by Leo Hohmann, Leo’s Newsletter: Some of federal government’s potentially most sensitive national security-related files are now in the hands of an unknown entity likely to put them up for sale. It’s being reported by Bloomberg and others today that one of the largest IT service providers to the U.S. military-industrial complex has experienced a […]

This story was originally co-published by Reasons to be Cheerful and the Outrider Foundation. Paris has been preparing for the 2024 Summer Olympics for a decade. In the final days leading up to the big event, organizers readied for the Seine to host a dramatic opening ceremony, during which athletes will float down the river on boats, with the Eiffel Tower laying backdrop to it. One ambitious goal among these preparations: to host the first carbon-neutral Olympics in modern history.  The city’s strategy is vast, from using 95 percent existing or temporary infrastructure (only building facilities that can be used after the Games) to sourcing 80 percent of food locally. And in a climate-friendly effort to keep athletes and attendees cool and comfortable throughout the event, the Olympics are foregoing traditional air conditioning in exchange for an alternative cooling system — one which will use river water from the Seine to cool all buildings affiliated with the event. The system driving this operation is called district cooling, and its technology long predates this summer’s Olympics. The first system of its kind was built in 1962 in Hartford, Connecticut, and has since grown to be one of the largest in the world. The city’s gas company at the time had connected to all the interstate pipelines, bringing a surplus of gas to the city, which went unused in the summer. So a district energy system was created through which gas could be used to chill water and cool buildings in the summer, and steam for heat in the winter.  ENGIE’s cooling system uses water from the Seine. Credit: ENGIE Created in 1991, Paris’ district cooling network is already Europe’s largest, currently serving more than 2,000 buildings in the south of the city, and its recent growth to meet the Olympics’ climate goals has cemented its lead in the rankings. ENGIE, the company behind the cooling system, is using water from the Seine and recovered heat from a data center to heat the Olympic pool. ENGIE has also created a cooling system  — separate from the central system in Paris — for the Olympic Village, which will turn into housing after the Olympics conclude. With sustainability in mind, the Village was constructed in a way that generates 50 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than standard construction, using wood rather than steel in small buildings and low-carbon concrete in larger ones. The housing will also include affordable units. So how does this emissions-reducing air cooling apparatus function? Crushed by negative news? Sign up for the Reasons to be Cheerful newsletter. [contact-form-7] “District cooling is a central plant or plants that produce chilled water,” explains Rob Thornton, president and CEO of the nonprofit International District Energy Association. “There is a network of insulated pipes in which water is pumped (generally underground), and then the connected buildings receive cold water, which flows into a heat exchanger. The cold water absorbs the heat from the space, and the warmer water flows back into the central plant. It’s a closed loop.”  District cooling systems maintain a few advantages over traditional air conditioning, which functions by sucking air out of an area to cool the gas in the air conditioning system, after which the cooler air is blown back into the space. District cooling reduces the space requirements for individual air conditioning units, which usually reside on rooftops and perpetuate the urban heat island effect, in which cement causes cities to become hotter than their rural surroundings. In Paris, where roofscapes are high-value properties, utilizing an alternative system frees up all this space for other uses, which could take the form of rooftop gardens or other heat-absorbing environments.  ENGIE’s central plant is composed of a network of insulated pipes that pumps cold water from the ground up. Credit: ENGIE According to Thornton, the cost of cooling cities can be decreased by 50 to 90 percent through the use of district cooling. That is, after the initial investment in the infrastructure, which can cost up to $1 billion. The source of this investment varies from country to country. In the US, Thornton says, it is primarily private investment, though the federal government can support some initial costs through the Inflation Reduction Act. “In other locations like Dubai, it’s often sovereign wealth funds, so a combination of public and private capital,” says Thornton. “In Dubai, they’ve cut both carbon emissions and electricity demand in half. So they see a dividend both economically and environmentally.” These systems are most suitable to urban centers, as they require a certain level of population density to be economically feasible — which is good news considering the population centers around the world exist predominantly in hotter climates. Asian cities make up about half of the most populated capitals globally, and these are the same cities that have seen some of the most dramatic recent temperature increases.  And cities that historically haven’t required air conditioning, like those in the Pacific Northwest of the US, are now turning to district cooling as they face increasingly hotter temperatures. Become a sustaining member today! Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can. Join District cooling can also help cities save water. The system feeds off of undrinkable river water, rather than water of a quality that could be consumed by its inhabitants. And because it’s a closed-loop system, the water that comes out of the river is injected right back into the river once it’s cooled the air. The water that goes back is a slightly higher temperature than it was when it came out, which is why Olivier Racle, head of district heating and cooling at ENGIE, says there must be strict regulations to mandate a temperature ceiling for the water — typically around five degrees above the original temperature.  “This is highly regulated in order to limit as much as possible the impact on the biodiversity of the river,” says Racle. District cooling systems can be utilized year-round, even in the colder months. “Cities are like a human body, they need cooling year round,” says Thornton. “Even if it’s cold outside, the inside of the buildings may need cooling.” The Paris Olympics district cooling will play a critical role in this summer’s games. Credit: Maria Albi / Shutterstock But the impact will be most dramatic in the summer months, when air conditioning puts the biggest load on the electricity grid. With district cooling, peak demand can be relieved during hot days because chilled water can be produced overnight, during off-peak hours, and stored for use during the day.  As the Olympics fire up, district cooling will play a critical role in keeping participants and spectators cool, putting its impacts in the spotlight as such systems are used in increasing numbers of cities around the world. The post Water From the Seine Is Cooling the 2024 Summer Olympics appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

149 years ago today, the British hunter, naturalist, and author, Jim Corbett was born. He was often hired by various Indian legislatures to hunt man-eating Bengal tigers and leopards. He became so well-versed in the mysteries and magic of India’s jungles that he helped create the nation’s first national park, renamed Corbett National Park in […] The post Good News in History, July 25 appeared first on Good News Network.

An excavation of the Bronze Age Aççana Mound in the Old City of Alalah in Turkey’s southeastern Hatay province has uncovered an Akkadian cuneiform tablet that records a large furniture purchase. The tablet is petite at just 1.65 inches by 1.38 inches with a thickness of 0.63 inches and weighing just shy of an ounce. It dates to the 15th century B.C. and is written in Akkadian, the language spoken of Mesopotamia at that time. The first lines note a large number of wooden tables, chairs and stools, who paid for them and who received them. The mound is in the ancient city of Alalakh, the capital of the Bronze Age city-state of Mukis. First excavated in the 1930s by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley, the most recent excavation project began in 2021 with the aim of exploring the religion, commerce and daily life of the Late Bronze Age settlement and its diplomatic and trade connections to Eastern Mediterranean powers like the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and the Mitanni Empire in the Fertile Crescent. Hittite and Mitanni artifacts have been found in different layers of the mound, imported over the active trade routes that crossed the Amik Valley. The empires wanted to establish commercial ties with Alalakh because it was so agriculturally rich. They had visions of the Amik valley becoming their breadbasket, feeding the growing empires. Skeletal remains found in the mound have had archaeological DNA extracted and analyzed, and researchers have found they were local people who lived in the town, not visitors or traders or foreign dignitaries. This year, the excavation team was also working on restoring some of the architectural remains that were damaged in the devastating 2023 earthquake. The tablet was discovered during the restoration work. The researchers continue to decipher the inscriptions on the tablet, paying special attention to details that reveal information about the parties involved in the furniture exchange, the precise quantities of the items, and the complexities of commercial transactions of the era. Preliminary findings suggest that the society of Alalah had a highly organized economic system, with records that could have been used for economic planning and administrative decision-making.

Time to rethink forests.

Reverse the Curse is a 2023 comedy-drama-romance film directed by David Duchovny. The story follows Ted (played by Logan Marshall-Green), a failed writer-turned-Yankees Stadium peanut slinger. When Ted learns of his Red Sox-obsessed father Marty’s (played by David Duchovny) failing health, he moves back home. Marty strives to make amends for his past, and his health takes a hit whenever his beloved Sox lose a game. Reverse The Curse Review Suck it up. Life’s hard. It’s no wonder that Reverse The Curse came and went without fanfare or much notice. Unlike many films of its ilk, it’s not a self-indulgent vanity project meant to atone for the sins of fathers everywhere, nor is it a grand spiritual epic designed to find meaning in magic cornfields and baseball diamonds. Most importantly, it’s not a touchy-feely feminine retcon of masculinity. Instead, it’s a small and slightly unfocused film that doesn’t try to be all things to all people but still admirably captures the messiness of the relationships of many fathers and sons. Reverse The Curse is a movie in delicious conflict with itself. As Duchovny’s Marty looks back on his life and finds it wanting of both meaning and purpose, fathers everywhere will identify with (to different degrees) the pain he feels at his own inadequacy: the guilt of a missed ball game or school play, the shame of choosing TV over a game catch after a long and grueling day, and the desire to leave a meaningful legacy via one’s son. At the same time, Logan Marshall-Green’s Ted, Marty’s son, stands as both a cautionary tale of the importance of fatherhood and an uncomfortable reminder of being on the receiving end of a dad who was just a man. And that’s really the crux of Reverse The Curse. It’s not necessary to see oneself in every aspect of each of its main characters. It’s doubtful that many women will be able to fully appreciate the nuance and camaraderie built from mercilessly busting one another’s balls or what it means for a grown son to first see his father as a human being, and how it can completely change his perspective on his own childhood, nor is it likely that every male viewer will be able to identify with a father wholly checked out from his son’s life. Instead, the film paints a portrait of flawed humanity filtered through a uniquely male perspective that audience members can munch on a la carte. Reverse The Curse is a quiet film that doesn’t try to change the world by Times Square-messaging the secrets of the universe. It’s a cautionary tale about not letting fear and selfishness rob two people of the beauty of one another’s lives and of what it means to love your son and to be loved by your dad. It has its contrivances, Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Stephanie Beatriz’s character could have been completely omitted without losing anything, and its gimmick fizzles quickly. However, the film’s bones are strong, and it’s a well-paced little piece whose two leads nail every moment they share. For fathers of sons and sons of fathers, it’s Worth it as a rental.   WOKE ELEMENTS 1977? The film’s opening scene portrays a book publisher who, while well-performed and moderately funny, behaves in a way that doesn’t fit with gals from the late 70s. It seems like a part originally written for a man. She puts down Ted’s whiteness as though it was a detriment to creativity and quality writing, even though she then references other white male authors as examples of excellence. Mother &#@<34 There’s a recurring “gag” in which a young child is given permission to curse as much as he wants. It quickly devolves from “booby-penis” to repeated F-bombs. It might have been accomplished with some creative sound editing, but it sure seemed as though the boy was saying it. There are few things more woke than not projecting children but actively soliciting one (I mean the filmmakers, not the characters) to tarnish himself thusly qualifies. It’s not a main thrust of the film and ends relatively quickly, so I didn’t ding the score much for it. The post Reverse The Curse first appeared on Worth it or Woke.

A backhanded comment... The post The surprising band Little Richard compared The Beatles to: “I discovered them” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Last year on this day… Staind was #1 on Billboard’s Active Rock survey with “Lowest In Me,” the lead single from the band’s “Confessions Of The Fallen.” In ’12, after seven LPs in fourteen years, Staind announced they would be going on hiatus. Lewis then embarked on a solo Country career. Meanwhile, guitarist Mike Mushok joined former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted in Newsted before his stint with Saint Asonia. After playing festivals in ’14, the band went on hiatus again. “Confessions Of The Fallen,” the band’s eighth studio effort was their first in twelve years, marking the longest gap between studio albums to date. “You can certainly recognize the band but at the same time you can hear that we’ve been paying attention and understand what kind of sounds and approaches we can use that maybe weren’t around the last time we did this,” stated Lewis in a press release. .### The post July 25th, 2023: Staind’s Return appeared first on RockinTown.

?PURE GOLD: KARI LAKE JUST PUT A VILE LEFTIST REPORTER IN HER PLACE! "You are just a sad case of a human being. I'm so sorry for you." Share to make this go viral! pic.twitter.com/gx3itT8a44 — Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) July 23, 2024

Is he on crack? BTW, the AI rendering is getting REALLY good these days, huh? https://t.co/57VzQ5HTxG — HealthRanger (@HealthRanger) July 25, 2024