Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/288782304?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, March 3, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
A Little Guilt, a Lot of Energy Savings
When it comes to energy efficiency, conscientiousness doesn?t inspire nearly as much change as competition Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters
How can I convince you to conserve energy? I could remind you that using less power saves money and helps the environment, but you won?t listen. Studies have proven that appeals to cost and conservation have no impact on people?s energy consumption.
But what if I told you everyone in your neighborhood is reducing their energy consumption?except you? Would competition and a little fear of judgment convince you to switch off your air conditioner?
That?s the theory driving Opower, a company that?s helped millions of people lower their energy bills. Rather than sell or produce energy, it makes software?software that is changing the way Americans consume energy by setting them in a contest against their neighbors. In the process, Opower has discovered that when it comes to energy efficiency, conscientiousness doesn?t inspire nearly as much change as competition (and a little judgment).
At the heart of Opower?s software is the behavioral nudge?a gentle push toward the right decision. Perhaps the most infamous such example was implemented in the Amsterdam airport, where painting flies on urinals reduced spillage by 80 percent. (If you give a man a target, he can?t help but aim.) In the same vein, Google?s cafeteria is brimming with nudges toward a healthy diet: Healthy foods are coded in green, guilty pleasures in red; plate sizes are smaller-than-average; and the most indulgent desserts are banished to a far corner of the room. Similarly inspired fitness apps encourage you to out-exercise your friends. But using behavioral psychology to encourage energy efficiency has been more difficult, in part because while almost everyone wants to save energy (for both environmental and financial reasons), the resolve to do so wavers once the thermostat climbs. Turning intent into action requires a special kind of push.
Robert B. Cialdini, a well-regarded researcher and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, began thinking about that in 2001. When a summer heat wave in California led to blackouts, he decided to investigate why the state seemed unable to prevent the grid-frying overuse. The big problem: While 90 percent of Californians ranked energy conservation as ?very? or ?extremely? important, and 98 percent claimed to ?try to conserve energy,? virtually no one was taking the necessary steps in their own homes.
To learn why, Cialdini and his team placed door hangers on thousands of homes near San Diego. Three of these hangers provided standard rationales for energy efficiency: saving money, protecting the environment, and helping future generations. A fourth merely listed strategies for saving energy. These hangers each had only a negligible effect on energy consumption.
But another hanger tried a different tack, reporting that a certain percentage of the neighbors were using fans instead of A/C. It was, in essence, altruistic peer pressure?and it worked. The houses that received that hanger showed a 6 percent average drop in consumption, massive in the world of energy efficiency (and more than three times as much as the other homes targeted for messaging).?
That study buttresses Opower?s strategy. Since its founding in 2007, the company has been teaming with energy producers to monitor customers? energy consumption. Opower processes information from companies, then produces detailed energy consumption reports sent to each household, like when they use the most energy and what appliances are most wasteful. The reports are mailed to homes on paper?a seemingly counterintuitive medium for a company whose mission is cutting waste. Yet Opower has discovered that virtually no one will go out of their way to read an online energy report or take the time to parse its often-dense details. That?s because energy use is considered ?low interest? information: Unless your electricity is out, you probably don?t care about it that much. Similarly, Opower requires customers to opt out of these reports rather than opt in. According to Ogi Kavazovic, vice president of product and strategy, an opt-in system will result in 1 percent of customers opting in, while an opt-out system results in 1 percent of customers opting out.
In addition to giving you feedback on your energy use, the report includes a bar graph that compares your own energy consumption with your community?s average and that of your community?s most energy efficient households?all of which can be helpful. But the real key is one last box: a grade assessing your energy consumption. You receive two smiley faces for great conservation (that is, using less than 80 percent of what your neighbors do), one for good (using less than most of your neighbors do), none for bad (using more than most of your neighbors). As soon as customers recived their first reports and saw the smiley face box, they began increasing their energy efficiency.
Without that box, ?people will just regress back to the mean? once they?ve beat their neighbors, says Kavazovic. ?We have to tell customers we approve of them.? It?s a strategy called ?injunctive messaging,? and it?s the core of the company?s own behavioral nudge Opower also used to include a frowny face for wasteful consumers, but they received too many complaints. ?People would call us and yell, ?Who do you think you are?? ? says Kavazovic. ?Now your punishment is no smiley face.? And that appears to be punishment enough. The habit acquired through nudges, moreover, can last a lifetime: According to W. David Stahlman, a professor of learning and behavior at UCLA, though ?trying to change behavior is difficult, trying to maintain already-learned behavior is pretty easy.? Once ?people train themselves to behave in a certain manner??saving energy, avoiding desserts??their behavior has become habitual.? That means that even if Opower?s customers lose interest in competition, they?ll likely retain the energy efficiency habits they acquired when striving for the prized smiley.
Regardless of the psychology behind them, Opower?s strategies have been incontrovertibly successful: By the end of February, the company has already helped customers save a total of more than $220,135,000 on energy bills, 3,170,710,000 pounds of CO2 emissions, and 2,066,950,000 kilowatt hours. A family of four saves about 2.5 percent more energy on average once their utility company teams with Opower, a figure that stays fairly steady across income levels. Without appealing to money or the environment, Opower is helping to save both.
So, how can I convince you to save energy? By telling you I?m already saving more than you are.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=ed8fa9b92d6ac9876a0647791d29e9f1
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State Dept: No major objections to Canada pipeline
FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2013, file photo, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D, points at a illustration of existing pipeline, while speaking at a news conference about the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Capitol Hill in Washington. The State Department on Friday, March 1, 2013, raised no major objections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and said other options to get the oil from Canada to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change. But the latest environmental review stops short of recommending whether the project should be approved. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2013, file photo, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D, points at a illustration of existing pipeline, while speaking at a news conference about the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Capitol Hill in Washington. The State Department on Friday, March 1, 2013, raised no major objections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and said other options to get the oil from Canada to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change. But the latest environmental review stops short of recommending whether the project should be approved. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 8, 2013, file photo, Secretary of State John Kerry, right, speaks with reporters during a news conference with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird at the State Department in Washington. The State Department on Friday, March 1, 2013, raised no major objections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and said other options to get the oil from Canada to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change. But the latest environmental review stops short of recommending whether the project should be approved. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Map shows existing and proposed extension of Keystone XL pipeline
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The State Department on Friday raised no major objections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and said other options to get the oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change.
But the latest environmental review stops short of recommending whether the project should be approved. State Department approval of the 1,700-mile pipeline is needed because it crosses a U.S. border.
The lengthy report says Canadian tar sands are likely to be developed, regardless of whether the U.S. approves Keystone XL, which would carry oil from western Canada to refineries in Texas. The pipeline would also travel through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
The report acknowledges that development of tar sands in Alberta would create greenhouse gases but makes clear that other methods to transport the oil ? including rail, trucks and barges ? also pose a risk to the environment.
The State Department analysis for the first time evaluated two options using rail: shipping the oil on trains to existing pipelines or to oil tankers. The report shows that those other methods would release more greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming than the pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline, according to the report, would release annually the same amount of global warming pollution as 626,000 passenger cars.
A scenario that would move the oil on trains to mostly existing pipelines would release 8 percent more greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide than Keystone XL. That scenario would not require State Department approval because any new pipelines would not cross the U.S border.
Another alternative that relies mostly on rail to move the oil to the Canadian west coast, where it would be loaded onto oil tankers to the U.S. Gulf Coast, would result in 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions, the report said.
In both alternatives, the oil would be shipped in rail cars as bitumen, a thick, tar-like substance, rather than as a liquid.
The State Department was required to conduct a new environmental analysis after the pipeline's operator, Calgary-based TransCanada, changed the project's route though Nebraska. The Obama administration blocked the project last year because of concerns that the original route would have jeopardized environmentally sensitive land in the Sand Hills region.
The administration later approved a southern section of the pipeline, from Cushing, Okla., to the Texas coast, as part of what President Barack Obama has called an "all of the above" energy policy that embraces a wide range of sources, from oil and gas to renewables such as wind and solar.
The pipeline plan has become a flashpoint in the U.S. debate over climate change. Republicans and business and labor groups have urged the Obama administration to approve the pipeline as a source of much-needed jobs and a step toward North American energy independence.
Environmental groups have been pressuring the president to reject the pipeline, saying it would carry "dirty oil" that contributes to global warming. They also worry about a spill.
Industry groups and Republicans hailed the report, saying the Obama administration was moving closer to approving Keystone XL, which has been under consideration since 2008.
"No matter how many times KXL is reviewed, the result is the same: no significant environmental impact," said Marty Durbin, executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry.
The report "puts this important, job-creating project one step closer to reality," Durbin said.
Environmentalists blasted the report.
"This analysis fails in its review of climate impacts, threats to endangered wildlife like whooping cranes and woodland caribou, and the concerns of tribal communities," said Jim Lyon, vice president of the National Wildlife Federation.
If Keystone XL would not speed tar sands development, "why are oil companies pouring millions into lobbying and political contributions to build it?" Lyon asked. "By rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, President Obama can keep billions of tons of climate-disrupting carbon pollution locked safely in the ground."
The draft report begins a 45-day comment period, after which the State Department will issue a final environmental report before Secretary of State John Kerry makes a recommendation about whether the pipeline is in the national interest.
Kerry has promised a "fair and transparent" review of the plan and said he hopes to decide on the project in the "near term." Most observers do not expect a decision until summer at the earliest.
Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said Friday that Canada will respect the U.S. review process and noted the importance of the pipeline to the Canadian economy. "Canada's continued prosperity will be determined by our ability to diversify markets for our energy products," Oliver said.
Obama's initial rejection of the pipeline last year went over badly in Canada, which relies on the United States for 97 percent of its energy exports.
Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
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Horsemeat found in four new products
1 March 2013
Last updated at 12:54 ET
Four beef products sold by Bird's Eye, Taco Bell and catering supplier Brakes have been found to contain horse DNA, the Food Standards Agency says.
This is the third wave of test results received by the FSA, which has now received a total of 5,430 test results.
Meanwhile, new tests conducted on beef retail products revealed no new cases of horsemeat adulteration, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said.
This latest round of tests saw 1,797 products being examined.
The FSA has asked retailers to test beef products for the presence of more than 1% of horsemeat, with anything above that figure considered to be a sign of adulteration.
Its latest results have found that more than 99% of tests show no horse DNA at or above the level of 1%.
The affected products are Birds Eye's Traditional Spaghetti Bolognese and Beef Lasagne - which the company took of shelves last week as a precaution; Brakes' Spicy Beef Skewer; Taco Bell's Ground Beef.
'Let down'Taco Bell has three outlets in Britain and says all its affected stock has been removed. The products had come from a supplier in Europe, the company said.
A spokesman for Taco Bell said: "Once we learned of this issue, we immediately voluntarily tested our product for our three Taco Bell restaurants in the UK.
"Based on that testing, we learned ingredients supplied to us from one supplier in Europe tested positive for horsemeat.
"We immediately withdrew it from sale, and discontinued purchase of that meat and contacted the Food Standards Agency with this information. We apologise to our customers and take this matter very seriously as food quality is our highest priority."
Birds Eye said in a statement: "We are introducing a new ongoing DNA testing programme that will ensure no minced beef meat product can leave our facilities without first having been cleared by DNA testing."
Brakes, which is based in Ashford, Kent, said: "Our testing programme represents a significant proportion of all results the FSA has obtained from across the food industry.
"Brakes have also segregated a frozen burger as a precaution after equine DNA at 1% was reported to the Food Standards Agency."
It said it was "very disappointed to have been let down" by suppliers and that it "sincerely apologised to our customers."
Meanwhile, fast food chain McDonald's announced that none of its meat products had tested positive for horse DNA, adding customers could "continue to trust in the quality of food" served at its restaurants.
Retailer testsThe BRC says 95% of its members' products have been checked, including all minced beef lines used by the UK's largest supermarkets.
There have been 361 tests on 103 products carried out since 22 February.
The trade organisation represents a range of retailers, including supermarkets and independent shops.
A total of 1,889 tests have been carried out by BRC members since 20 January, with 0.3% of them finding traces of horsemeat.
The BRC's food director, Andrew Opie said: "The UK's major supermarkets, and a number of other BRC-member food businesses, have now tested all existing processed minced beef products.
"The reassuring news is that another intensive week of testing has produced no new positive results. And, since this testing programme started in mid-January, just a third of 1% of products have tested positive."
Food withdrawalsHorsemeat was first discovered in January in frozen burgers on sale in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and since then traces have been discovered in processed beef products and prepared meals across the EU.
A first wave of tests on beef products sold in the UK found horsemeat in some products sold by Aldi, Co-op, Findus, Rangeland and Tesco.
Subsequent rounds of testing revealed adulteration in some products sold by Asda, Sodexo - which supplies food to schools, care homes and the armed forces - and the Whitbread Group.
Last week Ikea withdrew a batch of frozen meatballs from sale in the food section of stores in the UK, and other European countries, after tests in the Czech Republic found traces of horsemeat in those products.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21631961#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Friday, March 1, 2013
Patterico's Pontifications ? If You Like Your Health Insurance Plan ...
If You Like Your Health Insurance Plan, You Can Keep It
I?m a few days late to this story, but better late than never:
Universal Orlando plans to stop offering medical insurance to part-time employees beginning next year, a move the resort says has been forced by the federal government?s health-care overhaul.
The giant theme-park resort, which generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue, began informing employees this month that it will offer health-insurance to part-timers ?only until December 31, 2013.?
The reason: Universal currently offers part-time workers a limited insurance plan that has low premiums but also caps the payout of benefits. For instance, Universal?s plan costs about $18 a week for employee-only coverage but covers only a maximum of $5,000 a year toward hospital stays. There are similar caps for other services.
Those types of insurance plans ? sometimes referred to as ?mini-med? plans ? will no longer be permitted under the federal Affordable Care Act. Beginning in 2014, the law will prohibit insurance plans that impose annual monetary limits on essential medical care such, as hospitalization, or on overall spending.
In October 2008, PolitiFact evaluated Barack Obama?s claim: ?if you?ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it? and found it . . . true.
Employees of Universal Orlando, you can take that to the bank.
Source: http://patterico.com/2013/02/28/if-you-like-your-health-insurance-plan-you-can-keep-it/
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Awesome Note (+Todo/Calendar) (for iPhone)
As the name implies, Awesome Note (+Todo/Calendar) ($3.99) is an awesome iPhone app for creating to-do lists, calendar entries, and notes. Of all the personal organization apps on Apple's mobile devices, Awesome Note is one of the most visually compelling, letting users choose which colors, background images, fonts, and icons they want to use in their notes and to-do lists. It's a treat to play with all these options, plus the app's graphical calendar, while also being highly productive?all of which helped this powerful app become an Editors' Choice.
The app offers more than enough to justify the one-time price of $4. You can sync Awesome Note with an Evernote or Google account, letting you view and edit your notes from multiple places. Want a passlock? Just turn on that feature. Need to keep a variety of different lists and notes? No problem, as Awesome Note gives you different folders to sort all the different tasks in your life appropriately. If you're seriously looking to become a more efficient task master, Awesome Note is the one app you need on your iPhone.
?Essential FeaturesThe creators of Awesome Note (+Todo/Calendar) put together a well-designed interface for their list-making and note-taking users. After you first download the app, Awesome Note sets you up with a handful of sample folders and notes. These pre-loaded notes contain information about using Awesome Note, so while you're figuring out how to access the content, you're also learning how to use the app. But you don't need to read much to figure it out, as the experience is highly intuitive.
Anytime you fire up the app, Awesome Note brings you to a screen with a preview of up to five folders of your choosing, with more folders available if you swipe right to left. You can change each folder's ?color, title, and associated icon. A number on the rightmost side of each folder indicates how many notes or to-dos are in it.
The virtual folders are used to sort your notes. As a compartmentalized person, I especially love the use of folders in this app. I have a folder for personal to-dos (pink), work to-dos (blue), one for a running shopping list (orange), and even one called "Food in the House" (green) where I log my list of perishables so I remember what I have on hand whenever I have a few moments to do some meal planning. It beats the heck out of staring at an open refrigerator, or worse, trying to remember what I already have in the fridge when I'm at the store. I also keep a plain text note in my "Food in the House" folder for planning meals for the week.
Dive into a folder, and Awesome Note gives you two options for creating new notes: type them immediately into the text field at the top to create a quick note or task, or select ?a plus symbol at the top right to open and edit the note's full details, such as due date and reminder alarms. Visually-oriented people will appreciate all the options Awesome Notes provides in terms of folder and note customization. Colors, icons, background images, themes, typefaces, and even virtual paper stock can all be changed at any time. Every note automatically contains a title and creation date, but Awesome Note stores plenty of additional information, such as due dates, alarms for the due dates, and a priority level (indicated with stars). These aspects come in handy when you want to sort your notes by highest priority or due date.
Awesome Features
One of Awesome Note's indispensable feature, the calendar, gives users multiple ways to view what's due and when. Like the rest of the app, the calendar was designed with visually-oriented people in mind. It's features like the calendar view and all the other customization options that separates Awesome Note from lesser to-do apps like Clear (99 cents, 2 stars), Carrot (99 cents, 2.5 stars), and even Microsoft OneNote Mobile (3 stars, free). With Awesome Note, you can set alarms to ring before an event or at the time it's scheduled to occur, and you can set up repeating alarms, too. Awesome Note even has its own selection of wonderful audio cues so you'll never confuse them with your other ringtones.
Among the other essential features that make Awesome Note well worth the very fair price are: 1) two-way syncing with Evernote and Google; 2) wireless data transfer to any Bluetooth device; 3) Wi-Fi enabled backup/restore to a computer on the same local network as the iPhone; and 4) the ability to lock individual folders.
Take Note, It's Awesome
Among task managers and to-do apps, Awesome Note (+Todo/Calendar) is a clear Editors' Choice. Awesome Note gets right everything you'd want in a to-do list app for the iPhone. I'd like to see the app add iCloud to its list of syncing options. ?Expanding to Android, Windows, and Mac OS X and and offer syncing among these platforms would also be a big improvement. It's hard, however, to ask much more of an app that gets everything else right.
More iPhone Apps Reviews:
??? Awesome Note (+Todo/Calendar) (for iPhone)
??? FingerPrint 2
??? Carrot (for iPhone)
??? TurboTax SnapTax (for iPhone)
??? Yahoo Mail 1.0.4 (for iPhone)
?? more
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Calif. mayor puts lock-picking class in newsletter
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) ? The mayor of a California city struggling with a spike in burglaries and other crimes is apologizing for promoting a class about how to pick locks in her newsletter.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said Wednesday she understood the reaction of people who were upset about a listing for the lock-picking class. She said she will do a better job reviewing listings in the future.
The Oakland Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/WsyCqq) that the class ? offered through the website, workshopweekend.net ? was geared toward people who misplace their keys. But it didn't go over well with some residents given the city's crime woes, including a more-than 40 percent jump in burglaries last year.
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