Monday, May 6, 2013

Winds topple trees, spark fires in Central Oregon

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) ? Winds gusting to 40 mph wreaked havoc on parts of Central Oregon Saturday, toppling trees that blocked roads and downing power lines that sparked at least two small wildfires and forced the evacuation of dozens of homes.

The fires were small, estimated at 10 acres and 100 acres respectively ? a small fraction of a square mile. But strong winds and warm temperatures made them tough to fight.

About 40 homes were evacuated in the afternoon when flames got too close to the Crescent Creek subdivision near La Pine, according to Sgt. Mike Biondi of the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office.

He said all the evacuees were given the OK to return home about 8 p.m.

Biondi said more than 20 people showed up at a Red Cross shelter, which was shutting down as the threat eased.

The all clear came after crews were able to make progress containing the fires as winds died down.

Lisa Clark of the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center says a larger fire was about 80 percent contained.

Power-company workers were heading to the smaller fire to clear downed lines so fire crews could safely finish a containment line.

Biondi also said that two key county roads closed because of the fires had been reopened.

Earlier, Lt. Chad Davis of the Deschutes Sheriff's Office said one blaze burned close to an elementary school in La Pine, but school property was not damaged. The fires hadn't burned any structures, he said.

No injuries were reported, but the authorities advised people to stay indoors until the winds subsided and crews could clean up roadways. Davis said the sheriff's office received several reports of transformers exploding and trees catching fire.

The gusty winds and unusually warm weather brought an early start to fire season in the Pacific Northwest.

Firefighters contained a third small fire about four miles south of Redmond. Crews were still investigating the cause. Authorities in Washington said a small, 10-acre blaze was creating a large amount of smoke in a remote, mountainous area between Portland and Seattle.

Fire experts warned last week that a dry winter and expected warming trend mean the potential for significant fire activity will be above normal on the West Coast, in the Southwest and portions of Idaho and Montana.

KTVZ-TV in Bend reported that garage sales, baseball games and other weekend events were under way on an otherwise-nice Saturday, but the winds made it challenging to hold things in place.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/winds-topple-trees-spark-fires-central-oregon-003858321.html

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There Is In Fact A Tech-Talent Shortage And There Always Will Be

Green cardFor America to maintain its fragile role as the most innovative nation on earth, it must perpetually attract the world’s best and brightest. There will always be trailblazing engineers that stay in their home country, leaving the United States one notch below its potential. Yet, on the heels of comprehensive immigration reform, a new viral economic study claiming that there is no tech talent shortage has skewed the national discussion over why we need to aggressively attract high-skilled immigrants in the first place. An Economic Policy Institute study claims that there is a surplus of American engineers, and, as a result, has garnered national headlines in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic for busting “The Myth of America’s Tech-Talent Shortage”. It’s fueled protectionist critics who rail against the high-skilled visa system for a being a low-paying indentured servitude scheme to trap vulnerable foreigners into low-paying, exploitative companies. While the study highlights important misconceptions about our less-than-pretty immigration system, let’s not forget that many major tech firms, from Google to Tesla, were founded by immigrants. Yet, as more and more household-names are produced abroad, from Skype to Spotify, it’s becoming clear that America is losing it’s grip as the sole source of pathbreaking innovation. There will always be a shortage to the extent that America has?international?competition Below, I explain the Economic Policy Institute’s argument, its methodological shortcomings, and why there will always be a shortage of great workers. What Critics Claim The Economic Policy Institute argues that two important figures prove there is no tech talent shortage: There is a surplus of American graduates with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) degrees Wages for STEM careers are stagnant; if there was a dearth of applicants, wages would rise to attract more workers Both of these claims are true. Roughly half of STEM graduates never take a job in the field, and 52% of of those who ditch a technology career do so for reasons related to pay, promotion, and working conditions. “For STEM graduates, the supply exceeds the number hired each year by nearly two to one,” write the authors. Perhaps more importantly, since the early 2000s, wages for programmers have virtually stalled. Yet, we know when there is demand for programmers in the tech industry, wages rise. Indeed, just prior to the Internet bubble, wages sky rocketed. Moreover, in one at least career with significant excess

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9G1-Z6Lz6Rg/

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Thursday, May 2, 2013

What's a monster hurricane doing on top of Saturn? (+video)

A monster hurricane at Saturn's north pole, spotted by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, has an eye 1,250 miles wide and inner eye wall winds of 330 miles an hour. Its energy source is a mystery.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / April 30, 2013

In this undated false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows stunning views of a monster hurricane at Saturn's North Pole.

JPL-Caltech/SSI/NASA/AP

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NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured images of a monster hurricane at Saturn's north pole ? a storm so vast and powerful it makes tropical cyclones on Earth look tame by comparison.

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The storm's eye alone spans some 1,250 miles ? about the distance from North Carolina's Outer Banks to central Kansas. Wind speeds at the inner eye wall have been clocked at 330 miles an hour. The storm extends for another 600 to 700 miles beyond the eye.

Like a hurricane eye on Earth, the eye of Saturn is virtually cloudless, with tall clouds forming the eye wall and extending out from the eye.

"We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth," Andrew Ingersoll, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and a member of the Cassini science team, said in a prepared statement. "But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale."

Saturn's no-name storm sits nearly dead center inside another odd feature: a hexagonal ring of high-speed winds analogous to Earth's polar jet streams, high-altitude winds that circle the globe at high latitudes.

The hexagon is about the size of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a feature that would cover two to three Earths side by side, Dr. Ingersoll explained in an interview.

Saturn's polar storm is small compared with Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the current record-holder for largest storm on any planet in the solar system. That storm sits in Jupiter's southern hemisphere at a latitude comparable to the central coast of Queensland in Australia, where tropical cyclones frequently make landfall. Winds speeds for the Great Red Spot hover at around 400 miles an hour.

Astronomers have observed Jupiter's ruddy blemish regularly since 1831, although some records hint at an initial observation in the 1600s. Indeed, it may be a permanent feature in the giant planet's atmosphere.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/4Jr9gPvd_ek/What-s-a-monster-hurricane-doing-on-top-of-Saturn-video

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