Saturday, May 26, 2012

Simple Ideas That Are Borderline Crafty (35 Pics)

Simple Ideas That Are Borderline Crafty (35 Pics)

yellow brick road - here I come!
I love these ideas-




Near field communication - Wikipedia

Near field communication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Check this out, if you don't already know about Near Field Communications (NFC)
Will make cash obsolete, Change the nature of payment transactions and telecommunications (think Product)
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a new short-range, standards-based wireless connectivity technology, that uses magnetic field induction to enable communication between electronic devices in close proximity. Based on RFID technology, NFC provides a medium for the identification protocols that validate secure data transfer. NFC enables users to perform intuitive, safe, contactless transactions, access digital content and connect elec­tronic devices simply by touching or bringing devices into close proximity. This White Paper gives an overview of NFC uses, NFC technology and signals, RF measurements on NFC units and shows some examples of measurement results.
http://www2.rohde-schwarz.com/file_15687/1MA182_2.pdf)
NFC handset chart
....unsure???
watch this: http://www.fool.com/fool/free-report/15/nfcaudio-130445.aspx?source=irbspodft0000093

Friday, May 25, 2012

Daily chart: China in your hand | The Economist

Daily chart: China in your hand | The Economist:


China in your handA brief guide to why China grows so fast

May 25th 2012, 13:10 by The Economist online
OUTSIDE China, people tend to assume that the country's impressive economic growth is due to exports. As the chart below, drawn from our special report on China's economy, shows, this notion has always been exaggerated and is now plain false. China grows thanks to high levels of investment—far higher than those seen in previous Asian miracles such as South Korea and Japan. The corollary of this is low levels of private consumption. Some argue that this must lead to imbalances that one day will send China's economy off a cliff. 
but..."as much as 80% of China's growth each year is swallowed up by the ecological and community damage being done by the growth. Some of that damage is being foisted off on their neighbors such as Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia which are killing their forest people and destroying their forest to feed China's growth. China already had to ban the cutting of trees in many watersheds, which spurred even more logging elsewhere so that China could reduce the flood damage it was getting due to its own deforestation."
now go look at the water picture...

GMI Blogs - Sorted by Popularity | GreenMedInfo | Natural Medicine

GMI Blogs - Sorted by Popularity | GreenMedInfo | Natural Medicine:
You will be moved to act on the information offered here... amazing, disturbing, verrry practical if you want to be  alive and healthy to continue on this plane.
The membership is a little different: but at $9 something a month, it will cure you of other expensive and BAD habits....a pretty good deal.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Latest Earthquakes M5.0+ in the World - Past 7 days

Update time = Thu May 24 16:00:02 UTC 2012
MAGUTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:sLAT degLON degDEPTH km Region
MAP 5.6  2012/05/23 23:19:18  -50.399   139.469 10.0  WESTERN INDIAN-ANTARCTIC RIDGE
MAP 5.9  2012/05/23 22:59:52  -50.474   139.458 10.0  WESTERN INDIAN-ANTARCTIC RIDGE
MAP 5.3  2012/05/23 20:25:58   46.516   152.714 34.0  KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 5.3  2012/05/23 17:50:28   0.844   -27.635 13.9  CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 6.0  2012/05/23 15:02:28   41.386   142.083 71.4  HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
MAP 5.0  2012/05/23 01:04:32  -16.806   -70.886 101.4  SOUTHERN PERU

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Senior Industrial Designer - Product Ventures, US - Fairfield, Connecticut | Job Postings from Coroflot.com

Senior Industrial Designer - Product Ventures, US - Fairfield, Connecticut | Job Postings from Coroflot.com
cool, kids - this is the way it's done now...

To:
Posted by Anonymous to A.d.Ventures
Go Away!

Fukushima Reactor 4 poses massive global risk | CTV News


Date: Saturday May. 19, 2012 8:20 PM ET
More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.
The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe.
Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements


Robert Alvarez, a former top adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy, also expressed concern in a letter to Akio Matsumura, a Japanese diplomat who has turned his focus to the nuclear calamity.  
Matsumura had asked Alvarez about the risk associated with Reactor 4.
"The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements," Alvarez said in his response. "If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl accident."
Mitsuhei Murata, Japan's former ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal, has also made it his mission to convince the UN and the world that urgent action is needed.
"It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor," Murata said in a recent letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in which he urged him to back efforts to address the problem.
Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said most major threats have been eliminated and "cold shutdown" status had been achieved in December.
But Noda declined to comment directly on the risk posed by Reactor 4, only telling The Wall Street Journal's Asia edition that it was important to "remain vigilant."
"We have passed a situation where people have to run far away or evacuate," he said. "Ahead of us are time-consuming tasks like decontamination and decommissioning (of the plants). We will proceed with the utmost care."
Gundersen said the remaining challenges at the Fukushima Da-Ichi site are not technological. Everyone knows what needs to be done and how to do it, he said. The challenge lies, rather, in convincing Japan that action must be taken now.
That will require international pressure, as well as international investment, on a grand scale, he said.
"We're all in a situation of having to pray there's not an earthquake. And there's the other half of that, which is pray to God but row toward shore. And Tokyo's not really rowing toward shore right now," Gundersen said.


Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20120518/fukushima-dai-ichi-risk-reactor-4-120519/#ixzz1vhByRHqN

Probability of contamination from severe nuclear reactor accidents is higher than expected: study



Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed. Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) — some 200 times more often than estimated in the past.
The researchers also determined that, in the event of such a major accident, half of the radioactive caesium-137 would be spread over an area of more than 1,000 kilometres away from the . Their results show that Western Europe is likely to be contaminated about once in 50 years by more than 40 kilobecquerel of caesium-137 per square meter. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, an area is defined as being contaminated with radiation from this amount onwards. In view of their findings, the researchers call for an in-depth analysis and reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear power plants.
The reactor accident in Fukushima has fuelled the discussion about nuclear energy and triggered Germany's exit from their nuclear power program. It appears that the global risk of such a catastrophe is higher than previously thought, a result of a study carried out by a research team led by Jos Lelieveld, Director of the Max Planck Institute for  in Mainz: "After Fukushima, the prospect of such an incident occurring again came into question, and whether we can actually calculate the radioactive fallout using our atmospheric models." According to the results of the study, a  in one of the reactors in operation worldwide is likely to occur once in 10 to 20 years. Currently, there are 440 nuclear reactors in operation, and 60 more are planned.
To determine the likelihood of a nuclear meltdown, the researchers applied a simple calculation. They divided the operating hours of all civilian nuclear reactors in the world, from the commissioning of the first up to the present, by the number of reactor meltdowns that have actually occurred. The total number of operating hours is 14,500 years, the number of reactor meltdowns comes to four — one in Chernobyl and three in Fukushima. This translates into one major accident, being defined according to the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), every 3,625 years. Even if this result is conservatively rounded to one major accident every 5,000 reactor years, the risk is 200 times higher than the estimate for catastrophic, non-contained core meltdowns made by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1990. The Mainz researchers did not distinguish ages and types of reactors, or whether they are located in regions of enhanced risks, for example by earthquakes. After all, nobody had anticipated the reactor catastrophe in Japan.
25 percent of the radioactive particles are transported further than 2,000 kilometres
Subsequently, the researchers determined the geographic distribution of radioactive gases and particles around a possible accident site using a computer model that describes the Earth's atmosphere. The model calculates meteorological conditions and flows, and also accounts for chemical reactions in the atmosphere. The model can compute the global distribution of trace gases, for example, and can also simulate the spreading of radioactive gases and particles. To approximate the , the researchers calculated how the particles of radioactive caesium-137 (137Cs) disperse in the atmosphere, where they deposit on the earth's surface and in what quantities. The 137Cs isotope is a product of the nuclear fission of uranium. It has a half-life of 30 years and was one of the key elements in the radioactive contamination following the disasters of  and .
The computer simulations revealed that, on average, only eight percent of the 137Cs particles are expected to deposit within an area of 50 kilometres around the nuclear accident site. Around 50 percent of the particles would be deposited outside a radius of 1,000 kilometres, and around 25 percent would spread even further than 2,000 kilometres. These results underscore that reactor accidents are likely to cause radioactive contamination well beyond national borders.
The results of the dispersion calculations were combined with the likelihood of a nuclear meltdown and the actual density of reactors worldwide to calculate the current risk of radioactive contamination around the world. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an area with more than 40 kilobecquerels of radioactivity per square meter is defined as contaminated.
The team in Mainz found that in Western Europe, where the density of reactors is particularly high, the contamination by more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter is expected to occur once in about every 50 years. It appears that citizens in the densely populated southwestern part of Germany run the worldwide highest risk of radioactive contamination, associated with the numerous nuclear power plants situated near the borders between France, Belgium and Germany, and the dominant westerly wind direction.
If a single nuclear meltdown were to occur in Western Europe, around 28 million people on average would be affected by contamination of more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter. This figure is even higher in southern Asia, due to the dense populations. A major nuclear accident there would affect around 34 million people, while in the eastern USA and in East Asia this would be 14 to 21 million people.
"Germany's exit from the nuclear energy program will reduce the national risk of radioactive contamination. However, an even stronger reduction would result if Germany's neighbours were to switch off their reactors," says Jos Lelieveld. "Not only do we need an in-depth and public analysis of the actual risks of nuclear accidents. In light of our findings I believe an internationally coordinated phasing out of nuclear energy should also be considered ", adds the atmospheric chemist.
More information: Jos Lelieveld, Daniel Kunkel and Mark G. Lawrence Global risk of radioactive fallout after nuclear reactor accidents, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 4245-4258, 2012. doi:10.5194/acp-12-4245-2012
Provided by Max Planck Society