robinson, Sly and Robbie et Steven Marley Wright (I Jah Man) to put together 12 powerful, tight songs. Each tune has its subtlety; the punchy brass section gives way to the strings, and a 50s guitar trill weaves in and out of a raw afro-beat. Robbie Shakespeare’s bassline smoothly glides us from Lagos to the Kingston suburbs, while Khalif’s masterful voice takes the lead.

    Hard times for dreamers was the result of trips to Oran, Ramallah, Kingston, Paris and London, and exchanges with Sly & Robbie, Mad Professor, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Taxi Gang, Sugar Minott, Nambo Robinson, Steven Marley Wright and Paul Groucho Smykle.

    Official Website: Khalifa.fr

    #Musique #Khalifa

  • We Can’t Do It Ourselves - LOW-TECH MAGAZINE
    http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/07/we-cant-do-it-ourselves.html

    How to live a more sustainable life? This question generates a lot of debate that is focused on what individuals can do in order to address problems like climate change. For example, people are encouraged to shop locally, to buy organic food, to install home insulation, or to cycle more often.

    But how effective is individual action when it is systemic social change that is needed? Individuals do make choices, but these are facilitated and constrained by the society in which they live. Therefore, it may be more useful to question the system that requires many of us to travel and consume energy as we do.

    #sustainable (que les technocrates de l’administration française ont traduit par « durable »)
    (D’ailleurs le concept de « soutenable » ciblerait-il plutôt les humains ou les systèmes avec lesquels ils interagissent ? Faut voir ...)

  • Classifying #drivers of #global_forest_loss | Science
    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1108/tab-figures-data

    #Mapping global #deforestation patterns
    Forest loss is being driven by various factors, including commodity production, forestry, agriculture, wildfire, and urbanization. Curtis et al. used high-resolution Google Earth imagery to map and classify global forest loss since 2001. Just over a quarter of global forest loss is due to deforestation through permanent land use change for the production of commodities, including beef, soy, palm oil, and wood fiber. Despite regional differences and efforts by governments, conservationists, and corporations to stem the losses, the overall rate of commodity-driven deforestation has not declined since 2001.

    Abstract
    Global maps of forest loss depict the scale and magnitude of forest disturbance, yet companies, governments, and nongovernmental organizations need to distinguish permanent conversion (i.e., deforestation) from temporary loss from forestry or wildfire. Using satellite imagery, we developed a forest loss classification model to determine a spatial attribution of forest disturbance to the dominant drivers of land cover and land use change over the period 2001 to 2015. Our results indicate that 27% of global forest loss can be attributed to deforestation through permanent land use change for commodity production. The remaining areas maintained the same land use over 15 years; in those areas, loss was attributed to forestry (26%), shifting agriculture (24%), and wildfire (23%). Despite corporate commitments, the rate of commodity-driven deforestation has not declined. To end deforestation, companies must eliminate 5 million hectares of conversion from supply chains each year.

    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6407/1108/F2.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1

  • #Transport_maritime : une #mondialisation conteneurisée qui rime encore avec #pollution

    La pollution des océans et de notre air est aussi interrogée par le développement du trafic maritime et de géants des mers. Cette semaine, la France a inauguré un #porte-conteneur de 400 mètres de long, alors que le secteur a tardé jusqu’au printemps dernier pour signer un accord en faveur du climat.


    https://www.franceculture.fr/ecologie-et-environnement/transport-maritime-une-mondialisation-conteneurisee-qui-rime-encore-av
    #containeurs #containers

    ping @simplicissimus @reka

    • L’OMI avait fixé des limites pour le taux de soufre des carburants en 2008 avec entrée en vigueur en 2020. Il semble que les armateurs n’ont pas vraiment eu le temps de s’y adapter…

      Shipping’s 2020 Low Sulphur Fuel Rules Explained – gCaptain
      https://gcaptain.com/shippings-2020-low-sulphur-fuel-rules-explained
      article de mai 2018

      New rules coming into force from 2020 to curb pollution produced by the world’s ships are worrying everyone from OPEC oil producers to bunker fuel sellers and shipping companies.

      The regulations will slash emissions of sulphur, which is blamed for causing respiratory diseases and is a component of acid rain that damages vegetation and wildlife.

      But the energy and shipping industries are ill-prepared, say analysts, with refiners likely to struggle to meet higher demand for cleaner fuel and few ships fitted with equipment to reduce sulphur emissions.

      This raises the risk of a chaotic shift when the new rules are implemented, alongside more volatility in the oil market.

      The reality is that the industry has already passed the date beyond the smooth transition,” Neil Atkinson, head of the oil industry and market division at the International Energy Agency (IEA), said in April.

      Toujours pour les produits sulfurés, l’équipement en scrubbers (absorbeurs-épurateurs) autre exigence de l’OMI progresse tout doucement ; le marché commencerait à se réveiller.

      IMO 2020 : How Many Ships Have Scrubbers ? - Ship & Bunker
      https://shipandbunker.com/news/world/811942-imo-2020-how-many-ships-have-scrubbers


      Image Credit : EGCSA

      After months of downbeat assessment for the scrubber market, in recent weeks orders are reported to have surged and the corresponding positive headlines have been difficult to miss.

      So how many vessels actually have scrubbers? According to a recent survey of its membership by the Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems Association (EGCSA), as of May 31, 2018 there were 983 vessels with scrubber systems installed or on order, translating into 1,561 individual scrubber towers.

      This is notably higher than the 817 vessels reported by DNV GL last month, but still a far cry from the 3,800 predicted in official estimates by IMO’s fuel availability study.

      Enfin, à côté, on annonce ponctuellement l’arrivée de navires propulsés au GNL, censé être moins polluant.

      http://www.golng.eu/files/Main/20180417/2.%20Ole%20Vidar%20Nilsen%20-%20DNV%20GL.pdf

      There are currently [Updated 1 April 2018] 247 confirmed LNG fuelled ships, and 110 additional LNG ready ships
      […]
      (Scrubber retrofit is the “main competitor” to LNG)

  • Barcelona’s Experiment in Radical Democracy | The New Yorker
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/barcelonas-experiment-in-radical-democracy

    The municipalist agenda is intentionally broad; it’s based, as Pin puts it, on common goals rather than differences. As overgeneral and even naïve as that may sound, it has practical implications: municipalism is not trying to distinguish itself from other political parties, in part because it’s not itself a party. Municipalist programs tend to be focussed on the specific needs of a city’s residents and specific programs that address them. In Barcelona, much of the program is focussed on regulating tourist industries in order to improve the lot of local residents, but also to restore some of the city’s particular character that has attracted tourism in the first place.

    As the name makes clear, Barcelona en Comú is focussed on the commons. Colau speaks of the importance of public space often and articulately. “Public space is the place, par excellence, for democracy: this space that belongs to all of us,” she told me. “Therefore, this is also the space of the most vulnerable people, which is what democratic systems should prioritize: the people who have fewer opportunities. If you have little private space, you have more public space and public services—libraries, beaches, parks. It is the space to meet with others, but also it’s a space where you can be who you want to be—this is the space for freedom. And, therefore, it is a space where you can build up the city with others. So, from that point of view, the more public space there is, and the better its quality, the better the quality of the democracy.” Colau’s government has pushed experiments in community management of space and resources, such as handing over public buildings to local communities. Barcelona is launching a publicly held energy company that will supply energy to municipal buildings.

    A central aspect of municipalist politics, and also, perhaps, the hardest to define, is a focus on what is called the feminization of politics. “Knowing that emotions and affects are very important in politics” is part of what feminization means, Pin said. “Men don’t say that. Empathy is a political value.” Pin’s work in anti-eviction activism is an example of politics that placed emotions at its center. The Barcelona Housing Platform holds open assemblies to which people bring their cases. “The last platform [assembly] we had, this Colombian woman said, ‘When I came here, I wanted to commit suicide, and since then, I have realized that it’s possible to survive and keep my place and negotiate with the bank,’ ” Pin said. “And other people recognize themselves in it. It’s the biggest expression of dignity I have ever seen. I cry every time—these are tears of dignity.” Pin was crying.

    #Communs_urbains #Barcelone #Fearless_cities

  • #Evolution might favor ’survival of the laziest’ — ScienceDaily
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180822092709.htm

    A new large-data study of fossil and extant bivalves and gastropods in the Atlantic Ocean suggests laziness might be a fruitful strategy for survival of individuals, species and even communities of species. The results have just been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B by a research team based at the University of Kansas.

    Looking at a period of roughly 5 million years from the mid-Pliocene to the present, the researchers analyzed 299 species’ metabolic rates — or, the amount of energy the organisms need to live their daily lives — and found higher metabolic rates were a reliable predictor of #extinction likelihood.

  • #Nord_Stream 2 project can bec
    ome collision point in transatlantic relations - Rinkevics
    https://www.baltictimes.com/nord_stream_2_project_can_become_collision_point_in_transatlantic_relat

    RIGA - The planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline can become a collision point in transatlantic relations, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics (Unity) believes.

    While participating in a roundtable of an energy security conference organized by the Munich Security Conference and the ONS (Offshore Northern Seas Foundation) in Stavanger, Norway, Rinkevics expressed concern about the Nord Stream 2 project, which threatens to increase dependence on one dominant supplier and delivery route, which is contrary to the principles of the Energy Union (EU), LETA was told at the Latvian Foreign Ministry.

    Rinkevics argued that the only way to address these issues at the EU level was to support the diversification of energy supply sources and develop the EU’s internal energy market. Moreover, energy is not only a matter for European security but also a question of transatlantic relations. Nord Stream 2 can become one of the collision points in the transatlantic relationship.

    At the same time, Rinkevics indicated that Latvia and the other Baltic States had done much to integrate into the EU energy market, which means that the Baltic States can no longer be regarded as “energy islands”.

    #russie #lettoni #gazprom #guerre_des_tubes #gaz

  • Why the IPO of Saudi Arabia’s crown jewel has stalled
    https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/23/investing/saudi-aramco-ipo-oil/index.html

    Maybe the biggest issue is that an IPO could have forced the kingdom to divulge closely guarded state secrets. Going public requires transparency.

    #Aramco would likely be forced to lift the veil of secrecy around private information about the size of the kingdom’s oil reserves. Keeping those numbers confidential has added to Saudi Arabia’s clout inside OPEC.

    “Anybody with a smartphone would have access to detailed reserve figures that are now state secrets,” said Jim Krane, an energy analyst at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

    The Aramco problems could raise doubt about the kingdom’s commitment to the wise strategy of diversifying away from fossil fuels by selling a stake in Aramco.

    The rationale behind the diversification “remains sound,” Krane said, but the method “turned out to be flawed.”

    The stalled IPO has forced Saudi Arabia’s to look elsewhere for resources.

    The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund is now seeking $12 billion in loans from international banks, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

    #arabie_saoudite

  • Swiss startup Energy Vault is stacking concrete blocks to store energy — Quartz
    https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy

    mix substances that cities often pay to get rid off, such as gravel or building waste, along with cement to create low-cost concrete blocks. The cost saving comes from having to use only a sixth of the amount of cement that would otherwise have been needed if the concrete were used for building construction

    • l’article relié est pris d’ici :

      https://www.sapiens.org/culture/globalization-downfall-gladstone-australia

      [...]

      Needless to say, there is a great deal of diversity in both the kinds of change being experienced in these places and the local reactions. To some, change offers job opportunities, peace, and improved infrastructure; to others, it means pollution, eviction, and a loss of livelihood. What all residents have in common is a loss of political autonomy. The decisions shaping their lives are being made further and further away from the specific locales where they live.

      One example from our research is a town in the Peruvian Andes where water was becoming scarce a few years ago. The locals suspected that a new mine was using their water, and they went to complain. However, the mining representatives claimed that it was not their fault and blamed global climate change for the erratic water supply. The question of who to blame and what to do suddenly became insurmountable for the townspeople. What could they do—send a worried email to then U.S. President Barack Obama and the Chinese government, urging them to curb greenhouse gas emissions? The gap was, naturally, too dizzying. Instead, some of them resorted to traditional healing rituals to placate the spirits regulating rain and meltwater. They trusted Pachamama, the goddess of Earth, more than their government or distant international organizations.

      Meanwhile in Lunsar, Sierra Leone, people were looking forward to job opportunities in a new mine (which, in any event, never opened) and a biofuel plantation (which did open). Globalization had brought them many benefits, notably an improved infrastructure. They relished the fact that, for the first time, they could buy bread from a roadside vendor that wasn’t covered in dust, since the road had finally been paved. But even in the midst of some positive outcomes, rapid change is creating discontent and frictions, not least over property rights. In traditional African societies, land was not considered property and could not be traded: It was allocated by the chief, used as a common resource available to all, or cultivated according to customary law. More recently, land has been privatized and turned into a form of capital, and suddenly, boundaries need to be drawn in an unequivocal way. Needless to say, these boundaries are contested.
      Various stakeholders try to work out a land dispute near Lunsar, Sierra Leone, in connection with a mining project.

      [...]

      In the mid-1800s, when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto, capitalists were easily identifiable. They were typically men, and the property owner was the proverbial man in the top hat, with his waistcoat, paunch, cigar, and gold watch. Today, the situation is far more complicated since ownership structures are transnational, corporate, and complex. Even in democratic countries, where political leaders are elected, there is a widespread feeling that the “powers that be” are further away and less approachable than before, and that there is nowhere to go with your complaints. In other words, both the economy and politics are less manageable, more difficult to understand, and harder to effectively react to.

      There are alternatives to the current situation of powerlessness. One way to counter globalized power is to globalize the response by forging alliances between local community groups and transnational organizations that are capable of putting pressure on governments, public opinion, and corporations. This has been a successful strategy among feminists, trade unionists, and environmentalists in the recent past. Another option—an opposite yet complementary strategy—is to resist the forces that threaten to overrun and disempower local communities. One of the most striking examples of this strategy is the burgeoning support for locally grown food.

      Gladstone is unique compared to previously traditional societies in that it is enmeshed in the economic globalization, which makes the little man and woman even smaller than they used to be. The city’s rise to prosperity was indeed a result of globalization. Yet, the same forces may well cause its downfall. Crucially dependent on fossil fuels, the city may once again become a dusty backwater should the world find better energy solutions.

      Signs of the city’s vulnerability are already evident: Since coal and gas prices began largely declining in 2013, and then a major construction project ended in 2015, the city has seen an unprecedented rise in unemployment and a steep fall in real estate prices.

      [...]

  • 5-year drought raises questions over Israel’s water strategy
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/5-drought-raises-questions-over-062408778.html

    It’s a confounding situation for a country that places itself on the forefront of desalination technology in an arid region, where water is a key geostrategic issue that has its own clauses in peace agreements.

    “Nobody expected five years of drought in a row, so despite our desalination capacity, it’s still a very, very grave situation,” said Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of energy.

    Some say Israel’s technological prowess may not be enough to overcome the forces of nature.

    Situated in the heart of the Middle East, #Israel is in one of the driest regions on earth, traditionally relying on a short rainy season each winter to replenish its limited supplies.

    Years of decreased rainfall have reduced the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main natural water source, to some of its lowest recorded levels, and Israel has stopped pumping water from it to its national system.

    The current drought has also dried out some tributaries that feed into the Jordan River, which flows south into the Sea of Galilee then squiggles 220 miles (360 kilometers) to the lowest place on Earth, the Dead Sea.

    #eau #moyen_orient

  • Looking for the Enemy – Hunter Cutting – Medium
    https://medium.com/@huntercutting/looking-for-the-enemy-7b0813ff9b0c

    NYT Magazine’s Nathaniel Rich Goes Full Pogo

    According to Jake Silverstein, the editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine, “the August 5 issue of @NYTmag will be dedicated entirely to a single story, a captivating, revelatory history about the decade we almost stopped climate change, but didn’t.”

    And the breathless hype doesn’t stop there, Silverstein lauds the author, Nathaniel Rich, tweeting the piece as: “a remarkable piece of historical journalism that will change the way you think about global warming.”

    Unfortunately the early hints suggest that Rich’s piece will do anything but that.

  • Why ’Dancing In The Street’ Gets The People Going : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2018/07/28/632661834/american-anthem-dancing-in-the-street-martha-vandellas

    Mark Kurlansky, author of the book Ready For a Brand New Beat: How “Dancing in the Street” Became the Anthem for a Changing America, says that at the time, those campaigning for equal rights were split on strategy — between Dr. King’s nonviolence, and the Black Power movements exemplified by Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture), the Black Panthers and Malcolm X’s Black Muslims. It was on the latter side that “Dancing in the Street” began to show a new potential.

    What makes the song an anthem is the ring of authenticity: a cry from the heart of summer in a big city, boiling with energy, turmoil and hope.

    “1964 was the year when Malcolm X famously said, ’We will get our rights by any means necessary. It really was the year that the black liberation movement was under a shift from the civil rights movement to the Black Power movement,” he says. “The people in the Black Power movement used this song for rallies because it got people worked up and got them going.”

    Mark Kurlansky also notes the litany of cities woven into the song: ’They’re dancing in Chicago, down in New Orleans, up in New York City ... Philadelphia, PA, Baltimore and D.C. now," and ending with, "Can’t forget the Motor City.’ “Every city they list where they were dancing,” he says, “was a city with a militant black neighborhood, and a city where, eventually riots, broke out.”

    Martha Reeves wants it to be known, “I had nothing to do with that. I just sang the song and in my heart, I was visualizing people actually dancing in the street. I wasn’t singing, you know, doom and gloom when the sun go down, let’s kill everybody and go steal their property, and break into stores and carry refrigerators home on your back.”

    But she also says the song reminds her of the trials she faced as a black teen in Detroit, before the modern civil rights movement began.

    “We couldn’t stand on street corners and sing,” she recalls, “because there was a police unit called the Big Four. It was usually four big white men, and they had clubs and guns. And if they caught a group of black people standing on the corner singing doo-wop ... they would jump out of the car and attack you, arrest you, or run to your house, because they didn’t want blacks gathering. So ’Dancing in the Street’ is all of that to me.”
    On ’Fanfare For The Common Man,’ An Anthem For The American Century
    American Anthem
    On ’Fanfare For The Common Man,’ An Anthem For The American Century

    Mark Kurlansky believes that “Dancing in the Street” has grown into an American anthem over six decades because its irresistible beat and engaging images let people find their own message in the song. He says that co-writer Mickey Stevenson “saw it as a song about integration: about how young black people and young white people could go out on the street and be together.”

    #Musique

  • #vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and #vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) Technologies
    https://hackernoon.com/vehicle-to-vehicle-v2v-and-vehicle-to-infrastructure-v2i-technologies-f1

    As the Internet of Things (IoT) expands throughout the world, the auto industry is gearing up for monumental changes in both individual and public transportation. Considering the fact that 80% of car accidents could be prevented with enhanced vehicle connectivity, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, tech companies and vehicle manufacturers are ramping up the development of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technologies to advance safety and convenience on our roads.V2V and #v2i carry the potential to radically improve transportation in a variety of ways. From reduced collisions to increased energy efficiency, we are on the cusp of revolutionary changes in the way we travel.The automation systems that exist in today’s cars primarily use sensors, (...)

    #self-driving-cars #v2v

  • A Critique of #bitcoin’s Governance by the Rich
    https://hackernoon.com/a-critique-of-bitcoins-governance-by-the-rich-e7f290940a5c?source=rss---

    The Bitcoin network’s massive use of electrical power to compute arbitrary values that select writers of new blocks to the chain has been a major source of anxiety in crypto communities for its waste of natural resources. Efforts to mitigate this waste, which some estimate to exceed annually the energy consumption of Ireland, consist of various alternatives to Bitcoin’s Proof of Work (PoW) approach, to be implemented in other blockchains. Most of these alternatives suffer from another fault at the heart of Bitcoin’s design, which is reliance on governance by the rich.Owners of the most powerful equipment that wields the greatest hashing power in the Bitcoin (BTC) network have all the necessary advantages in the battle to mine new BTC. In an alternative proposal called Proof of Stake, (...)

    #blockchain #bitcoin-appeal #bitcoin-authority #appeal-to-authority

  • What if summers in India turn 8-month long ?
    https://hackernoon.com/what-if-summers-in-india-turn-8-month-long-b7d21f161b48?source=rss----3a

    The world is getting not only hotter but also more humid.As a result of global increases in both temperature and specific humidity, heat stress is projected to intensify throughout the 21st century. Some of the regions most susceptible to dangerous heat and humidity combinations are also among the most densely populated.The combined scientific measure of heat and humidity is called wet-bulb temperature, which hardly ever crossed 32°C between 1985 and 2005. The nature of such heat waves has since changed because of rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change.India’s energy future could tip the scales of global climate change, but the extreme weather is already here. The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the Indus-Ganga Plain and the North Indian River Plain, is (...)

    #environmental-issues #climate-change #environment #global-warming #summer

  • Metal Gear Solid Has Always Been About The Busywork of War
    https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/qvmk7b/metal-gear-solid-v-war-busywork

    The Metal Gear Solid franchise has always played with repetition and recreation in weird ways. Whether it’s the VR missions simulating the Shadow Moses events of Metal Gear Solid, the real-life simulation that is Metal Gear Solid 2, and the repeated character types and individual characters who just keep managing to show up. All of this is couched in pseudo-philosophical debates about what it means to repeat the past. Is it in our genes? Can we truly swerve from the past to create something new? What is handed down to us? What do we make ourselves?

    I’ve been replaying Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain very slowly over the past several weeks. It is a game that is strangely positioned in this cycle of repetition. It is the bridge point between the postwar story about Big Boss that began with Metal Gear Solid III: Snake Eater and the contemporary, Solid Snake-centered, Metal Gear Solid. From the perspective of the series, this is the point where time becomes cyclical, establishing Revolver Ocelot, Big Boss, and his clone children as the figures that this entire universe pivots around.

    The world of Metal Gear repeats, over and over again, with minimal differences, and Metal Gear Solid V is the first game in the series that delivers on the promise of repetition as a way of interacting with the world. To put it bluntly, Metal Gear Solid V understands that repetition is drudgery, that it is soul-sucking, that it saps you of energy and enthusiasm, and then it demands that you dig down into that muck and live there.

  • Pharmaceutical industry gets high on fat profits - BBC News
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

    Last year, US giant Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company by pharmaceutical revenue, made an eye-watering 42% profit margin. As one industry veteran understandably says: “I wouldn’t be able to justify [those kinds of margins].”

    Stripping out the one-off $10bn (£6.2bn) the company made from spinning off its animal health business leaves a margin of 24%, still pretty spectacular by any standard.

    In the UK, for example, there was widespread anger when the industry regulator predicted energy companies’ profit margins would grow from 4% to 8% this year.

    Last year, five pharmaceutical companies made a profit margin of 20% or more - Pfizer, Hoffmann-La Roche, AbbVie, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Eli Lilly.

    Drug companies justify the high prices they charge by arguing that their research and development (R&D) costs are huge. On average, only three in 10 drugs launched are profitable, with one of those going on to be a blockbuster with $1bn-plus revenues a year. Many more do not even make it to market.

    But as the table below shows, drug companies spend far more on marketing drugs - in some cases twice as much - than on developing them. And besides, profit margins take into account R&D costs.

    The industry also argues that the wider value of the drug needs to be considered.

    “Drugs do save money over the longer term,” says Stephen Whitehead, chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceuticals Industry (ABPI).

    "Take hepatitis C, a shocking virus that kills people and used to require a liver transplant. At £35,000 [to £70,000] for a 12-week course, 90% of people are now cured, will never need surgery or looking after, and can continue to support their families.

    “The amount of money saved is huge.”

    Pour les opioides, c’est le contraire... les coûts sociaux sont largement plus importants que les revenus des entreprises pharmaceutiques concernées.

    Courting doctors

    But drug companies have been accused of, and admitted to, far worse.

    Until recently, paying bribes to doctors to prescribe their drugs was commonplace at big pharmas, although the practice is now generally frowned upon and illegal in many places. GSK was fined $490m in China in September for bribery and has been accused of similar practices in Poland and the Middle East.

    The rules on gifts, educational grants and sponsoring lectures, for example, are less clear cut, and these practices remain commonplace in the US.

    Indeed a recent study found that doctors in the US receiving payments from pharma companies were twice as likely to prescribe their drugs.

    ’Undue influence’

    No wonder, then, that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has talked of the “inherent conflict” between the legitimate business goals of the drug companies and the medical and social needs of the wider public.

    Indeed the Council of Europe is launching an investigation into “protecting patients and public health against the undue influence of the pharmaceutical industry”.

    It will look at “particular practices such as sponsoring health professionals by the industry... or recourse by public health institutions to the knowledge of highly specialised researchers on the pay-rolls of industry”.

    #Pharmacie #Marketing

  • Egypt
    Opium or coffee? Islam and its relevance in hard times | MadaMasr
    https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/07/17/opinion/u/opium-or-coffee-islam-and-its-relevance-in-hard-times

    Karl Marx hated organized and institutionalized religion. Of all his economic and political thoughts, his words equating religion with opium are some of the most notorious: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” He believed that religion has certain practical uses, much like a recreational, mind-numbing substance; that it has the potential to reduce the immediate suffering of those who are sick or injured, providing them with more pleasant illusions. But he also observed that it reduces their energy and willingness to confront the oppressive, heartless and soulless reality that capitalism forces people into.

     It feels like everyone in Egypt has been put through a social and psychological grinder ever since the Egyptian government began to enact the IMF’s loan policies. Catastrophic inflation rates reached as high as 30 percent in July 2017, another wave of price hikes in electricity, fuel, gas and water are affecting nearly all other services, and there was a recent 300 percent increase in metro ticket prices. More than a quarter of Egyptians barely hover above the poverty line, and another quarter is quickly sinking into destitution. Given this, what role does and can religion play in people’s lives?

    In a country with a conservative religious culture, and for a people who call themselves “naturally religious,” religion cannot be the mind-numbing narcotic that Marx imagined. It is too entwined in the social fabric and the historic national identity to have any such effect. If religion were indeed a drug, Egyptians would have developed a tolerance to its mechanism of action a long time ago. Neither can it be an agent for anchoring self-blame and personal salvation, or purely restricted to charity. After all, people can’t survive on prayer alone. It also cannot be used as a tool to blame the masses for these dire conditions, much to the dismay of the ruling elite.

    Surely, it would take a much stronger concoction of narcotics than religion alone to deny the impact of the IMF’s infamous prescription and our state’s economic policies?

  • Sprints, marathons and hikes
    https://hackernoon.com/sprints-marathons-and-hikes-f5ed2e9951bf?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4

    Preparing for a #sprint. Photo by William Stitt on UnsplashA sprint is when you run as fast as you can a short distance. You exhaust as much energy as you can in what can be described as a focused explosion. The goal is set (typically 100, 200 or 400 meters away) and the track is planned and designed to optimize for speed. The goal of a sprint is to finish as fast as possible (on time).A #marathon is a long distance run with a clear goal. You know from the beginning how long you will run and which path to take. Conservation of energy is a concern but you still have to keep a high pace. Collapsing at the finishing line is a legit strategy because the goal of a marathon is to finish it on time and on budget. You carry no extra weight to be able to reach this goal.Photo by Pietro Rampazzo on (...)

    #agile #startup #product-management

  • Leaving Apple and Google: /e/ is the symbol for “my data is MY data”
    https://hackernoon.com/leaving-apple-and-google-e-is-the-symbol-for-my-data-is-my-data-69629a94

    As some of you will have already noticed, the project has moved to a new web location, and the project is now known as the “my data is MY data” symbol:Why such a move?The “eelo” trademark we have been using so far has been filed by myself in the EU and in the USA. However, some companies have filed opposition to its registration, because they claim that there exists a likelihood of confusion between their prio similar marks and “eelo”.In some cases, we could arrange a coexistence agreement, by reducing the scope of our goods and services, that was somewhat too broad. For instance, it’s clear that our project is not about producing energy or developing human-resource management software.But one company that opposed our registration in the EU has refused to even discuss a peaceful coexistence (...)

    #android #freedom #open-source #privacy

  • Opinion | Local Girl Makes Good - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/sunday/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-maureen-dowd.html

    WASHINGTON — At dawn on the day after the election that rocked her world and her party, working on three hours of sleep, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez walked out of her Bronx apartment building.

    “A sanitation truck pulled up,” said the 28-year-old with the contagious smile and an energy that impressed even the dragon-energy president. “The driver reached out his arm to give me a high-five. What that moment tells me is what we did was right. We are touching the hearts of working people. Democrats should be getting high-fives from sanitation truck drivers — that is what should be happening in America.”

    It has been a heady few days for Ocasio-Cortez. After failed attempts during her campaign to get a Wikipedia page because she was deemed not notable enough, she now has one. After being told by her family when she was growing up that The New York Times was too expensive to buy and being told by her teachers that the paper was too advanced for her, now she keeps landing on the front page, a metamorphosis she calls “thrilling.”

    Her mother, a Puerto Rican native, flew in from her home in Florida for the last three days of the campaign. “I think she thought I was running for a City Council seat. She’s like, ‘O.K., that’s cute, go for it,’” Ocasio-Cortez said.

    But when reporters knocked on their door, the proud mother proffered that her daughter wants to be president.

    #Politique_USA

  • Greece’s Energean reportedly in talks to develop Gaza’s natural gas fields
    Sources say bringing Gaza Marine into production would benefit Israel, too
    Ora Coren - Jun 25, 2018 10:25 AM - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/greece-s-energean-reportedly-in-talks-to-develop-gaza-s-gas-1.6201931

    Energean, the Green energy company that is developing Israel’s offshore Karish and Tanin oil fields, is negotiating with the Palestinian Authority to develop fields offshore the Gaza Strip, sources in the local energy industry told TheMarker on Sunday.

    The sources said that the discussions have revolved around the commercial aspects of Energean’s taking over development of the fields after Royal Dutch Shell said in March it was giving up its stake in the undeveloped license.

    Energean declined to comment. “Developing Karish and exploring the blocks adjacent to it are our highest priorities. We avoid commenting on rumors concerning our operations and when there is something to announce we will do so officially,” the company said.

    Located about 30 kilometers off the Gaza coast, Gaza Marine has long been seen as a golden opportunity for the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority to join the Mediterranean gas bonanza, providing a major source of income to reduce its reliance on foreign aid.

    However, no work advanced on the field amid repeated wars with Israel, the blockade and ongoing rivalry between Hamas and the PA over control of Gaza. Shell had been struggling to find a buyer for its 55% stake in Gaza Marine, which it took over as part of its acquisition of BG Group in 2016.

    With Shell’s exit, the Palestine Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund, remains the sole shareholder. The field is estimated to hold over 30 to 35 billion cubic meters of natural gas, the equivalent of Spain’s consumption in 2016.

    Israel’s Energy Ministry has reportedly been kept abreast of the talks, but refused on Sunday to comment on them. Any development of the field would require Israel’s approval, but at least one official said that Israel would benefit economically from it.

    “The matter has been under discussion in the government for a long time. If they develop the Palestinian reservoir and it’s connected to Israel it would create competition for Tamar,” said one source, referring to Israel’s single gas field now in operation, a monopoly that has been the source of chronic controversy.

    “It would also reduce the burden on Israel Electric Corporation, which today is supplying power to Gaza,” said the source, who asked not to be named. “It’s a small field, but the Gaza power plant has minimal needs. So whoever develops [Gaza Marine] will also want to sell Gaza gas to Israel.”

    The source said that converting electricity generation to clean natural gas would also reduce air pollution in Gaza and ensure a more reliable energy supply to the enclave, which now gets only a few hours of power daily.

    The only problem – and the source said it could be a fatal one – is that the PA would be entitled to royalties from the gas.

    Although Gaza Marine is small, the gas doesn’t lie deep beneath the seabed and development could probably be completed within three years.

    With reporting by Reuters.

    #GazàGaza