(Shanghai Expo Massive Disarray)
Here’s the whole article – DEFINITELY worth reading
Seems to me that whether you’re a REPUBLICAN or DEMOCRAT … the concept that there’s unlimited OIL is obviously false.
So … if we could re-do ‘giving Kuwait’ back to its monarchy… it would have been good to have KEPT it! IMO the USA will be going to war for oil (as official policy) in the next 15 years. “Kuwait has a geographically small, but wealthy, relatively open economy with self-reported crude oil reserves of about 104 billion barrels – about 9% of world reserves.” CIA FACTBOOK – ECONOMY section
Anyway … while petroleum is a crappy option … it’s pathetic that we’re not focusing on solutions to use less energy – or gather other sustainable energy.
Some of my ideas (and by the way the former owner of a residential and commercial roofing contractor in California):
My favorite = Tidal power or here
Also cool (more futuristic) = Solar Farming
WE COULD EASILY do for all future commercial roofs (both new construction and re-roofing):
Cool Roofs
Cool roofs feature a highly reflective outer surface that reduces the amount of heat conducted through the roof. On a sunny day, ENERGY STAR–labeled cool roof products typically lower the roof surface temperature by 50° to 70° Fahrenheit (F), thereby decreasing the amount of heat transferred into a building (see sidebar).
CASE STUDY: Texas Cool Roof Yields Big Savings at Target
Installing a reflective roof membrane on a 100,000-square-foot Target retail store in Austin, Texas, reduced the average summer daily maximum roof-surface temperature from 168° to 126° Fahrenheit. This temperature reduction cut the building’s total air-conditioning energy use by 11 percent and peak air-conditioning demand by 14 percent. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimate that this cool roof installation will save about $65,000 over the course of its useful life. According to the building manager, the difference in labor and materials costs for installing a white thermoplastic roof instead of a black rubber roof was negligible, so that the payback for this system was immediate.
Don’t think this article will take anyone who reads about China as a surprise. “Throw money at it” is the standard operating procedure of those in Beijing.
Taken from: the South China Morning Post.
{Giggling}
In China, when I do this Google search the first page shows me about 5 pictures. Then when I click on the link to go to the second page, the page is all white. The firewall stops it before the links appear.
{Giggling over} Oh, big
Cary Huang in Beijing
Apr 27, 2010
Beijing will earmark billions of yuan and introduce more preferential policies to speed up the development of Xinjiang as the leadership struggles to deal with ethnic tensions there, according to officials.
The unprecedented handouts – which will be used to speed up several key industries such as energy, tourism, steel, modern agriculture, and environment protection and recycling – are part of a new economic development plan to be worked out at a conference at the end of next month, said officials with knowledge of the plan who did not want to be named.
The Central Work Conference on Xinjiang will be chaired by President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao and attended by all Politburo members, central government ministers, and regional party and government heads.
The meeting comes after Zhang Chunxian was named the region’s new party secretary at the weekend, which analysts said paved the way for the implementation of a new developmental strategy for the restive remote region.
The money in the handouts could be as much as twice Xinjiang’s annual revenue of over 30 billion yuan (HK$34 billion), said the official who is involved in the country’s “Go West” programme, which was designed a decade ago to help develop the poorer part of the country. Xinjiang is one of 12 provincial-level regions in the programme, initiated by then president Jiang Zemin .
“The main purpose is to speed up the development and improve the people’s livelihood to effectively ensure social stability after the recent riots,” the official said.
Zhang replaces Wang Lequan , a hardliner who served 15 years as Xinjiang’s party secretary – an extraordinary length of time in such a post. Zhang, 56, had been the party secretary in Hunan .
Two months after the riots in July, in which nearly 200 people were killed, Han Chinese demonstrators called for Wang’s resignation. The party secretary of Urumqi , the regional capital, and Xinjiang’s police chief were replaced days later.
On Friday, the top decision- making Politburo, after a meeting on Xinjiang, called for faster economic development to boost social stability in the vast and strategically important area, where ethnic Uygurs have complained of missing out on economic growth. The decision was aimed at securing “long-term social stability in the region”, Xinhua said.
The vast, energy-rich region is one of China’s poorest areas, although its economy has been among the country’s fastest growing in recent years thanks to stepped-up development of its energy resources to meet soaring demand in China’s main population centres in the east.
Uygurs, like Tibetans, also complain they face restrictions on their civil liberties and religious practices.
In 2008, Tibetans rioted in Lhasa , the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region , and occasionally violent unrest spread across Tibetan areas of western China in the lead-up to the Olympics in Beijing. Militant Uygurs mounted attacks on security forces and Han businesses before and during the Olympics, as well.
But many Han, who are the majority in Xinjiang, feel aggrieved at what they see as preferential policies for minorities, such as looser family-planning rules.
Analysts see the choice of Zhang for the Xinjiang post as a message that Beijing intends to soften its minorities policy by providing more financial aid and allowing more autonomy on local affairs and possibly relaxing some religious restrictions.
They said Zhang’s elevation may be part of a new policy to boost the region’s development.
I’m not one to bitch about cell phones – unless there’s a big problem. HOWEVER, by charging the most for a phone (in their cell phone line), the LEAST they could do is to do a decent job of checking the cell phone’s software BEFORE it’s released!
One thing that I LOOK for in a phone is the ability to encrypt the contents of the memory stick – it’s nice to know that if one’s phone is stolen (or forgotten, like the Apple employee with the prototype iPhone 4G who forgot it in a bar bathroom) then the contents of the phone are not retrievable (without serious effort).
So, I stumbled across the settings for ENCRYPT (home/control panel/phone/encryption) – and decided I’d encrypt my memory stick.
I put in a password the first time.
Then, when I started to put the password in a second time, I decided I wanted to use a different password. So, I purposefully put in a different password in the CONFIRMATION FIELD.
SHOCKINGLY, the password was accepted! by the phone.
It proceeded to encrypt the memory stick.
After the encryption, my SMS messages were locked, and I was unable to create any new messages (I had purposefully chosen to save SMS files to the memory stick).
So, I decided to DECRYPT the memory stick.
It didn’t ask me for a password -oooops! minor security flaw.
It decrypted the memory stick, but in doing so, it corrupted all the files. Not fun.
So, when considering the Nokia e72, my review of it would be, take a pass until they can come up with better OS applications; namely, when the phone’s glitches aren’t so bad that you can feel safe using it.
PAF
Sad, horrible, pathetic, antiquated.
Adjectives which describe the destruction found in
I find it interesting how few professionals routinely have heard of LinkedIn.com – I spend many lunches reading through the information that’s emailed to me due to my belonging to ‘groups’ that I’m interested in.
Also, I tell new users to LinkedIn.com to make sure that their recommendations for others are ‘real’ and consistent.
I try to recommend people on a regular basis – as I agree with the often heard sentiment that people tend to repeat the bad about things. This is a great way to do good unto others!
Also, if someone has taken the time to recommend you, you should evaluate how you feel about the person who wrote it – and recommend if they deserve it.
Finally, if you don’t like a recommendation, then it’s my opinion that you should draft a version that you do like, send it back, and see if the recommendee agrees with it.
Love Google Maps – or Google Ditu as the case may be.
When confused, you can put the address into Google Ditu (http://ditu.google.cn) just like you can Google Maps.
Here’s how you get to my office – with street addresses in Chinese:
Click here: http://is.gd/bscoV
Put Your Address where it says New York, NY, United States
Click on the button.
Instant Map!
Just got ‘excellent’ customer service by China Southern Airline’s staff. It included almost losing my temper 3 times, being told I’d paid extra for a business class seat – yet I “needed” to settle for ECONOMY as they HAD no business class due to a change in airplanes; of course I got what they called a “Free Upgrade” t…o first class.
When arrived at the airport I was told I could “sit in first class” but I’d be “served” economy lunch. After arriving at the VIP waiting area, I mentioned it – had a supervisor … who after first ignoring me because he didn’t think [I] spoke Chinese…. informed me that what I wanted was “impossible”.
After I reminded him that the airline’s CEO just wrote an article on “excellent customer service” – to which he admitted he hadn’t read it … he decided he had to LEAVE to go get permission. He came back and at the end thanked me for “my understanding”. LOL ahhh…. my understanding. www.cs-air.com
