European Commission preparing for EU-US trade talks: 119 meetings with industry lobbyists Negotiations on an EU-US ‘free trade’ agreement (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP) started in July this year amid strong controversy and public concern about the impacts such an agreement could have on environmental regulations, food standards, data protection and other issues. The European Commission, which represents the EU in the negotiations, has reacted with a propaganda offensive that includes a Q&A website full of misleading claims about the TTIP talks and a ‘@EU_TTIP_team’ that counters critical messages on twitter. In mid-July, the Commission made a huge deal out of the civil society dialogue it had organised in Brussels on the TTIP talks, posting dozens of tweets about the event, praising the “interesting discussion” on issues such as “the environment, transparency, development” with “as many questions from NGOs [...] than there were from Industry”. A disturbing business bias Industry-dominated advisory group in the making?
50 Cool CSS Menus, Free Source Codes + Tutorials - WebStockBox October 29th, 2009 If you’re looking for a nice menu for your web design or blog, this is a list of beautiful and cool CSS menus. Some menus have special effect with jQuery, javascript, or Mootool that make these menus have more interest such as slide menu, fading effect, cool animated and more.
Britain's first 'energy positive' house opens in Wales Britain’s first low cost ‘energy positive’ house, which can generate more electricity than its occupants will use, opens on Thursday despite George Osborne axing plans to make housebuilders meet tough low carbon housing targets from next year. The modest three-bedroom house built in just 16 weeks on an industrial estate outside Bridgend in Wales cost just £125,000 to build and, said its Cardiff University designers, will let occupants use the sun to pay the rent. Using batteries to store the electricity which it generates from the solar panels that function as the roof, and having massive amounts of insulation to reduce energy use in winter months, it should be able to export electricity to the national grid for eight months of the year.
Beyond greener pastures - Sanctuary Magazine Issue 33Words: Emily Braham Sanctuary takes a look at some leading examples of low carbon, community-focused developments in suburban and regional Australia. Several progressive suburban and regional developments with a genuine commitment to better design and sustainability outcomes are seeking mainstream appeal. In Victoria, the first house is now up at The Cape, a planned 219-dwelling development with a commitment to more than 50 per cent open space, which includes restored native habitat and walking tracks, and a minimum star rating of 7.5, on Victoria’s south east coast. The all-electric development will include a 2.5 kilowatt solar system for each house, while several solar-powered electric vehicle station are planned for community use.
Trans-Pacific Partnership undermines health system - Opinion The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a deal that is being secretly negotiated by the White House, with the help of more than 600 corporate advisers and Pacific Rim nations, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. While the TPP is being called a trade agreement, the US already has trade agreements covering 90 percent of the GDP of the countries involved in the talks. Instead, the TPP is a major power grab by large corporations.
PayPal Launches PayPal Here, A Competitor To Square Designed By Yves Behar Today, Paypal announced PayPal Here, a triangle-shaped mobile creditcard-swiping gadget aimed directly at Jack Dorsey's reader, Square. And, just like Square, they’re aiming to convert customers with the power of their design: They tapped Fuseproject, the firm run by Yves Behar and a darling among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, to create the object. Obviously, the $4 billion in transactions being done every year on Square were an enticing market for PayPal. But PayPal is also trying migrate into offline, physical transactions. "We’re actually going after offline business in a serious way," says David Marcus, VP of mobile at PayPal. The gadget works similarly to Square, offering a simple attachment and merchant app that allows iPhones and Android smartphones to do the work of a cash register, swiping credit and debit cards, and tracking receipts.
How To Make Your Own Clay Paint Clay paint is very easy to make and can lend even drywall a very earthen appearance. As natural builder, clay paint is a great way to give color to a home. For some reason, it’s taken me a long time to try mixing up and using a clay paint (also known as a clay alis). Whatever the reason is, after attending the Natural Building Colloquium in October and talking to several folks about the ease of applying clay finishes on drywall, I knew I finally had to try it out in our new home here in Kentucky. Clay paint has many possible applications. Amazon Drops Prices, FullContact Parses Names and 12 New APIs Amazon has dropped prices again on its popular Amazon EC2 API. CRM-as-a-service company FullContact added ambiguous name parsing as a useful new feature to its FullContact API. Plus: an API podcast, Facebook gaming and 12 new APIs. Amazon EC2 Lowers Pricing for the 19th Time
Stop the Net Grab Stop the Net Grab To voting members of the World Conference on International Telecommunications: I strongly oppose any attempt to undermine the fundamental freedoms of citizens online. I urge you to use your voting power to reject the proposal that would change forever the rules that govern the internet. I value my access to the internet as information source, a vital mode of communication...