Big Oil’s new strategy: If you can’t build a new pipeline, just overload the old one | Grista

http://grist.org/climate-energy/big-oils-new-strategy-if-you-cant-build-a-new-pipeline-just-overload-the-old-one/

Big Oil's new strategy: If you can't build a new pipeline, just overload the old one

Yesterday, Canadian pipeline behemoth Enbridge won government approval for its plans for 9B, one of the most contentious pipes in pipe business. While it doesn't get much press, 9B is important because it's part of a hot, new trend in trans-national pipe dreams: Skirting environmental review, and public scrutiny, by pumping dirty crude through existing pipelines rather than building new ones.

Enbridge wants to use 9B to carry up to 300,000 barrels of tar-sands oil per day to Quebec for refining and export. And it is determined to not repeat the mistakes of TransCanada, the company behind the much-maligned (and very publicly held-up) Keystone XL pipeline. Thus the tactic of reusing old lines, a game that it has already played with several other pipes.

One of those pipes was 6B, which dumped a million gallons plus of freshly harvested tar-sands crude into Michigan's water supply in 2010. Another is Line 5, whose capacity was expanded 10 percent recently, despite the pipeline's being over 60 years old, and despite its running through the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, also known as a hell of a lot of fresh water. The effects of the dilutant that is mixed with tar-sands crude to help it move through the pipe are not well understood and are at least equal to, if not more corrosive than, conventional crude.

Line 9, of which 9B is one part, is a 38-year-old stretch of pipeline that runs along the northern part of Lake Ontario. It was originally built to get Canadian crude out to Quebec. In 1998, the flow was reversed to bring in cheap oil imports from West Africa and the Middle East. Now, the National Energy Board has given Enbridge the go-ahead to reverse it again, to funnel tar sands to Quebec.

It is not a huge surprise that 9B was approved. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has proclaimed an ardent desire to mitigate climate change — but only if that does not in any way involve stopping, or even slowing, the geyser of money issuing from the Alberta tar sands. Just to be on the safe side, his administration has cut funding for scientific research involving things like air quality, water quality, emissions, and oil spills. It has also set up an $8 million fund to audit nonprofits (i.e. environmental groups) and make sure that they aren't engaging in "partisan" political activity.

The Energy Board, a federally appointed three-person panel, was operating under a new set of rules put in place after 1,500 people showed up during the public comment period for another pipeline, the Northern Gateway. In order to comment to the panel directly, opponents of 9B had to fill out a 10-page application and prove that they would be directly impacted. Even writing a letter of protest to the panel required pre-approval.

The green light for 9B came with 30 conditions, so the reversal won't happen immediately. Meanwhile, pipeline opponents are reacting in different ways. Groups like Rising Tide are calling for a direct action. Others are pushing for an Environmental Impact Review.

A group called ForestEthics Advocacy filed a lawsuit arguing that the new rules around comments are unconstitutional, and that the scientific evidence given to the panel to make its decision was unsound. If the suit succeeds, then oddly enough, the new rules surrounding pipeline approval could be 9B's undoing.

~A.

http://lifehacker.com/tv-streaming-head-to-head-netflix-vs-hulu-vs-amazon-pr-1536006625?utm_campaign=socialflow_lifehacker_facebook&utm_source=lifehacker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

TV Streaming Head-to-Head: Netflix vs Hulu vs Amazon Prime

One of the more annoying things about Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon's television streaming libraries is the vast difference between the selection available. It would be almost impossible to get a thorough idea of who has the better library without searching for hundreds of TV shows on each service and comparing them manually. So we did just that.

We all have our own impression of what kind of selection different companies have, but we wanted to get a clearer picture. To do that, we searched for 250 shows on Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime to see who has the best selection available for their respective paid subscription services. Just for kicks, we also threw in Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play's selection of shows you can buy as well.

Methodology

Getting a complete representation of everything that the various streaming services have to offer would be an undertaking too huge and too dense to be useful. In order to get a useful glimpse into the different libraries, here's what we did:

• We counted IMDb's top 250 TV shows by MOVIEmeter rank. IMDb ranks movies and TV shows based on a scale called MOVIEmeter, which measures how much people are searching for and interacting with certain titles (regardless of ratings, reviews, or recency). The full list can be found here. We gathered the top 250 shows according to this list to represent the shows most people are interested in, irrespective of demographic.
• We included partial seasons in the count. Some shows are currently airing and new episodes arrive regularly. Other services may get licenses to show half of a season. If a service has six full seasons and part of the seventh season available, we counted it as seven seasons. We did not count "best of" episode packs or holiday specials where applicable.
• We gave Hulu Plus special "Recent Episode" designations. While Hulu Plus offers a similar service to Netflix and Amazon Prime, it's also the only service surveyed that offers to carry a rotating collection of the last few episodes of a show, or the entire recent season. These were counted as either the "Recent Season" or "Recent Episodes" designation, depending on the licensing scheme.
• We did not count shows hosted on network sites. Most networks including CBS, HGTV, Adult Swim, Fox, AMC, HBO, Showtime, and dozens more offer full episodes of shows on their own web sites (sometimes for a fee). While Hulu is pretty good at finding out if episodes are available on these sites, we did not include that availability in this analysis.
• We only looked at US availability. Looking at availability across different services is already pretty complicated, but accounting for differences in international licensing is a mess. Our data only includes US availability, but you may be able to use apps like Hola Unblocker to see content that's available in countries outside your own.

With this in mind, here's what we found:

While we collected far more than just 25 shows, unfortunately showing them all would create a graphic that's just a little bit too big to be useful. This data was collected on the weekend of February 22 and 23rd, and will probably have changed by the time you read this.

Conclusions

With the data collected, we can learn a few things about how the different services stack up.

Netflix is the Undisputed TV Streaming King

Setting aside that Netflix is breaking new ground and winning awards with its streaming-only shows like House of Cards, Netflix has more than twice as many shows available to stream as Amazon Prime (122 shows vs 58 out of 250). Not only did Netflix have more than Amazon, it had just shy of half of all the shows surveyed (48.8%). So, unless you're looking for something obscure or extremely old, you've got roughly a coin-flip's chance of finding it on Netflix.

On top of that, it has more shows that Hulu Plus and Amazon don't carry. Netflix had 54 exclusive shows (among streaming services surveyed) versus only 17 that were exclusive to Amazon. This includes big-name shows like Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead, which you can purchase on Amazon, but not stream with a Prime subscription. In other words, even if you already pay for Prime, a Netflix subscription might be worth it.

Hulu Corners the Market on New Content

The one thing Netflix and Amazon both falter at is recent shows. There's almost always a several month long delay between a season wrapping up and its arrival on streaming services. This is where Hulu Plus picks up the slack. Hulu Plus had 92 of the 250 shows surveyed. However, only 40 of them included backlogs of older seasons. 52 of the shows Hulu Plus carried were either the most recent season or a rotating set of the most recent few episodes of a show. In other words, you can use Netflix to catch up on the first four seasons, but for the fifth season that's currently airing on TV? Hit up Hulu Plus.

It's also worth pointing out that, while there are a ton of shows Hulu Plus does not carry natively (only 36.8% of the shows we checked were on Hulu Plus at all), the service is pretty good at indexing other sites that also have full episodes. It won't redirect you to direct competitors like Netflix, but it can act as a search engine for places like CBS, AMC, or HBO that have episodes available on their own sites or services. At least in that sense, Hulu is worth checking out when you want to find shows. Just keep in mind that once you leave Hulu, you're at the mercy of the content providers themselves. Hulu returning results for HBO shows doesn't mean that you can play them on a device that supports Hulu. That's just Hulu's way of helping you find where to look next.

Streaming Selection Still Doesn't Hold a Candle to Purchasing Shows

While the bulk of this survey was aimed at comparing streaming libraries, we'd be remiss if we didn't look at content you can buy as well. Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes all allow users to buy individual episodes or whole seasons of television shows and get unlimited access to them. Google's selection included 170 of the 250 shows or 68% of all shows we checked. Amazon and iTunes, however, had a full 226 out of 250 or 90.4% of surveyed shows available for purchase.

The implication of this finding is pretty clear: if you want to watch TV shows on the internet, most content providers will be happy to oblige. For a price. Now, some of us could probably refinance a home with the amount of cash we might spend trying to buy seasons for all the shows we watch, but if you're really desperate to watch a show and it's not available anywhere else, there is the option. At the very least, all three services are pretty good about allowing you to buy new episodes as they come out. So, there's that.

At the end of the day, this is just a glimpse into the average use case. I can think of a handful of shows I like to watch that weren't even high enough on the IMDb list (MST3K anyone?). Even if Netflix has Amazon beat in the numbers, you might have all you need with Amazon. The best thing you can do is grab your five or ten favorite shows and check them out for yourself.

~A.

News From the Collections: An 18th-Century UFO?

http://mysticseaportcollections.blogspot.com/2014/03/an-18th-century-ufo.html

An 18th-Century UFO?

During the course of his research for an article and book on logbooks as a source of theological thought, a researcher at the G.W Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport came across a most unusual passage in a local logbook from 1743. While sailing from Stonington, Connecticut to Suriname (located just east of Venezuela and north of Brazil), Captain Samuel Capron aboard the little sloop PRUDENCE reported the following, as transcribed (verbatim, so please note the creative spelling) by the researcher:

"About 10 Minutes after Sun Set saw a very remarkable thing in the NE the first 

appearance of it was like the shooting of a Star wt a long continued Stream of 

fire from it this continued in a beigh like & of a figy colour the space of one 

minute ten chang'd to a purple its form then alter'd to that of a Snake w. a tale at 

ye upper end having a motion like a pendat at a Vessels masthead then chang'd to 

a light blue & alter'd its form nearly resembling a W this continued in sight 15 

minutes & keeps its places wtout moveing in ye air.2"

The following image is from the actual log, the date being Sunday, July 31, 1743.

Log 692, G.W. Blunt White Library, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc.

You can see Steve Berry's article in the latest issue of CORIOLIS: the Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime Studies.

It is interesting to note that there were relatively few such sightings reported in the 18th century, although there is mention of an observation by a farmer and servant of an unusual flying object "in the shape of a ship" in Holyhead, England in the same year.

If you try to use the latitude and longitude listed in the log,be prepared to be confused as the standardized use of the prime meridian in Greenwich as zero longitude is still well over a century away.

~A.

http://lifehacker.com/this-infographic-shows-you-how-to-delete-yourself-from-1536935719?utm_campaign=socialflow_lifehacker_facebook&utm_source=lifehacker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

This Infographic Shows You How to Delete Yourself from the Internet

Ready to erase your tracks and disappear online, once and for all? This infographic from Who Is Hosting This reveals the nine steps you need to take to remove your personal information collected all over the web.

Many of the steps are ones we've mentioned in our own guide on the subject, from deactivating online accounts to getting yourself off of data collection lists. It also offers a few more suggestions, such as falsifying your account information for those horrendous accounts you can't delete and making sure your phone company doesn't have you listed as well. Of course, if you don't want to completely disappear from the web, you can just pick and choose which steps to do to protect your privacy and personal information.

Here's the handy graphic:

How to Disappear Online | Who ?

~A.

http://cool.conservation-us.org/byorg/abbey/an/an15/an15-6/an15-610.html

The Library Company's Corrugated Clamshell Box

by Andrea Krupp
Library Company of Philadelphia

I developed this phase box design here in the conservation department of the Library Company in 1988, with assistance from Lillian Greenberg. In November 1990 I participated in a Mellon Advanced Workshop in Iowa with Pamela Spitzmueller. We participants were invited to present a short topic to the group during the course of the week, and I demonstrated this box. The response was very enthusiastic and I was encouraged to submit the design for publication in hopes of sharing with a wider audience.

The Corrugated Clamshell Box is constructed of one piece of acid-free corrugated board which is measured, cut, scored and folded to form a drop-spine style box which fits the book precisely. This can be made to hold books over 1 " thick, and it works very well for extra large and heavy books. Rare and fragile books need only be handled during the measuring to find length, width and thickness. The book is then set aside and the box dimensions are calculated. The box has no flaps or ties so it is convenient for our curators and reading room assistants to open and reclose while searching for titles in the stacks.

Figure 1. Pattern for box.

Materials: Acid-free corrugated board, 3 mm thick PVA
Tools: Mat knife (or equivalent)
Large triangle and ruler (metric) or Carpenter's square (metric) 
Creaser or bone folder
Gouge

1. Measure each book for Length, Width, and Thickness.
   Use millimeters.
2. Compute the following measurements:
   A (inner tray base) W+3mm=
   L+3mm=
   A (walls) T+3mm=
   B (outer tray base) W+6mm=
   L+9mm=
   B (walls) T+3mm=
   Spine L + 9mm=
   T + 6mm=
3. Before cutting board, study the box layout diagram on the next page.
4. Rough-cut a rectangle of corrugated board, estimating the size using the formula below with figures inserted from Step 2. The corrugation should run parallel to length of book.
5. Trim the board square.
6. Use the large triangle and ruler or carpenter's square to lay out the box pattern following the diagram. IMPORTANT: BEGIN LAYOUT WITH LARGER TRAY MEASUREMENTS, TRAY B.
7. Score all folds using the creaser where possible, and/or a bone folder.
8. Cut away shaded areas with a mat knife. Round the corners and make a thumbhole using the gouge.
9. Form a triangular tab in each of the four comers according to the diagram. Use a pointed bone folder to separate the corrugated layers of the tabs.
   

   

   Figure 2. Corner detail.

10. Fold outer layers of the tabs back on scored line. Carefully cut away to corrugation layer, leaving outer layers of the tabs intact
11. Before, gluing the tabs, firmly bend and bone the folds that will form the walls.
12. Use straight PVA to glue the comer tabs. The inner tab functions best when a fold is caught in the joint. See detail.
13. Close box, bone all folds into place and attach label.

~A.

http://www.designboom.com/technology/bio-photovoltaic-panel/?utm_campaign=monthly&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_source=subscribers

bio photovoltaic panel produces energy from bacteria in soil

feb 24, 2014

bio photovoltaic panel produces energy from bacteria in soil

bio photovoltaic panel produces energy from bacteria in soil
all images courtesy of apostolos

the bio-photovoltaic panel consists of a battery in which energy is harvested from bacteria inside the soil to release electrons. installed at the valldaura campus of the institute for advanced architecture of catalonia, the system has sensors that display its status, as well as make it self sufficient. the bacteria is fed through by-products from the photosynthesis of plants, and by introducing an anode and cathode (battery) into the soil, the free electrons can be extracted and put into the circuit.

bacteria living in the soil takes these plant nutrients and metabolizes them, releasing hydrogen protons and electrons – the introduction of a microbial fuel cell, anode and cathode means a redox process occurs, transferring the free electons in the soil from anode to cathode. by connecting a circuit with a capacitor or step-down converter into the fuel cell, it is possible to use this source of flow to power appliances or any other electrical device.

how it works

each of the components that form the BPV have certain parameters that may be changed to control the processes and efficiency of the output – the type of plant that grows, whether its edible or decorative, the soil characterístics that enable microbial growth, the type of soil that makes the electron transfer, and the battery's materials and composition all help to determine the efficiency for the way the electrons are gathered and transferred.

experiments

based on the results of the experiment, the following relationships where found:

1. 100% saturated soil produces the best results since the water in the medium promotes electrolysis within the soil.
2. the closer the anode and cathode are placed the more efficient the electron transfer is.
3. the relationship between the soil volume and the cathode's area does not grow as volume grows.
4. a triangle container is more efficient.
5. the coil cathode maximizes the surface for the bacteria to gather around, hence it is the most efficient electron collector.
6. all soil types yield similar results, hence have similar bacteria count.

design strategy, voronoi tessellation

voltage and amperage were measured in all the experiments, and even though voltage was always present, no amperes were observed. the containers were connected in series to increase the voltage and still there was no amperage. to get amperage, the batteries must be connected to a capacitor or step down converter.

materials and fabrication

the maximum voltage had to be conserved, while at the same time allowing enough space for the plant's roots to grow. to achieve both results, a voronoi tessellation was applied, which allowed for the cells to contain the batteries and keep the triangular proportion, while giving the plant more volume to spread it's roots.

how the system works

the irrigation system incorporates a voronoi tessellation, making it possible to reach more plant cells (batteries) with only once cell of water. to ensure that all of these were kept at a 100% saturation, a water base was created to connect the plant cells with the water cells via a tube, and also keep the water bed height constant throughout.

final product

having tested the different components and networks in previous prototypes, the final one incorporates an automation system that controls the irrigation and a data logger to monitor the variables that affect the plant's growth. a customized design was also developed where the user can create his/her own panel design and send it to be fabricated to the fablab. the fabrication procedure consists of milling the panel in polysteryne and applying coats of ruber and epoxy resin to stiffen and waterproof it. afterwards, the wiring and electronics are assembled and the soil and moss placed. finally, the finishing is laser cut and glued to the exposed surfaces.

how much power can be produced

the prototype incorporates the voronoi pattern in three different levels of the leaf – each vary in size, the first one is big and gives rigidity to the piece, the second subdivides the different battery clusters, and the third, the smallest, contains the battery cells. an arduino is powered by the batteries and controls the sensors for the data and water pump of the irrigation. each panel is 2x1m and 10cm thick made of polystyrene coated in epoxy resin. a wood finishing is applied to give coherence and rigidity to the whole.

milling process

the fabrication process starts with the design of the panel and 3D model, which is sent to the milling machine to turn it into a polysteryne panel of 2x1m and 10cm thick – a process that takes 9 hours. when the polysteryne is milled, it can move along to be coated in latex, firstly close to the pores so that less epoxy resin is needed.

detail of the irrigation system

after the resin is applied, the circuit is connected with each of the small voronoi cells, containing a galvanized steel wire coil as anode and a copper wire coil as cathode. these are joined in a series with the surrounding the cells. after the irrigation system is applied, the wires and plumbing are sealed on the bottom with a layer of fiber and two epoxy resin coats – adding rigidity to the base, while holding the wires and cables in place. once everything is sealed and water proofed, the saturated soil is placed to make contact with the anode and cathode. once the soil is in place, the moss is then planted into it in the different individual cells.

detail of the electronics

project info:

group members: apostolos marios mouzakopoulos, pablo marcet, ashwini mani, akanksha kargwal

designboom has received this project from our 'DIY submissions' feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

~A.

http://www.whats-your-sign.com/knowing-your-totem-animal.html

Knowing Your Totem Animal

How-To Tips to Knowing Your Totem Animals

This page on your totem animal tips is in response to a question from someone newly exploring the realm of animal energy. Specifically, she wanted to know more about how to more clearly identify and communicate with her animal counterparts. The following is part of my response:

As we make our way through this new realm of understanding, you're going to find a lot of information about animal totems, power animals, animal symbolism, shamanism. This is a time of massive expansion and subjects like these are exploding with revitalization.

My best piece of advice is to follow your own impulses as you sift through the perspectives available to you. Your own perspective & opinion is always the best one.

Tips for Knowing Your Totem Animal

• Take Time for Silence:
  The majority of our non-human counterparts exist in present-moment simplicity and quietude. If our goal is to expand our awareness of the bountiful wisdom our animal queen/kingdom offers us, it makes sense to energetically meet-up on their level. Whether you call it meditation, or just settling into a still moment of awareness, be present to the potential that is present within the collective animal realm. This one small step into stillness engages something within the human mind that brings us face to face with our animal counterparts.



• Empty Out:
  Vessels need to be emptied out before they can be filled. The capacity of the human heart is no different. Animal energy is expansive, and must have room to flourish. We can allow that room for the fullest animal expressions (and allowing rich animal relationships) by emptying out. What do I mean by this? To encounter the animal parallel, we must make a clearing within the woods of our souls that is suitable and attractive to our energetic animal counterparts. Empty out judgments, preconceived notions, limitations, emotional clutter, and doubts. These limitations are easily replaced with the wisdom and virtues of our animal kin.



• Research:
  Whether in a moment of silent clarity, or as an intuitive surge - your animal attraction will happen. When your totem surfaces through energetic waves to meet your awareness make the effort to learn more about this magnificent animal. The totemic way of life is a commitment requiring an energetic investment. An important investment of this energy is to research the animals that come into our awareness. We can do this by reading about them, watching videos about them, observing them in nature. Learn how they live their lives. Where do they live? What do they eat? How do they love? How do they behave? This is a clear signal of earnest and sincerity to your deepest self and your animal counterpart. This kind of invested interest will enhance your connection to the animal realm, and gather your animal energies more close to you.



• Observation and Reflection:
  Totemic living is 95% observation. Observation of animal energy. Observation of Self. Observation of new flavors of experience that emerge as relationships are established between you and your animal(s). Observation of that relationship growing, and the changes both it and you (and your animal counterpart) undergo as time moves. The more we gaze into the steady pools of observation, the more clear our energetic reflections will become.

Rewarding.

~A.

FreeRange Furniture

http://www.mattonoffice.org/MattonOffice/Free_Range_Furniture.html


~A.

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend | Video on TED.com

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend | Video on TED.com:

a MUST WATCH!!!!!

Why Apple Could Win Big With Tesla's Giant New Battery Factory | Wired Business | Wired.com

Why Apple Could Win Big With Tesla's Giant New Battery Factory | Wired Business | Wired.com:

Revolutionary membrane can keep your heart beating perfectly forever

Revolutionary membrane can keep your heart beating perfectly forever:

...video

How to foil the NSA and GCHQ with strong encryption- The Inquirer

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/2331668/how-to-foil-the-nsa-and-gchq-with-strong-encryption

How to foil the NSA and GCHQ with strong encryption

By Egan Orion

"Ye are many - they are few." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

THE MOST INTERESTING DEVICE shown at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this week was the secure Blackphone developed by Silent Circle and Geeksphone.

The Blackphone features anonymous search, automatic disabling of non-trusted WiFi hotspots, and private texting, calling and file transfer capabilities. It's available to the general public, and bundles additional security features that apparently go beyond the basic messaging security provided by Blackberry to enterprise customers in its Blackberry Messaging (BBM) service.

US-based aerospace and defence firm Boeing also unveiled its own Black phone - not to be confused with the Silent Circle and Geeksphone Blackphone - at MWC this week, but that appears to be restricted for sale only to government security agencies and defence industry customers, and therefore likely won't be available to the public through mobile operators or in retail shops.

The Five Eyes national security agencies of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, along with their governments' military industrial complex 'defence' contractors, clearly know that wireless and internet communications are presently insecure, if only as evidenced by their interest in the strong encryption and other security technologies embedded in Boeing's Black phone.

However, in actuality this is not least because those very same governments are conducting panoptican surveillance of the phone and internet traffic generated by everyone, including their own citizens and those of other countries all over the world. This was explosively exposed by US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden beginning last summer and in continuing revelations this year that are only becoming more horrifying in their implications.

It's obvious that our imperial masters of the New World Order, along with their spooks and military myrmidons, don't want the secrecy of their machinations compromised by conducting their activities with reasonable openness and transparency. Instead, they seek to maintain tight security around their own communications, meanwhile conducting illegal surveillance of everyone else, and that includes you, without any regard to the rights of ordinary citizens.

If this state of affairs bothers you in the least as a responsible, law-abiding citizen, the Blackphone offers the means to keep your personal communications reasonably secure. That is the reason the Blackphone struck me as the most interesting device that appeared at MWC earlier this week.

If I were looking for my next smartphone, I'd definitely take a close look at the Blackphone. If you happen to be in the market for a smartphone or will be in the future, and ubiquitous, illegal, outrageously high-handed government surveillance rubs you the wrong way, perhaps you might want to consider the Blackphone.

Whether or not you're interested in the Blackphone to secure your phone calls and messages from unwarranted snooping by government intelligence agencies in the US, UK and elsewhere, there are other measures you can take to keep your private communications secure from the prying Five Eyes and others, and these have become easier to use in recent years.

There's Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) for email as implemented by the OpenPGP Alliance and the GnuPG project for all major operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, Android and iOS. There are also a number of secure email service providers.

For online chat, there's the Off The Record (OTR) plugin for Pidgin with several implementations. Pidgin and OTR are supported by Google's Gchat service. Other secure messaging services also exist, including Blackberry's BBM.

These won't secure the content of your phone calls or metadata about calls, emails or chat messages, but if everyone starts using strong encryption, the vast communications data archives that are being collected daily on an ongoing basis by the NSA, GCHQ and some other governments' surveillance agencies likely will be rendered all but useless due to the high volume of encrypted traffic.

In my opinion, that's a very encouraging prospect. 

get encrypted…eorfwmeriwusehnfuw34byoqtn8rcp!

~A.

Long-Term Care Insurance | ElderLawAnswers

http://www.elderlawanswers.com/long-term-care-insurance

Traction
~A.

Is Something Wrong with Our Modern Diet?

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/02/24/modern-diet.aspx

11 Charts That Show Everything Wrong with Our Modern Diet

Story at-a-glance +

By Dr. Mercola

Three decades ago, the food available was mostly fresh and grown locally. Today, the majority of foods served, whether at home, in school or in restaurants, are highly processed foods, filled with sugars, harmful processed fats, and chemical additives.

During that same time, obesity rates have skyrocketed, and one in five American deaths are now associated with obesity. Obesity-related deaths include those from type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, liver disease, cancer, dementia, and depression, as nearly all have metabolic dysfunction as a common underlying factor.

The featured article contains 11 telling charts and graphs, illustrating how the modern diet has led to an avalanche of chronic disease. As its author, Kris Gunnars says:

"The modern diet is the main reason why people all over the world are fatter and sicker than ever before. Everywhere modern processed foods go, chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease soon follow."

Sugar Consumption, Especially Soda and Juices, Drives Disease Rates

Of all the dietary culprits out there, refined sugar in general, and processed fructose in particular, win top billing as the greatest destroyers of health. The amount of refined sugar in the modern diet has ballooned, with the average American now getting about 350 calories a day (equivalent to about 22 teaspoons of sugar and 25 percent of their daily calories) from added sugar.

This level of sugar consumption has definitive health consequences. One recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Internal Medicine, which examined the associations between added sugar consumption and cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths, found that:

• Among American adults, the mean percentage of daily calories from added sugar was 14.9 percent in 2005-2010
• Most adults (just over 71 percent) get 10 percent or more of their daily calories from added sugar
• Approximately 10 percent of American adults got 25 percent or more of their daily calories from added sugar in 2005-2010
• The most common sources of added sugar are sugar-sweetened beverages, grain-based desserts, fruit drinks, dairy desserts, and candy

According to this study, those who consume 21 percent or more of their daily calories in the form of sugar are TWICE as likely to die from heart disease compared to those who get seven percent or less or their daily calories from added sugar.

Needless to say, with all this added sugar in the diet, average calorie consumption has skyrocketed as well, having increased by about 20 percent since 1970.

A primary source of all this added sugar is soda, fruit juices, and other sweetened drinks. Multiple studies have confirmed that these kinds of beverages dramatically increase your risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and mortality. Diet sodas or artificially sweetened foods and beverages are no better, as research reveals they appear to do even MORE harm than refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), including causing greater weight gain.

Abandoning Traditional Fats for Processed Vegetable Oils Has Led to Declining Health

Fats help your body absorb important vitamins, including vitamins A, D, and E, and fats are especially important for infants and toddlers for proper growth and development. Moreover, when your body burns non-vegetable carbohydrates like grains and sugars, powerful adverse hormonal changes typically occur. These detrimental changes do not occur when you consume healthy fats or fibrous vegetables.

As explained by Dr. Robert Lustig, fructose in particular is "isocaloric but not isometabolic," which means you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or glucose, fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count. Furthermore, saturated fats, although supplying more calories, will NOT actually cause you to get fat, nor will it promote heart disease.

Unfortunately, the healthiest fats, including animal fats and coconut oil, both of which are saturated, have been long portrayed as a heart attack waiting to happen. Meanwhile, harmful hydrogenated vegetable oils such as corn and canola oil have been touted as "healthful" alternatives. Ditto for margarine.

Boy, did they get this wrong. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The hydrogenation process creates incredibly harmful trans fats, which the US Food and Drug Administration is now finally considering banning altogether. (I'll review the health hazards of trans fats in further detail below.) Clearly, switching from lard and grass-fed butter—which contains heart-protective nutrients—to margarine and other trans-fat rich hydrogenated oils was a public health experiment that has not ended well.

Low-Fat Fad Has Done Unfathomable Harm

Conventional recommendations have also called for dramatically decreasing the overall amount of fat in your diet, and this fat aversion is yet another driving factor of metabolic disease and chronic ill health. As I and other nutritional experts have warned, most people (especially if you're insulin or leptin resistant, which encompasses about 80 percent of Americans) probably need upwards of 50-85 percent of daily calories from healthful fats. This is a FAR cry from the less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fats recommended by the US Department of Agriculture. As stated in the featured article:

"The first dietary guidelines for Americans were published in the year 1977, almost at the exact same time the obesity epidemic started. Of course, this doesn't prove anything (correlation does not equal causation), but it makes sense that this could be more than just a mere coincidence.

The anti-fat message essentially put the blame on saturated fat and cholesterol (harmless), while giving sugar and refined carbs (very unhealthy) a free pass. Since the guidelines were published, many massive studies have been conducted on the low-fat diet. It is no better at preventing heart disease, obesity or cancer than the standard Western diet, which is as unhealthy as a diet can get."

There's no telling how many have been prematurely killed by following these flawed low-fat guidelines, yet despite mounting research refuting the value of cutting out fats, such recommendations are still being pushed.

Increased Vegetable Oil Consumption Has Altered Americans' Fatty Acid Composition

The increased consumption of processed vegetable oils has also led to a severely lopsided fatty acid composition, as these oils provide high amounts of omega-6 fats. The ideal ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats is 1:1, but the typical Western diet is between 1:20 and 1:50. Eating too much damaged omega-6 fat and too little omega-3 sets the stage for the very health problems you seek to avoid, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, depression and Alzheimer's, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes, just to name a few. To correct this imbalance, you typically need to do two things:

1. Significantly decrease omega-6 by avoiding processed foods and foods cooked at high temperatures using vegetable oils
2. Increase your intake of heart-healthy animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil

The Dangers of Hydrogenated Soybean Oil

About 95 percent of soy is genetically engineered to have resistance to glyphosate and is loaded with this highly toxic herbicide. But even if you have organic soy, most of it is hydrogenated. Hydrogenated soybean oil has, like sugar, become a major source of calories in the US diet. Americans consume more than 28 billion pounds of edible oils annually, and soybean oil accounts for about 65 percent of it. About half of it is hydrogenated, as soybean oil is too unstable otherwise to be used in food manufacturing. In 1999, soybean oil accounted for seven percent of consumed daily calories in the US.  

Part of the problem with partially hydrogenated soybean oil is the trans fat it contains. The other part relates to the health hazards of soy itself. An added hazard factor is the fact that the majority of soybeans are genetically engineered. The completely unnatural fats created through the partial hydrogenation process cause dysfunction and chaos in your body on a cellular level, and studies have linked trans-fats to:

Cancer, by interfering with enzymes your body uses to fight cancer	Chronic health problems such as obesity, asthma, auto-immune disease, cancer, and bone degeneration
Diabetes, by interfering with the insulin receptors in your cell membranes	Heart disease, by clogging your arteries (Among women with underlying coronary heart disease, eating trans-fats increased the risk of sudden cardiac arrest three-fold!)
Decreased immune function, by reducing your immune response	Increase blood levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad" cholesterol, while lowering levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good" cholesterol
Reproductive problems, by interfering with enzymes needed to produce sex hormones	Interfering with your body's use of beneficial omega-3 fats

Besides the health hazards related to the trans fats, soybean oil is, in and of itself, NOT a healthy oil. Add to that the fact that the majority of soybeans grown in the US are genetically engineered, which may have additional health consequences. When taken together, partially hydrogenated GE soybean oil becomes one of the absolute worst types of oils you can consume. Unfortunately, as stated in the featured article:

"[M]ost people don't have a clue they're eating this much soybean oil. They're actually getting most of it from processed foods, which often have soybean oil added to them because it is cheap. The best way to avoid soybean oil (and other nasty ingredients) is to avoid processed foods."

Wheat - A Bane of the Modern Diet

Modern wheat is not the same kind of wheat your grandparents ate. The nutritional content of this staple grain has been dramatically altered over the years and is now far less nutritious than the varieties of generations past. As Gunnars states:

"Modern dwarf wheat was introduced around the year 1960, which contains 19-28 percent less of important minerals like Magnesium, Iron, Zinc, and Copper. There is also evidence that modern wheat is much more harmful to celiac patients and people with gluten sensitivity, compared to older breeds like Einkorn wheat. Whereas wheat may have been relatively healthy back in the day, the same is not true of modern dwarf wheat."

Wheat lectin, or "wheat germ agglutinin" (WGA), is largely responsible for many of wheat's pervasive ill effects. WGA is highest in whole wheat, especially sprouted whole wheat, but wheat isn't the only grain with significant lectin. All seeds of the grass family (rice, wheat, spelt, rye, etc.) are high in lectins. WGA has the potential to damage your health by the following mechanisms (list is not all-inclusive):

Pro-Inflammatory: WGA lectin stimulates the synthesis of pro-inflammatory chemical messengers, even at very small concentrations	Neurotoxic: WGA lectin can pass through your blood-brain barrier and attach to the protective coating on your nerves, known as the myelin sheath. It is also capable of inhibiting nerve growth factor, which is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain neurons
Immunotoxic: WGA lectin may bind to and activate white blood cells	Cardiotoxic: WGA lectin induces platelet aggregation and has a potent disruptive effect on tissue regeneration and removal of neutrophils from your blood vessels
Cytotoxic (toxic to cells): WGA lectin may induce programmed cell death (apoptosis)	Research also shows that WGA may disrupt endocrine and gastrointestinal function, interfere with genetic expression, and share similarities with certain viruses

Flawed Assumptions About Eggs Have Worsened Health

According to USDA data, Americans ate more than 375 eggs per person per year, on average, in 1950. Egg consumption dipped to just over 225 eggs per capita between 1995 and 2000, and as of 2007, it was just over 250 eggs per capita per year—a 33 percent decline since 1950.

Like saturated fats, many naturally cholesterol-rich foods have also been wrongfully vilified. Eggs, which are actually among the most nutritious foods you can eat (provided they come from organically raised, pastured hens) have long been accused of causing heart disease simply because they're high in cholesterol. But dietary cholesterol has little to do with the cholesterol level in your body, and numerous studies have confirmed that eating eggs does NOT raise potentially adverse LDL cholesterol in your blood. Studies have also failed to find any evidence that eggs contribute to heart disease.

Testing has confirmed that true free-range eggs are far more nutritious than commercially raised eggs. The dramatically superior nutrient levels are most likely the result of the differences in diet between free-ranging, pastured hens and commercially farmed hens. In a 2007 egg-testing project, Mother Earth News compared the official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs with eggs from hens raised on pasture, and found that the latter typically contains:

• 2/3 more vitamin A
• Two times more omega-3 fatty acids
• Three times more vitamin E
• Seven times more beta-carotene

Barring organic certification, which is cost-prohibitive for many small farmers, you could just make sure the farmer raises his chickens according to organic, free-range standards, allowing his flock to forage freely for their natural diet, and aren't fed antibiotics, corn, and soy.

You can tell the eggs are free range or pastured by the color of the egg yolk. Foraged hens produce eggs with bright orange yolks. Dull, pale yellow yolks are a sure sign you're getting eggs from caged hens that are not allowed to forage for their natural diet. Cornucopia.org offers a helpful organic egg scorecard that rates egg manufacturers based on 22 criteria that are important for organic consumers. According to Cornucopia, their report "showcases ethical family farms, and their brands, and exposes factory farm producers and brands in grocery store coolers that threaten to take over organic livestock agriculture."

People Eat More Processed Food Than Ever Before

Overall, about 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods. This includes restaurant foods (i.e. food away from home) and processed grocery foods that require little or no preparation time before consuming at home.

When looking at the ratio of money spent on store-bought groceries only, Americans spend nearly a fourth of their grocery money on processed foods and sweets—twice as much as they did in 1982—according to Department of Labor statistics. Pricing of meats, sugar, and flour has had a great influence our spending habits. These items have actually seen a decrease in price per pound, which has had an inverse effect on Americans' spending habits, in that cheaper prices encourage people to buy more.

The result is obvious. Compared with shoppers 30 years ago, American adults today are twice as likely to be obese, and children and adolescent three times as likely to be overweight. Pediatric type 2 diabetes—which used to be very rare—has markedly increased along with the rise in early childhood obesity. According to previous research, early onset type 2 diabetes appears to be a more aggressive disease from a cardiovascular standpoint.

Take Control of Your Health

Research coming out of some of America's most respected institutions now confirms that sugar is a primary dietary factor driving chronic disease development. Sugar, and fructose in particular, has been implicated as a culprit in the development of both heart disease and cancer, and having this information puts you in the driver's seat when it comes to prevention. A diet that promotes health is high in healthful fats and very, very low in sugar and non-vegetable carbohydrates.

Understand that excessive sugar/fructose consumption leads to insulin resistance, and insulin resistance appears to be the root of many if not most chronic disease. So far, scientific studies have linked excessive fructose consumption to about 78 different diseases and health problems, including heart disease and cancer.  

Many also eat far too little healthy fat, and the combination of too much sugar and too little fat is driving disease rates through the roof. If you're still unsure about what constitutes a healthy diet, please review my free optimized nutrition plan, which starts at the beginner level and goes all the way up to advanced.

~A.