triage or medicopter 110

An engineering student in Delft has designed a prototype that puts unmanned aerial technology to beneficial use with an ambulance drone. His proposal and pitch is presented really well and this ingeniously simple rescue concept could have real life-saving impact and evolve in unforeseen directions—though it’s already clever enough to make me think it would be a wise investment to supplement emergency response teams with flying familiars. The drones could be dispatched or even summoned by a call to the hospital, zeroing in on the caller’s cellular coordinates, and deliver a defibrillator, respirator or other equipment to the trauma victim.
Video and audio capabilities could make for quicker assessments and provide instructions to good Samaritans already on the scene until paramedics could arrive. Maneuvering technology needs to be perfected before it could operate safely in an urban environment—where traffic snarls squander vital moments but such a system would also benefit patients in remote locations, like mountain tops and isolated after natural disasters—or even to places deemed too dangerous for immediate human outreach.

energie-wende oder junck bonds

Lately, the press regarding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership treaty has mostly been lately either smug resignation to the inevitable or nebulous fears that come across a bit feeble and embarrassing for the agreement’s opposition.
Naked Capitalism, however, delivers an accessible and literate summary of the arguments and developments that are coinciding with Germany turning sour on the whole deal with America with its perceptions and understanding of what’s at stake matured and appropriately jaded. Aside from the mutual watering-down of environmental- and labour-regulations and other concerns, there is more over the clear potential for corruption with revolving-door commissars and “judges” to act as the court of last appeal in disputes between member states and businesses. It is this last point that is focusing Germany’s awareness—what with the German government already at the mercy of the trade courts and one foreign energy concern’s self-interests over the country’s resolution to wean itself away from nuclear power. Germany faces reparations for losses the company will incur due to this decision—and the company’s right to seek compensation for its investors is already enshrined in legislation that could override a stand taken by the state. Settlement was eventually reached without invoking arbitration—which is a very Byzantine process by design—but if the legal framework is unraveled and corporate bullying is made easier and pushed out of view, it is not hard to imagine that Germany’s energy-reform could have taken a very different trajectory.

die partei oder a modest proposal

I missed the winning campaign over the summer for a seat on the European Union parliament, but the German and Austrian editions of The Local present a comprehensive and funny retrospective of Martin Sonneborn’s first few months in office.  The sometimes poisonously controversal satirist and former editor of the Germany’s national lampoon magazine, Titantic—much like The Onion, and regular contributor the Der Spiegel’s humour column formed die Partei (the Party) as a joke back into 2004, and since then the comedian’s platform and the voting public eventual presented candidate Martin with a mandate. If nothing else, I am sure that the experience is providing material for years to come.

susie keane’s puppeteens

Via the fantastic Nag-on-the-Lake, reporting for The Guardian, the enquiring Jon Ronson writes how Tim Burton will direct a film about the lives and times of the artists (the true and the plagiarist) behind those insanely popular paintings of slightly forlorn, treacly waifish sad, big eyed children—usually pictured holding equally puppy-eyed familiars. The bio-pic—slated for release in December—was first conceived four years ago and looks to be a pretty fascinating story—with Margaret, the wife of the showman and fraud Walter Keane, getting no credit for her work, based off the marionettes that she designed to teach French to her daughter Susan.  The ruse went on for a decade and spanned the art capitals of Europe and with plenty of celebrity patronage.   We never had any of Keane’s art at home but I certainly do remember seeing some in passing growing up.  Who knew that there was more behind their creation?