Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, April 14, 2015.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Lost In A Crowd by Fantastic Negrito
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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No, the Poor Are Not Squandering Public Money on Filet Mignon
By Kevin Drum
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. . . Here are some relevant monthly figures for food spending among the poor, as collected by the Consumer Expenditure Survey:
Meat and fish: $48
Fruits and vegetables: $42
Alcohol: $15
Pretty obviously, there's a lot more baloney and chicken breasts here than steak and lobster. And this doesn't change a lot as you move up the income scale. The numbers above are for the poorest tenth of consumers, but they stay about the same even when you move slightly up the income ladder. The entire poorest third spends only about $323 total on food per month.
. . . should we be worried that public money is being squandered on prime rib or fresh Pacific swordfish? Nope. There's just no evidence that it's happening except as the occasional scary anecdote. It's a non-problem.
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Search for advanced civilizations beyond Earth finds nothing obvious in 100,000 galaxies
By (ScienceDaily)
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After searching 100,000 galaxies for signs of highly advanced extraterrestrial life, a team of scientists using observations from NASA's WISE orbiting observatory has found no evidence of advanced civilizations in them. "The idea behind our research is that, if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization's technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths -- exactly the radiation that the WISE satellite was designed to detect for other astronomical purposes," said Jason T. Wright, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Penn State University, who conceived of and initiated the research.
. . .
In any case, Wright said, the team's non-detection of any obvious alien-filled galaxies is an interesting and new scientific result. "Our results mean that, out of the 100,000 galaxies that WISE could see in sufficient detail, none of them is widely populated by an alien civilization using most of the starlight in its galaxy for its own purposes. That's interesting because these galaxies are billions of years old, which should have been plenty of time for them to have been filled with alien civilizations, if they exist. Either they don't exist, or they don't yet use enough energy for us to recognize them," Wright said.
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Matthew Povich, an assistant professor of astronomy at Cal Poly Pomona, and a co-investigator on the project, said "Once we had identified the best candidates for alien-filled galaxies, we had to determine whether they were new discoveries that needed follow-up study, or well-known objects that had a lot of mid-infrared emission for some natural reason." Jessica Maldonado, a Cal Poly Pomona undergraduate, searched the astronomical literature for the best of the objects detected as part of the study to see which were well known and which were new to science. "Ms. Maldonado discovered that about a half dozen of the objects are both unstudied and really interesting looking," Povich said.
"When you're looking for extreme phenomena with the newest, most sensitive technology, you expect to discover the unexpected, even if it's not what you were looking for," said Steinn Sigurdsson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds and a co-investigator on the research team. "Sure enough, Roger and Jessica did find some puzzling new objects. They are almost certainly natural astronomical phenomena, but we need to study them more carefully before we can say for sure exactly what's going on."
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Health Data Breaches Sow Confusion, Frustration
By Charles Ornstein
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As the privacy officer for The Advisory Board Co., Rebecca Fayed knows a thing or two about privacy and what can happen when it’s violated.
But when Fayed received a letter telling her that she, like nearly 80 million others, was the victim of a hacking attack on health insurer Anthem Inc., she couldn’t figure out why. Anthem wasn’t her insurance provider.
. . .
Fayed soon figured out the connection: Her previous insurer, a Blue Cross plan, was affiliated with Anthem in some way. Whoever hacked Anthem’s records accessed names, Social Security numbers, dates of births, addresses and more going back a decade.
. . .
Ann Patterson, senior vice president and program director for the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance, an industry group, said consumers are right to be nervous. Medical identity theft poses a more serious risk than credit card fraud. “You really can’t change your birth date. So when that kind of information is out there, the type of fraud that is perpetrated in the health care sense involves your wellbeing, your life.”
. . .
Fayed’s company provides research, technology and consulting services to health care and higher education organizations, and she said the flow of personal information is essential to delivering medical treatment and to arranging payment. “We as individuals are never going to be able to know every single entity that has our data,” she said.
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Coal is dying all by itself
By Tim McDonnell
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Coal, the No. 1 cause of climate change, is dying. Last year saw a record number of coal plant retirements in the United States, and a study last week from Duke University found that Even China, which produces and consumes more coal than the rest of the world put together, is expected to hit peak coal use within a decade, in order to meet its promise to President Barack Obama to reduce its carbon emissions starting in 2030.
. . .
Much less clear than the fate of coal is what will happen in the countless communities, from the American Southeast to northern China, that have long depended on coal to put food on the table. Martin has managed to locate dozens of compelling personal narratives that show the human face of a debate that is too often reduced — by environmentalists as much as by the coal industry — to numbers and yawn-inducing energy wonkery. These include the head of a small coal mining company in Kentucky who was forced to sell off the business he inherited from his father and lay off workers who were also friends and neighbors. The manager of a coal town coffee shop in Colorado is also facing closure. In China, self-contained cities are built around coal mines, but young people there are unable to get work and have no other employment opportunities.
. . .
There are many guilty parties here, including coal barons like Don Blankenship (who is currently facing charges in federal court for flagrant safety violations) and profit-hungry utility company execs who are keen to squash competition from solar and wind energy. But Martin saves his most damning critiques for leaders like McConnell who are hung up on pointless political squabbling rather than finding innovative ways to revitalize former coal economies.
“The presence of the coal industry has kept these communities in a state of dependence, and not allowed them to develop a real economy beyond coal,” Martin says. “Whether we pine for the days of these jobs or not, they’re not coming back. We have to get beyond this state of dependency.”
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Schools reopen in Sierra Leone as Ebola threat recedes
By (BBC)
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Schools have reopened across Sierra Leone nine months after they were closed because of the Ebola outbreak.
The government hopes that the studying time lost by the country's 1.8 million children can still be made up.
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Across the country the picture is pretty much the same. At Jaiama Secondary School in the eastern Kono district just about a dozen showed up out of more than 500 on the roll. But those kids who turned up looked smartly dressed and excited to restart their life disrupted by the outbreak.
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Unicef has trained 9,000 teachers in Ebola prevention and is also supplying hand washing facilities to every school.
But some schools in the east of the country contacted by the BBC's Umaru Fofana said that they had not yet received new teaching materials or even the health and safety gear that was promised.
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International |
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Cuba praises 'fair' US pledge on terrorism list
By (BBC)
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The Caribbean country's presence on the list alongside Syria, Iran and Sudan was a sticking point for Cuba during talks to reopen embassies.
A US trade embargo against Cuba remains and can only be ended by Congress.
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A statement from Josefina Vidal, Cuba's top diplomat responsible for dealing with the US, said: "The Cuban government recognised the fair decision made by the president of the United States to eliminate Cuba from a list that it never should have been included on, especially considering our country has been the victim of hundreds of acts of terrorism that have cost 3,478 lives and maimed 2,099 citizens."
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White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the US still had differences with Cuban policies and actions, but they were not "relevant" to the terror list.
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UNHCR warns Kenya not to close Dadaab refugee camp
By (BBC)
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The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has warned Kenya not to expel Somali refugees in response to al-Shabab's massacre of students.
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Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said on Saturday that unless UNHCR closed Dadaab within three months, Kenya would relocate the refugees.
As well as demanding the expulsion of hundred of thousands of Somalis within the camp, he also announced that Kenya had started building a 700km (440 mile) wall along the entire length of the border with Somalia.
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The 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, which Kenya ratified in 1966, stipulates that countries must not forcibly return refugees to countries where they may be at risk.
UNHCR spokeswoman Karin de Gruijl said the decision to close the camp "would have extreme humanitarian and practical consequences", and that the agency was willing to help law enforcement within the camp to combat the threat of al-Shabab.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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FCC's net neutrality rules challenged in lobbyist lawsuit
By Sam Thielman
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The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), a wireless industry lobbying group run by former Federal Communications Commission commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the FCC seeking to overturn the regulator’s landmark net neutrality rules on the grounds that “the FCC usurped the role of Congress” in creating them.
The suit joins a similar filing from the National Cable & Telecommunications Assocation (NCTA), run by Michael Powell, formerly the chairman of the FCC under George W Bush. When the rules were passed, Powell observed that consumers will immediately “bear the burden of new taxes and increased costs” as a result of member organizations passing on any costs associated with net neutrality to consumers. The NCTA is bringing in heavy hitters, as well: its suit will be handled by former US solicitor general Theodore Olson and former assistant to the US solitictor general Miguel Estrada.
. . .
The language of the CTIA suit seems to agree that “carefully-tailored rules to protect internet openness will allow investment and innovation to continue to flourish”. Its further contention, however, is that the rules privately determined to be most beneficial to the consumer by its members are the only rules necessary, pointing out that the trade association’s standards are “[i]nformed by the views of nearly 4 million commenters, our staff-led roundtables, numerous ex parte presentations, [and] meetings with individual Commissioners and staff”.
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87 percent of Americans call themselves some version of 'middle class'
By Matt Novak
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. . .
The Pew Research survey found that about 47 percent of Americans called themselves solidly middle class. Roughly 11 percent said they were upper-middle class, and 29 percent said they were lower-middle class. Just 1 percent of Americans called themselves "upper class," while 10 percent called themselves "lower class."
That leaves 87 percent of Americans calling themselves "middle class" in some way or another. Which is curious, because we continue to hear about the disappearance of the middle class in America. In fact, 45.3 million Americans live in what the Census Bureau considers poverty. And 1 in 5 American households with children are food insecure .
. . .
Translation: Americans, no matter what their income, aspire to be identified as middle class. Even people who may take home significantly more than average.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
. . .
Late last year, NPR Music launched a contest to give an undiscovered band a chance to play behind the Tiny Desk. On Thursday morning, the judges announced their winner, chosen from nearly 7,000 entries. He calls himself Fantastic Negrito, and he joined NPR's Rachel Martin from a studio in Oakland, Calif., to talk about his winning entry, an original song called "Lost In A Crowd."
. . .
"The minute I signed that record deal, my — my creative life just ended," he says. "I really didn't understand the business side of music, probably like a lot of artists, and it was pretty devastating to me."
That phase of his life ended with a car accident, which put him in a coma for several weeks and left him with lingering injuries.
Years later, he has returned to music and adopted the name Fantastic Negrito — a phrase some will hear as a term of endearment, others as potentially offensive. The musician says it comes out of a love and fascination for black roots music of the early blues era.
"To me it's a celebration of blackness," he says. " 'Fantastic' is self-explanatory, you know? And the 'Negrito' is a way to open up blackness to everyone — you know, make it playful, international. It's extremely positive in my view; it's my affair with this music. And it's like gold! I feel like it's something that everyone should know about."
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Three Ways U.S. West Can Adapt to Deep Drought
By John Upton and Climate Central
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. . .
“The best option for new storage is not surface storage, but groundwater storage,” Peter Gleick, a water expert and president of the California-based nonprofit Pacific Institute, said. “It’s sort of like surface reservoirs—you’re storing water, but you don’t have to build a dam, you don’t have to destroy another river, and you don’t have to worry about evaporative losses.”
. . . Pacific Institute research suggests that farms, which consume most of the water used in California, could reduce their water use in the state by a fifth just by modernizing their irrigation practices. A report published last year by the Pacific Institute and NRDC showed that businesses and homes could reduce their water use by more than half by installing efficient bathroom and kitchen fittings, fixing leaks and replacing lawns with hardy native plants.
. . . Idaho’s water resources board describes its Water Supply Bank as a “water exchange market” designed to “encourage the highest beneficial use of water” while raising new sources of revenue.
Idaho’s system is “only possible with new institutional flexibility,” Snover said—flexibility that other states may also need to adopt as they stare down water futures that are very different from their pasts.
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German backlash grows against coal power clampdown
By Arthur Neslen
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. . . a German energy industry association survey found that 53% of investors in power plants scheduled to come online in the next decade had frozen their involvement in the projects because of political uncertainty.
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Hard coal and lignite are responsible for a third of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions, and make up 44% of the country’s electricity mix. They would be the prime target of the government plan to cut 22 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mtce) by 2020, which is due to be debated in the Bundestag in the summer.
. . .
Sabrina Schultz, the head of the E3G environmental think tank in Berlin, said there was no evidence that the new emissions standard would cause job losses or electricity price hikes and the real risk lay elsewhere.
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Mexico oil spill leaves 200,000 without water
By (BBC)
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The spill, near Tabasco state capital Villahermosa, was caused by oil thieves puncturing a pipeline and has polluted two rivers.
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Oil company workers have set out containment booms and have been trying to scoop oil from waterways.
Local authorities have asked for help from the army to supply drinking water to those most affected.
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In the past, illegal pipeline taps have caused fires, explosions and spills in Mexico.
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Science and Health |
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Childhood self-control linked to enhanced job prospects throughout life
By (ScienceDaily)
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Parents who work to instill self-control in their children will see them reap the benefits not only in the short-term but throughout their working life, according to new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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An examination of the 1980s recession also showed that those with low childhood self-control experienced a pronounced spike in joblessness during this difficult economic period. While this group was among the first to lose jobs during the recession, they also found it more difficult to regain employment.
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"Preschool interventions, school programmes, and activities such as yoga and martial arts, and walking meditation exercises have all been shown to help develop better self-control and related abilities," Daly noted.
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A Scientific Debate
By Bill Ruddiman
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Recently I’ve read claims that some scientists are opposed to AGW but won’t speak out because they fear censure from a nearly monolithic community intent on imposing a mainstream view. Yet my last 10 years of personal experience refute this claim. This story began late in 2003 when I introduced a new idea (the ‘early anthropogenic hypothesis’) that went completely against a prevailing climatic paradigm of the time. I claimed that detectable human influences on Earth’s surface and its climate began thousands of years ago because of agriculture. Here I describe how this radically different idea was received by the mainstream scientific community.
. . .
Did this radical new idea have difficulty receiving research funding? No. Proposals submitted to the highly competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) with John Kutzbach and Steve Vavrus have been fully funded since 2004 by 3-year grants. Even though the hypothesis of early anthropogenic effects on climate has been controversial (and still is for some), we crafted proposals that were carefully written, tightly reasoned, and focused on testing the new idea. As a result, we succeeded against negative funding odds of 4-1 or 5-1. One program manager told me he planned to put our grant on a short list of ‘transformational’ proposals/grants that NSF had requested. That didn’t mean he accepted our hypothesis. It meant that he felt that our hypothesis had the potential to transform that particular field of paleoclimatic research, if proven correct.
Were we able to get papers published? Yes. As any scientist will tell you, this process is rarely easy. Even reviewers who basically support what you have to say will rarely hand out ‘easy-pass’ reviews. They add their own perspective, and they often point out useful improvements. A few reviews of the 30-some papers we have published during the last 11 years have come back with extremely negative reviews, seemingly from scientists who seem deeply opposed to anything that even hints at large early anthropogenic effects. While these uber-critical reviews are discouraging, I have learned to put them aside for a few days, give my spirits time to rebound, and then address the criticisms that are fair (that is, evidence-based), explain to the journal editor why other criticisms are unfair, and submit a revised (and inevitably improved) paper. Eventually, our views have always gotten published, although sometimes only after considerable effort.
. . . In any case, I continue to trust the scientific process to sort this debate out. I suggest that my experience is a good index of the way the system actually operates when new and controversial ideas emerge. I see no evidence that the system is muffling good new ideas.
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Technology |
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Online Extortionists Are Using Encryption as a Ransom Weapon
By Kate Knibbs
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Most of the time we discuss encryption as a way to protect ourselves online , but an increasingly popular form of digital attack uses it as an extortion tool. Criminals are stealing personal files, encrypting them, and hold them hostage until their targets pay for the decryption key.
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There’s a growing underground economy devoted to carrying out crypto-ransomware attacks, with groups like Cryptolocker and Cryptowall selling their services. Your main line of defense is backing up all your files, since you won’t need to pay to get them back if you can just restore them. There are also services popping up to thwart crypto-ransomware, like Decryptolocker , which used a version of Cryptolocker to figure out how to decrypt files that Cryptolocker holds hostage. A service called Cryptoprevent is designed to stop this type of ransomware from a variety of different attackers.
Ransomware is still a relatively rare and aggressive cybercrime, so the likelihood of someone crypto-ransoming your vacation photos is low. No need to panic. Much more common: Phishing attacks of all kinds. A security report released by Verizon today underlines how often people fall for them. With phishing attacks, prevention is even simpler than backing up your files: Just don’t click on sketchy shit!
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SpaceX Faces the Hard Truth about Soft Landings—They’re Tough to Do
By Lee Billings
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After launching a payload into space from Cape Canaveral, Fla. this afternoon, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket almost landed in the history books when its first stage hit a bull's-eye, vertically landing on a robotic barge in the Atlantic Ocean. The trouble was, the booster hit the bull's-eye too hard, according to tweets from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shortly after the launch.
. . .
The launch’s primary purpose was not to test rocket recycling but rather to send the company’s Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. The launch was the sixth of twelve such resupply missions SpaceX is sending to the space station as part of a $1.6-billion contract with NASA. Packed with nearly 2,000 kilograms of supplies and science experiments, the Dragon capsule flawlessly separated from the Falcon 9's second stage and deployed its power-supplying solar panels. It should dock with the station on Friday, and is slated to return to Earth some five weeks from now carrying trash and other discarded items from the station.
There are obvious reasons to develop reusable rockets. Right now the reigning paradigm is to throw away most or all of a launch vehicle after using it only once, something that aerospace experts occasionally equate to tossing a jetliner in the scrapyard after a single flight. Make a rocket reusable and you can fly it again and again, like an airplane, potentially making space travel as affordable and routine as a transcontinental flight. With easier access to space assured Earth’s economic sphere could then expand into the rest of the solar system, bringing about a new golden era in human history. At least, that is the theory held by generations of space age dreamers. But in practice, despite decades of concerted effort, to date no economically viable reusable space launch system has emerged—even NASA’s mostly reusable space shuttles proved too problematic to keep flying. SpaceX, like many companies before it, intends to change all that. And, despite its two less-than-stellar soft-landing attempts, it seems to have a better chance than any of its noble, failed predecessors.
Already, the company has close to fifty launches on its manifest, representing nearly $5 billion in contracts to launch commercial satellites, scientific spacecraft and space station resupply missions. The company intends to eventually return its rockets from space to their land-based launch sites rather than to ocean-based drone ships. It has partnered with Google to develop a global broadband Internet service reliant on hundreds of small satellites. . .
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Cultural |
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Canada: Five-year-old's lemonade stand raises thousands
By (BBC)
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A five-year-old Canadian girl has raised thousands of dollars for charity by selling lemonade from a stand in her driveway, it's reported.
Na'ama Uzan set up the stand last year to try and help her older brother, Nadav, who suffers from the rare genetic disorder Angelman Syndrome, the CTV News website reports. "It's going to make a cure," she tells the channel, while showing off the goodies on offer on her stand. Her family says the venture has now raised about 25,000 Canadian dollars (US$20,000; £13,600) for the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics, which is trying to find a cure for the condition. Her seven-year-old brother suffers from seizures, and has difficulty walking and talking. Na'ama doesn't just sell lemonade - she's adapted to Canada's seasonal changes, selling hot chocolate during the winter, and offering muffins and bread for any peckish customers.
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How AeroPress Fans Are Hacking Their Way To A Better Cup Of Coffee
By Emma Bowman
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Alan Adler, 76, is the ultimate hacker. A serial inventor based in Silicon Valley, Adler has 40 patents to his name. But among coffee aficionados, it's an incredibly simple device that's earned him accolades: the AeroPress.
The AeroPress is essentially a giant plastic syringe with a rubber-plunger end, which compresses water and coffee grounds through a thin filter into a mug, producing a strong, single serving of espresso. The whole process takes about 30 seconds. That is, unless you are one of the many enthusiasts who manipulate the device with varied pour-over, press or steep times to produce a flexible range of recipes.
This very ease of use has inspired a passionate do-it-yourself culture. Baristas and home brewers "hack" the AeroPress to create countless variations on the coffee-making process, all in pursuit of a perfect cup.
. . .
And innovate they do. Devoted AeroPress hackers tested their mettle last week at the World AeroPress Championship in Seattle — the first time the event has been held in the U.S. Before they got there, the 24 competitors first had to best the competition in national championships staged all over the world.
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As for Adler, who attended the World AeroPress Championship for the first time this year, he's just happy people are so passionate about his little invention.
"I'm the luckiest guy in the world," he told the crowd in Seattle last week. "I never expected this."
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |