living

2016 ~ Year of Tree
How wonderful!
7 billion people plant or rescue
7 billion trees -
Earth will be greener
air fresher, neighbourhood prettier
Everywhere bloom magic flowers
we will be healthier
and surely happier
in a new year, Year of Tree
2016!

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How Energy Efficient Is Your City?
A new report ranks 34 major US cities by their energy-use policies.
Does your city have a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically? Is it seeking to reduce car use through bike share programs and public transit subsidies? Does it partner with utility companies to help small businesses and homeowners save energy? And does it lobby for statewide energy-efficiency legislation?

Those are just a few of the policies that have made Boston the top-ranked city for energy efficiency, according to a new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Portland, Ore., placed second, followed by New York, San Francisco, and Seattle.

ACEEE ranked 34 major American cities—the 25 most populous incorporated ones, plus the central cities of nine other major metropolitan areas—according to their efforts to promote energy savings. The report looked at building codes, community-wide energy initiatives, transportation policies, energy-saving programs involving public utilities, and efforts to improve the efficiency of government building. You can see where each city ranked on the map above.

The 10 Most Energy-Efficient Cities In The U.S.  read more »

Two most famous French stars, cultural icons, are indeed very much French - they act on passion. Brigitte Bardot is determined to defend elephants (population shockingly dropped from 13,000,000 to 400,000 within 20 years) while Gerard Depardieu is extremely upset that 85% of his hard-earned money is not his: "I will neither complain nor brag, but I refuse to be called 'pathetic'". Per Daily Mail UK - 'Over 45 years, Depardieu has paid €145million euros' since he started working at age 14 as a printer. [Guardian UK] In protest not at tax hikes but at treatment of elephants, Brigitte Bardot threatens to follow Gérard Depardieu's move to quit France.

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new version "all-in-one: judge, jury and executioner"

Hal 9000, the supercomputer who commits murder in Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Einstein warned us long ago: "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."...
Philosophers and scientists: "In the case of artificial intelligence, it seems a reasonable prediction that some time in this or the next century intelligence will escape from the constraints of biology" (...will, or have escaped?) "...advanced technology could be a threat when computers start to direct resources towards their own goals, at the expense of human concerns like environmental sustainability."
VP of space technologies at Physical Sciences: "30,000 unmanned drones (which can hover 100 feet above your home or zip past your office window) estimated could be aloft by 2020. 'We’re in a rapid spool-up phase now, where we’re thinking about going from producing tens of aircraft per month to a thousand or more...' "

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