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Volcanic photos
Photos of this years volcanic activity
There are lots of reviews of the year appearing - HERE is the 2016 review of volcanoes. This has some fantastic photos.
Among the photos is one of tourist activity at the Cerro Negro volcano, in Leon, Nicaragua.
I was there in 2006 when things were not quite so organised.
Turbidity Current Studied
The BBC reports on a study of a turbidity current in Monterey Bay, California, using a BED (Benthic Event Detector). These were placed on the sea bed in anticipation of a turbidity current occurring. And one did on the 15th January this year.
Details of how it was done are given but few measurements. Read it on the BBC website HERE.
A visualisation of Monterey Canyon falling away from the California coast
Earth Heritage Extra 5
Exploring geological language in the Welsh landscape
Earth Heritage Extra number 5 is now out and available for download HERE. It is all about Welsh place names and their relationship to local geology. Lots of interesting stuff!
Pen y Fan, the highest of the Brecon Beacons © Joe Cornish National Trust
Finding micrometeorites in city gutters
Searching Gutters for Stars
The Economist reports on something you could do over the holiday - start by clearing your gutters!
The link to the Economist is HERE. Because Economist articles tend to disappear with time I have copied it below
"spherules", each around 300-400 microns in diameter (a few times the width of a human hair).
An amateur enthusiast advances planetary science
ABOUT 4.6bn years ago, a spinning disc of gas and dust began to coalesce into balls of matter. The largest sphere, at the disc's centre, collapsed under its own gravity to form the sun. Other clumps of dust, scattered around its periphery, became planets and asteroids. In planets, this dust has long-since metamorphosed into rock. But in many asteroids, it is still more or less intact. As a consequence, when asteroids collide, some of it is liberated—and a small fraction of that material eventually falls to Earth as micrometeorites. This micrometeoritic dust arrives at a rate of around six tonnes a day. Spread over Earth's surface, that amounts to just one particle per square metre each year.
Researchers go to great lengths to gather these grains, because they can reveal details of the solar system's composition and history. They normally collect them by dredging up ooze from the ocean bed, then sifting and filtering it to find a few precious particles, or by melting tonnes of ice from the Antarctic to see what precipitates. Those two locations have the advantage of being isolated and reasonably free of dust from industrial sources. Now, in a study just published in Geology, a group of researchers have identified about 500 micrometeorites from an unlikely source: gutter sediment from the roofs of buildings in two of Europe's capital cities.
Enthusiastic amateur astronomers have claimed to have found cosmic dust in such urban slurry before. Professional scientists, however, tend to be sceptical of such claims, and none has been verified. Jon Larsen, a Norwegian musician, refused to be discouraged. He collected detritus from gutters in his hometown, Oslo, and also from rooftops in several cities that he visited to play jazz or to attend conferences. Micrometeorites contain magnetite, a naturally magnetic form of iron oxide, commonly known as lodestone.
Mr Larsen's first step was therefore to pass his slurry, about 300kg of it, past a magnet and keep anything that stuck. He then examined the 30kg or so of debris that resulted under a microscope, to hunt for cosmic dust. Micrometeorites melt as they zip through Earth's atmosphere at speeds of around 12km a second. The globules then cool into spherical grains, and the minerals of which these are composed take on a distinctive stripy appearance (see picture). An experienced eye, such as Mr Larsen's, can thus pick them out from other particles, which tend to be jagged and lack these markings. Altogether, he found about 500 of these "spherules", each around 300-400 microns in diameter (a few times the width of a human hair).
To confirm that the spherules were indeed micrometeorites Mr Larsen needed both expertise and more heavyweight equipment than he had at home. He therefore turned to Matthew Genge of Imperial College, London and his colleagues. They analysed 48 items from Mr Larsen's Oslo and Paris collections under a scanning electron microscope. They were able to confirm that the composition of these matched that of micrometeorites, which tend to be rich in olivine, a greenish semi-precious gemstone. Most tellingly, Mr Larsen's samples contained iron and nickel alloys common in micrometeorites, but rare in Earth-bound rocks because these metals oxidise rapidly.
Micrometeorites dredged from the sea may have fallen to Earth any time within the past 50,000 years or so, depending on the depth of sediment recovered. Likewise, those found in Antarctic ice may have arrived up to a million years ago. In both instances the recovery technique mixes old and new, so it is impossible to identify specimens that have arrived in the past few decades. Some of the micrometeorites Mr Larsen has collected, on the other hand, must have touched down less than six years ago, because the gutters they came from were cleaned then.
Intriguingly, these recent arrivals are more densely striped than an average specimen plucked from Antarctica or the ocean floor. That, Dr Genge says, suggests that they arrived at particularly high velocity. The speed with which they hit the atmosphere is dictated by the combined gravitational forces on them of the solar system's planets. That they are apparently arriving faster now than in the past may be because the planets' orbits are in slightly different positions relative to each other than they were a million years ago.
That is to be expected. Planetary orbits are elliptical, rather than circular, and their gravitational interactions with one another may cause the shapes of these ellipses to change over the years. On Earth, such changes are believed to contribute to the waxing and waning of ice ages. If micrometeorites could be collected from conventional sources in ways that recorded when they had arrived, that might aid understanding of similar changes in the orbits of other planets.
Even if this proves difficult, Dr Genge and Mr Larsen hope the guttering of the world's roofs will prove a useful third source of micrometeorites for general study. Oscar Wilde once wrote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Little did he suspect that looking in the gutter itself would also yield a little of the stuff from which stars are made.
Ice Ages - a thing of the past?!
Ice Ages and Wobbly Orbits
Here is a discussion of the effects perturbations of the earths orbit. The conclusion is that global warming may save us from an ice age. But I don't think that makes it a good thing!
Dinosaur tail in amber
A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber
This has appeared in several places. The original paper can be found HERE. It is in the Economist HERE. But the BBC has the most approachable version HERE.
Mike Benton on the radio
Mike Benton on the BBC World Service
I came across this and thought it was very good. Mike talks about his work in palaeontology, geology and lots of other stuff. His talk will disappear soon so download it from THIS link. You will need to save it to someplace on your computer then play it.
Next Week 12th to 18th December 2016
12th December to 18th December 2016
The following is an extract from Bristol Geology Calendar
More details can be found in the Calendar and on the web sites of the relevant Society or organisation.
19:30 WEGA Lecture
When Tue, 13 December, 19:30 – 21:00
Where Earth Sciences Lecture Theatre, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol, United Kingdom (map)
Description Three research students - various topics
19:30 Thornbury Geology Group meeting
When Thu, 15 December, 19:30 – 20:30
Description Thornbury Geology Group, The Chantry, Thornbury, 7.30pm, contact 01454 416882 The group is is an offshoot of Thornbury and District Museum and we welcome new members. Previous geological knowledge can be helpful but is not necessary as members are very willing to share their own knowledge with anyone keen to learn more about Earth Science. The group is loosely following a pre-recorded lecture series which is supplemented by use of other material and geological specimens. On occasions a guest speaker will talk on their specialist topic. Costs are met from attending members' monthly contributions and the group does not have membership subscriptions or a committee
Next Week 5th to 12th December 2016
28th November to 4th December 2016
Dave Green - Palaeontology and Evolution
WhenMon, 5 December, 19:30 – 22:30
WhereWynstones School, Stroud Road, Whaddon, Gloucester (map)
DescriptionPalaeontology and Evolution. This will be a mainly practical class, focussing on the preservation, identification and classification of fossils, and an account of the evolution of life on Earth. Starts Mon 19th September for 10 weeks (not 17th or 24th Oct), until 5th December Held at Wynstones School, Stroud Road, Whaddon, Gloucester from 7.30-9.30pm on Mondays. Cost £70 (including tea, coffee etc at breaktime!).
more details» copy to my calendar
Geological Society - Western Region
WhenTue, 6 December, 18:30 – 19:30
WhereUniversity Walk, Queen's Building, University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK (map)
DescriptionChristmas Social: Geological Quiz and Meal
South Glos Mines Research Group - Talk
WhenWed, 7 December, 19:30 – 21:00
WhereMiners Institute (aka Coalpit Heath Village Hall), 214 Badmington Rd, Coalpit Heath, BS36 2QB (map)
DescriptionBristol Locomotive Builders: 1841-1958 - Dr Martin Murray and David Martin For details contact Roger Gosling tel. 01454 883607
WhenFri, 9 December, 19:00 – 21:00
WhereShurdington at The Century Hall (map)
Description Sale, Quiz, and Raffle
South Wales Geologists' Association - Lecture
WhenSat, 10 December, 11:00 – 12:00
WhereLectures at Cardiff University are held in the Department of Earth Sciences in the "Main Building". We meet in the Earth Sciences staff room and lectures are held in Lecture Theatre 1.25. (map)
DescriptionSaturday 10th December: (Cardiff) From the depths: How cave precipitates (speleotherms) tell us about past environments and climates. Professor Ian Fairchild (Birmingham)
Next Week 5th to 12th December 2016NEXT WEEKS EVEN...


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On Set at PLAYING HOUSE: Stalker Letters, Obama Lessons, and Improv
Posted by Alicia Lutes on August 4, 2015
Keegan-Michael Key is wearing a cashmere mockleneck and it's really, really hot in this ballroom. Not because he wants to, mind you, but because his TV wife—affectionately known as Bird Bones—on USA Network's Playing House is having him "experiment with different neck lines." And all the things that go with wearing such an overstated top in May—that perpetually itch, that overheated glow, the endless Steve Jobs jabs—are in no short supply thanks to the series' co-creators Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham.
"It's not great for a man with Keegan's head," St. Clair laughed at one point. Added Jane Kaczmarek, who plays Parham's mother on the show, "I love a cotton turtleneck, it's a New England thing."
For all of the incredible star power in the series, it's a bit surprising more people don't watch Playing House. The premise is rife with potential: two outlandish-in-the-best-way friends decide to raise a baby together in a very buttoned up Connecticut town. The first season included catfishing, an alter-ego named Bosepheus, and even some Magic Mike-style body rolls. Plus, it's a comedy nerd's dream: Parham and St. Clair have brought on a veritable smorgasbord of funny/talented folks to guest this season in addition to the main cast—folks like Zach Woods, Ian Roberts, Andy Daly, Rob Riggle, and even THE Kenny Loggins. A real get for the girls who are fans IRL of that glorious, glorious beard and baritone.
"We decided to write a bunch of creepy letters [to] see what happens—[we figured] we'll either get a receptive offer or a restraining order," explained St. Clair. And, well? It worked.
"We wrote a real creepy letter to you, Jane: maybe the creepiest?" St. Clair posited at one point—the "creep" factor being something Kaczmarek later rebuffed, pouring on the accolades for the series' stars. "There is the most amazing synergy between these two," she said.
After a semi-uncertain renewal thanks to fan love and appreciation—the power of the internet compels you, television executives!—the duo went into the 8-episode second season (premiering Tuesday, August 4th) with an all-or-nothing attitude. "Our mantra for this season is we're going to have the best time of our lives," St. Clair explained. And have fun they do: changes are afoot, and not just for Maggie (Parham) now that she has a new baby. There are, explained Key, "lots of familial changes" going around—even for Emma (St. Clair) and Mark (Key).
"He may end up losing his mind mid-season [and] running around the block in a garbage bag Silver Linings Playbook style," St. Clair teased. There was also the explanation of a very, um, sensual-sounding dance that Mark does that involves, "a half-split" that was followed by "the butt squeaks, then a roll-around, then into the worm, and then I lost the mic—which flew up and hit me in the back."
"It's like an actor's burpee," Parham quipped.
Elsewhere in the series, Parham added, "you'll see super-big changes. … You're getting those Downton Abbey-like stakes, but it's also really funny." The duo seemed to chalk up the show's ethos to both their writing style and relationships at the heart of the show.
"For me, that's what TV always is: you want to tune in and watch people love each other and have, kinda, the time of their lives. That, I feel like, isn't done as much as it could be and that's what we're trying to give people," explained St. Clair.
"The way we write is we improvise and then write out a scene," said St. Clair—something that comes easy for the two longtime comedians and best friends. The mark of a true female friendship to them? "How far up each other's butts you can cram one another," St. Clair joked. To which Parham added the tagline, "Two ladies. One baby. One butt."
Getting a bit more serious, Parham added, "They love each other so much it creates comedy."
The show's humor—much like that of similarly hearted comedies like Parks and Recreation—ultimately comes from taking on the seemingly insurmountable with humility and grace (and whatever weirdness your personality brings to the table). Because, as Key stated at one point, "sometimes the best thing to do is not question whether or not you can do it—but just do it." To which St. Clair replied, "Did you learn that from Obama last week, when you met him?"
Said Key: "It's all he talked about."
Playing House's second season premieres Tuesday, August 4th at 10PM. Season one is available to binge in its entirety right MEOW, so get on that!
Alicia Lutes is the Associate Editor of The Nerdist. She can be found on Twitter practicing her body rolls @alicialutes.
jessica st clair, keegan-michael key, lennon parham, Playing House, usa network
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CHINA / SOCIETY
Following online culture spat over kimchi, Chinese Ambassador to S.Korea says disputes don't represent mainstream opinion
By Global Times Published: Feb 01, 2021 11:18 PM
China South Korea File photo:CGTN
Some online disputes between Chinese and South Korean netizens don't represent mainstream public opinion, Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming was quoted as saying in an interview published on the embassy's website on Monday.
Xing said since the COVID-19 outbreak, China and South Korea have been working closely to jointly fight the pandemic by establishing epidemic control mechanism, facilitating "fast-track" entry system to help the resumption of production, and South Korean people also offered to help Chinese people, depicting a friendship of neighbors. China-South Korea relations have set an example for other international ties, Xin noted.
Meanwhile, due to different historical, cultural and social customs, it's also normal to have differences in understanding some issues. Netizens on both sides arguing with each other on the internet, which stemmed from misunderstanding, doesn't represent the mainstream public opinion of China and South Korea, as the friendship between the two countries remains the major trend, the Chinese ambassador said.
Chinese and South Korean netizens have been involved in a series of online disputes in recent months concerning various topics such as a cultural spat over "kimchi," a Chinese blogger who made Kimchi and uploaded the video on YouTube, as well as a South Korean beauty guru who used a traditional Chinese hairpin to show South Korean culture.
In early December, a China-led application campaign to the International Organization for Standardization for paocai, the Chinese version of pickled vegetables, was criticized by some South Korean netizens. Despite the organization specifically noting that "the document does not apply to kimchi," confusion over the name struck the nerves of South Korean netizens, who accused China of "cultural theft" and lodged a protest.
"We should further increase mutual recognition and understanding, and enhance the friendship between China and South Korea, which is also our duty and direction as frontline diplomats," the ambassador said.
With Joe Biden taking the office, China is willing to rebuild the relationship with the US. While China and South Korea remain strategic partners, and South Korea and the US are allies, these bilateral ties are equally important for South Korea, Xin said.
"I believe the South Korean government will definitely choose foreign policies in line with the interests of the country and its people. China highly values South Korea and China-South Korea relationship, and is willing to push it forward at a steady and healthy manner," he said.
Paocai or kimchi? They share similarities but differ in ingredients, flavors and methods: Chinese FM
Kimchi, also called paocai in China, is a pickled and fermented dish not exclusively owned by certain countries ...
Protest over paocai origin 'unnecessary' misunderstanding in translation
Seo Kyoung-duk, a professor at South Korea's Sungshin Women's University, said Tuesday he had sent an email to ...
Chinese netizens respond to South Korean netizens' attacks on Chinese product placement in South Korean dramas 'True Beauty' and cultural YouTuber Li Ziqi's pickled vegetable video
While South Korean TV drama True Beauty has captured the hearts of many Chinese netizens, with hashtags related ...


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Issue 12 / Commons
Image by Celine Nguyen.
Inside the Whale: An Interview with an Anonymous Amazonian
Amazon is on a mission to own the infrastructure of our lives. The second-largest private employer in the United States after Walmart, the company captures $4 out of every $10 spent online. They have a vast network of fulfillment centers, and they are rapidly buying more real estate; in September 2020, they announced plans to open 1,500 more distribution hubs in suburbs across the country. Retail is only one of their many businesses, however: for many Americans, it would be impossible to commute from home to school or the office without passing into view of a Ring, Amazon's "smart" home surveillance camera. Moreover, Amazon Web Services (AWS) controls nearly half of the public cloud market, and the company is pouring money into a number of other ventures, from entertainment to advertising. We talked with an AWS cybersecurity engineer about how to think about the behemoth and how it feels to work inside it.
Amazon is a huge and complex organization. How should we think about it as a whole?
Amazon is an opportunistic corporation. It invests in businesses where we think we have a competitive advantage. In general, Amazon thinks of itself as a technology company. So we put the technology first, whatever the product is that we're selling. And we believe that because we have so much talent and so much capital, we should be able to use our technology advantage to dominate any market that we decide to enter.
What were its origins? Why did Amazon start off as a company that sold books on the internet?
In the mid-1990s, the internet was widely seen as a replacement for the library—the library 2.0—so figuring out how to buy books on the internet felt like a natural next step. A little later on, you could see some of that same spirit living at Google through the Google Books project, which was an enormous undertaking. They put a hugely disproportionate amount of resources into it. Amazon's ultimate goal was similar to that of Google Books: to digitize all of the information in the world's books and make it available universally, because that was the promise of the internet.
Jeff Bezos studies other "great men" in history and imagines himself to be a kind of Alexander the Great. There's even a building on the Amazon campus called Alexandria, which was the name of one of the company's early projects to get every single book that had ever been published to be listed on Amazon.
But there was also a more practical reason. Books are ideal because you can stuff them in a box. They're relatively cheap to ship. Also, they're easy to protect when shipping. It's difficult to damage books.
From the beginning, Amazon sold physical things. That meant its business evolved very differently than that of Google or Facebook, which make their money by tracking people around the internet and using that information to sell ads.
Right, Amazon is not primarily an ad-driven platform. Although it does have a subsidiary, A9, that's in the online advertising business. But A9 is not a top moneymaker. The top money makers for Amazon by revenue are the retail side, and AWS.
Why did Amazon get into the cloud computing business in the first place? What was the original impetus?
Amazon wanted to explore the possibility of selling web services because they realized most other firms weren't doing a terribly good job of it. From the start, startups flocked to AWS because we saved them a lot of time and effort. Once AWS had the startups hooked, it was easy to start selling to large businesses—the "enterprise" market—because they envied how well the more technically sophisticated startups were doing.
That was good for us, because big companies are more lucrative. But they also have stricter security requirements. They tend to be in mature industries that are more heavily regulated, and regulators care about how they're securing their data.
And that's where you come in.
For a long time, security hadn't been a big focus at Amazon because the data being collected—what books people were ordering—wasn't that sensitive. It's not information most people were concerned about anybody having. We had to have a way to secure credit card information to make online transactions possible. But we outsourced that.
After AWS got started in 2006, security became a much bigger concern. Amazon realized how important it was to its most lucrative customers. These days, the company takes security extremely seriously. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many nation states that have as sophisticated a security approach as Amazon does.
Security is mostly about making yourself a difficult target. It's like that joke where you go hiking with your friends and a bear attacks you. You don't need to be faster than the bear; you just need to be faster than your slowest friend.
Big companies have traditionally operated their own data centers. Was it hard to make the case to them that they should move to the cloud? They might feel more secure if they're doing everything themselves.
They might, but ultimately the security standards of their data centers are always going to be lower than those of a cloud provider like AWS. A cloud provider has many tenants and they can have economies of scale that let them have more sophisticated security systems than someone fully managing their systems in-house.
Also, if you're a company that's operating your own data center, you're responsible for 100 percent of your security—infrastructure security, transit security, perimeter security, everything. If you move to the cloud, Amazon is responsible for at least some of that.
So when you use AWS, part of what you're paying for is security.
Right; it's part of what we sell. Let's say a prospective customer comes to AWS. They say, "I like pay-as-you-go pricing. Tell me more about that." We say, "Okay, here's how much you can use at peak capacity. Here are the savings we can see in your case."
Then the company says, "How do I know that I'm secure on AWS?" And this is where the heat turns up. This is where we get them. We say, "Well, let's take a look at what you're doing right now and see if we can offer a comparable level of security." So they tell us about the setup of their data centers.
We say, "Oh my! It seems like we have level five security and your data center has level three security. Are you really comfortable staying where you are?" The customer figures, not only am I going to save money by going with AWS, I also just became aware that I'm not nearly as secure as I thought.
Plus, we make it easy to migrate and difficult to leave. If you have a ton of data in your data center and you want to move it to AWS but you don't want to send it over the internet, we'll send an eighteen-wheeler to you filled with hard drives, plug it into your data center with a fiber optic cable, and then drive it across the country to us after loading it up with your data.
What? How do you do that?
We have a product called Snowmobile. It's a gas-guzzling truck. There are no public pictures of the inside, but it's pretty cool. It's like a modular datacenter on wheels. And customers rightly expect that if they load a truck with all their data, they want security for that truck. So there's an armed guard in it at all times.
It's a pretty easy sell. If a customer looks at that option, they say, yeah, of course I want the giant truck and the guy with a gun to move my data, not some crappy system that I develop on my own.
There are also specific security services that AWS sells, such as Amazon Inspector. Amazon Inspector is a tool that will audit all of your configurations for AWS, and will provide recommendations about how to change those configurations.
When you make a connection to a server, that connection is made over a specific port. And there are some ports that nefarious people might sniff to see if they've been left open because they're frequently used for the management of that server. And so Amazon Inspector might say to you, "We have scanned your server and detected that this port has been left open and you're not using it. Do you want to close this port to prevent people from trying to connect to it?" Or it might say, "These two servers that you have are communicating to each other in a format that is easily eavesdroppable. We recommend that you use at least version X of the connection software that will plug some security holes."
If you're a competent system administrator, you should have done all that when you configured your system. But not every system administrator is competent. If you're the sysadmin for some, you know, insurance agency, what do you give a shit? You live in Sioux Falls. Why would you care about cloud security? You don't have to bust your ass because you live in a small-town market where you know everybody and you're never going to be out of a job. A lot of companies that are headquartered in remote areas don't have particularly sophisticated IT teams. So they'll pay Amazon to do security for them.
You mentioned that the most lucrative customers for AWS are large companies in mature industries, which tend to be more heavily regulated. How does AWS help those kinds of companies meet their compliance obligations?
Certain institutions and industries are regulated more than others. Take the healthcare industry. Hospitals and health insurance providers are bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). There are a lot of regulations about how data can be stored, how long it can be stored, and what types of consent are required. It can be very difficult to implement a system that is fully compliant with HIPAA, but AWS has products that can help with that.
Same thing with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European privacy law. It requires organizations to handle personal data in very specific ways. One of the new rights that it creates is the "right to be forgotten." So if you're a company that does business in Europe, you're going to need a way to fulfill requests from customers who want their data deleted. AWS can produce a report that says, "Yes, that data was deleted; we can no longer access it."
So compliance can create lucrative business opportunities for AWS. Presumably those opportunities will grow, with new privacy regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act, and more regulations expected from the European Union around data and AI.
AWS is a money machine, basically. Today, retail is something like 70 percent of Amazon's revenue. But AWS is 70 percent of the company's operating profits.
One of the reasons why the antitrust people are looking at Amazon is because Amazon is using highly profitable businesses where it has a really durable advantage in order to subsidize losses in other divisions that it uses to capture market share. Without an organ similar to AWS, a competitor like Walmart has to lower prices below the level of profitability to remain competitive. And they can only sustain those losses for so long.
What's an example of a division that AWS subsidizes particularly heavily?
Prime Video, for one. Jeff loves Prime Video because it gives him access to the social scene in LA and New York. He's newly divorced and the richest man in the world. Prime Video is a loss leader for Jeff's sex life.
A Really Big Deal
We're now many months into the COVID-19 pandemic. How has work changed for you?
The first thing everybody noticed was conferences getting canceled, and everybody was like, "Wow, I guess COVID is a really big deal!" Then we emptied out all the buildings. There was a bifurcation of the people who work in corporate and the people who work in the fulfillment centers. The white-collar folks are fine because we can just work from home. But there was a huge internal drive to make fulfillment centers safe.
What was the outcome of those conversations? I know there have been a number of collective actions among Amazon warehouse workers around the issue of safety during the pandemic.
At the beginning of the pandemic, management brought in some consultants and scientists to analyze how disease is spread. We had one week to figure out what we were going to do and then three weeks to execute. Now there are temperature reading cameras. You can't go into Amazon buildings if your temperature is elevated. They figured out how to reduce touch as much as possible. They implemented ways to scan badges at a distance and ways to use barcodes instead of near-field communication readers. They also created a testing regimen.
There was initially no way to get tests but because of our industrial might and muscle, we were able to identify a vendor, so we worked with them to do tests for warehouse workers. I'm not sure how often those tests occur. And it's not like we test for a whole slate of things. A lot of the warehouse workers are older people who are out of the traditional workforce and find it hard to get back in because they can't retrain or they don't want to, or the job they used to do doesn't really exist anymore. A lot of them don't work enough hours to get health insurance. So if you have cancer and you might die from your cancer, we won't help you get treatment. But if you have this infectious respiratory disease, we want to know.
I actually don't know if the steps that have been taken around COVID have made things worse, or whether they have improved the warehouses. Internally, people say, "Oh, we're probably better than our competitions, or other warehousing and logistics companies." But I don't know if that's the case.
There were other challenges at the beginning of the pandemic too, right—with supply chains for instance?
Supply chains all across Amazon were definitely impacted. It was difficult to get hand sanitizer. It was difficult to get cardboard boxes.
We got lucky in the sense that the beginning of the pandemic overlapped with the Chinese New Year. So we had already accounted for some slowdown, because we expected the Chinese New Year to impact timetables anyway.
Overall, though, it seems like the pandemic compounded all of Amazon's advantages and significantly reduced the impact of all of Amazon's weaknesses.
The crisis advantaged large purchasers. The more scale you have, the more buying power you have, right? If you're a factory, the way that your distribution of customers is set up is that you have one or two customers that make up 80 percent of your business and then a ton of customers who make up 20 percent of your business. So if your production is down 30 or 40 percent, you say, "Okay, I'm going to have to cut out all of the small vendors and only focus on the big partners." That's what happened. Amazon was able to get preferential distribution of shipments when smaller companies were totally sold out.
And there's been so much e-commerce growth in general during the pandemic.
The question on everybody's minds in retail is: can Walmart and Target use their local distribution infrastructure to get packages to people's doors faster than Amazon can? Walmart and Target's only advantage is their physical stores. When the stores are closed, they can be used as distribution hubs. You can pick things up close to where people's homes are and deliver them. Buying Whole Foods gave Amazon the opportunity to reach, you know, 80 percent of the 1 percent. But vast swaths of America aren't reachable by Whole Foods.
The rumors that I hear, both internal and external, are that we're very seriously interested in acquiring post office real estate. The reason why the post office is valuable to privatize is because of their real estate holdings. They have great real estate in every downtown of every city in the United States. Amazon may be interested in buying all of the post office locations, and we have the cash to do it. So why not?
The other week we announced we're hiring one hundred thousand more workers again. We're expanding dramatically across the board, in part-time and full-time, at corporate and retail and fulfillment and logistics and devices and distribution and all the various pies we have our fingers in.
How about AWS? Are you growing the same way?
Some of our customers obviously saw a dramatic decline in their income. Some large customers in the hospitality industry and the retail industry negotiated substantially discounted rates or got large one-time credits.
But in general, COVID did convince a lot of companies to accelerate their cloud migration, because if you're an organization that has your own data center, chances are that you now have to implement a bunch of safety guidelines and restrictions. Amazon just operates at such a scale that we can do it better and more efficiently.
For instance, a lot of security companies throughout the industry were impacted because suddenly their secure facility had entry rules. Only one person could be in there at a time. But in the security technology industry there are a lot of processes that need two or more people to be physically present. So that made it impossible to use a lot of the secure facilities because the guidelines were in conflict. It was kind of a Freaky Friday moment where everybody realized that, in the context of a pandemic or a natural disaster, these procedures they created to make sure that their facilities were safe were actually preventing them from following security best practices.
Customers who were experimenting with a small presence in AWS, who had maybe kept their own data center for security purposes, freaked out. They were like, "Wow, we really need to move to the cloud quickly because they can do all these things for us that we can't do on premises now."
Besides the challenges of dealing with social distancing, are you seeing new cybersecurity threats in the COVID era?
The security threats that are emerging now are the same as ever. They're just more intense. 80 percent of security problems are petty cybercrime. And that's what's going up.
Increasingly, large tech firms use people in developing countries as a disposable white-collar workforce. Smaller shops do too. A lot of startups will have one CTO in the Bay Area, and then they'll have their whole development shop be in Ukraine or Romania or something.
But when funding dries up for startups and companies have to shutter, then all of their digital operation overseas is cut loose. And the people who lose their jobs go into cybercrime. They think, "There's no other options for me. So sure. Let's do it. Lock and load."
A cybercriminal can also get paid by a competitor to expose data, or to change the configuration so the data is exposed publicly to make that company look bad. The Capital One breach in 2019 involved a former Amazon employee, actually. Capital One suffered a huge embarrassment in the press. But unfortunately, as with the Experian data breach in 2015, the Capital One incident showed that the markets are very forgiving of data breaches, because the people who are most victimized by them are poor people who have no idea how to control their data anyway, and didn't even know what it means to have their data breached.
Companies don't like to have their whole ass be shown that way. It's a lot of egg to get on your face. But in the end, the market is learning that massive data exposures are not that bad of a problem unless Congress comes calling.
Unlocking the Last Foot
So you work in cybersecurity and that's clearly a major focus for AWS. But as we talk about this, there's another sense of the word "security" in the back of my mind—home security. This is an area Amazon is now getting into with Ring, the internet-connected doorbell.
I wasn't involved with that acquisition. But what I've heard is that our investment in Ring was initially about wanting to combat package theft.
The retail side of Amazon is basically a logistics company. We have a distribution infrastructure that we chop up into different segments. "First mile" is from manufacturing to distribution. "Middle mile" is from the first distribution center—a warehouse—to the second—the place where a package will get delivered from, like a postal depot. "Last mile" is from that second distribution center to people's front door. And one of the major problems with the last mile is package theft.
But that wasn't the only motivation with Ring. More broadly, Amazon's smart home projects are also aimed at unlocking the "last foot"—not just how you get the package to the customer's door but into their house. At one point we tried to make an electronic lock with an electronic key that Amazon deliveries could use. But then someone else made Ring, and we realized we could use that instead.
Amazon has aggressively marketed Ring to police, partnering with hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the country and in some cases even giving the devices away for free. Cops are given access to a portal they can use to request Ring footage from individual houses. Has Ring brought Amazon into much closer relationships with law enforcement?
Relationships with law enforcement take a very long time to build, so it would really surprise me if any of those relationships were the result of the Ring acquisition. The groundwork was already being laid. I think Ring just helped accelerate things.
In general, the nice thing about working with law enforcement is that they know what they want. Regulators don't.
But honestly, I think Amazon also kind of backed into that situation. We only realized after the fact that we had all this data about who was coming to people's front doors. And then there was a lot of gleeful Mr. Burns–style finger touching, when we thought about what we could do with that data. Ring has a Neighbors app, where you could take your Ring data and share it with the app, and your neighbors could see who was in the neighborhood. So law enforcement was a natural next step. And law enforcement dovetailed nicely with our interest in pursuing the home security angle through our other smart home products.
Like the Alexa-enabled smart speakers.
Right. Ring dovetails nicely with Alexa on the home security front. And Alexa could also help the retail effort to unlock the "last foot" and get packages inside the home.
You said that Amazon was already building relationships with law enforcement long before the Ring acquisition. Why?
AWS works extensively with US government agencies. At the federal level, AWS runs a special cloud for a number of intelligence agencies, and we're still trying to get the contract for JEDI, the Pentagon's big cloud project.
The other factor that presumably contributes to Amazon's coziness with intelligence agencies and law enforcement is the fact that many people from those fields go work for Amazon. Why is that?
Amazon pays a better salary and you get to work on more exciting stuff, and there's just less hassle.
Do the cultures mesh well?
In general, the military is pretty top-down, command-and-control. That's not Amazon. We mostly want people to be as autonomous as possible. At Amazon it's easy to shoot up the hierarchy and talk to senior executives if there's a problem.
Does Amazon make a concerted effort to hire from law enforcement and the military?
For the rank and file, yes. There is a concerted effort to recruit former law enforcement and military. In fact, Amazon thinks of military personnel as a diversity category and does targeted hiring. We have an internal affinity group called Warriors@Amazon for ex-military personnel, and it is by far our most successful diversity hiring group.
At the higher levels, there's a revolving door. If you're a chief procurement officer at the Pentagon, the guy who orders whatever they're buying for the military, you do that for awhile and then you go to the General Accountability Office to be a watchdog. And then after you've been a watchdog for awhile, you go to work for Amazon, where you can make half a million dollars a year selling Amazon services back to the Pentagon. And you can get it past the watchdog because you used to be the watchdog.
Amazon's not the only company that does this, obviously. Everybody does. It's the same twenty thousand people in the United States who have had jobs in the military, regulatory, and industry, all selling these things to each other back and forth.
In September 2020, Amazon appointed Keith Alexander, the former NSA chief, to be on your board of directors. How did you and your coworkers see that?
At the most obvious level, it's a move to get influence over the Defense Department and win more US government contracts. Because Keith Alexander has relationships with all of the right people in the Pentagon, he can help move the needle in terms of not only managing relationships with current officials, but also helping us strategize about what's important to the decision makers going forward.
But it was also highly controversial. Even within Warriors@Amazon, they're of two minds about it. Some of the Warriors love the US government. On the other hand, bringing on someone like Keith Alexander also poses serious risks to Amazon's business.
Our European partners are screaming about the message that hiring Keith Alexander sends with regards to the privacy of their data. It also comes at a particularly bad time. AWS needs the European market. But there have been a couple of recent legal decisions in Europe that have made our lives harder, like the courts striking down the Privacy Shield agreement in the summer of 2020. [Eds.: Privacy Shield was a compliance framework that certified the data security of US-based companies, and allowed them to receive EU user data in a manner deemed compliant with GDPR.] AWS has been working really hard with customers to make sure that we can comply with whatever new privacy standards the European Union develops.
So within this context, bringing Keith Alexander onto the board is definitely going to raise a lot of eyebrows on the other side of the pond. Our European partners are going to say, "Well, excuse me. Our concern is that you're taking data from our citizens and bringing it back to the States. And now you're hiring the architect of the program that's been spying on the entire world?!" It sends mixed signals at best. But the fact that there's a business case against it has also helped the people inside the company who are opposed to it for philosophical or ideological reasons.
Are there many of them?
A lot of my coworkers are concerned about Keith Alexander's presence.
I would say a quarter of the people at Amazon would identify with digital freedoms organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and they are pissed off. I think there are a lot of AWS employees who would rather quit than turn data over to the NSA. Those people are all up in arms and they're some of the smartest and most innovative people at the company. I don't think Amazon counted on so much internal opposition and resistance.
Inside Voices
White-collar workers at Amazon have organized internal campaigns against the sale of facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies, and the sale of cloud services to companies that enable ICE. Has Amazon's relatively large contingent of former law enforcement and military personnel made the organizing environment for these campaigns more challenging?
My experience with ex-military people is that they love America but they don't care for the government. So they're like, "Yeah, I worked for Uncle Sam, but I could give a shit." So I don't think the presence of those people necessarily makes organizing harder. I just think the collapse of the Left in general over the past several decades has made workers everywhere believe that resistance is futile. Maybe we're doing right in the world, maybe we're doing wrong—but if we're doing wrong, there's really very little we can do about it except some things around the margins.
It seems that most of the organizing energy at Amazon among white-collar workers has been around climate issues. There is an ongoing campaign to push the company to dramatically reduce its carbon emissions that have involved open letters to Bezos. And in April 2020, the company fired two white-collar workers who had helped lead the climate organizing, and who had also criticized the company's treatment of warehouse workers during the pandemic. What's your perspective?
I didn't sign any of those letters, because I'm not sure what good they accomplish either internally at Amazon or externally in the world.
In general, campaigns at Amazon fall into three groups. The first is mainstream causes that are palatable to everyone, like donating winter coats and protecting animal rights. The second is environmentalism. It's easy to find people at Amazon who care about global warming. So there is some support for people who recognize the severity of the problem and are willing to organize internally at Amazon around it. But that organizing effort is still pretty small. It has an outsized voice in the media, because everybody's fascinated by Amazon. But there aren't a ton of people who are paying attention to it internally.
The third category of campaigns is social justice activism, like the #TechWontBuildIt campaigns against working with ICE or law enforcement. There's a spirited debate on a couple of internal mailing lists about that kind of activism. But again, it's a small number of Amazon employees.
Why do you think there aren't a lot of people participating in this conversation internally?
Historically, Amazon has probably had some of the worst internal communications tools of any large company. It's very difficult to discover active conversations happening in the company. There is no central clearinghouse. There is no internal social media. We recently got Slack, but it hasn't made much of a difference for employees interested in organizing.
Do you think the lack of internal communications tools is intentional?
I think this is one of those cases where you should not presume malice. Amazon doesn't actively not want employees to talk to each other. They just don't see how employees talking to each other benefits productivity, morale, or the bottom line. If it did, and that impact could be quantified in some way, we'd have it tomorrow. But as it is, Amazon gives employees the tools that it thinks will help them get the job done. And they don't see employee fraternization as relevant to the job.
Google, by contrast, has very robust internal communication infrastructure. And that infrastructure played an important role in facilitating organizing at Google. (Although more recently, management has been limiting the kinds of conversations that can happen on internal platforms.) Do you think the absence of similar tools helps explain why Amazon has seen comparatively less organizing?
Well, if you look at Google, you'll notice they're headquartered in Mountain View, in the heart of Silicon Valley. And if you're an employee at Google and you're good at your job and you want to leave your job tomorrow, there are fifty-three employers out there that are going to be ready to hire you.
If you're working in Seattle for Amazon and you're good at your job and you want to leave your job tomorrow, you have far fewer opportunities. Where are you going to go, Microsoft? There's not nearly as much mobility. So I think a big part of the reason we have less organizing is that people are more afraid to jeopardize their jobs. If you want to stay in the Northwest, you keep your head down.
Statistically it is also more likely that an Amazon employee will have a family than a Google employee. So that's another factor that makes people more risk-averse. Why should they do something that would potentially jeopardize their job? Particularly when it has a low chance of success?
As you pointed out, one of the reasons that the organizing efforts within Amazon have received so much media attention is because the media is fascinated by Amazon. There have been a spate of stories looking critically at Amazon's market power, partnerships with law enforcement, labor conditions in its warehouses, and so on. Amazon also has prominent critics in national politics like Bernie Sanders.
How are these kinds of criticisms perceived from the inside? How do people respond to that sort of thing?
I think your question kind of misses the forest for the trees. For most people at Amazon, glancing at the Apple News feed on their iPhone is about as much of the discourse as they consume. They don't care about the news. It doesn't contribute anything to their life. There are colleagues I'm friends with who don't really know who ran for president. They figure it's all going to be the same anyway, so why bother.
But by the same token, if they hear someone criticize Amazon, they're not inclined to be super defensive. There aren't a lot of intense loyalists. People at Amazon are mercenaries. The company doesn't have great benefits. Office life kind of sucks and it's not that fun of a place to work. It's a grind. People work there because it pays a little bit better than the competition and it looks good on a resume. They can go in, do their job, go home, spend time with their kids, watch sports. That's the good life.
Amazon has around a million employees worldwide. The majority work in shipping and logistics and delivery. There are maybe eighty thousand corporate employees. And I would estimate that fewer than two thousand of them have participated in discussions around organizing.
Do you see any cause for hope?
In general, the people who are going to organize are the people who need to organize because they are fighting for their lives and their subsistence. Those are the people on the logistics side of Amazon who work at the distribution centers. Those are the members of the industrial proletariat in China who are manufacturing the things that are shipped out on the retail side. Those are the humans in developing countries doing piecework on Mechanical Turk.
If there is going to be change, that's where it will come from. I think that if you're looking at corporate employees within Amazon as a source of hope, that's ludicrous. The notion that these companies are going to repair the damage they're causing by having white-collar workers organize internally to me is crazy. But maybe that's cynical and nihilistic. Maybe I'm a bad man.
This piece appears in Logic's issue 12, "Commons". To order the issue, head on over to our store. To receive future issues, subscribe.
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Perhaps you have a great product or service that has proven benefits for those fortunate enough to purchase from your company. However, you are not getting the marketplace traction or revenue growth you need, and competitors are grabbing what should be your market share.
The tendency in such a scenario is to demand a better product from the development team, hire more salespeople or put pressure on the existing ones to make their quota. Perhaps you roll out a new marketing campaign, drop your prices or come up with a brilliant creative theme. While none of these actions are necessarily bad, I'd like you to first answer a fundamental question: Are you making it too difficult for prospects to buy from you? Even worse, are you negatively impacting future revenue growth?
Before you answer, make sure you're asking the right people (customers and prospects) and not those who have created the sales and buying process. What appears seamless to the product engineer or MBA may not be so easy to the potential buyer. Please test the entire purchase process before imposing it on would-be customers.
If you are not found, you are not selected. The reason the most visible company wins is not necessarily because it's better but because it is discovered. Sometimes, it really is that simple. Do your content marketing and SEO homework to make sure you are highly visible in your chosen marketplace.
An effective branding strategy is the first pillar of revenue growth. Your brand must communicate exactly what you do and how it benefits the potential purchaser. And you only have a few seconds to accomplish this. Poor branding causes confusion, and confusion is a huge barrier to the buyer's journey.
B2B and B2C buyers share one common behavior pattern: They like to conduct online research before engaging with a salesperson. Your job as a barrier-removing marketer is to provide whatever the prospect needs to keep them moving along the purchase path.
In the early stage of the buyer journey, you need to offer educational content, which, according to research, makes consumers 131% more likely to buy. At later stages, provide whatever information is required to validate the decision and complete the transaction (i.e., pricing, terms, warranty, product usage, etc.). All information should be presented in a consumable format without unnecessary burden, like forms to fill out. The last thing you want is for a potential buyer to have to either call your company to find an answer that should have been available online or, worse, search online and stumble upon your competitor.
One of the best pieces of sales advice is to not sell past the close. Or, to put it less politely, once you have made the sale, shut up! Keep the point of the promotion on driving toward a purchase decision and do not throw so much information at the prospect that he or she gets too distracted to purchase.
Just as with information, sellers believe that more options are better. However, more options can lead to indecision both before the sale (which option should I choose?) and after the sale (did I make the right choice?). This choice overload is illustrated in this Kissmetrics article, which reveals consumer behavior around samples of exotic jams. For the research, the number of samples varied between either six or 24 flavors presented. The study showed that by quadrupling the number of jam flavors available for sample, sales dropped by over 50%.
Our experience on the B2B side has shown that when offering a cloud-based software solution, the ideal number of purchase options is three. Every additional choice will decrease sales. Incidentally, when we offer three choices, over half of purchasers choose the mid-priced option.
Franz is correct: Simplicity is almost always better. We have all experienced becoming so frustrated by a process that requires unnecessary information or confusing forms that we stop our purchase midpoint. This is frustrating for the buyer and costly for the seller.
The common theme running through all the barriers is the need for simplicity. The simplicity mantra applies after the purchase as well as before. Have you ever purchased a product and then became so frustrated with attempting to install or use the item (e.g., electronics, software, furniture, kids' toys, etc.) that you finally gave up and returned it for a refund? In the software industry, they used to refer to this as "shelfware" — software that was purchased but never installed. Whatever you're selling, you want customers to not just buy but happily use your products and urge their friends and colleagues to do the same.
In the quest for simplicity, it helps to have a well-defined lead-to-revenue process because you want to measure potential revenue growth leakage points. Leakage refers to the number (or percentage) of prospects that leave the sales pipeline at each stage. For example, a leakage point can occur when a prospect clicks through to a landing page form but leaves before filling it out. Correcting even small leakage point flaws can often have a big impact on results.
I will leave you with some words you do not want potential buyers to say about your purchase process: painful, complicated, frustrating, slow, confusing. Rather, to achieve solid revenue growth, you want them to describe the process with terms like clear, easy, fun, logical, cool, painless.
Note: this article first appeared at Forbes.com January 31, 2018.


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The Seven Summits
7 summits Map
Seven Summits is a circuit of highest peaks on each continent:
Elbrus - Europa
Kilimanjaro - Africa
Aconcagua - America de Sud
McKinley - America de Nord
Carstensz Pyramid – Oceania
Vinson - Antarctica
Everest - Asia
At first, the highest peak in Australia, Kosciuszko, was also taken into account, which is why most climbers aiming for the Seven Summits now climb all eight peaks. Seven Summits is one of the greatest performances that a climber can reach. Performance is dictated by the altitude, the harsh and isolated conditions (for example, McKinley, which is almost on the polar circle or Vinson in Antarctica), but also by the fact that it requires a rigorous training, an excellent resource management and a lot of money.
At this very moment, there are worldwide only 12 women who have climbed the Seven Summits (the extended version) and the youngest is the American Samantha Larson, who finished the tour at the age of 18 years and 10 months. The only Romanian who managed to climb Seven Summits is Ticu Lacatusu.
Coco has the goal of climbing the Seven Summits in the extended version before reaching the age of 18. So far she had climbed six peaks: Mount Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Carstensz Pyramid Kosciuszko and McKinley. At the end of 2010 she has planned to climb Vinson in Antarctica. If her dream to climb Seven Summits will succeed, in 2011 she'll become the youngest woman to complete the tour. Also she'll be the first Romanian woman to achieve that.
Volcanic Seven Summits
Coco had also set a special goal whose fulfillment is very close: to climb the Volcanic Seven Summits – the highest volcanic peaks from each continent. The 7 volcanoes are:
Volcanic 7 Summits
Damavand - Asia
Giluwe - Oceania
Ojos del Salado – America de Sud
Pico de Orizaba – America de Nord
Sidley - Antarctica
She already got six of them (Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, Damavand, Giluwe, Ojos del Salado and Pico de Orizaba). At the end of 2010 she wants to go to Antarctica on Sidley, on the most expensive expedition so far, at a cost of 70.000 EUR.
If she succeeds in Volcanic Seven Summits endeavor Coco will be the first climber to ever successfully climb the volcanoes on every continent.
Ojos del Salado and… HOME!
I'm coming home on Tuesday, 22nd of February 2011, at 5 p.m. I'll be on Tarom RO 0362 Amsterdam –…
Antarctica, here I come!
In 6 hours from now on, I'll arrive in Antarctica. Ice, snow, mountains….I'm so excited! I admit that I had…
The Antarctic expedition: december 2010 – january 2011
We've returned from America with our objectives accomplished (Pico de Orizaba! McKinley!) and something more: I've made a new friend:…
Cel Mai Sus: Arhiva
BastyHe is one of the creators of this beautiful site. Basty and Ionut made it all possible.
Ionut PopescuMister Popescu: brand director, art director and martinet. He wanted to become a ballerina, but he failed. Now he's extremely revengeful with those who don't recognize his talent.
Uichendist.roOur good friend, mister Isodor :)
Coco Popescu Team
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as RASPBIAN STRETCH has been released already about 1/2 year from now and is supposed to work stable nowadays, is it now meanwhile supported also for BrickPi3 C++ ?
Most likely yes, but we haven't tested it yet on it. Just about yet.
thank you, would you please make a (global) notification as soon as Dexter fully supports Stretch to brickPi3? Several arbitrary C(++) program- and lib-updates meanwhile are targeting just Stretch, not Jessie any more.
Generally, when we make a change to something, we let everyone know through a pinned post on the forum or by writing about it (whatever it is) on our website.
Hope that makes it up for you.
thank you, that is the same command as for Jessie AFAIK.
I was just missing your announciation about Stretch after that has been requested already some months ago.
Finally you wrote that you would let know everyone about a possible Stretch support by such a public pinned notification.
Yes, that's correct. You run the same command on both distributions (Jessie and Stretch).
Now my question is, are you not seeing it in the feed?
which "feed"? tbh, I'm always just looking here in the forums, no where else, and so I expected this notification actually to be seen as pinned post in here.
Additionally I am not interested in "Raspbian fo Robots", I always have a standard Jessie or Stretch from NOOBS or from the Pi download website, and then install all my pograms and tools on top of that.
Unfortunately, no, we can't disable it. It invites too much spam and other issues. As you can see, our forums are pretty clean, and we definitely want to keep it that way!
Quick question: are you a robot?


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City Insider
The cost behind a bright idea
By Rachel Gordon on December 13, 2009 at 10:00 AM
The city's much-photographed Christmas tree in Civic Center Plaza, across the street from City Hall, got an early holiday gift: new strands of lights that came with a $13,500 price tag. There was nothing wrong with the old lights — other than they were the wrong color.
Rachel Gordon
The gleaming new white lights.
The lights used last year cast an almost other-worldly colored glow. The new ones are a much more traditional white. "They're classic," said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, which has jurisdiction over the plaza. "I don't think it's unreasonable to have a nice looking tree in front of City Hall. We'll use them year after year."
Ginsburg said he made the call to purchase the replacement lights after he received complaints about the hue cast by the old ones. He kept mum about the source of the complaints.
The $13,500 came out of the department's regular budget, which would barely register a blip in robust economic times, but this year caught the attention of a tipster who contacted the Insider. The city faces a $522 million projected deficit next year, with threats of layoffs and service reductions.
For the record, the money bought 384 strands of energy-efficient LED lights, each 25 feet long, Ginsburg said. That's enough to light up the Christmas tree and the trunks and bare branches of 12 neighboring sycamore trees, creating quite a festive scene.
As for the lights deemed wrong for Civic Center Plaza? They were given new life at Rec and Park headquarters in Golden Gate Park, replacing older energy-hogging holiday lights that were retired.
rgordon
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A place to go — Tenderloin toilets for the homeless get funding through June
DCCC to take up Airbnb in acronym-filled debate over sharing economy
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FL Technics acquires Wright International
FL Technics, a global provider of aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services, has acquired Wright International, a leading independent provider of line maintenance services in Canada.
For FL Technics as well as its parent company Avia Solutions Group, this marks an entry to the North American aviation services market.
Wright International provides aircraft line maintenance services up to 'A' level checks, A.O.G. support and training for airlines at Canada's major international airports, including Toronto Pearson, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal-Mirabel and Ottawa. Founded in 1991 and headquartered at Toronto Pearson International Airport, Wright International is a Transport Canada and EASA Approved Maintenance Organisation (AMO) licensed to service most commercial aircraft types.
The acquisition of Wright International grants FL Technics a foothold in the strategically important North American market and allows it to serve its airline clients across an even wider network of international locations.
Together with its subsidiaries, FL Technics today offers line maintenance services at over 70 airports and base maintenance services at 5 locations around the globe.
Zilvinas Lapinskas, CEO of FL Technics commented: "Our investment in Canada starts an exciting new chapter in the history of FL Technics and Avia Solutions Group as well as for Wright International and its founders, who will continue to lead the day-to-day operations. Wright nternational will join FL Technics' other subsidiaries – Storm Aviation Limited and Flash Line Maintenance – to provide synergetic and truly global network solutions for their esteemed airline clients."
"We are excited to partner with an organisation that brings heft, experience and an ambitious vision for Wright International's future. While we are joining a larger network, it is important to note that FL Technics, like Wright International, is an independent MRO provider whose primary focus is delivering impeccable results for its clients. Today's agreement is a very positive development for both organisations as well as for the North American aviation market," said Mario Sturino, President of Wright International. -- Tradearabia News Service


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Scheduling: (970) 282-2912
w.hammon@ticradiology.com
Open MRI Info
Studies performed at Open MRI of the Rockies are reviewed by members of Advanced Medical Imaging Consultants, a subspecialty radiology group located in Fort Collins, Colorado. Those physicians include:
Becky K. Benz, MD
Board-Certified: American Board of Radiology
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME
MD: University of North Dakota School of Medicine
Bruce A. Berkowitz, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology Albert Einstein College Hospitals, Bronx, NY
MD: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY
Joseph M. Carabetta, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Body Imaging / Musculoskeletal MRI, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
Residency: The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
MD: Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA
Kenneth K. Cicuto, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Vascular & Interventional Radiology, Medical College of Wisconsin
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine
MD: St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
Jamie S. Colonnello, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Musculoskeletal Radiology, Washington University, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, St. Louis, MO
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Washington University, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, St. Louis, MO
MD: St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO
Nicholas J. Constantine, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Abdominal Imaging, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Residency: University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa, FL
MD: University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa, FL
Winfield M. Craven, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Vascular & Interventional Radiology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO
MD: University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH
J. Paul Doye, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, Emory University Hospital, Department of Radiology & Imaging Sciences, Atlanta, GA
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Emory University Hospital, Department of Radiology & Imaging Sciences, Atlanta, GA
MD: University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Oklahoma City / Tulsa, OK
Thomas R. Drake, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Abdominal Imaging, University of Texas HSC/University Hospital System, San Antonio, TX
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital, San Antonio, TX
MD: University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX
Thomas R. Dunphy, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: MRI Body & Cardiac Imaging, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Christopher M. Fleener, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Body/Abdominal Imaging, Washington University School of Medicine, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, St. Louis, MO
MD: University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA
Michael J. Geraghty, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Body Imaging, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Methodist Hospital of Indiana, Indianapolis, IN
Deborah Z. Gunderson, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Nuclear Radiology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT; Body Imaging, CT/MRI/Ultrasound, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Sacred Heart Medical Center, Spokane, WA
MD: University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT
Amy S. Hayes, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Vascular & Interventional Radiology, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, WA
MD: University of Massachusetts School of Medicine, Worcester, MA
Jeanne M. Hennemann, MD
Residency: University of Florida, Shands Teaching Hospital, Gainesville, FL & Mt. Sinai Medical Center, Miami Beach, FL
MD: University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL
Sarah J.R. Jess, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, University of Utah Health Sciences Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of Utah Health Sciences Center, Salt Lake City, UT
MD: University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Memphis, TN
Paul W. Johnson, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Cross-Sectional Imaging, Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, Jacksonville, FL
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, Rochester, MN
MD: Mayo Medical School, Rochester, MN
Isaac Jones, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Loma Linda University Medical Center, Loma Linda, CA
MD: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL
Alistair C. Jordan, DO
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Vascular & Interventional Radiology, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas
Residency: Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH
DO: Midwestern University in Downers Grove, IL
McKinley C. Lawson, MD, Ph.D.
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Musculoskeletal Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO
MD: University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO
Ph.D.: Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
Kevin J. Limbaugh, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Nuclear Medicine, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, OR
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology/Nuclear Medicine, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, OR
MD: University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Karl E. Magsamen, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Stanford Medical Center, Palo Alto, CA
Residency: Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, IL
MD: Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE
Curtis L. Markel, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Body Imaging, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM
MD: University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO
Andrew D. Mills, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Musculoskeletal Radiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Residency: Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, NE
MD: Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, NE
Steven H. Peck, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Vascular & Interventional Radiology, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, New York, NY
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
MD: University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Madison, WI
Mark F.A. Reese, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
Michael J. Rogan, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Body Imaging, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burling, VT. Interventional Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN
MD: University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN
Richard M. Ruderman, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Angio/Interventional, Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Hartford Hospital, Hartford, CT
MD: Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, PA
Nicholas Jerome Statkus, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR
Residency: Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR
MD: Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR
Thomas P. Sullivan, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Interventional Radiology, Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL
Jacob Chris Walter, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Nuclear Radiology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Aurora, CO
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Aurora, CO
Stanley W. Weinstein, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Body Imaging/Musculoskeletal MRI, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL
MD: The Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
Jeffrey R. Weissmann, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Neuroradiology, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL; Interventional Radiology, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, Louisiana State University, Shreveport, LA
MD: Louisiana State University School of Medicine, Shreveport, LA
Marjorie M. Wiedeman, MD
Fellowship/Subspecialty: Musculoskeletal Radiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL
Residency: Diagnostic Radiology, University of Texas – Medical Branch, Galveston, TX
MD: University of Texas – Medical Branch, Galveston, TX
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Summary:THE FRONT SAFETY BELT BUCKLE RELEASE BUTTONS CAN BREAK. THESE RED PLASTIC RELEASE BUTTONS ARE MARKED "PRESS." IF A BUTTON BREAKS, PIECES CAN FALL INTO THE BUCKLE ASSEMBLY CAUSING THE BUCKLE TO OPERATE IMPROPERLY.
Conequence:THE SAFETY BELTS WOULD NOT PROVIDE ADEQUATE PROTECTION TO AN OCCUPANT IN A VEHICLE CRASH.
Notes:OWNERS SHOULD PROMPTLY CHECK THE CONDITION AND OPERATION OF BOTH FRONT SAFETY BELT BUCKLES. CAREFULLY INSPECT THE RED RELEASE BUTTON FOR ANY BREAKS OR CRACKS. CHECK THAT BOTH BUCKLES ARE OPERATING PROPERLY BY INSERTING EACH LATCH PLATE INTO ITS BUCKLE, TUG ON THE BELT TO MAKE SURE THE LATCH IS SECURELY LOCKED, THEN PRESS THE RELEASE BUTTON. THE LATCH PLATE SHOULD POP OUT OF THE BUCKLE WHEN THE BUTTON IS PRESSED. IF EITHER RELEASE BUTTON SHOWS ANY SIGN OF BREAKAGE OR CRACKING, OR IF EITHER BUCKLE FAILS TO OPERATE PROPERLY, PROMPTLY CONTACT YOUR AUTHORIZED HONDA/ACURA DEALER TO SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT TO HAVE THE BUCKLE REPLACED OR REPAIRED, FREE OF CHARGE. THE MANUFACTURER IS DEVELOPING A REMEDY DESIGNED TO PREVENT THE FAILURE OF THE BUTTONS THAT ARE NOT CURRENTLY BROKEN.
Summary:THREADED INFLATOR COMPONENTS MAY HAVE BEEN DAMAGED DURING ASSEMBLY WHICH MAY ALLOW COMPONENTS TO SEPARATE WHEN INFLATOR RECEIVES A SIGNAL TO DEPLOY THE AIR BAG.
Conequence:INFLATOR COMPONENT SEPARATION ALLOWS HOT COMBUSTION GASES TO ESCAPE INTO THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT WHICH COULD RESULT IN INJURIES TO VEHICLE OCCUPANTS.
Notes:REPLACE AIR BAG MODULES CONTAINING POTENTIALLY DEFECTIVE INFLATORS.


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This is just heartbreaking. Teen Mom OG star Tyler Baltierra has been open about his struggle with mental health, and his wife Catelynn Lowell's own recent struggle with mental health has inspired him to share more about his daily struggles with fans.
Over the past few weeks, Tyler has been sharing his own personal thoughts in the form of poetry, and his most recent poem includes an extremely harrowing description of what it means to live with anxiety and depression.
"Living with this depression [and] anxiety causes hurt. Its brain is like an alien stuck in a foreign body," Tyler began. The rest of the poem, which you can read below, goes on to reflect a sense of helplessness. "It feels like it's a conspire to not have known this information prior because now all these thoughts in its brain caused by all these demons inside won't stop talking with such an evil tone that's dire [and] that tone distracts it from ever being able to see the positivity in this life it could actually acquire," he wrote.
This isn't the first time Tyler has been this open about his hardships with mental illness. In fact, on June 26, the reality star shared a poem that included graphic details about his suicide attempt when he was only 11 years old.
"Now imagine a little boy almost 12 years old with an angry core [and] he's already smoking [and] trying to find a way to not have his mind collapse to the floor," Ty wrote via what seems to be a notes app on his phone. Tyler went on to explain why he had issues at school as a young man, and his anger issues led to him acting out in class and it also led to his suspensions from school.
"It doesn't bother him that bad 'cause he knows this week, he's gonna see his dad," Tyler continued, then he recounted one of the many times that his father Butch Baltierra had gone back to jail. "But ya [sic] see, later on that week, he gets a call from his dad that makes his knees become weak. 'Sorry son, your dad f–ked up again, I have to go back to livin' in prison, ya see this is hard on me.' Are you f–king kidding me, this is hard for me man, don't you see."
It was that moment that seemed to trigger Tyler's suicidal thoughts and he said he even questioned why life was worth living at that moment. Tyler went into graphic detail about what it was like in the moments during his suicide attempt, and he also revealed how he was able to save himself. In the caption of the post, Tyler explained why he decided to share his poem with his fans. "I wasn't going to post this poem… but I know that I'm not the only one who went through mental health struggles [and] I know that someone can relate to this experience, which is why I decided to vulnerably share this with you guys," Ty explained.


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text:
Lunchbox Links
Lunchbox Links - Ultimate Raptor, Steve Nash, Draft Rankings and More!
By Adam Francis May 11, 2012, 12:30pm EDT
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Not a lot of Raptor-talk in this edition of LBL, mostly of course because the team isn't in the NBA's post-season, and the draft has yet to get into full swing.
But RaptorsRepublic polls their readers for an interesting look at who Toronto should choose in the upcoming draft lottery. The first few results are expected, but it's interesting to see so many fans still hot on the Harrison Barnes bandwagon.
Speaking of bandwagon, all aboard the "Steve Nash to the Raptors" train, and if you missed it, TSN.ca's Tim Chisholm does a great job explaining why Nash to TO isn't such a crazy idea as it might have been a few months ago.
Meanwhile in Raptor-land, Sportsnet.ca argues that Andrea Bargnani's injury was symbolic of the Raptors' year, and Raptorblog caps off its "Ultimate Raptors Rankings" with the top overall choice. Pretty sure you know who they picked.
The Raptors season ended a few weeks ago but that the National Post's Eric Koreen hasn't been sitting on his hands. He's done a bang-up series of post-mortem's on recently eliminated NBA playoff clubs, the latest being his "now-what" on the Chicago Bulls.
Speaking of the Bulls...ahhh Carlos Boozer.
Still in the playoffs at the expense of said Bulls are the Philadelphia 76ers, who are taking advantage of a transformed Jrue Holiday.
And SB Nation's Mike Prada discusses Kevin Garnett, "The Superstar the NBA Forgot," who helped propel his Celtics into the second round of the playoffs last night, where they'll meet the 76ers.
If you missed SB Nation's blogger take on the NBA"s awards, click here, and if somehow you missed the unbelievable Grantland piece on Greg Oden...well, shake your head, then click here.
Finally, SI's Zach Lowe perfectly captures my issues with the NBA's age limit rules, and well...
...Chris Bosh.