The Saturday after Thanksgiving is designated Small Business Saturday, a day created by American Express to encourage shoppers to buy local. In San Diego, many businesses are hoping shoppers will spend money at their stores.That's what the day looks like in San Diego. Follow over the jump for how it's playing out here in Detroit.
The APPLE PIE SANGRIA is cinnamon flavored, delicious and perfect for the holidays!Yum. Follow over the jump to see two more recipes for pumpkin pie drinks.
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RECIPE
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Bottle of Moscato
3 1/2 oz. (105ml) Caramel Vodka
3 1/2 oz. (105ml) Apple Cider
3 1/2 oz. (105ml) Soda Water
Apple Slices
Pear Slices
2 Cinnamon Sticks
If it were the end of the world as we know it, we’d be fine, according to Michigan Technological University professor Joshua Pearce.The good news is that we can feed everyone, as long as people plan ahead and are willing to eat bacteria, fungi, and insects for up to five years until what passes for normal agriculture returns. The latter part I'm not as worried about as the first part. I'm not as optimistic about people preparing.
“People have been doing catastrophic risk research for a while,” says Pearce. “But most of what’s been done is dark, apocalyptic and dismal. It hasn’t provided any real solutions.”
Even when looking at doomsday scenarios—like super-volcanoes, abrupt climate change and nuclear winter—society’s forecast isn’t horrific. In fact, Pearce says life will still have a sunny outlook. His research is outlined in a new book, Feeding Everyone No Matter What, out this week.
Yesterday, the three stations down the street lowered their price one more notch to $2.77. That didn't take long. It's only a matter of time before the corner station joins them. In fact, it may have done it this morning.It had. Sunday and Monday, all four stations in the neighborhood were selling regular for $2.77.
Prices look they'll continue to fall, as the national average is now $2.82 and falling.Prices dropped spectacularly during the day yesterday, as the three stations down the block were selling regular for $2.65. That's as low as I expected prices to go this year. However, the corner station actually raised its price to $2.95. It was almost enough to prompt me to post the jumping over the limbo bar graphic. Then I saw that the next prediction might just have come true.
However, the floor may be in sight, as WTI is back above $75 and Brent has climbed over $80. Let's see if they manage to stay above these levels of support on MondayLast night, the three stations down the block raised their prices to $2.85, while the corner station remained at $2.95. It looks like gas prices hit the floor and bounced, making the first half of my quoted passage appear good. The second part of the prediction didn't hold up as well. While Oil-Price.Net shows that WTI stayed above $75 and Brent remained above $80 on Monday, both fell on Tuesday, WTI to $74.09 and Brent to $78.33. Back to $70 and $75 as support levels for now.
I'd much rather have this video as my comment on the Zimmerman trial than “The law is an ass with music by Leonard Cohen.” I'll save that thought I left at Kunstler's blog for the next time the legal system disappoints me.With the decision not to prosecute Darren Wilson, that next time has arrived. I present "Everybody Knows." The words are still by Leonard Cohen, even though the performance is by Concrete Blonde.
ANN ARBOR—The U.S. economy will grow by more than 3 percent next year—its highest rate in 10 years, say economists at the University of Michigan.We should be so lucky.
Overall economic output growth (as measured by real Gross Domestic Product) will jump from 2.2 percent this year to 3.1 percent in 2015 and 3.3 percent in 2016.
"We expect that 2015 will be the year when U.S. economic growth will finally accelerate meaningfully," said U-M economist Daniil Manaenkov. "This year, severe winter weather joined the list of headwinds that have prevented U.S. economic growth from picking up. Even still, both private and total payroll job gains during 2014 are on track for their best performance since 1999. And going forward, strong GDP growth supports steady employment gains."
ANN ARBOR—After five years of steady job growth, the Michigan economy will continue to move forward at a solid clip over the next two years, say University of Michigan economists.Ah, yes, good news for business as usual. Too bad these are not business as usual times.
In their annual November forecast of the Michigan economy, George Fulton and colleagues Joan Crary and Donald Grimes say the state will add more than 132,000 jobs over the next two years.
All told, Michigan will have added nearly 463,000 jobs during the economic recovery from summer 2009 through the end of 2016—returning the job count to levels posted at the end of 2006 and a little more than halfway back to job levels posted in mid-2000.
Scientists believe there is an ocean hidden beneath the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. NASA-JPL astrobiologist Kevin Hand explains why scientists are so excited about the potential of this ice-covered world to answer one of humanity's most profound questions.For a terrestrial analogue to the oceans of Europa, Extreme Shrimp May Hold Clues to Alien Life.
This extreme oasis of life deep in the Caribbean Sea may hold clues to life on other planetary bodies, including Jupiter's moon Europa.Art imitating life imitating art. Should humans actually ever get to Europa, or at least a robot explorer, may the results be as successful but less tragic than the finale of the film.
Given what the rest of the climate news I included in last week's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday on Daily Kos was like, it comes not a moment too soon...Stay tuned for an entry about these stories.It's time for that entry.
For the third month in a row, global temperatures reached record territory according to newly available data from NASA. And if one global temperature record isn’t enough, the Japanese Meteorological Agency also provided new data on Friday that showed the warmest October on record.As if that wasn't enough, Kahn of Climate Central also told his readers in LiveScience to Feel the Heat: Fourth-Warmest October for U.S..
Data from NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) show this October was 1.4°F above the 1951-1980 average they use as their baseline. That didn’t set a monthly mark, as did August and September, but rather tied 2005 as the warmest October since 1880. That keeps 2014 on track to be the hottest year on record.
While individual hot years or months don’t necessarily stand out, it’s notable that all 10 of the warmest years on record have all come since 1998, one of the clearest signs that the climate is warming due in large part to greenhouse gas emissions.
It might be chilly (OK, downright Arctic) in the middle third of the U.S. these days, but if you live there, you can warm yourself with memories of October. According to new data released Thursday, October wasn’t just a little warm, it was the fourth-warmest October for the lower 48 on record and not a single state recorded below normal temperatures.If it hadn't been for Philae landing on a comet, these would have been the top stories last Saturday.
In what’s been the year of the great weather schism, October showed reconciliation is possible. Warm weather that has been the hallmark of the West this year was also seen spreading across the South and Northeast. The only spot with near-normal temperatures was the Upper Midwest, though near normal probably sounds downright balmy to folks in Detroit who just weathered overnight lows of minus-14°F.
37 of the contiguous 48 states experiencing above-normal temperatures, that put the national average temperature 3°F above normal. That makes it the fourth warmest among the past 120 Octobers according to the new data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Not a single state saw below normal temperatures, the first time that’s happened since July 2013.
This diary-worthy personalized tip jar by Neon Vincent from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Philae lands on comet). That's one amazing tip jar and believe it to be the very first Tip Jar to make a Top Comment.Honestly, it was nothing special, but I'll take the praise.
With the unseasonably frigid air this week, memories resurfaced of last winter’s biting cold, brought on by the dreaded polar vortex.That was last winter. What about the current cold snap, which sent the thermometer in the new car down to 16F on the drive home?
But as NIU climatologist David Changnon points out, it’s not simply the cold that makes us miserable.
Changnon, who has been studying the impacts of last winter for an upcoming publication, can describe the countless ways in which the winter hurt, ranging from U.S. flight delays and Great Lakes shipping slowdowns to a plethora of potholes and water main breaks.
It all amounted to an economic punch in the nose.
“For a national economy still recovering from the damaging recession of 2008, last winter helped to create a significant setback,” says Changnon, a Board of Trustees Professor from NIU’s Department of Geography.
“Economists reported that half of the economic slowdown last winter was due to the bad weather conditions. For example, Ford attributed $100 million in losses to the winter. Because more people stayed inside due to the extremely cold conditions and reduced their spending, the national GNP shrank at an annual rate of 2.1 percent from January to March.”
Changnon says the impact of the November 2014 polar vortex should be minimal, because it’s not occurring in the heart of winter. It’s unclear whether it is a predictor of the winter to come.Ugh, brr.
“This may be the only major polar vortex event of the entire cold season,” Changnon said. “Since the complex factors that create such a scenario can change independent of one another and at different time scales, it is just hard to say.
“However, one of the main causes for last year’s frequent occurrence of the polar vortex, a large body of ocean with above average sea-surface water temperatures in the north Pacific, still exists. So many long-range winter forecasters feel like the probabilities are weighted toward a number of polar vortex events this cold season. It might not be as extreme as last year, but we might see more of the polar vortex than we typically experience.”
The United States and China surprised climate-policy watchers this week by announcing a rare accord to cut carbon pollution. As details of the agreement are released, experts are hopeful that cooperation between the world's two biggest economies, and two biggest carbon emitters, bodes well for an as-yet elusive global climate pact.Not only is this good news, but it's exactly the kind of cooperation I was hoping for when I first called the Sino-American relationship The CoDominion in U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: The CoDominion plans for sustainability and repeated in An update on The CoDominion planning for sustainability. Given what the rest of the climate news I included in last week's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday on Daily Kos was like, it comes not a moment too soon.* I should curb my enthusiasm, as the result is likely to be what Paul Krugman describes in China Deals.
"For many years, the reluctance of the U.S. and China to make strong commitments has been an oft-used excuse by other countries to not take action," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
"In fact, many in the U.S. Congress have resisted taking action because they argued that China wasn't acting," Leiserowitz told Live Science in an email. "And many Chinese leaders have long used the same argument about the United States to avoid making their own commitments. This very public and early agreement by the two largest national emitters in the world should help break the long-standing logjam in the international negotiations."
[O]ne of the main arguments the usual suspects make against action — after arguing that it’s all a gigantic hoax, any limits on emissions will destroy the economy, and liberals are ugly — is that nothing the US does can matter, because China will just keep on emitting. Some of us have long argued that this is way too pessimistic — that the advanced countries, if they are willing to limit their own emissions, can have a lot of leverage via the threat of carbon tariffs. But now China is showing itself willing to deal even without that.I wish Krugman was wrong, but he probably isn't. Sigh.
So you could say that a major prop of the anti-climate-action campaign has just been knocked away. But as I said, it probably won’t matter; they’ll just come up with another excuse.
Travel on all roads and streets changed by 0.4% (1.0 billion vehicle miles) for August 2014 as compared with August 2013.Here's the graph.
Travel for the month is estimated to be 267.8 billion vehicle miles.
Cumulative Travel for 2014 changed by 0.6% (11.1 billion vehicle miles).
A soft landing on the surface of comet 67P/C-G was successfully completed on Nov. 12th, 2014. The Philae lander and its mothership Rosetta probe both snapped imagery of the descent. Also, the first image taken from the surface of a comet is snapped by the lander.That's the good news. Here's the bad news: Philae Comet Lander Falls Silent as Batteries Run Out.
The first spacecraft ever to land on a comet has fallen silent, entering a potentially long, cold sleep after running out of power.Sigh. It was nice while it lasted.
The European Space Agency's Philae lander completed its last transmission Friday (Nov. 14) at 7:36 p.m. EST (0036 GMT) before settling into a hibernation state as its batteries ran out. The probe had been studying the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for 57 hours when it went to sleep, possibly for good.
In the 94 minute show, investigative journalist Michael Ruppert, economist Dr. Nathan Hagens, author John Cronin, investigative journalist/author James Howard Kun[st]ler, computer scientist Dr. Hugo De Garis, and executive editor Robert Gleason came together to discuss some of the greatest threats to the future of the United States, including economic collapse, water shortages/contamination, peak oil, species dominance by self-aware robots, and nuclear terrorism.Both Kunstler and Ruppert gave their familiar peak oil perspectives on the future. Of the rest, the one who worried about the farthest off catastrophe was De Garis, whose fear was of The Singularity, the surpassing of human intelligence by artificial intelligence. When he discussed his take on the future, I figured that Kunstler would likely have none of it. Sure enough, he told De Garis that he thought that the resources and finances needed to support the research for artificial intelligence would dry up before the technology reached that point. The result was that Kunstler didn't budge, but De Garis came away convinced that the other issues were fair more pressing than his particular worry. In particular, he became most concerned about water shortages.
From 2000-2004, I regularly put 40,000 miles on my car. In 2005, I began driving 1000 miles a week when school was in session to three different colleges and a tutoring service. Then on the weekends, I'd judge marching bands or cover drum and bugle corps shows. From May 2005 to May 2006, I drove 48,000 miles. That was the year I put my house up for sale, stopped seeing my long-distance girlfriend, and eventually sold my house. In June, I moved to the middle of my jobs and cut my driving down to 700 miles a week. Then I changed one of my jobsites and cut it down to 500 miles a week. Then I got a full-time job and quit my part-time jobs and dropped to 300 miles a week. Finally, we moved and I now drive 70 miles a week. I'm so close to work I could ride a bike on a good day.I included a more detailed account of the sale in The Archdruid and I talk real estate.
The news on the radio in June 2005 trumpeted record home sales and prices. I took it as a sign of the market top I'd been looking for since 2001 and immediately drove to the nearest real estate office to my home in the Irish Hills of Michigan and listed my house for sale. The house sold in April 2006 and closed in May 2006, just as the bottom was about to fall out.The result was that I got out of the market just in time, as the graph shows that home ownership began its steady slide immediately afterwards, then rented from 2006 until now, eight years of riding the real estate market down by staying out of it.
That was not only good for me, but good for the deer. That winter, the deer ate my shrubs up to the seven foot level. Good thing they were eight feet tall at the time. I vowed that if I were still in my house the next firearms deer season, I'd finally break down and buy a rifle and a deer hunting license. I never got the chance. Lucky deer.
In 2010, a woolly mammoth was discovered near Russia. New research says describes her brain as the best specimen in history! Catie Wayne is here to discuss what this could mean for the future of cloning.The answer is still no. Darn.
Discover just how large a role corn plays in the American food machine.
Nebris: The low gas prices must be driving Jimmy fucking nuts. =DThe "Jimmy" Nebris referred to is James Howard Kunstler, who Nebs knows. I'll get to Kunstler's comments later. Right now, I'll concentrate on the lower gas prices.
Me: No. He's pointing to it as a likely cause of the bursting of the fracking bubble, which will result in more chaos in the financial markets. He likes that. Speaking of low gas prices, that's up next.
With gas prices continuing to drop experts are predicting that holiday shopping will robust in 2014.$2.60/gallon in California? Oh, my! If the experts the KCRA reporters are quoting are right, this will be a good year for those giving off the stink of retail desperation.
With gas prices falling, the demand for big cars is up.Don't let the lack of a preview image (so far) deter you from playing the video; it plays. As for the content, it's evidence in support of the drop in gas mileage I reported in Michigan universities on buying cars. I guess that's the flipside of the good economic news lately.
Earlier this morning, the Rosetta satellite successfully landed a probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko! Trace is here to explain how the European Space Agency managed to do this.Hey, new opening music! Love the beat!
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft is about to attempt something "ridiculously difficult" - landing a probe on the surface of a speeding comet.Follow over the jump for more from JPL and Hubble Space Telescope.
The United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps, known as "The Commandant's Own," opened DCI Finals night.The Marine Drum and Bugle Corps wasn't done. Rise and remain standing for "The Star Spangled Bannner."
DCI Finals Night National Anthem performed by "The Commandant's Own" United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps.Play ball!
The red-blue map of the United States got a lot redder this week, as large swatches of the country voted Republican during mid-term elections for the House, Senate and state governorships. Some of this can be explained by swings of the political pendulum, dislike for the sitting president or a low turnout that favored the GOP.This is one of many reasons why I'm glad I no longer live in the country; I'm around people with similar politics now.
All that is true, but observers also note that the nation’s political and social divisions are also split by residence: How you vote is determined by where you live. The rural vote is solidly Republican, the urban centers remain Democrat.
Book it: This year will go down as the hottest in California’s history.I talked to my sister in Los Angeles yesterday, and she was complaining about how temperatures were in the 90s in November. That's right up there with the fire season starting in May last year and ending in January, then the new fire season starting in April, as a sign of how the climate has changed since I moved out of the state 25 years ago.
With just two months left in the year, there’s a better than 99 percent chance that 2014 will be the warmest year on record for California, according to National Weather Service meteorologists.
The state has been baking in above-average temperatures all year — setting a record for the warmest first six months of any year this June — thanks to a persistent atmospheric pattern that has also mired California in a major drought. The heat has only exacerbated the drought’s effects, and the state is in dire need of a really wet winter, an uncertain prospect right now.
Climate change is changing the Earth in more ways than we could’ve imagined! Join Amy as she discusses how the ice sheets melting is changing gravity on Earth!The title is sensationalistic, but it really is happening. For something really sensationalistic and less substantiated, watch Climate Change Is Causing Fewer Male Births!
Climate change is not only affecting the environment, but it actually is causing less male births! Tara is here to explain this weird consequence.My friend Nebris responded to this news by saying that even he had a hard time believing this. Still, if it is true, it's the kind of thing that will get people's attention to the issue.
In 2029, a football field-sized asteroid is going to fly so close to Earth that it's going to trigger a series of massive avalanches. Amy explains why we Earthlings have nothing to worry about.In it's own way, this news is even more reassuring than Apophis Day postponed until 2068.
A program affiliated with Colorado State University marked the two-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy in a special way: On Oct. 29, high school students in New York City posed questions about life during and after a catastrophe to a very particular group of experts – high school students in the Gulf Coast who experienced the BP Oil Spill and lived through as many as six hurricanes in the past decade, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Here's the video from Columbia University on Vimeo: Shoreline - Katrina/Sandy Youth Dialogue Part I.
Their youth-led rapid video project, “The Katrina/Sandy Youth Dialogue, Part 1,” is a product of the SHOREline program, a national youth-empowerment project developed at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Earth Institute and at the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis at Colorado State University.
It has been two years since Superstorm Sandy struck the East Coast and nearly ten years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. At SHOREline, we took this moment to reflect upon the issues of response and recovery it raised among the members of our SHOREline network – high school students at five Gulf Coast schools and one New York City school.For last year's retrospective, see PBS NewsHour on Hurricane Sandy one year later, then be happy that, as predicted, the U.S. didn't have a severe Atlantic hurricane season this year.
How are Katrina and Sandy similar? From the perspective of young people, what can they learn from one another about such catastrophic events? Ninth and tenth graders at NYC’s Urban Assembly School for Emergency Management developed questions that they posed to their Gulf Coast counterparts in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Geek and Sundry: Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. Kiriosity explores some explosive facts (and Fawkes) about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605; the attempted assasination against King James I of England by a group of English Catholics.Of course, the adoption of Guy Fawkes (or at least his mask) as a symbol of Anonymous has added new meaning to the day, as explained by Russia Today in Million Mask March rallies sweep the globe.
Vox: An abridged history of how Guy Fawkes day earned its namesake.
The Million Mask March is spreading worldwide as demonstrators protest against austerity, mass surveillance and oppression.It's a pity that Russia Today is the main news outlet covering this, as the channel has an agenda of promoting troublemakers in the U.S. and elsewhere. Their agenda of destabilizing Russia's rivals contaminates that of the protesters, which I generally support.
ANN ARBOR—Consumer confidence posted its third consecutive monthly gain in October, rising to its highest level since July 2007, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.Trick or Treat! Hey, a treat!
Conducted by the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) since 1946, the Surveys monitor consumer attitudes and expectations.
"Consumers have been gradually regaining their economic footing in the past several months, with confidence rising to the highest level since the start of the Great Recession," said Richard Curtin, director of the surveys. "This is not the first time such a strong rebound has occurred, but this time it appears to have more forward traction. Consumers have not overreacted to the negative news of a global slowdown or Ebola, nor to the positive news of lower gas prices. Instead, consumers have kept their focus on improved job and wage prospects. Finally, five years after the start of the recovery, consumers have begun to adopt the expectations and behaviors that have driven past expansions."
The October gain was due to improved personal finances as well as a more favorable outlook for the overall economy, according to Curtin. Indeed, consumers reported the most favorable personal financial expectations as well as the most positive year-ahead outlook for the national economy in the past seven years. What the survey did not find was any negative impact on confidence from the global economic slowdown, military conflicts, or Ebola. None of these issues was mentioned by more than a few respondents; instead, respondents emphasized improved wage and employment prospects due to a stronger economy. Gains in holiday spending are expected to be the best in several years, benefiting from higher confidence as well as falling gas prices at the pump.
DETROIT— The Southeast Michigan Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for October is 54.7, down slightly from September’s 59.4. A PMI value above 50 generally suggests economic growth.Professor Farnsworth approves in general, although I'm sure that he's not too keen on Ebola.
“We continue to enjoy a bright economic outlook, said Timothy Butler, associate professor of supply chain management at Wayne State’s School of Business, who interpreted this month’s results. Key indicators for growth include the New Orders Index, the Finished Goods Inventory Index and the Employment Index. In fact, the Employment Index has remained over 50 since July 2012.”
Purchasing managers’ confidence continues to be up, with 93.4 percent believing the Southeast Michigan economy will remain stable or become more stable over the next six months, while only 6.7 percent anticipate a less stable economy.
Respondents reported prices were up for resins, aluminum and steel for the month, while oil and copper were down in price. They also noted the Ebola crisis disrupted air transportation and reported travel cost increases.
I'll be back at midnight with the endorsement entry I promised at the end of Obama visits Detroit plus election news from campuses on the campaign trail. Stay tuned.It's midnight, so I'm back with the general election edition of Crazy Eddie's Motie News endorses... I start with my suggestion for Proposals 1 and 2 in the spirit of a picture being worth 1000 words.
It arrived yesterday, as two of the stations down the street dropped their price for regular to $2.89 and for midgrade to $2.99. My wife filled up the new car with midgrade.After that experience, I pointedly did not make any prediction about where gas would go, as the low I expected for the year had been reached. Based on the seasonal pattern, I should have expected prices to go down some more, and they did. Today, the three stations down the street are now selling regular for $2.87. I'm just waiting for the corner station to drop its price from $2.89 to match them.
Gas prices have finally decreased, but that was as much due to decreased demand in Europe and Asia and Saudi Arabia deciding to get out of the way of a falling knife as it was about increased U.S. production. It reminds me of 1998, when prices fell because of similar circumstances, namely a recession in Asia while the U.S. was undergoing expansion. The low prices will probably last about as long, too. Enjoy it while it lasts.In the meantime, have a gloating macro in time for tomorrow's election.
At the end of Set back your clocks, including the ones for insulin pumps, I told my readers to "stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment entry." It's still coming, probably at 7 PM EST.*The time has arrived.
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*Midnight Greenwich Time is now 7 PM, not 8 PM, so that's when the stats for the next day begin.
John Edgar Browning is a Marion L. Brittain Postodctoral fellow at Georgia Tech, and teaches classes on the horror genre of literature and film. One of his particular areas of expertise is vampires, specializing in the Dracula figure in popular culture. Brittain Fellows like Browning tailor their courses to their own research interests while meeting state and university objectives and outcomes.He's not the first scholar I've written about who studies vampires. In Sustainability news from campuses on the campaign trail for the week before Memorial Day, I included a press release from the University of Wisconsin about the scholarship of Tomislav Longinovic, who explored the vampire as a metaphor for malignant nationalism. I wonder if Browning is aware of Longinovic's work. If not, I have three words for him: Bela Lugosi's Dead.*
Students, faculty, and staff take part in Humans vs. Zombies, or HvZ, a weeklong game of tag with short missions and strategy mixed in.If it's Sunday when "The Walking Dead" is being shown, there will be zombies.
“Being a human is fun because it really tests your ability,” says computer science major, Rachel Clark. “Every day you survive feels like a pretty neat accomplishment.” The zombie life, Clark said, is also fun, but less stressful. “It’s also more common for zombies to casually hunt in groups, which makes a great chance to meet new people.”
Last night, a private Orbital Sciences rocket set to deliver cargo to the International Space Station exploded seconds after liftoff. Why did this happen, and what did we lose? Trace and Amy are here to discuss.That was the first disaster. NBC News reported on the second, which followed on its heels.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson said his team is dedicated to finding out what led to Friday's fatal test flight of the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, and that he and millions of supporters of commercial space travel "would like to see the dream living on."There is good news from this story: Pilot Injured in SpaceShipTwo Crash 'Alert, Talking'.
The National Transportation Safety Board began its investigation Saturday into what led to the explosion over California's Mojave Desert that killed one pilot, identified as 39-year-old Michael Alsbury, and injured a second, Peter Siebold, 43. Alsbury died at the scene, according to the Kern County Coroner’s Office. Siebold was headed to surgery Saturday, according to The Associated Press.
Branson told reporters that the Virgin Galactic program would "not push on blindly." "We owe it to our test pilots to figure out what went wrong. If we can overcome it, we’ll make absolutely certain that the dream lives on," the British businessman added. Branson conceded that the program "fell short," but pointed out that the early days of aviation were risky before they became safe.
A pilot injured in Friday’s deadly Virgin Galactic test flight accident is awake and able to speak with family members and doctors, the company involved in the craft’s development and testing said.I'm glad Siebold is recovering, but am sorry for the loss of Alsbury.**
Peter Siebold, 43, had surgery on his arm, his family told NBC News Saturday. He was injured when the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane broke up over California’s Mojave Desert Friday and crashed, killing pilot Michael Alsbury, 39. Scaled Composites said Siebold was the pilot and Alsbury was the co-pilot on the fatal flight.
Daylight savings is back! But why do we do it exactly? We've all heard different explanations, so Anthony hit the books in search of a definitive reason why we change our clocks.Set back all your clocks, including the ones in your automatic dosers. Michigan State University explains why in Could daylight saving time be a risk to diabetics?
Soon, many will turn back the hands of time as part of the twice-annual ritual of daylight saving time. That means remembering to change the alarm clock next to the bed, which will mean an extra hour of sleep before getting up in the morning.So it's not just when we spring ahead that there are health risks. At least this isn't a threat to everyone, the way heart attacks can be. Just the same, it could be a threat to more people in the future than it is now. As I ask in my worksheet for Food, Inc., "What fraction of all American children born after 2000 has been predicted to come down with Type II diabetes during their lifetime? What fraction of minority children (from caption)?" The answer is 1 in 3 for all Americans born after 2000, 1 in 2 for minority children.
But for some diabetics who use insulin pumps, Saleh Aldasouqi, associate professor of medicine at Michigan State University, suggests that remembering to change the time on this device should be the priority.
“Some diabetes patients who use insulin pumps may forget to change the clock that is found in these devices,” said diabetes expert Aldasouqi. “Forgetting to change the time can result in insulin dosing errors that can be harmful.”
In Driving update for September 2014: Ruby, I lamented the fate of my old car.Yesterday, I finally sold Yuki, so it's time to calculate the miles driven and write what will probably be her obituary. First, here is the projection of how much I would have driven her had I kept her from Driving update for September 2014: Ruby.Yuki may not reach that milestone, at least not with me driving her. My wife and I are shopping for another car, and Yuki will likely be the one traded in. Sigh. That will deserve a post of its own when that happens, along with the story of how buying Ruby was the fulfillment of a promise I made to my students. Later.We've bought the new car, but I didn't trade in Yuki, at least not yet. I'll write Yuki's farewell when I either sell her or trade her in.
I'm driving Ruby more and Yuki less while my wife holds her driving steady. It's been 80 days since Driving update for July 2014: Yuki and I've only driven my car about 750 miles. At that rate, it should be another 26 or 27 days before I roll her over to 222,000 miles for 1000 miles in 106.7 days. That would be a rate of 9.37 miles/day or 285.85 miles/month. That would be much less than the 11.90 miles/day and 363.10 miles/month during the comparable period last year.When I sold Yuki, her odometer read 221,841, so I drove her 841 miles since July 9, when she rolled over 221,000 miles. From then until Halloween is a total of 104 days. 841/104 is 8.09 miles/day or 246.75 miles/month. If I count until the 29th, when the last mile rolled over, the calculation is 841/102 or 8.25 miles/day or 251.63 miles/month. Either one is a lot less than what I estimated if I had kept her and continued driving at the same rate. Of course, neither number really means anything until both Ruby and the new car, which I'm provisionally calling Dez and my wife is calling Lapis, hit their next 1000 miles. Stay tuned for those driving updates.
There is no theme this month other than blogging for blogging's sake. That written, there is an announcement.This sentence, which was repeated in the email and at this year's announcement at the website, is why I'm saying this month's theme is "Huge," even though there officially is no theme beyond blogging for blogging's sake.Every November, thousands of bloggers make this commitment to post daily. But it's about much more than posting; it's about community, connection and our shared craft. Those are all values worthy of a monthlong public celebration. So let's get into all the sparkly details!
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NaBloPoMo happens every month, but due to its proximity to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), November tends to be the "official" month, and it is unofficially HUGE.
I think I miscounted. I may not have posted anything about Nablopomo in November 2010, but I blogged every day that month, so I retroactively proclaim that I participated. That means that this is now the seventh November I participated in Nablopomo and the sixth anniversary of my first doing so. Time still flies.Think of it as one big blogging party meant to give you enough energy, ideas and inspiration to supercharge your blogging mojo and carry you through the next 12 months. We do our part to keep the energy going by celebrating the big crowd by highlighting posts and handing out prizes.This is my fifth November participating since I first signed up in 2009 on my LiveJournal. My, how time flies.
It's as simple as this: post daily on your own blog. That's it. You can get fancy and cross-post your blog posts onto the NaBloPoMo site for more exposure. If you need daily inspiration, bookmark the NaBloPoMo prompts page for November, which already has all the prompts for the month posted so you can plan ahead.
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So grab a cup of coffee, crack your knuckles, and let's get writing! Oh, but sign up for November's NaBloPoMo before you get lost in your own blog.
