Are We On the Brink of Finding a Second Earth? NASA/Harvard Teams Say “It Could Happen Anytime Now”

To date, Planet hunters have spotted more than 200 planets beyond our solar system, but the vast majority are hot, Jupiter-sized planets that would dwarf the Earth and are almost certainly lifeless.

Astronomers may be on the brink of discovering a second Earth-like planet, a find that would add fresh impetus to the search for extraterrestrial life, according to the US journal Science. Astronomers from six major centers, including NASA, Harvard and the University of Colorado, outline how advances in technology suggest scientists are on the verge of being able to detect the presence of small, rocky planets, much like our own, around distant stars for the first time. The planets are considered the most likely habitats for extraterrestrial life.

One technique relies on observing the shift in light coming from a star as a planet swings around it. Until recently, this “radial velocity” method has only been sensitive enough to pick up planets far more massive than Earth, but improvements now make the discovery of a second Earth highly likely, said Dave Latham, a co-author on the paper at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

“It could happen almost any time now. We have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars even now,” he said.

Earlier this year, the world’s largest and most prolific team of planet hunters, the Anglo-Australian, California and Carnegie Planet Searches ( AAPS), reported their findings of 37 exoplanets that have been discovered over the past couple of years, 7 of which were previously unreported brown dwarfs.

Depending on whose number you go by, the total number of exoplanets currently discovered is 212 or 240, the majority of which have been discovered by the AAPS and their colleagues in the California and Carnegie searches.

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The method of discovery primarily implemented is studying the Doppler wobble of stars. As a planet orbits its parent star, its gravitational pull causes the star to wobble. Using the Doppler Effect, the scientists are able to determine the velocity of the planet. When the planet moves away from Earth, its star moves toward the Earth, causing it to emit shorter wavelengths, which appear bluer. The opposite is true as well; as a planet moves closer to Earth, its star moves further away, emitting longer (redder) wavelengths of light. The AAPS uses highly advanced, sensitive spectographs to record these very small wavelengths.

But there are things that Doppler searches cannot tell researchers. With Doppler readings, they are able to calculate the velocities of the planets being studied as they move towards and away from the Earth. What Doppler readings are unable tell researchers are the angles of inclination of the orbital planet to the line of sight. This is important information because by being able to calculate the angles of inclination of the orbiting planet, scientists are able to determine the actual physical size of the planet.

The AAPS has developed a technique to find the angle of inclination: transit searches. Transit searches are a relatively new technique which has only just begun giving them results within the past few years. As a planet transits in front of its parent star, passing our line of sight from Earth, scientists are able to calculate its angle of inclination, thereby determining its eccentricity (how elliptical or round its orbital path is). In the years to come, the method of transit searches should advance, resulting in more information about already discovered planets.

Although the next generation of techniques such as interferometric astrometry and direct imaging will be the most promising new methods of detection in the future study and discovery of extrasolar planets, as Chris Tinney of AAPS explains, the most successful and powerful form of study currently in use is complementing Doppler searches with transit searches. By doing so, “You can essentially know everything you can know about a planet. You know exactly its mass and its radius, which means you can work out its density,” and therefore, “you can make estimates as to whether it’s a gas giant or an ice giant planet, or whether it’s rocky.”

As these techniques develop, the smaller and smaller the extrasolar planets being discovered will become.

So when does Tinney expect an Earth-sized planet discovery, now that they’ve gotten down to Venus-sized planets when once they only found those with a mass that of Jupiter’s?

Tinney thinks that “finding a planet of Earth mass is probably a only couple of years away. But…”—and he emphasizes the “but,” pausing for a moment—“there’s always a ‘but.’” As he explains, all of the things they are finding of very low mass are moving in very short orbital periods, which means that they are orbiting close to their parent stars. So although there they are like Earth in terms of their mass and size, these planets are very unlike the Earth in terms of their orbit.

“To find an Earth-mass planet in an Earth-like orbit is just not going to happen with the Doppler technique,” Tinney states. It is simply beyond the technology currently developed. Essentially, it would mean that they would need to be performing measurements 100 times better than any technology is capable of doing.

So does this rule out the possibility of finding a habitable planet?

Not quite. There is a “trick” to planet hunting. Scientists can look for Earth-mass planets in short period orbits around lower mass stars. These types of stars are called M dwarfs and have a mass one tenth the size of the Sun, which means that the velocity signal is ten times larger, and therefore the radius at which the planet must be from the star in order to have water or liquid on its surface is much smaller. For now, it’s Tinney’s opinion that some of the recent reports about habitable planets being discovered “is more hype than reality,” but that the discovery of such planets “will come in due course.”

In fact, that’s precisely what Tinney is currently working on, aside from his AAPS commitment. He has convinced the Gemini Observatory—a collaboration of the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, and Argentina—to build a spectrograph on one of its largest class of telescopes. In order to perform the types of studies needed to find other Earth-mass planets, scientists would need to being studying the near infrared, rather than the green wavelengths of visible light. This new Gemini spectrograph, called the Precision Radial Velocity Spectrometer, will specifically be designed to do very high precision Doppler work in the near infrared, rather than the optical. Once that type of technology is developed, Tinney believes that rather than finding the occasional one or two Earth-sized planets around M dwarf stars, finding more and more “will be much more straightforward,” thereby dispelling some of the current hype and allowing scientists to gather actual statistics about these types of systems.

NASA’s mantra of “follow the water” has defined the search for extraterrestrial life on and other planets. If water is crucial for life, then the most likely sanctuaries will be planets which lie in a “habitable zone” just the right distance from a star, so that it is neither so hot that water evaporates, or so cold that it remains permanently frozen.

Dr Latham of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center said missions such as Nasa’s Kepler space observatory, which launched in early March, would have a high chance of finding Earth-like planets if they are out there.

“These are the biggest questions. Are there habitable abodes? Are we alone?” he said. “Put it like this. If we don’t find anything, I’ll have to rethink my agnosticism.”

Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Professor Michael Hudson (CounterPunch, March 18) is correct that the orchestrated  outrage over the $165 million AIG bonuses is a diversion from the thousand times greater theft from taxpayers of the approximately $200 billion “bailout” of AIG.  Nevertheless, it is a diversion that serves an important purpose.  It has taught an inattentive American public that the elites run the government in their own private interests.

Americans are angry that AIG executives are paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses after having cost the taxpayers an exorbitant sum.  Senator Charles Grassley put a proper face on the anger when he suggested that the AIG executives “follow the Japanese example and resign or go commit suicide.”

Yet, Obama’s White House economist, Larry Summers, on whose watch as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration financial deregulation got out of control, invoked the “sanctity of contracts” in defense of the AIG bonuses.

But the Obama administration does not regard other contracts as sacred.  Specifically: labor unions had to agree to give-backs in order for the auto companies to obtain federal help;  CNN reports that “Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday [March 10] that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance”;  the Washington Post reports that the Obama team has set its sights on downsizing Social Security and Medicare.

According to the Post, Obama said that “it is impossible to separate the country’s financial ills from the long-term need to rein in health-care costs, stabilize Social Security and prevent the Medicare program from bankrupting the government.”

After Washington’s trillion dollar bank bailouts and trillion dollar gratuitous wars for the sake of the military industry’s profits and Israeli territorial expansion, there is no money for Social Security and Medicare.

The US government breaks its contracts with US citizens on a daily basis, but AIG’s bonus contracts are sacrosanct.  The Social Security contract was broken when the government decided to tax 85% of the benefits.  It was broken again when the Clinton administration rigged the inflation measure in order to beat retirees out of their cost-of-living adjustments.  To have any real Medicare coverage, a person has to give up part of his Social Security check to pay Medicare Part B premium and then take out a private supplemental policy.  The true cost of Medicare to beneficiaries is about $6,000 annually in premiums, plus deductibles and the Medicare tax if the person is still earning.

Treasury Secretary Geithner, the fox in charge of the hen house, has resolved the problem for us.  He is going to withhold $165 million (the amount of the AIG bonuses) from the next taxpayer payment to AIG of $30,000 million. If someone handed you $30,000 dollars, would you mind if they held back $165?

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PR flaks have rechristened the bonus payments “retention payments” necessary if AIG is to retain crucial employees.  This lie was shot down by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who informed the House Committee on Financial Services that the payments went to members of AIG’s Financial Products subsidiary, “the unit of AIG that was principally responsible for the firm’s meltdown.”  As for retention, Cuomo pointed out that ”numerous individuals who received large ‘retention’ bonuses are no longer at the firm” .

Eliot Spitzer, the former New York Governor who was set-up in a sex scandal to prevent him investigating Wall Street’s financial gangsterism, pointed out on March 17 that the real scandal is the billions of taxpayer dollars paid to the counter-parties of AIG’s financial deals.  These payments, Spitzer writes, are “a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.”

Goldman Sachs, for example, had already received a taxpayer cash infusion of $25 billion and was sitting on more than $100 billion in cash when the Wall Street firm received another $13 billion via the AIG bailout.

Moreover, in my opinion, most of the billions of dollars in AIG counter-party payments were unnecessary.  They represent gravy paid to firms that had made risk-free bets, the non-payment of which constituted no threat to financial solvency.

Spitzer identifies a conflict of interest that could possibly be criminal self-dealing.  According to reports, the AIG bailout decision involved Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, formerly of Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner, former New York Federal Reserve president and currently Secretary of the Treasury.  No doubt the incestuous relationships are the reason the original bailout deal had no oversight or transparency.

The Bush/Obama bailouts require serious investigation.  Were these bailouts necessary, or were they a scam, like “weapons of mass destruction,” used to advance a private agenda behind a wall of fear?  Recently I heard Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, a member of a congressional bailout oversight panel, say on NPR that the US has far too many banks.  Out of the financial crisis, she said, should come consolidation with the financial sector consisting of a few mega-banks.  Was the whole point of the bailout to supply taxpayer money for a program of financial concentration?

New Home Sales Fell 41% in February 2009

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IE8 Released. Did Mircosoft finally get it right?

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The latest incarnation of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has now been released to the public.  Let’s be honest, it has to be an improvement on what has come before.

The main feature of Internet Explorer 8 is the closer adherence to the internet standards like HTML, Javascript and CSS.  On one hand this is good news and it will mean a lot less compatibility problems, but all those websites that had little codes and fixes to cope with the older browsers foibles might need a little work.  There is a Compatibility View that makes IE8 act like IE7 for any sites that do display problems, but from the brief testing I have seen so far, any errors are on the sites themselves, rather than with the browser.

A definite bonus is the private browsing mode.  This has been offered in Firefox and Safari for a while now, and it’s about time IE caught up.  Selecting InPrivate Browsing from the Safety button will take you into the private mode.  The session will then not retain any history or logs of your activities until you close the window.

Other new security functions are included such as the SmartScreen Filter and the Cross-Site Filter.  The SmartScreen scans the page looking for malicious content, which sounds great, but we will have to wait and see if it works or not.  It also references the page against a blacklist to see if it is legitimate or not.

The Cross-Site Scripting Filter is a neat sounding tool that scans a page for any code inserted into it maliciously.  These can track movements, keystrokes and all sorts of naughtiness.  Again we will have to wait a bit to see if it works or not.

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There have been a lot of security improvements under the hood too, especially around ActiveX and data execution loopholes.  These exploits have made big news over the past years, with more than a few emergency fixes deployed to counter them.  I wouldn’t rest easy though, as this is Microsoft we’re talking about.  It won’t be perfect, and there are bound to be legions of hackers anxiously waiting to figure out how to beat the Redmond crew.

Other improvements include color coded tabs, which will aid immensely if you use multiple tabs like me.  I have a plugin in Firefox that colors them for me.  There are also Web Slices, which interact directly with the browser, a bit like RSS.  You can install a slice from a website of your choice and then access the information directly from the browser without having to navigate anywhere.

The install itself is pretty straightforward and the package a reasonable 16Mb for XP.  The installer does a quick scan of your system to check for any malware before it installs which took around 15 minutes on my machine.  It then installs and requires a restart.

Once you start the browser there are some initial questions to set your preferences and off you go.  The browsing experience is much the same, only quicker.  The WebSlices button is on the top pane as are you other options.  The interface is still the dull gray colour, but I’m sure the enterprising among you will soon do something about that.

First impressions are that seems as quick as Firefox, and as rich with features.  While that may not be enough to win back anybody who moved to the alternate browsers over the last years it will certainly make the existing users happy.

I recently finished a little project with Look Who’s Kickin, 3 sub pages with content and video. I want to start targeting national terms and thought this would definetly help out.

Here are the links:

• Ultrasounds
• 3D Ultrasounds
• 4D Ultrasounds

The troubled US insurance giant has bowed to demands to restructure its bonus payments to its employees.

Top level bonuses to its executive staff are to be dramatically cut this year according to a letter sent by Edward Liddy, AIG’s Chairman to the US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The letter confirmed that 2008 bonuses would be paid because the company had no choice.  These were legally binding payouts, which were being honored despite being bailed out by the taxpayer.

It is still believed to be the biggest-ever government rescue of a US company.  American International Group (AIG) plays a key role in insuring risk for financial institutions around the world and was seen to be too important to fail.

In the letter, Mr Liddy said he had come under pressure from the Treasury to reduce the firm’s bonus payments.  He said bonuses agreed to in 2008, before the firm’s problems became known, could not legally be blocked.

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“Under the current circumstances, I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them.” Said Liddy in his letter.

AIG had promised to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to staff for the year 2008.

AIG would do its best to cut bonuses by at least 30% in 2009, Mr Liddy wrote to Mr Geithner.

Additionally US President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser has said “outrageous” conduct at AIG as the bailed-out insurance giant prepared to hand out millions in bonuses to top executives.

Lawrence Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, has said the Obama administration had “scaled back” the bonuses but said its hands were tied by contract law in how far it could go.

“There are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what’s happened at AIG is the most outrageous, what that company did,” he said on US television.

But Mr Summers added: “We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.

“Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by (Treasury) Secretary (Timothy) Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system. And they have, as a result of Secretary Geithner’s efforts, been scaled back.”

A white paper prepared by the company says that AIG is contractually obligated to pay a total of about $165 million of previously awarded “retention pay” to employees in this unit by March 15. The document says that another $55 million in retention pay has already been distributed to about 400 AIG Financial Products employees.

Mr Liddy has reportedly told Mr Geithner the bonuses cannot be cancelled due to a risk of lawsuits for breach of employment contracts, and AIG risks an exodus of senior employees if it does not pay out bonuses.

Mr Summers appeared to lend some credence to that argument.  “There is one other reality we have to recognize, which is that these companies have to be enabled to function, if the government is going to maximize the prospect of getting its money back.”

Massive losses at the division in London have forced the US government to pump about $150 billion into crippled AIG, and it is planning another emergency injection of $30 billion.

Condemnation of the planned bonuses came from both sides of politics.  “It is an outrageous situation,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, while accusing the Obama administration of dodging culpability.

This story may help you all think about the true price of a computer. While the price may only be $300 or $400 or whatever, the human price may be much larger. Someplace, in some 3rd world country, a human is being exploited so that we can have computers lower than what they should be. I’m not saying I’m one to turn a deal down, but I definitely keep such a thing in mind when buying goods. And just because something is more expensive in no way means it was made in a more humane way, it probably just means the CEO is getting a larger chunk of profit from the sale.

source

By Charles Kernaghan

[This is an excerpt from the introduction and executive summary of a report released by the National Labor Committee in February 2009, High Tech Misery in China: The Dehumanization of Young Workers Producing Our Computer Keyboards. Click here to download the full report in PDF format.]

“I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tools we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user…The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.” — Bill Gates

“We feel like we are serving prison sentences.” — factory worker making Microsoft keyboards

The new assembly line: Making computer keyboards and other peripherals for Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft and IBM

The workers sit on wooden stools, without backrests, as 500 computer keyboards an hour move down the assembly line, twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with just two days off a month.

Every 7.2 seconds a keyboard passes each worker, who has to snap six or seven keys into place—one key every 1.1 seconds.

The assembly line never stops. The workplace is frantic, monotonous, numbing and relentless. Each worker inserts 3250 keys an hour; 35,750 keys during the official 11-hour shift; 250,250 a week, performing over one million operations a month.

Workers are paid 1/50th of a cent for each operation they complete.

Of the 2000 or so workers at the Meitai factory, the majority are young women, ranging in age from 18 to their mid-twenties.

While working, the women cannot talk, listen to music, or even lift their heads to look around. Workers are ordered to “periodically trim their nails” — to facilitate work, or be fined. Workers needing to use the bathroom must learn to hold it until there is a break. Security guards spy on the workers, who are prohibited from putting their hands in their pockets and are searched when they enter and leave the factory.

The factory operates 24 hours a day on two 12-hour shifts, with the workers rotating between day and night shifts each month. The workers are at the factory for up to 87 hours a week, and all overtime is strictly mandatory. There are just two half-hour meal breaks per shift, but after racing to the cafeteria and queueing up to get food, the workers have only about 15 minutes to eat.

The base wage is 64 [US] cents an hour, which after deductions for primitive room and board drops down to a take-home wage of just 41 cents an hour.

There is also mandatory unpaid overtime to clean the factory and dorms. At the end of a shift, workers must stand at attention as the foreman reviews the day’s work and what improvements must be made.

The workers get up around 6.00 am When they return to their dorm, sometime between 9.00 and 9.30 pm — they bathe using a small plastic bucket. Summer temperatures routinely reach into the high 90sF. During the winter, workers have to walk down several flights of stairs to fetch hot water in their buckets. Ten to twelve workers share each overcrowded dorm room, sleeping on narrow metal bunk beds that line the walls. Workers drape old sheets over their cubicle openings for privacy.

If a worker steps on the grass on the way to the dorm, she is fined. The workers are locked in the factory compound four days a week and are prohibited from even taking a walk.

Management tries to brainwash the young workers, telling them they “… must love the company like their home…” and that “to serve society, each worker must be devoted to their duty … continuously striving for perfection…” and “developing good personal work habits”. These good workers also have to spy on each other for “… employees should actively monitor each other”. Communism in China has come a long way as the young workers at the Meitai factory are taught that “economising on capital … is the most basic requirement of factory enterprise”.

Workers who hand out flyers or discuss factory conditions with outsiders will be fired. Many young workers have never heard the word “union” and have no idea what one is.

All the workers know is that they all “feel like we are serving prison sentences”.

God help us if the labour-management relations being developed in China becomes the new low standard to be accepted by the rest of the world. The $200 personal computer and the $22.99 keyboard may be seen as a great bargain, but in the long run they come at a terrible cost.

A good question is: Would you want your daughter to work in this factory? Corporations attempt to dumb down every job so they can slash wages and benefits. If workers oppose this and try to fight back, the work is outsourced. The result is a race to the bottom, where workers are pitted against one another to compete over who will accept the lowest wages, the least benefits and most miserable working and living conditions. There are no winners in this battle.

High-tech misery in China: Meitai Plastics & Electronics, Dongguan City, Guangdong, China

• Two thousand workers, mostly young women, produce computer equipment including keyboards and printer cases for Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft and IBM.
• Management instructs the workers to “love the company like your home”, “continuously strive for perfection” and to spy on and “actively monitor each other”.
• Workers are prohibited from talking, listening to music, raising their heads, putting their hands in their pockets. Workers are fined for being one-minute late, for not trimming their fingernails and for stepping on the grass. Workers are searched on the way in and out of the factory. Workers who hand out flyers or discuss factory conditions with outsiders are fired.
• The young workers sit on hard wooden stools twelve hours a day, seven days a week as 500 computer keyboards an hour move down the assembly line, or one every 7.2 seconds. Workers are allowed just 1.1 seconds to snap each key into place, repeating the same operation 3250 times an hour, 35,750 times a day, 250,250 times a week and over one million times a month.
• The workers are paid 1/50th of a cent for each operation.
• The assembly line never stops, and workers needing to use the bathroom must learn to hold it until there is a break.
• All overtime is mandatory, with 12-hour shifts seven days a week and an average of two days off a month. A worker daring to take a Sunday off — which is supposedly their weekly holiday — will be docked 2.5 days’ wages. Including unpaid overtime, workers are at the factory up to 87 hours a week. On average, they are at the factory 81 hours a week, while toiling 74 hours, including 34 hours of overtime, which exceeds China’s legal limit by 318 per cent!
• The workers are paid a base wage of 64 cents an hour, which does not even come close to meeting subsistence level needs. After deductions for primitive room and board, the workers’ take-home wage drops to just 41 cents an hour. A worker toiling 75 hours a week will earn a take-home wage of $57.19, or 76 cents an hour including overtime and bonuses. The workers are routinely cheated of 14 to 19 per cent of the wages legally due them.
• Ten to twelve workers share each crowded dorm room, sleeping on narrow metal bunk beds that line the walls. They drape old sheets over their cubicle openings for privacy. In the winter, workers have to walk down several flights of stairs to fetch hot water in a small plastic bucket, which they carry back to their rooms to take a sponge bath. In the summer, dorm temperatures reach into the high 90s.
• Workers are locked in the factory compound four days a week and are prohibited from even taking a walk.
• To symbolise their “improving lives” the workers are served a special treat on Fridays — a small chicken leg and foot. For breakfast, they are given watery rice gruel. The workers say the food has a bad taste and is “hard to swallow”.
• Illegally, workers are not inscribed in the mandatory work injury and health insurance and social security maternity leave program. In the molding department, due to the excessive heat, the workers suffer skin rashes on their faces and arms.
• One worker summed up the general feeling in the factory: “I feel like I am serving a prison sentence.”

“I feel like I’m serving a prison sentence…”

“The factory is forever pressing down on our heads and will not tolerate even the tiniest mistake. When working, we work continuously. When we eat, we have to eat with lightning speed. When I need to go to the bathroom, I have to try my hardest to control myself, to hold it in and not go. The security guards are like policemen watching over prisoners. We’re really livestock and shouldn’t be called workers.

“Even when you get off your shift, there is no freedom. Even such simple pleasures as taking a walk or strolling down the street are closely managed by the factory.”

Meitai worker #1

``My hands are moving constantly…”

“Every day I enter the factory and I assemble keyboards. My hands are moving constantly and I can’t stop for a second. Our fingers, hands and arms are swollen and sore. Every day I do this for 12 hours. What makes it even worse is the constant pressure and boring monotony of the work.”

Meitai worker #2

“We are not human…”

“Working like this every day I don’t see how we are any different from machines. Management treats us so harshly; it is like we are not human. They don’t see us as people. They treat us like tools. The factory has to pay money to purchase the machines, but they don’t have to spend money on us.”

Meitai worker #3

“We have to beg the boss for mercy…”

“The factory rules are really like a private law. We are forced to obey and endure management’s harsh treatment. Some young workers have boyfriends and girlfriends outside the factory and if they want to go on a date, we have to beg the boss for mercy to be able to leave the factory compound.”

Engineers Say Technology Will Speed Production of Film-Like 3-D Images

A start-up founded by former Apple Inc. engineers said it has developed technology that could bring film-like realism to computer games and change the way movie makers and other design professionals work.

The San Francisco company, Caustic Graphics Inc., plans to exploit a technique called ray-tracing that generates extremely accurate three-dimensional images. Ray-tracing is a mainstay of Hollywood studios, but remains out of reach for most PC users. A single image can take hours to generate; rendering a film can take months on hundreds of server systems.

Computer games and other PC software typically rely on a technology called rasterization. Though the results keep getting more realistic, developing an interactive form of ray-tracing has been a longtime quest in the computer industry.

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Caustic Graphics’ technology helps computer-generated images look more like photographs.

Caustic, whose name refers to light rays reflecting off a curved object, says it is close to achieving that goal. The company says its software and chips allow graphics chips to carry out ray-tracing calculations at a 20-fold speed-up compared with existing PC hardware. It said it expects to deliver chips by early 2010 that will be about 200 times faster.

In a demonstration, Caustic executives manipulated a photo-quality image of a sports car, removing components and changing lighting and background settings to change reflections on the vehicle’s surface.

“It’s the first honest acceleration of ray-tracing I’ve seen,” said Jon Peddie, a market researcher in Tiburon, Calif., who specializes in graphics technology.

Caustic faces many challenges. They include larger competitors and the need to persuade PC users to buy a second add-in card containing its chips, in addition to conventional graphics accelerators.

Caustic is largely the brainchild of James McCombe, a 26-year-old native of Northern Ireland who worked on graphics technology used in Apple’s iPhone and iPod. He left in 2006 with two other Apple engineers to form Caustic, a closely held company that employs 35 people and has raised $11 million.

Mr. McCombe said graphics chips have hundreds of specialized calculating engines that are particularly good at rasterization, which converts three-dimensional models into pixels on a computer screen. Ray-tracing, by contrast, emulates the ways light rays bounce off objects in a scene. Graphics chips can’t easily handle those complex calculations, which require extensive communication between processors. Caustic has developed ways to keep data flowing to them efficiently, Mr. McCombe said.

Armed with the technology, Caustic executives say, designers who now work with the software equivalent of stick figures could manipulate realistic designs — without having to stop to render their images periodically. “This would really represent a breakthrough for us,” said Ron Frankel, president of Proof Inc., which develops “pre-visualizations” to show film directors and designers how movie scenes might be shot.

The company hopes to initially target architects, engineers and animators, and later entertainment applications on PCs and gaming consoles. Mr. McCombe expects accelerator cards using its chips to cost about the same as existing graphics accelerators, adding that its circuitry eventually could be combined with graphics chips. High-end graphics cards typically cost several hundred dollars.

But exploiting Caustic’s chips will require modifications to existing ray-tracing programs. Other companies, meanwhile, are finding ways to do ray-tracing using the microprocessors in PCs, rather than graphics chips. One is Bunkspeed Inc., which has a program called HyperShot that can make photo-quality images from three-dimensional computer models.

Philip Lunn, Bunkspeed’s chief executive, says that Caustic also faces potential competition from larger chip makers that include Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. The latter is collaborating with Mental Images GmbH, a software maker Nvidia acquired in 2007, to accelerate ray-tracing using graphics chips.

Mr. McCombe “is one of the smartest people in the business,” says Rolf Herken, Mental Images’ chief executive and chief technology officer. But “whether Caustic will have an impact on the design of future chips, that is an open question,” he added.

Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com

We hate the media in general, but we love afternoon talk show hosts John & Ken of KFI radio in Los Angeles. And if the media ignores their popular tax revolt movement, we’ll give them a hand.

The talk team drew 15,000 people last week to their “Revolt, Recall, Repeal Rally” to protest California’s $50 billion tax increase and to begin recall efforts aimed at the governor and several state legislators. it was covered locally, but did you see any national coverage? Ten NOW protestors on the on the White House steps makes news, but not 15,000 in a tax revolt? Of course, we’re not surprised.

During the rally, DVDs and VHS tapes of Schwarzenegger’s movies were enthusiastically trashed by the crowd. John & Ken provided “The Shredinator” to shred other Schwarzenegger memorabilia.

The KFI hosts also played recordings of Schwartzenegger promising he would never raise taxes, which elicited a loud, angry response from the crowd.

“This has been a complete disaster and it’s time to do something about it,” they said. “He should be apologizing to you and he should be resigning!”

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March 9th, 2009

What this will do is force anyone who produces food of any kind, and then transports it to a different location for sale, to register with a new federal agency called the “Food Safety Administration.” Even growers who only sell only fruit and/or vegetables at farmers markets would not only have to register, but they would be subject inspections by federal agents of their property and all records related to food production. The frequency of these inspections will be determined by the whim of the Food Safety Administration. Mandatory “safety” records would have to be kept. Anyone who fails to register and comply with all of this nonsense could be facing a fine of up to $1,000,000 per violation.

I’ve bought food at several farmers markets for years and I have yet to meet any vendors who are fond of the government. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most vendors at farmers markets won’t go along with this. The problem will be that the people who run the farmers markets will be forced to make sure that vendors are “registered” with the government.

Is this Change we can believe in? Maybe it is for Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, Tom “I Fly with Monsanto” Vilsack.

For the rest of us, this is a nightmare.

Let’s take it piece by piece:

What is the legislation called? H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009:

111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 875

To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.

How does this affect farmers who just sell fruit and vegetables at farmers markets?

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

…

(9) CATEGORY 5 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term ‘category 5 food establishment’ means a food establishment that stores, holds, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale.

…

13) FOOD ESTABLISHMENT-

(A) IN GENERAL- The term ‘food establishment’ means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients.

Does this really apply to fruit and vegetables? Yes.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

…

(12) FOOD- The term ‘food’ means a product intended to be used for food or drink for a human or an animal and components thereof.

Registration:

SEC. 202. REGISTRATION OF FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS AND FOREIGN FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS.

(a) In General- Any food establishment or foreign food establishment engaged in manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding food for consumption in the United States shall register annually with the Administrator.

(b) Registration Requirements-

(1) IN GENERAL- To be registered under subsection (a), a food establishment shall submit a registration or reregistration to the Administrator.

(2) REGISTRATION- Registration under this section shall begin within 90 days of the enactment of this Act. Each such registration shall be submitted to the Secretary through an electronic portal and shall contain such information as the Secretary, by guidance, determines to be appropriate. Such registration shall contain the following information:

(A) The name, address, and emergency contact information of each domestic food establishment or foreign food establishment that the registrant owns or operates under this Act and all trade names under which the registrant conducts business in the United States relating to food.

(B) The primary purpose and business activity of each domestic food establishment or foreign food establishment, including the dates of operation if the domestic food establishment or foreign food establishment is seasonal.

(C) The types of food processed or sold at each domestic food establishment or, for foreign food establishments selling food for consumption in the United States, the specific food categories of that food as listed under section 170.3(n) of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, or such other categories as the Administrator may designate in guidance, action level, or regulations for evaluating potential threats to food protection.

(D) The name, address, and 24-hour emergency contact information of the United States distribution agent for each domestic food establishment or foreign food establishment, who shall maintain information on the distribution of food, including lot information, and wholesaler and retailer distribution.

(E) An assurance that the registrant will notify the Administrator of any change in the products, function, or legal status of the domestic food establishment or foreign food establishment (including cessation of business activities) not later than 30 days after such change.

(3) PROCEDURE- Upon receipt of a completed registration described in paragraph (1), the Administrator shall notify the registrant of the receipt of the registration, designate each establishment as a category 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 food establishment, and assign a registration number to each domestic food establishment and foreign food establishment.

Inspection, Category 5 Food Establishments

SEC. 205. INSPECTIONS OF FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS.

(a) In General- The Administrator shall establish an inspection program, which shall include statistically valid sampling of food and facilities to enforce performance standards. The inspection program shall be designed to determine if each food establishment–

(1) is operated in a sanitary manner;

(2) has continuous preventive control systems, interventions, and processes in place to minimize or eliminate contaminants in food;

(3) is in compliance with applicable performance standards established under section 204, and other regulatory requirements;

(4) is processing food that is not adulterated or misbranded;

(5) maintains records of process control plans under section 203, and other records related to the processing, sampling, and handling of food; and

(6) is otherwise in compliance with the requirements of the food safety law.

…

(5) CATEGORY 5 FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS- A category 5 food establishment shall–

(A) have ongoing verification that its processes are controlled; and

(B) be randomly inspected at least annually.

(c) Establishment of Inspection Procedures- The Administrator shall establish procedures under which inspectors shall take random samples, photographs, and copies of records in food establishments.

What happens if you own a farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation that does not prepare or serve food directly to the consumer?

I hope you like having Feds crawling all over your property and telling you what to do.

SEC. 206. FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITIES.

(a) Authorities- In carrying out the duties of the Administrator and the purposes of this Act, the Administrator shall have the authority, with respect to food production facilities, to–

(1) visit and inspect food production facilities in the United States and in foreign countries to determine if they are operating in compliance with the requirements of the food safety law;

(2) review food safety records as required to be kept by the Administrator under section 210 and for other food safety purposes;

(3) set good practice standards to protect the public and animal health and promote food safety;

(4) conduct monitoring and surveillance of animals, plants, products, or the environment, as appropriate; and

(5) collect and maintain information relevant to public health and farm practices.

(b) Inspection of Records- A food production facility shall permit the Administrator upon presentation of appropriate credentials and at reasonable times and in a reasonable manner, to have access to and ability to copy all records maintained by or on behalf of such food production establishment in any format (including paper or electronic) and at any location, that are necessary to assist the Administrator–

(1) to determine whether the food is contaminated, adulterated, or otherwise not in compliance with the food safety law; or

(2) to track the food in commerce.

(c) Regulations- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture and representatives of State departments of agriculture, shall promulgate regulations to establish science-based minimum standards for the safe production of food by food production facilities. Such regulations shall–

(1) consider all relevant hazards, including those occurring naturally, and those that may be unintentionally or intentionally introduced;

(2) require each food production facility to have a written food safety plan that describes the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards;

(3) include, with respect to growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water;

(4) include, with respect to animals raised for food, minimum standards related to the animal’s health, feed, and environment which bear on the safety of food for human consumption;

(5) provide a reasonable period of time for compliance, taking into account the needs of small businesses for additional time to comply;

(6) provide for coordination of education and enforcement activities by State and local officials, as designated by the Governors of the respective States; and

(7) include a description of the variance process under subsection (d) and the types of permissible variances which the Administrator may grant under such process.

Is registration required? Yes. Is compliance with inspections required? Yes

TITLE IV–ENFORCEMENT
SEC. 401. PROHIBITED ACTS.

It is prohibited–

…

(3) for a food establishment or foreign food establishment to fail to register under section 202, or to operate without a valid registration;

(4) to refuse to permit access to a food establishment or food production facility for the inspection and copying of a record as required under sections 205(f) and 206(a);

(5) to fail to establish or maintain any record or to make any report as required under sections 205(f) and 206(b);

(6) to refuse to permit entry to or inspection of a food establishment as required under section 205;

So what might happen if I refuse?

SEC. 405. CIVIL AND CRIMINAL PENALTIES.

(a) Civil Sanctions-

(1) CIVIL PENALTY-

(A) IN GENERAL- Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law (including a regulation promulgated or order issued under the food safety law) may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act.

Bill Status:
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