Clipmarks | California Clips

Green Museum

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:12:10 GMT

clipped by: AainaA
clipper's remarks: World's first GREEN Museum

A Green World

Unlike traditionally dark natural history museums, the new Academy is filled with light and life. Glass is used extensively in the exterior walls, creating open, airy galleries and sightlines to the surrounding parkland. And, the exhibits in the building are filled with 38,000 live animals - including African penguins, an albino alligator, colorful rainforest birds and butterflies, and the world’s deepest display of living corals.

One of the world’s most innovative museum building projects has reached completion. After nearly a decade of planning, the California Academy of Sciences opened its new doors to the public in September. Designed by Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano, the building is topped with a 2.5-acre living roof and employs a wide range of energy-saving materials and technologies.

The Academy is the only institution in the world to house an aquarium, planetarium, four story rainforest, natural history museum and world-class research facility under one roof.

Tags: academy, architecture, business, education, green, museum, piano, renzo

SF putting stop to suicides with net below bridge

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:43:36 GMT

clipped by: Nathan_7870

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California panel that oversees the Golden Gate Bridge voted on Friday to install netting to catch would-be suicides throwing themselves off the famous span.

The 4,200-foot-long (1,280-meter-long) suspension bridge, which crosses the entrance to San Francisco Bay, is a tourist magnet that also draws people trying to end their lives.

There were 39 confirmed suicides from the bridge in 2007, with seven unconfirmed cases, and 19 confirmed so far this year, bridge officials said.

The netting would be set 20 feet below the sidewalk and extend out 20 feet from the bridge. Officials estimate the barrier will cost $40 million to $50 million.

A suicide barrier beneath the link between San Francisco and Marin County has been debated since the 1970s, said Mary Currie, a spokesperson for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.

Building the barrier will take several years, and the project needs additional environmental study, she said.

Google on Speech Recognition, Synthesis, and Translation

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:30:06 GMT

clipped by: adamfalls
clipper's remarks: "Voice User Interface Design" published by Addison-Wesley in 2004

Clip Source: research.google.com

Google Technology RoundTable

Human Language Technology

[Video]

Mike Cohen, Manager - Speech Technology

Mike Cohen leads the speech technology efforts at Google. Prior to joining Google, Mike cofounded Nuance Communications and spent ten years helping build it into this market-leading speech technology company. He coauthored of the book Voice User Interface Design published by Addison-Wesley in 2004.

Franz Josef Och, Research Scientist Lead - Machine Translation

Franz Josef Och joined Google in 2004 as a research scientist, where he leads the machine translation group. He has been working on statistical machine translation since 1997.

Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California from 2002 to 2004. His main research interests are statistical machine translation, natural language processing and machine learning. He has co-authored more than fifty scientific papers and has written several open-source software packages related to statistical natural language processing.

Otow Orchard - renowned for persimmons, and more

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:22:07 GMT

clipped by: Lexica

Clip Source: www.otoworchard.com

A family-owned and operated orchard selling peaches, plums, persimmons, and other tree fruit.

Clip Source: www.otoworchard.com

Kitchitaro Kawano came to the United States from Japan in the late 1800s.

In 1911, he and his wife, Momi, purchased 20 acres of land

After Kitchitaro's death in 1939, his widow and youngest daughter, Helen, ran the farm.

After the war they returned to the farm

Clip Source: www.otoworchard.com

Otow Orchard is renowned for preserving the Japanese art of hoshigaki -- hoshi means dried and gaki is from kaki, the Japanese word for persimmon.

Our fresh persimmons are dried each fall in a slow, patient, hands-on process that usually takes three to six weeks...per persimmon. Each persimmon is hand-peeled, strung onto a rack, and massaged every 3 to 5 days for several weeks. Weather conditions are watched carefully. The result is a transformation into a sugary delicacy that is tender and moist with concentrated persimmon flavor.

Mike Dunne, Food Editor, Sacramento Bee, explains the process well in his article for The Sacramento Bee.

Tags: fruit, persimmons, produce, california, orchards

A little good news for some Americans amid all this financial meltdown and new evil empire talk

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:53:38 GMT

clipped by: nedhamson1

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage on Friday in a victory for gay-rights advocates that will allow couples to marry in the New England state.

The court found that the state's law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Connecticut is now the third state in the country to allow gay marriage, following neighboring Massachusetts, the first state to allow it, and California.

Tags: human rights

Same Sex Marriage? Yes in Connecticut

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:36:07 GMT

clipped by: iulawboy
clipper's remarks: That pesky constitution and its equal protection provisions -- next you will be telling us we have to send our kids to integrated schools.

Clip Source: seattlepi.nwsource.com

Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that gay couples have the right to marry, making the state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions through the courts.

Connecticut's court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution.

for a state that was the first to voluntarily pass laws affirming and protecting civil unions.

"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion

"To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others,"

Tags: same sex marriage, connecticut, civil unions, equal protection

READY FOR THE PRISON INDUSTRY

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:56:56 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Mandatory sentencing creating havoc in the budget

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Fiscal Disaster in California

The mandatory sentencing craze that has swept the country over the last 30 years did little to cut back the drug trade, but it drove up the prison population and pushed corrections costs to ruinous levels. The process was especially destructive in California, where a federal court has placed the prison system’s dangerously decrepit medical services under a receiver who wants the state to cough up $8 billion to bring that system up to constitutional standards.

The last thing California residents need at this point are new policies that land even more people behind bars and drive up prison spending further. But November’s ballot in California, the birthplace of irresponsible government by referendum, includes two costly initiatives that would do just that.

California voters need to reject Propositions 6 and 9.

Climate Change and Chipmonks in California

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:59:12 GMT

clipped by: nedhamson1
clipper's remarks: It's real and we can pretend it isn't

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

From California to Costa Rica, rising temperatures could be driving species to higher elevations

TIME TRAVELPlumper pine trees suggest that growing conditions turned milder at the north end of Vogelsang Lake in Yosemite National Park between the early 20th century (above) and 2004 (below). With climate warming, some of Yosemite's small mammals have edged up slopes to more familiar temperatures. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley

Chipmunks, mice and other small mammals pretty much moved up in the world as Yosemite National Park’s climate warmed during the last century.

As temperatures rose, these species tended to edge upward to higher and cooler ground, says Craig Moritz, director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley, Calif.

Tags: green, climate change, globalism

Cool Bus Stops - Ventura California

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:27:10 GMT

clipped by: mvonallmen

Clip Source: www.oddee.com

Cool Bus Stops around the World

Mindset set to read your Mind

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:41:28 GMT

clipped by: tmarch
clipper's remarks: Latest in the headsets that monitor brainwaves to give instructions to the computer interface.

Clip Source: www.theage.com.au

New video game reads your mind

October 10, 2008 - 12:05PM

Willpower is set to replace fast fingers in a new video game in which players move characters through a headset that monitors their brain waves.

California-based NeuroSky showed off the new headset - named Mindset

The Mindset monitors whether the player is focused or relaxed and accordingly moves the character on a personal computer.

Children's games using the system will hit the US market next year, Ito said.

In distance learning courses, for example, teachers could monitor whether students were attentive, Ito said.

Tags: tech's appeal

boat house

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:08:57 GMT

clipped by: ikino22

Clip Source: www.pointclickhome.com

Boat House (Encinitas, California)

Google Satellite for rent for the public and for government

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:17:56 GMT

clipped by: Nathan_7870

Clip Source: www.breitbart.com

A Google-sponsored satellite has beamed its first picture back to Earth in a successful test of a camera that will supply images for the Internet giant's free online map and navigation services.

The high-resolution color image from GeoEye-1, which was launched September 6 from a US air force base in California, was of a university campus in Pennsylvania, satellite operator GeoEye Inc. said in a statement.

"We are pleased to release the first GeoEye-1 image, bringing us even closer to the start of the satellite's commercial operations and sales to our customers," said GeoEye chief executive Matthew O'Connell.

Because of national security concerns, GeoEye-1's government clients will receive higher resolution photos than commercial clients such as Google, which plans to use the images on its popular Google Maps and Google Earth programs.

The satellite imagery from GeoEye-1 will be of a higher resolution and better quality than what is currently available on Google Maps and Google Earth.

Rep. Brad Sherman about his "martial law" comment on the floor of the House

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:07:30 GMT

clipped by: paleblue
clipper's remarks: I can't get you the clip -- look for it on you tube.. but congress was forced to pass this bill or else martial law would ensue.. folks we are in deep trouble here!!!!!!!

Clip Source: prisonplanet.tv

Alex talks with Rep. Brad Sherman about his "martial law" comment on the floor of the House. Alex is also joined by Paul Craig Roberts to discuss the economic meltdown and the passage of the bailout bill. Former Democrat Congressman from California Daniel Hamburg also makes an appearance.

SCOTUS TO Hear Navy vs. Whales Sonar case

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:16:30 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Looks like the whales lose again with these fuckers on the court!
I'd like to submit them to some screaming sound waves in their homes and see how it feels.

Clip Source: lists.grist.org

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the long-running dispute over the Navy's use of mid-frequency active sonar off the coast of Southern California. Environmentalists and wildlife advocates argued that restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar imposed by lower-court judges should be upheld -- at least until the Navy conducts its required environmental impact statement -- citing sonar's track record of seriously messing with whales and other marine mammals. Predictably, the Navy argues that halting or restricting sonar training exercises in any way harms national security. If the judges' comments are any indication, the court is likely to rule in the Navy's favor this spring. Justice Samuel Alito wondered aloud how a lone judge could ever restrict anything the Navy does, Justice Antonin Scalia characterized the required-but-still-not-done environmental impact statement as "procedural,"

Is California too big to fail?

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:15:43 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: www.marketwatch.com

Is California too big to fail?

Commentary: Let's hope they don't put it to a vote

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- You've got to give California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger credit for being the first to stick his hand out.

Even before the vote on the $700 billion bailout bill last week, the wily Terminator of fiscal discipline had a letter on the desk of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson making the case for a $7 billion loan to keep the nation's most populous state running past October. Arguing that California -- and many other states -- have been frozen out of the credit markets like a subprime homebuyer, Schwarzenegger said the state needs the money to pay teachers, cops, firefighters, nurses, and other state-funded enterprises of some importance.

Tags: california, government, failure, economy, schwarzenegger, credit