NASA: “We’ve discovered a previously unknown surprise circling Earth”
io9.comThis is wild. NASA’s recently deployed Van Allen probes — a pair of robotic spacecraft launched just last August to investigate Earth’s eponymous pair of radiation belts — are already turning out some very unexpected findings. Chief among them: an ephemeral third ring of radiation, previously unknown to science, surrounding our planet.
Congress watchdog probes solar loans after Solyndra
The last-minute approvals of the projects raise fears that “the evaluation of loan guarantees may have been rushed in order to meet a deadline,” said Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, in a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu.Issa and other Republicans in the House of Representatives have pushed to highlight concerns about a loan guarantee to Solyndra, a failed solar panel manufacturer that has filed for bankruptcy and is being investigated by the FBI.Solyndra was the first company to receive an Energy Department loan guarantee, worth $535 million, in 2009. The Solyndra investigation has been politically embarrassing for the Obama administration, which had made clean energy job creation a key plank in its energy policy.Funding for the program expired on Sept 30, and on that day, the department approved loan guarantees to First Solar Inc for two solar power plants and SunPower Corp for another plant.The projects were different than Solyndra. While Solyndra’s loan went toward building a factory, the three power plants approved Sept 30 had a fixed revenue stream from contracts for the electricity produced by the plants.After the Energy Department approved the loan guarantees, the plants were bought by some of the largest utilities in the nation.The committee wants to know whether the sale of the projects to the utilities was a condition for approval of the loans.Exelon bought First Solar’s Antelope Valley project, while NextEra Energy and GE’s Energy Financial Services bought First Solar’s Desert Sunlight plant.NRG Energy bought SunPower’s California Valley project.The fourth loan guarantee was for a project owned by Prologis to install solar panels on industrial buildings, which was also backed by NRG.Issa asked for emails between the Energy Department and all the companies involved, as well as emails between the Energy Department and White House concerning the projects.The panel also asked a series of questions about the technology used by First Solar, and asked why the Energy Department failed to finalize a guarantee for First Solar’s Topaz plant.The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been leading the probe of Solyndra and the loan guarantees, and is slated to hold another hearing on the issue on Friday.
Brazil Has Seven Feature Bidding Probes ! http://newish.info/98521-brazil-has-seven-feature-bidding-probes
Watchdog probes Erste, CEO Treichl over disclosure
Erste said on Oct. 10 it faced a 2011 net loss of up to 800 million euros ($1.1 billion) after taking hits on foreign-currency loans in Hungary, on euro zone sovereign debt, and in its credit default swaps (CDS) portfolio.The unscheduled announcement sent Erste’s stock to a 2-1/2 year low and also hit the share price of its peers.It came after Chief Executive Andreas Triechl’s said on Sept. 29 he saw no reason to change a 2011 profit forecast to account for a Hungarian law letting borrowers repay foreign-currency loans at below-market rates.An FMA spokesman said two separate investigations were under way but were at an early stage.”There is an investigation relating to the CDS portfolio and the way it was booked,” he said. “There is also an investigation relating to the interview that Mr Treichl gave to Reuters on Sept. 29 on the sidelines of the supervision conference where he confirmed the profit outlook and less than two weeks later the opposite was the case.”The CDS case centres on Erste’s move last week to reclassify CDS holdings as derivatives instead of financial guarantees and to mark them in line with market valuations.That switch, which Erste said was based on a July staff paper from the International Accounting Standards Board, led to charges against both equity and profits.The FMA is now examining on its own initiative whether Erste should have switched earlier to using market rates for valuing the CDS portfolio instead of holding them at amortised cost, the FMA spokesman said.The investigation into Treichl’s comments arose from routine checks as well as a complaint from someone the spokesman did not identify about potential market manipulation and violation of disclosure rules, the spokesman added.The FMA has sent a letter to Erste requesting more information about the CDS portfolio. It has not written to the bank yet about Treichl’s comments, he said.”The facts are being gathered, then it will be considered what happens next,” he added.An Erste spokesman confirmed it had been contacted by the markets regulator.”The FMA has asked us to answer six questions on the topic of CDS and adhoc releases,” he said. These included details on the credit default swaps held by Erste such as the timing of transactions and their market and book value.($1 = 0.727 Euros)
Failure Prevents Russian Probes Reached Mars To The Moon ! http://newish.info/203188-failure-prevents-russian-probes-reached-mars-to-the-moon
Watchdog probes Erste, CEO Treichl over disclosure
Erste said on Oct. 10 it faced a 2011 net loss of up to 800 million euros ($1.1 billion) after taking hits on foreign-currency loans in Hungary, on euro zone sovereign debt, and in its credit default swaps (CDS) portfolio.The unscheduled announcement sent Erste’s stock to a 2-1/2 year low and also hit the share price of its peers.It came after Chief Executive Andreas Triechl’s said on Sept. 29 he saw no reason to change a 2011 profit forecast to account for a Hungarian law letting borrowers repay foreign-currency loans at below-market rates.An FMA spokesman said two separate investigations were under way but were at an early stage.”There is an investigation relating to the CDS portfolio and the way it was booked,” he said. “There is also an investigation relating to the interview that Mr Treichl gave to Reuters on Sept. 29 on the sidelines of the supervision conference where he confirmed the profit outlook and less than two weeks later the opposite was the case.”The CDS case centres on Erste’s move last week to reclassify CDS holdings as derivatives instead of financial guarantees and to mark them in line with market valuations.That switch, which Erste said was based on a July staff paper from the International Accounting Standards Board, led to charges against both equity and profits.The FMA is now examining on its own initiative whether Erste should have switched earlier to using market rates for valuing the CDS portfolio instead of holding them at amortised cost, the FMA spokesman said.The investigation into Treichl’s comments arose from routine checks as well as a complaint from someone the spokesman did not identify about potential market manipulation and violation of disclosure rules, the spokesman added.The FMA has sent a letter to Erste requesting more information about the CDS portfolio. It has not written to the bank yet about Treichl’s comments, he said.”The facts are being gathered, then it will be considered what happens next,” he added.An Erste spokesman confirmed it had been contacted by the markets regulator.”The FMA has asked us to answer six questions on the topic of CDS and adhoc releases,” he said. These included details on the credit default swaps held by Erste such as the timing of transactions and their market and book value.($1 = 0.727 Euros)
Maverick ET-7 Remote-Check Wireless Thermometer With 2 Probes
onlywire.comArticle by at 2011-10-21 11:35:35
Categorized in Outlet,
End of the Space Age?
Okay. Space is risky and cost prohibitive. Why? No air, no water, gamma rays, micrometeors, space junk. Alright, we get it.
And so we are supposed to just chill out here on Earth forever? Just say, “Too dangerous. Good game guys. See ya next time.”
Fuck that.
Let’s look at what HAS worked. Robots. Satellites. Landers. Probes. We’ve had great success with all of these.
So, why not put two and two together. Rather than send all these robots to all the reaches of our solar system with exploration in mind (not that I have a problem with that), let us send them out with the specific purpose of terraforming.
Sure, this takes a big leap in thought from being a sterile observer to being an active colonizer. But with robots being able to be built better, faster, cheaper, send them instead. Imagine an army of robots working on the moon to make a base. Then, by the time we get there, it’s already a resort! Send the robots to Mars with a cocktail of microbes. Make it a livable planet before we even get there.
I’m not even talking AI, I’m talking simulacrum. People would have awesome jobs remotely roving the stars. They’d come home and when asked what they did at work today, they’d answer “Oh, just mined 50,000 tons of ore on Moon.”
I see Mars rovers tweeting, but again, all in the name of “look what we found” and not “look what we built.” I know, ethical questions of what might already be there, and what gives us the right, and blah blah blah. Start with the Moon. It’s our sister planet. Think how lonely it has been without all the fun life running around on it, watching things go on on its blue sibling all these millions of years.
Let’s get this done people.
