Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 28
January 23, 2017
What’s Next in Computing?
The computing industry progresses in two mostly independent cycles: financial and product cycles. There has been a lot of handwringing lately about where we are in the financial cycle. The product cycle by comparison gets relatively little attention, even though it is what actually drives the computing industry forward. Chris Dixon reports.
Oversight
Ok, here’s how we drain the swamp.
First, whatever we say or do is how it should be done.
Second, consultants and advisors are NOT lobbyists, so change your ‘role’, not your address.
Third, if we do wrong, we’re still right and if we’re caught, well, it’s just an oversight.
December 3, 2016
Trump supports Dakota pipeline – but claims it’s not due to his investment in it
Transition team says that the president-elect’s endorsement of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline ‘has nothing to do with his personal investments’The Oceti Sakowin camp, where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline, in Cannon Ball, North Dakota on 29 November 2016.
The Oceti Sakowin camp, where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline, in Cannon Ball, North Dakota on 29 November 2016. Photograph: David Goldman/AP
Oliver Milman in New York
Donald Trump has said he supports a controversial oil pipeline that runs next to a Native American reservation in North Dakota – a project that the president-elect is personally invested in.
Dakota Access pipeline company and Donald Trump have close financial ties
A briefing from Trump’s transition team said that the real estate magnate supports the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and that his backing “has nothing to do with his personal investments and everything to do with promoting policies that benefit all Americans”.
Financial disclosure forms released earlier this year show that Trump has a stake in Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based firm behind the pipeline, and Phillips 66, which will hold a share of the project once completed.
Trump’s investment in Energy Transfer Partners dropped from between $500,000 and $1m in 2015 to between $1,500 and $50,000 this year. His stake in Phillips 66, however, rose from between $50,000 and $100,000 last year to between $250,000 and $500,000 this year, according to the forms.
The financial relationship has run both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, gave $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee after the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination.
However, Trump’s transition team dismissed any conflict of interest. “Those making such a claim are only attempting to distract from the fact that president-elect Trump has put forth serious policy proposals he plans to set in motion on day one,” said a briefing note that was sent to campaign supporters.
In this 25 November 2016 satellite image taken by DigitalGlobe, construction of the Dakota Access pipeline is shown at the top right.
In this 25 November 2016 satellite image taken by DigitalGlobe, construction of the Dakota Access pipeline is shown at the top right. Photograph: AP
Mary Sweeters, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, said Trump’s support showed that “crony capitalism will run his administration”.
“This is the definition of corruption,” she said. “The president of the United States should not be trading favors with oil and gas corporations. Millions of people will lose access to a clean water supply, including the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and the rest of America will face the impacts of catastrophic climate change from burning fossil fuels.”
A protest camp has grown in North Dakota since April, amid fears that the $3.8bn Dakota Access pipeline will threaten the water and cultural artifacts of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The 1,170-mile pipeline will take oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields to a refinery in Illinois and will cross the Missouri river – the main source of water for the tribe.
The long-running protest has unified Native American tribes against the project, with repeated clashes between protesters and police. This week, North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple ordered the immediate evacuation of the protest camp, amid accusations of police violence from the mass arrests and water cannon deployment that have echoes of the civil rights protests of the 1960s.
Play Video. Duration: 02:39
Native American North Dakota oil pipeline protesters: ‘We refuse to be Trumped’
‘We opened eyes’: at Standing Rock, my fellow Native Americans make history
Barack Obama has suggested that the pipeline be rerouted to allay the fears of tribes but Energy Transfer Partners has vowed to push ahead and has accused the federal government of imposing costly delays upon the project.
Trump has promised an “America first” energy policy that will attempt to boost domestic oil, coal and gas production. The president-elect has already stated he wants to “lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects to move forward”, including the Keystone pipeline, another controversial fossil fuel project.
North Dakota senator John Hoeven, a Republican, said that he met with Trump and successfully urged him to support the Dakota Access pipeline.
“Mr Trump expressed his support for the Dakota Access pipeline, which has met or exceeded all environmental standards set forth by four states and the Army Corps of Engineers,” Hoeven said.
“Also, it is important to know that the new administration will work to help us grow and diversify our energy economy and build the energy infrastructure necessary to move it from where it is produced to where it is needed. The result will be more jobs, a more vibrant economy and affordable energy for the American people.”
December 1, 2016
Plastered and Legless
I’m plastered and legless and I’ll be like this for 15 weeks, hehe. The hospital night nurse asked me about my pain, between 1 and 10? So I said ‘7’. She looked surprised. She must be new, all I want is the morphine pill and a ‘6’ won’t get it.
US Army Corps to Evict Everyone from Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Camp after Dec. 5
Tanya Cliff keeping everyone upto date
Police turn water cannons on Dakota Access Pipeline protesters.
David Archambault II releases a Statement on Army Corps Decision
By Red Power Media, Staff | Nov 25, 2016
According to an email dated today, sent to David Archambault II, Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the US Army Corps of Engineers announced it will close the portion of federal land on which water protectors are camping in North Dakota after December 5, to protect the public amid violent confrontations between protesters and law enforcement.
The notice to evict everyone from the Oceti Sakowin Camp comes after over 100 people were injured and taken to hospital during clashes at Blackwater Bridge with police, who attacked water protectors with rubber bullets, tear gas, and mace canisters and more than 200 were reportedly treated for hypothermia after Morton County Sheriff’s Department deployed a water cannon in below-freezing temperatures on Sunday.
Since the…
View original post 1,153 more words
Woooh – daily post prompt
Shivering in the bone chilling cold of the old house, he settled in for a long night with a sleeping bag, a good book and a bunch of candles. It was a stupid dare but he needed the $50. A noise, ‘Hello?’, replied with a ‘hello’, was that an echo?
November 30, 2016
How a Grad Student Found Spyware That Could Control Anybody’s iPhone from Anywhere in the World
read more
Donald Trump, the First President of Our Post-Literate Age
read more
Joe Weisenthal
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the media has worked itself into a panic about the rise of fake news on social media. Reporters have examined the subject from dozens of angles — profiling misinformation peddlers from California to the Caucasus, analyzing how hoaxes spread, raising red flags about media literacy, and much more.
Blame the Echo Chamber on Facebook. But Blame Yourself, Too
Kartik Hosanagar (@khosanagar) is a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as well as a cofounder of SmartyPal and Yodle. Hosanagar’s research work focuses on the impact of algorithms on consumers and society, as well as digital media and online marketing. (Wired)
Ever since the Presidential elections, every one I know seems to be worrying about their social media echo chamber. And no one seems to see the irony of discussing it on Facebook. Many of us seem to feel trapped in a filter bubble created by the personalization algorithms owned by Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
Police Attacked Standing Rock Activists For Hours. Why Are They Calling It A Riot?
photo: Nighttime at Standing Rock. (Jake Ratner)
In a video streamed live on Facebook on the night of November 20, an army of riot police stand guard as fire hoses blast anti–Dakota Access pipeline activists on a bridge near Standing Rock in the subfreezing cold.
Misleading narratives obscure the reality of the stand at Standing Rock.
By Evelyn Nieves
Postcard from a Pigeon
- Dermott Hayes's profile
- 4 followers
