Kiss Finally Get the Cover of Rolling Stone

You wanted the best? It took a while, but you got the best: Forty years after the release of their debut album, Kiss have finally made the cover of Rolling Stone. Marking the band's upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the cover image is a classic 1975 photo of the band's original lineup: Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, plus Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, who were both gone from the band by the early Eighties.

A lifetime of Kiss: look back at the group's history in photos

The cover story, by Rolling Stone senior writer Brian Hiatt, tells the sad, hilarious and triumphant story of one of the biggest rock bands ever, taking an in-depth look at the founding members' lives and careers. Hiatt hung out with all four original members in their homes (in San Diego, Beverly Hills and Monmouth County, New Jersey) where they shared fond memories and, inevitably, some intense backbiting. "I keep thinking about Ace and Peter," Simmons admits. “"What are they doing now? Where are they?’ It’s gotta be close to the end. How do you make any money? How do you pay your bills?"

Even Stanley and Simmons have had their differences. "We've always seen each other as brothers," says Stanley. "What we seem to be at odds at is how you treat your brother. Gene’s priority, by far, has always been himself. And he’s not one to let anyone else’s feelings or contributions get in the way."



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/kiss-finally-get-the-cover-of-rolling-stone-20140325#ixzz2x0kANgNf
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Democrats and Republicans Agree on Climate Change ... That does not mean our politicians do ?

From what politicians and commentators say in the media, the U.S. would seem torn asunder over the matter of climate change. Not so, according to an assessment of 21 surveys encompassing almost 20,000 people in 46 states, which found ample agreement about global warming and what to do about it. In each state, a majority of those polled believe that temperatures are rising and that human actions are part of the cause (first two questions above)—and this consensus holds for residents of states that voted strongly Republican in the 2012 presidential election (red). More than 60 percent of Americans in every state favor government-imposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions from businesses and power plants. “A huge percentage of the public supports legislation that politicians have yet to pass,” says Jon Krosnick, a senior fellow at Stanford University who led the analysis.

People also agree on another point: fewer than half the residents in states nationwide indicate that global warming is “extremely important” to them personally.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/democrats-and-republicans-agree-on-climate-change/?&WT.mc_id=SA_SP_20140324

Fight over Rooftop Solar Forecasts a Bright Future for Cleaner Energy

Americans have begun to battle over sunshine. In sun-scorched Arizona a regulatory skirmish has broken out over arrays of blue-black silicon panels on rooftops, threatening the local utilities that have ruled electricity generation for a century or more. With some of the best access to sunshine on the planet, Arizona boasts the second-most solar power in the U.S.—more than 1,000 megawatts and counting. The state hosts vast photovoltaic arrays in the desert as well as the nation's first commercial power plant with the technology to use sunshine at night—by storing daytime heat in molten salts.

In terms of infrastructure, such big solar fits as comfortably as a coal-fired power plant in the traditional electricity business model, which involves large plants transmitting electricity over a grid of conducting lines through transformers and into individual homes and businesses. The trouble, from an electric utility's perspective, is the tens of thousands of Arizona's total of three million or so homes that have installed small solar: photovoltaic panels made from wafers of semiconducting material, typically silicon, that use incoming sunlight to create an electric current. With these homes making their own electricity, utilities lose their most lucrative customers and confront a dwindling base over which to spread big infrastructure costs, like building new power plants or maintaining the grid. "The net-metered customer does not share equally in the overhead costs associated with the grid or other services provided by the utility, producing a very substantial 'cross-subsidy' funded by all other utility customers who must pay proportionately more," wrote James Hughes, CEO of solar panel maker First Solar, in an op-ed in support of the utility Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) position this past June.

These homeowners have installed photovoltaic panels on their rooftops with the help of cash incentives and a state law that requires the local electricity provider—APS—to buy any excess power produced by an individual home. Such "net metering" programs allow homeowners to zero out monthly or even annual electric bills. That means APS gets nothing from these former customers, and their number is growing. More than 15 rooftop arrays go onto Arizona homes each day, according to the Phoenix-area utility, and the number of such solar independents grew from 4,770 in 2010 to 14,524 in 2012.

In response APS and other utility companies across the country have launched a propaganda war against an energy source that still accounts for less than one quarter of 1 percent of U.S. electricity. In Arizona that fight became very public in 2013, as APS took on such residential solar power in a television ad campaign and mailings. But the utility met resistance from a coalition of liberals and libertarians decrying monopoly or wanting to help cut greenhouse gas pollution. The red on the map that shows the amount of incoming sunshine available in most of Arizona might just as well stand for the bad blood spilled between solar homeowners and the local utilities.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fight-over-rooftop-solar-forecasts-a-bright-future-for-cleaner-energy/?&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20140325

Deutsche Bank Says China Private Stocks Riskier Than SOEs

John-Paul Smith, the Deutsche Bank AG strategist who’s been writing about the dangers of buying state-owned Chinese stocks since 2010, says private companies are now a bigger risk to investors as valuations surge.

Smith’s warnings about government intervention in the world’s second-largest economy foreshadowed a shift by money managers away from state-controlled banks, commodity producers and industrial companies, known as SOEs. Investors have instead been piling into privately-owned firms that sell services and consumer goods, propelling an MSCI Inc. gauge of Chinese technology stocks to valuations seven times more expensive than financial companies this month, the biggest gap since 2001.

“It’s more the high valuation in the rest of the market and not the low valuations of the SOEs that I find very risky,” Smith, an emerging-market strategist at Deutsche Bank, said in a phone interview from London on March 18. Investors have “crowded into a relatively small number of stocks.”

Non-state companies from Tencent Holdings Ltd. (700), Asia’s largest Internet firm, to milk-powder maker Biostime International Holdings Ltd. have rallied as investors bet they will be the biggest beneficiaries from the economy’s transition toward services and consumer spending. The gains have helped to stem a 7.8 percent decline in the MSCI China Index this year through yesterday.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/deutsche-bank-says-china-private-stocks-riskier-than-soes.html

MH370 passengers' relatives protest in China

Source: aljazeera

Relatives of Chinese passengers on board Flight MH370 scuffled with security personnel as they descended on Malaysia's embassy in a rare protest, weeping as they demanded answers on the crashed plane.

"Return our relatives," around 200 family members cried on Tuesday at the gates of the Beijing mission, which was protected by a row of uniformed police and plain clothes security.

The protest came hours after Malaysia's prime minister announced that the plane crashed in the Indian Ocean after vanishing from civilian radar screens on March 8 with 239 people on board.

The Malaysian government and Malaysia Airlines have been criticised on social media platforms, especially in China, over the lack of physical evidence to support the Prime Minister Najib Razak's somber announcement.

Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2014/03/mh370-passengers-relatives-protest-china-20143254173613347.html

Flight 370 Salvage Harder Than Finding Needle in Haystack

While Malaysia’s conclusion that Flight 370 went down in the Indian Ocean may give closure to anguished family members, the search for wreckage in one of the planet’s most forbidding parts means the wait for answers to how and why may be a long time coming -- if ever.

Searchers came up empty again yesterday, the 17th day since the Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS) flight disappeared, as Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia said analysis of satellite data showed the flight “ended” in the ocean.

Even if objects spotted from aircraft and satellites can be located, the flight recorders that would unwind the mystery may be irretrievably lost in the abyss of the sea bed. The search for wreckage was suspended today because of foul weather.

For the 11-man crew on a U.S. Navy P3 Orion stationed near Kuala Lumpur, the hunt for Flight 370 has meant fruitless days in the air monitoring radars and cameras, fixated on water so glaring it’s impossible to make out where it meets the sky.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-24/flight-370-salvage-harder-than-finding-needle-in-haystack.html

U.S. lawmakers to weigh speeding up LNG exports to help Europe, Ukraine

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers will hear testimony on Tuesday from those who favor loosening restrictions on liquefied natural gas exports so that abundant American supplies could help reduce Ukraine and Europe's dependence on Russian gas.

European worries about the security of energy supplies have grown since Russian forces seized control of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine this month. Moscow has in years past cut gas supplies amid regional disputes.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Energy must give permission to export natural gas to all but a handful of countries with free trade agreements with the United States.

Opponents of unlimited gas exports have argued that shipping too much natural gas abroad could cause U.S. prices to rise, hampering the economy's ability to recover from the recent recession.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/us-usa-lng-congress-idUSBREA2O08Z20140325?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=574655

Ahh, I need me some Talking Heads ....

The Germans Have Figured Out How to 3-D Print Cars

The assembly line isn’t going away, but 3-D printing is going to reshape how we make cars. The EDAG Genesis points the way, with an beautifully crafted frame made from a range of materials and inspired by a turtle’s skeleton.

The German engineering firm showed off the Genesis design concept at the Geneva Motor Show as proof that additive manufacturing–EDAG’s fancy term for 3-D printing–can be used to make full-size car components. It’s on an entirely different scale than the tiny, 3-D printed creations coming out of a desktop Makerbot, but it’s also just a frame–a stylized chassis that’s more art than reality.

Before settling on 3-D printing, EDAG tried a few different acronym-heavy options, including selective laser sintering (SLS), selective laser melting (SLM), and stereolithography (SLA). But after extensive tinkering, the final process they used was a modified version of fused-deposition modeling, or FDM.

EDAG’s robot built the Genesis concept by creating a thermoplastic model of the complex interior, although the company says they could use carbon fiber to make the structure both stronger and lighter. EDAG envisions the Genesis as being surrounded by an exterior frame–likely steel or aluminum–to provide a tough exterior to protect the lattice-like monocoque.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/edag-3-d-printed-car/?mbid=social_twitter

SPAIN ANTI-AUSTERITY PROTESTERS CLASH WITH POLICE

Source: AP

MADRID (AP) — Spanish police and protesters clashed during an anti-austerity demonstration that drew tens of thousands of people to central Madrid on Saturday. Police said in a statement that six officers were injured and 12 people were arrested.

As a final speech was being given, some protesters attempted to break through a police barrier and make their way toward the nearby headquarters of the governing conservative Popular Party. Riot police then charged the protesters, who hurled bottles and other objects, and beat them back with batons.

One police vehicle and a bank were damaged by protesters. It wasn't immediately clear how many protesters were injured, and if anybody was seriously hurt on either side.

Protesters say Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government has eroded Spain's much-valued public health and education systems, while saddling Spaniards with sky-high unemployment and more debt.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/big-protest-spain-against-government-austerity